Surrender is not Acceptance
Surrender is not Acceptance
What happens beyond flight, fight or freeze
For those of you, the miraculous dozens of you, who are new to my writing, welcome! I write from the ahupuaʻa of Awalua, in the district of Kohala, on Hawaiʻi Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This may or may not be important to you. Twenty years ago, at the time I am writing about, I was living in a very different rural community in Litchfield County, Connecticut. If you live near there you were bracing for a late spring snowstorm this week and then were rattled by an earthquake.
What I want to say is, I think about you when I sit down to write. I imagine who you are, where you will be reading this. I began my Substack writing journey because there were stories demanding to be told, whether or not anyone else was reading them. Now I have over four hundred readers and I write for them. For you. I am curious about who you are and where you are and what you care about.
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One more important note. Although I am writing about horses, I am writing about the origins of trauma. About how someone with power can make choices for someone with less power without their consent. If this content may be a trigger for you, please take care of yourself. Skip this essay. Read it with a friend. Call me.
Surrender is not acceptance.
Maybe I am quibbling. Fact is, I am a writer and so I get to make distinctions for you. Fact is, I am a human and so I get to make distinctions, helpful ones and unhelpful ones alike.
There are choices a memoir writer makes with her craft. When I was writing the sequential part of my memoir here, I took the years 1992 to 1997 in order and with the help of journals, conversations with friends, and random memorabilia, I tried to write authentically about my experiences, editorializing as little as possible. Readers got to experience my successes and surprises, miseries and mysteries, moments of wonder and moments of grief, more or less as they appeared to me at the time.
Lately I have been writing about how my life was transformed after meeting my equine master teacher Zara in 2002. Writing about my journey with this remarkable mare, I write about a domain in which I am actively learning and teaching today. As a result, I find my narrative voice wanting to shift between the emotions and intellectual perspective I had at the time, and the more mature, nuanced understanding I would bring to the same situation today. It feels important to also comment as the observer I am today, out of necessity for the integrity of the work with people and horses I do now through Equine Guided Education.
Especially in this essay. Because today I am writing about when Zara surrendered to her fate and laid down to die. Twice.
Because today I understand that surrender is not acceptance. But here is what happened, written from the perspective I had at the time.
A flag can be a useful way of communicating with a horse in training. I actually use a telescoping version from this great company. But looking at it in my barn today with this essay in mind, it looked like the white flag of surrender.
Where we left off in the story, I had failed miserably, after months of what I thought was careful preparation, at introducing Zara to being saddled. My goal remained the same. I had a horse of my own, and I wanted to ride MY HORSE in the arena and through the woods rather than riding one of the horses at the Stable that were there for lessons and trail rides. Seeking advice, I drove to the next Parelli Natural Horsemanship clinic I could find and audited the weekend. The instructor, Nita Jo Rush, listened to my story. She advised me to continue with the ground work, using longer lines and more subtle cues and challenging obstacles, but to rely on a professional to take Zara through the process of accepting the tack and rider.
Luckily, I also learned that the first instructor whose clinic Iʻd audited was going to be offering a two-week “colt-start” camp in the Catskills the following summer. Six of us would have our horses started under saddle over a 10-day period, and then we could join a larger group riding in a two-day weekend clinic with our now ridable horses. That was the plan anyway.
Some of the half-dozen humans who brought their horses to the camp were completely unfamiliar with natural horsemanship. On the first day, we just worked on establishing the basic language. In that sense, Zara and I were among the most “advanced “ of the beginner students, with our “seven games” and ground work already solid. I was so proud that my mare, the mare who when I started working with her was completely resistant to being touched below her knees, had become the model horse for demonstrating the task of willingly lifting all four hooves at a mere suggestion from me without me even changing sides.
But even as other horses placidly moved along through the steps on Day Two, accepted the feel of the saddle, and were now doing their groundwork with the saddle cinched tight, Zara proved to still be unwilling to allow a saddle on her. She knew what Randall wanted. She knew he was asking her to stand still to allow it. Her answer was “no thank you.”
One of the principles in natural horsemanship is “make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy” - which for most horses means “if it is the wrong answer I will have to move/work hard, and if it the right answer, they leave me alone.” So Randall created a new game. Zara was not being tied or even held in hand by a lead rope, but was happy to stand next to Randall in the center of the round pen. When he lifted the saddle and she moved away, he would send her out to run laps before inviting her back in. He sent her and invited her using the same body language she and I had learned, so there was genuine communication. In fact, she quickly told him she understood the game. Heʻd been asking for two laps. The next time she did not hesitate: he lifted the saddle from the ground, she looked him in the eye and then took off for two laps around the round pen, walking straight back to him when she was done.
Randall laughed. He was becoming quite fond of my responsive, sensitive, intelligent mare. He asked the owner of the facility to bring some barrels. I was expecting the plain barrels you might see in a rodeo barrel-racing competition. But operating on a shoestring, sheʻd acquired bright yellow empty banana puree barrels from a local restaurant famous for its pie. We put them along the rail. Randall figured if Zara was required to also jump barrels on her circuit, she might opt for standing still instead.
