A Question of Joy…
/By Caroline North
Why do you want to be around horses? Whether you are an equine professional or a casual rider, this is a question worth exploring, and then flipping it to ask why our horses want to be around us.
Owning, riding, training, and caring for horses takes a tremendous amount of time, money and energy in today’s modern world, so why do we do it?
How does being around your horse affect your spirit? Does your soul sing true when you ride your horse?
I know for myself, my life with horses has been a calling. My friends and family quickly realized that I pretty much can NOT turn off horse talk. EVERY family meal has me discussing some part of horses at the dinner table. I am never sick of horse stuff. EVER. Even at yoga training when I was away from all things horse for 2 weeks, I put everything I learned through my horse filter.
This goes way beyond getting a quick dopamine fix from a great aha moment while around horses and enjoying being around them. The reasons I have to be around horses can be a great exercise in learning about one’s DHARMA. This is a yoga philosophy that every human being has a unique vocation, or TRUTH. In Sanskrit, the traditional Indian language of yoga, Dharma is a word packed with meaning. It is often translated as ‘path’, ‘teaching’, or ‘sacred duty’. Some general examples of dharma are those individuals who are called to a healing path, or as protectors, or as teachers. These general expressions are unique to each person who has come of age, for example a healer may be called to work as a doctor, or nurse, or masseuse. All are valid and have different expressions.
I remember long, long ago, applying for a scholarship and doing an in person interview for it. The interviewer clearly got sick of the horse talk, and asked me, ‘What if there were NO horses?’ I answered that I would paint or create horses then. He repeated, ‘No, what if horses NEVER existed?’. I remember being shocked into silence. I couldn’t comprehend it, and it seared my soul with agony to even attempt to. I feel my heart rate rise in struggle even as I type this, because this is against my path, my dharma. Needless to say, I didn’t get the scholarship with that lack of creativity!
My expression of dharma has led me on a teaching path with Joy at the Heart of It. Every step I take in building my farm and program within my dharmic purpose has led to more doors being opened, smoothly. Every time I hold on to something that doesn’t quite line up with where my path is directing me, I stagnate and struggle.
Horses, for better or worse, often AMPLIFY and enhance everything we do in our lives. If you are working in alignment with your truth, horses will help you understand your life’s path with more meaning and fullness, enhancing your enjoyment. If you work against your life’s path, horses will often make your life VERY hard, by their sheer size and emotional outbursts. Horses are made by nature to be congruent and in the present moment at all times, and they are so astute in their senses they know when you are hiding from your sacred duty, or working in alignment with it.
When you are in full enjoyment and are congruent about your life’s purpose too, you are someone they want to be around!
This leads us to the opposite side of the coin. Do our horses want to be around us? Yes, they like being fed, but just feeding and cleaning a horse means you’re a glorified butler and chef to your ‘master’ the horse. Do they have the emotional capacity to ‘like’ performing for us? Have you ever stopped to ask if your horse enjoys your company?
I feel that they do, and take it very seriously that they do enjoy their jobs. If my lesson horses show that they don’t want to carry a particular student that day, they are put back and another horse is chosen, or we change tasks and do groundwork to understand and emphasize what the horses are trying to communicate.
Just this past week, my gelding Glorfindel was not enjoying our dressage work in the ring. We know each other pretty well after many adventures together, so he didn’t act out, just made me really reach and work for our end goals of collections and suppleness exercises. I promptly promised him at the end of our ride, that we would hit the trails next ride. After our lifelong relationship together (he was born on my farm), we have learned how to read each other and work it out like a human-to-human relationship. I also ask him to perform some amazing long-distance rides with me, and I swear he loves endurance riding even more than me. I have come to this understanding by the enhanced feelings of either frustration when I am not meeting his emotional needs, or the indescribable feelings of joy at flying down the trail at fast trot, in perfect sync. His joys feeds mine, mine feeds his. We are learning and performing our calling together, but this requires an incredible amount of openness on my part, trusting my Truth, trusting my Path.
Coming full circle, is what your horse communicating to you lighting up your path of dharma? Are you healing together, making poetry together, teaching and learning from one another? Is the way you act around your horse aligning with your personal Path of Truth, or is just an escape?
I know I do not escape, I live fully and completely with my horses during the toughest times, learned from and with them. I Ride with Joy, do you?