Learning to Listen to Whispers

The high energy rescued mare continues her teachings

Welcome and welcome back to these autobiographical musings. This is the eighth installment in the series of posts about how equine teachers came into my life, a few years after the events of 1992-97 when remarkable human teachers transformed my journey. If you are new here and would like to get these weekly by email, you can subscribe (for free, or you can pay if you want and can) by entering your email address below. You will also get a welcome email with links to the archives. You will earn my unending gratitude if once in a while you like or comment on what I write. Even challenging feedback is welcome. I mean it.

Once the rescued, no-longer-completely-wild, gray Arabian mare “Jenny” realized I was communicating in her language, she was eager to talk with me. Communication is a two-way street, not at all the same as giving orders and demanding a response, which was the conventional approach to horse training that had been unsuccessful with her. It was a different story when I began volunteering with her and experimenting with methods based in horse psychology and body language. The key to my success was in my growing ability to listen to her and let her know that I was listening. Arenʻt we all more eager to talk when someone is really listening?

I was attempting to mimic the body language horses use to coordinate action and communicate intentions with each other, and then applying it in slow phases so I could observe and acknowledge a step in the direction of the desired response. It reminded me of a playing a game of Charades. Only a variation of Charades where both my partner and I were forbidden to use words.

It went like this. I would start with an idea, what I hoped was a clear idea, of how I wanted the mare to move, her whole body or a part of it, in a particular way. I would “ask” by using body language, much of which seems to be universal between mammals. She would start guessing answers. When she got close I would stop asking for a moment to encourage her thought and let her know she was guessing in the right direction. The more success we had, the more fun both of us were having. Instead of hiding from view, and if cornered using behaviors like rearing and stomping to drive humans away, now this mareʻs bright mind was engaged in playing interactive games. Our games became more complex.

Eventually we began to play “at liberty” without a lead rope connecting us.

The pace of her learning and the sensitivity of her responses immediately challenged my rudimentary beginner skills, my lack of timing and “feel”. Horses may weigh eight or ten times what a small adult human does; they can bite and kick one another in play without damage. But they can also feel and respond to a fly landing on their skin. A lead mare can get an approaching horse to stop and respect her space with no more than a flick of one ear. A herd will spook at a stimulus, moving together in a synchronized way a seemingly agreed distance, and go back to grazing in less time than it takes a nearby human to recognize the cause of their reaction. Most human interaction is clumsy in comparison with that between horses.

Jenny was surprisingly patient with me, remembering our agreement “I wonʻt shout if you wonʻt.” She tolerated my mistakes, coming in to rest her forehead against my chest in forgiveness. Most of the time, my energy being quick and big was a match for hers and therefore we were in sync. But if she became anxious or frustrated and my energy was equally high, she could no longer think her way through the situation. My high energy would just blow her up into a place where I no longer existed and she still was a wild creature needing to fend for herself. I had to rediscover what it felt like when my energy and emotions were in neutral, and then cultivate an ability to lower my energy to that calm, grounded, imperturbable place in an instant, so I could invite her to join me there. Even when she was 800 pounds of twirling panic on the end of a short lead line and that frightened me.

A year or so later, after Jenny became mine and I renamed her Zara, which means “princess” in Arabic, I audited a clinic with a traveling instructor. At it I made friends with a couple who lived nearby and were serious students of this natural horsemanship thing. They came over to watch what I was doing with Zara. Ron also played with her for a few minutes and then shook his head. “With this sensitive horse,” he said, “you need to take your starting point, what you think is phase one of four, and divide that into four phases. Try never to go above that new phase four unless you are in danger. Eventually your communication will look like magic to people watching. They wonʻt notice the tip of your head or lift of a finger that is enough to tell her your intention.”

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As our communication grew, it looked like my mission of getting the two horses ready for adoption was complete. The principles had worked even faster with the older mare, Jennyʻs dam. Once given an opportunity to have an opinion and consent, she became accepting of tack and was as easy to saddle as any horse in the barn. I was lunging and driving her on long lines, and she seemed ready to be restarted for riding. She quickly found a new owner, but would stay with us until a barn under construction was ready.

Then one day a local woman who was a breeder of Arabian horses came by to look at Jenny. Her pedigree was a good match for the broodmare the breeder was replacing. She also would leave the horse at our barn until she could re-home a pony, and I could continue working with Jenny until then. I heard all this from the barn manager Pam, as I was in the City on a consulting gig the day of her visit.

One afternoon about a week later, I was working in my home office and had a sudden strong urge to go to the Stable. I made up an excuse in my mind about needing to take a break from my writing and hurried out the door. When I arrived I found an unfamiliar woman and a young girl standing at the closed gate. Neither the barn manager nor her other volunteers happened to be around, and Jennyʻs new owner had dropped by without calling. She wanted her daughter to meet their new horse.

I introduced myself as the person who had been volunteering with her, and brought Jenny out of the pasture. By then we were playing in the arena both on line and “at liberty,” meaning without a lead rope. I demonstrated what we were doing, and then let the woman engage. She liked what she saw in Jennyʻs movement and confirmed that she was happy with her decision and would be back for her as soon as possible.

A few more weeks passed. Once again I felt that urge to go quickly to the Stable. I found the same woman alone there, this time chasing around one of our ponies that had managed to get out of his paddock. I laughed. “Gosh, you and I must have some telepathic connection,” I told her, as I called the naughty pony to me and put him back where he belonged. Then Jenny whinnied commandingly. I turned and looked into her eyes and she held my gaze. A thought flashed through my mind. It was as if she said to me in words, “Thank you for coming. This woman is trying to steal me!”

Too bad the head-slapping emoji had not yet been invented. It was not the woman with whom I had a telepathic connection. But I was polite and once again got out “her horse” for inspection.

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Will it surprise you to learn that this equine adoption fell through not once, but twice? After the second time, Pam turned to me and stated the obvious. I was the only one who had been able to get through to The Princess, as everyone had taken to calling her. Everyone at the barn was touched by our special connection. Some force of destiny seemed to be at work. She was meant to be mine. Pam handed me the registration papers, which she had thought to grab from the defunct breeder at the time of rescue. It was up to me to make it official. I looked at my husband. Both of us had dreamt that I was riding the mare.

Sometimes you just have to get quiet and listen for the answer. Sometimes the Universe speaks in dreams and whispers.