Horse Sense for Horses in the 21st Century- If you don't ride them what do you do with them?

Tizzy, a beautiful Appaloosa mare has been retired in my care for a couple of years.
You can usually spot her dappled body on the pasture’s periphery. A seasoned, shy and sentinel member of the herd with a beautiful face that looks at you with one blue and one brown eye.

From the very beginning Tizzy’s owner wanted her to have a job participating in my youth classes, but Tizzy never seemed very interested in joining up. That is until today.

Tizzy began banging her hoof on the metal gate that separated her from the paddock I was readying for the soon to arrive class. Obliging the request, I opened the gate and watched her trot by me, the first one in the paddock.

Several of my regularly scheduled program horses came up a few minutes later to join her.

The last one to step off the youth bus was a 14 year old African American girl named Jaden.
I greeted her beautiful face looking up at me with one blue eye and one brown eye.

Tizzy let out a call from thirty feet away and came racing towards the fence where the young girl stood in amazement. The connection was so apparent; it felt like electricity in the air.

The youth director told me the girl’s mother had been murdered in front of her and she had not spoken a word since that day, almost two years ago. Jaden had been in counseling and participated in this violence prevention group but through it all had remained silent.

Our first exercise was centered on grooming the horses, (which I use as a metaphor for self care). The young woman was paired with Tizzy for the exercise.

As Jaden slowly brushed the horse, Tizzy closed her eyes and then wrapped her necked around the young woman’s shoulders, much like horses do with their young.

Moments later we could hear the young girls muffled sobs. Tizzy stood quietly, gently holding Jaden against her warm body, arms wrapped around the horses neck, her face buried in the Mare’s thick mane.

The activities now complete, I asked everyone to gather in a circle and share their experience of grooming the horses. After several comments by both staff and participants,
I asked if anyone else in the group had reflections before we moved on.

“ I want to say something, the voice stammered” It was Jaden, who hadn’t spoken a word in more than two years. She told the group that while Tizzy was holding her, she had remembered being with her mom at her Grandfathers horse ranch in Mexico.

They were celebrating his birthday and Jaden sang Happy Birthday to him. He had put his arms around her and whispered in her ear…” your voice is a gift from God, promise me you will never lose it.” Until today she had forgotten her promise.
Tizzy she explained softly.. had helped her remember.

I am often asked, if you don’t ride the horses at your ranch, then what do you do with them? Now you know.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Horse Sense for the 21st Century™ Alyssa Aubrey, CEGE Incorporates horses in human development through Equine Guided Education. www.medicinehorseranch.org

Horse Sense for Women™ in the 21st Century

I’m always fascinated by the number of phone calls and emails I receive from women who start out by saying, “ I really don’t know exactly why I am contacting you, but somehow horses keep showing up in my life. I feel them calling to me.”

Often I discover, they mean the horses in their dreams, or the horses in a field they pass by on their way to work each morning. Books fall out of the bookshelf at the library with a horse on the front cover and their heart skips a beat.

On occasion someone has a real four- legged horse in her life and wants to feel more connected in the relationship. Always quick to point out that she doesn’t mean just while riding. But rather the deep reach into the heart and soul of the horse, learning to connect and interpret the vast energetic, kinesthetic territory of “horse speak.”

Often I will hear similar comments from participants on the first day of an Equine Guided Education program. The energy underneath the words almost sounds apologetic, as if the answers to such a mysterious invitation should be obvious. They aren’t obvious, they aren’t even answers. It’s so much bigger than this.

I understand all too well this intuitive reach, these longings and musings. It is no accident these women find me and often come to study with me.

Hearing the Call

Eight years ago I heard horses calling to me and as it turned out… quite loudly.

At the time, I was traveling 21 days a month on a plane, working in a high paced and demanding field as unrelated to horses as you could get. I flew to exotic locations, wore expensive suits, stayed in fancy hotels and walked around daily with a huge hole in my heart. The only horses in my life were ceramic ones that I had collected since childhood.

Looking back, it wasn’t that I lacked anything, nor was I identifiably unhappy. Upon reflection these many years later, “ the hole” was the disconnection from my spirit’s calling, the yearning for integration and completion.

Horse Medicine

On Thanksgiving Day 1998 while hiking at Tennessee Valley, a horse (named Mystery) literally fell out of the sky and on top of me. A young rider had lost control of her horse when someone playing Frisbee missed his or her mark and hit the horse. The horse spooked, reared and like a derailed train slid off course and right into me. I was thrown into the air and landed sprawled on the hood of my car underneath 1300 pounds of horseflesh. Miraculously, I didn’t break any bones, although my body was so black and blue and swollen that it took about eight weeks to fully heal. But the accident abruptly and irreversibly awakened something deep inside of me and I would never be the same.

