Meanwhile, Zara had messages
There was more going on in the arena that day
Mahalo to the hundreds of you who are opening this email (or arriving here via social media) each and every week. Although I began with actual sequential memoir, after two years most of the time I write essays or memoir moments illustrating life lessons that have been meaningful for me, in hopes they might be meaningful for at least one of you faithful readers. Let me know if something strikes a chord or pisses you off. Comments are open below. Those of you who are hitting that little heart icon also make me smile.
I actually typed a typo, or perhaps it was a Freudian slip, in the italicized introduction and for a moment that one sentence ended with the words “faithful LEADERS.” Readers, leaders - take your pick. There are definitely leadership lessons here and there in this writing. My horses ask me every day whether I am showing up as a leader, someone they trust and value as a partner and guide. I believe if you found your way here, you must be leaders. There is so much more I could say about what I have learned from horses about being a leader, the kind of the leader our world needs.
But today I planned to write the second half of what happened during the training session that led to the big AHA MOMENT with my young Arabian gelding, Kūkūilama. Iʻm going to stick with that. If I forget after the first of the year, please remind me to come back around to that other topic, you faithful leaders.
Where we left off, I was having what most would assess to be an unsuccessful training session with Kūkūilama, soon after he came back from three months with the second professional trainer heʻd experienced in his third year of life. While I did not achieve my plan for the day with the horse, what I received was something far more important: an flash of insight into why Kūkūilama was not set up for success in learning how to be my equine partner. We were in the same arena, physically. But he resented being in there. He resented the fact that no one was listening to why he was troubled about being in there. Whether it was because he wanted to be somewhere else or did not feel safe in the riding ring, his attention was somewhere else, somewhere outside of those white rails.
I did not yet know what to do with this information. But thanks to having been in a place of not knowing what to do in the early months with my now master teacher and partner Zara, I felt confident that I would solve the puzzle. Eventually.
I was not the only human in the arena that day who needed information from the horses. Although I have a firm boundary that I do not train a horse while I have a human in an Equine Guided Education session, the converse is not always true. I had discovered much earlier as a riding student that whatever was going on in my larger life would show up in my riding lesson. The way that horses offer to be our mirrors was the insight that made me so excited to discover that Ariana, the horsewoman who would become my mentor, was actually doing something she called Equine Guided Education - a structured practice of putting this ability of horses into the service of teaching and healing people.
Back to the story.
I mentioned that while I was working with Kūkuilama that day, another young woman was doing the exercises with Zara. Her story was sweet…she had come to Hawaii for a course with the legendary inventor of TTouch for horses (and household pets and people)1, and then fallen in love with a man and extended her stay. She had a horse back home and was missing spending time with her gelding. A mutual friend connected her with me, and I invited her to join me for some horse time. It is always good to have someone nearby when you are training a young horse. What if Kūkūilama had run over me rather than spooking to the side?
And indeed, she was watching at the moment my athletic gelding chose to rear and then spook sideways with a huge jump. She gasped and then blurted out that rearing was the only thing a horse does that scared her.
She had been asking Zara to do the circling exercise…but had gotten frustrated with how it was going and switched to some other exercises until I could help her. Once I freed Kūkūilama to graze, I turned my attention her way. “Let me see what you and Zara were doing,” I requested. She did, asking Zara to start on a circle around her, then complaining immediately that Zara was coming in too close.
It seemed to me to be a simple issue of poor technique. She was not asking Zara to back far enough before asking her for the circle. And then, feeling Zara was “too close,” rather than standing her ground and using energy and the pressure of her gaze to move Zara farther out on the circle, she was instead taking a step back - which in body language was asking Zara to come in towards her. I explained this. She tried again, and I narrated as she repeated the same mistakes. She turned to me with frustrated tears welling in her eyes. “Could you show me, please?” she asked.
I took Zaraʻs lead rope, positioning myself at her head and stroking her forelock. Then I stood straighter, at attention, and looked in Zaraʻs eyes. She looked back - and I could have sworn her eyes were twinkling. With the level of telepathic communication that routinely passed between us, I “heard” her say that she would indeed help me show this woman what was wrong. Then with the small flicking of my fingers that normally would elicit a soft back up, I asked Zara to move away, intending to position her near the end of the rope. Zara took a couple of steps…and then my elderly arthritic mare popped off her front legs and reared senior-style.
I laughed out loud, making my motions a little bigger. Zara promptly backed the rest of the way. My new friend was wide-eyed. “Why are your horses both rearing, whatʻs wrong with them?” she asked. “Actually, Zara told me that was for you,” I responded. “You mentioned that you were scared of horses rearing, so she wanted you to be able to see how to handle that situation. If a horse is rearing or behaving in a threatening way, I need to get big enough, do whatever it takes to get them to move a safe distance out of my space.”
“Rearing is not a problem - it is only a problem when a horse is rearing too close to me. Would you feel as frightened if you saw two geldings rearing playfully in the distance? ”
Now my mind was making the connection. This was not about her technique after all. But I did not vocalize that yet.
She pushed back at my interpretation, insisting that there must be something going on with with my horses since they were both rearing.
“I believe they reared for very different reasons. And I think now that Zara has demonstrated, it wonʻt happen again.”
I turned to Zara, who had wandered in close to me as if to listen, and was now standing quietly with my hand on her shoulder. I repeated the sequence, facing her, standing straighter, asking her quietly to back to the end of her lead line, then pointing to the left with a slight glance in that direction. Without hesitation she calmly moved backwards, waited with her attention on me, then at my signal set off on the circle at a walk. After a couple of circles I lifted my energy and lifted my hand holding the lead rope slightly, and she lifted into a trot. As she came back around my right side I inclined my head to look towards her hindquarters and she smoothly turned to face me as she stopped.
“Thatʻs proper technique,” I explained, although words were probably not needed.
“I wonder if you would be open to some feedback? Possibly this is not only about your technique,” I added. She looked at me with a question on her face. “You mentioned you had been reading Riding Between the Worlds2 You know I have been a student of Equine Guided Education, and Zara is a master at reflecting to people what they need to know. That makes me wonder whether there is another component here. The word that comes to mind is boundaries. You donʻt need to say anything now, as I might be completely misinterpreting whatʻs happened here today. I would just encourage you to reflect on whether there is anywhere else in your life where people are coming in too close, where it does not feel safe, where you might need to reassert your boundaries.”
We took the horses back to the pasture and stayed talking story for a bit. It turns out she did have a big decision to make. She did not yet see the connection to violated boundaries…but Zara was not wrong. She never was. Unlike humans, horses always tell you the truth, whether or not you are ready to hear it.
Linda Tellington Jones is also one of my teachers and an absolute legend.
Linda Kohanov is another pioneer in recognizing the power of the connection between humans and horses for teaching and healing. This was the second of her books - and synchronistically, her journey began with a black Arabian mare named Rasa, the reverse image of my Zara.
Mahalo for our day together. I am still reflecting on what I learned from you and your horses.