I slowed down; I listened intently to that odd, inaudible voice and gave it permission to inform my life. I took long walks in nature and observed the natural cues from the environment that beckoned me to take action and believe. I tuned out everyone who told me I was nuts and/or too old and/or too inexperienced to center my world around horses. I decided to pursue my love of horses and sponsor a horse appropriately named Sage. After a few months the opportunity presented itself and I purchased her.

Eight years have passed in what seems like the wink of an eye. Sage and I are still together. Today we live on 1000 acres in Tomales, Ca and teach Equine Guided Education classes. I also have a retirement home for 28 horses that Sage helps me manage as lead mare in the herd.

Like the women who call me today, I could never have imagined this life all those years ago. Nor the countless adventures of Sage and me in between then and now that shaped both our destinies. I only know, it was impossible for me not to follow the call, to trust that voice of intuition and test the muscle of faith.

And if you are reading this and saying to yourself ‘she sounds like me,’ I say to you hold your dreams up to the light and pay close attention to the horses in your life.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Horse Sense for the 21st Century™ Alyssa Aubrey, CEGE Incorporates horses in human development through Equine Guided Education. www.medcinehorseranch.org

Horse Sense and the Synchronistic Call of the Red Tail Hawk

Tuesday morning stirred up a wicked and windy announcement that blew the air with electricity snapping everything around me in its path.  I gazed across the vast range of land I live on and felt a storm  brewing.  Something was spinning out in the distance, planning it’s destined arrival.  Or was this unsettled energy in me?  Then I saw the strangest thing; two huge ravens fighting on the ground about 100 feet in front of me.   One was really beating the crap out of the other.  I’d never seen anything quite like it.

I told a friend about it, she remarked one must have really offended the other, or taken something?  Interesting interpretation I surmised, but it didn’t feel quite right.

 Looking at all the food around as they continued arguing over one tiny piece of something, I thought,  this is a metaphor for scarcity vs abundance… a conversation that’s really up for a lot of us these days.  I was in a personal situation where this issue was in my face too.

I’ve lived on land for about four years, but in my heart I feel like I have always belonged to this life.  The road signs from the environment, as I like to call them, are as obvious to me now as the English language.

Two years ago, I got tossed on the ground when a young horse spooked and ran over the top of me.  The result of those few seconds of chaos and confusion was a broken left shoulder. My bad luck was compounded by the fact that I had no health insurance, having just lost my only consulting client and all the benefits attached.  

The orthopedic doctor pronounced me "not able to have full motion in my left arm again."  Even with the $30,000.00 surgery he was willing to perform.

I drove home after the doctor’s visit that morning feeling like I was driving under water and in stunned disbelief.

Finally I made my way up the winding, two- mile paved road towards home and found my horse Sage standing all alone at the top of the hill by the barn gate.  I pulled my truck over and rolled down the window.   Looking up at her beautiful face, I'd said softly, "I believe it's a good day for a ride. What do you think?"

She licked, chewed and bopped her pretty head up and down a few times and she seemed to be the best counsel I'd had all morning.

BY FEEL

On a beautiful, bright, cool afternoon we rode on the hills and in the valleys of the land we both knew so well. 

I became increasingly aware of my thoughts.  What do I really care about?  How do I make a contribution from this place?  I didn’t want to react to the pressures I was currently facing.  I wanted to respond from grace and create something new.  My energy, resourcefulness and life force were precious currency.  I had traded on it every time I indulged myself in worry and fear.  I vowed I wouldn't do that anymore. 

I recalled we'd stopped to rest at the top of rattlesnake ridge. I watched the shadow from the sun inch its way across on the toe of my boot.  I hadn’t watched sun shadows since I was a kid.

On that day more than two years ago, I realized it was my life that had a limited range of motion. I'd been comfortably stuck, content to inch along.  The accident, job loss and all that came bundled along with it wasn’t penance. Instead, this was a necessary journey to reconnect and reinvigorate my life’s purpose and me.  I’d been off course.  The accident was a course correction. 

  Now two years later, my shoulder completely healed I stood next to my noble horse Sage facing into the East.  I reminded myself to listen deeply from my heart and trust even as I felt uncertain and apprehensive about pending events.    Just then a red- tail hawk circled above us and called. 

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Horse Sense for the 21st Century™ Alyssa Aubrey, CEGE Incorporates horses in human development through Equine Guided Education. www.medicinehorseranch.org