He had grossly underestimated the stamina of my Arabian - even after I warned him that she loved to jump and would pop right over a standard paddock fence if she wanted to be elsewhere. The other students and I watched in amazement as Zara happily jumped the yellow barrels again and again - for 30 minutes. It was almost as if she was grinning at our admiration for her athleticism and determination. And the entire time she never lost her connection with Randall, returning to him each time…but her boundary about that saddle never wavered.
The next day Randall explained that horse training required humility. What he tried had not worked and he would try something different. If asking Zara to move backfired because it was what she preferred to do, we would improve her ability to stand still. Rather than tying and forcing her, he had me sit in a chair outside the round pen while he worked with the horse before her. Zara stood in a spot six feet in front of me, lead rope in my hand. Every time she took a step forward, I asked her to take two steps back. Then I went back to neutral and expected her to as well. Gradually she relaxed, simply cocked a hoof, and appeared to doze for a bit.
When it was her turn with Randall, they repeated the previous dayʻs routine once. Randall shook his head, then turned to me and asked whether I wanted him to stick exactly with the Parelli program or if it was ok for him to use all the arrows in his quiver. It was clear to me that with this particular horse the prescribed steps had not worked for me at home and were not working for him at the clinic. I answered that Zara trusted him and I did too. With Zaraʻs lead rope draped loosely over his left arm, he then looped a second long rope over her, asked Zara to pick up her left front hoof, and tied this rope around her foreleg so he could keep it in a lifted position. It took her only a moment to decide that this was ok - she really wanted to please him, and needed some encouragement to stand still long enough to give the saddle another try.
After the saddle was on, Randall released her hoof. She stood quietly. He very gently asked her to begin moving through the ground work with the saddle on. She did so without bucking, bolting, or freezing. We had made progress.
By the fifth day of the colt start all the other horses had accepted Randall or his assistant on their backs and next week would learn to steer. We fell farther behind each day as Randall once again asked Zara to stand for saddling and she answered “no thank you.” She answered politely. As he reached for the second rope, she actually lifted her foot without being asked and held it in place until he had secured it. I watched from outside the fence with my emotions running high. This mare was trying so hard, and yet this was still so hard for her.
We had a break over the weekend. I was proud of Zara. She had learned to load into a trailer, traveled 2-1/2 hours to a new place, was taking in new experiences with curiosity rather than fear - most of the time. Still, I privately despaired that Zara and I would not be ready for the riding clinic at the end of the second week.
Monday arrived and for the first time Zara stood quietly to be saddled. Randall released her from the lead rope and asked her to move around the round pen, making sure she could walk, trot and lope without bucking or panicking. At his request she halted and came back into the center. Everything finally seemed to be working! Then suddenly she dropped to her knees, and with a grunt stretched out on her right side.
“Whatʻs happening?”, I asked Randall, my voice tight with worry.
He shook his head, standing next to her. “I havenʻt seen it happen often, but she just laid down to die,” he responded calmly.
My eyes burned with tears. Two of the women watching came to put arms around my shoulders. “What do you mean? She could actually die?”
“This whole time sheʻs still been sure that the thing that jumped on her back and clawed her belly wants to eat her. She just finally surrendered to her fate. Her system is shutting down so she wonʻt feel the pain of what she thinks will happen next.” By now the tears were streaming down my cheeks. Randall squatted beside Zara stroking her gently.
“But will she really die?” I ask out loud.
“I have seen a sheep will themselves to die, but never a horse,” Randall answered. “At some point she will realize sheʻs still alive and jump back up.”
It seemed like an eternity, but in what was probably only a few minutes, Zara lifted her head, stood up, and shook her whole body like a dog after a bath.
Randall stood with her for a moment, evaluating. The saddle was still secure, so he gently asked her to move around the pen again. Zara acknowledged his request and trotted off. After a few circles, suddenly she dropped to the ground a second time. Randall went to her as the women again drew close around me in solidarity. As we waited, Randall told us how old school cowboys would sometimes lay down a resistant or dangerous horse on purpose to break their spirit, even pissing on them as if somehow that would assert their dominance. “This is different,” he said. “We did not make her lie down. The saddle is not going to eat her. Her own fear took her there. We are just staying with her until she figures it out.”
This time when Zara got to her feet, Randall called for the barn owner and his young assistant to join him in the arena. With him leading Zara from one side and the workshop host on the other side for moral support, his assistant climbed on from the fence. They slowly walked with Zara between them as if taking the assistant for a short pony ride. Randall had already, without the saddle, let Zara feel his weight laying across her back. He had already spent time sitting on the fence, asking her to move by signaling with the flag from a position above her rather than on the ground. Intuitively, he felt this was the moment to put the pieces together…saddle on her back with a human astride.
I was flooded with relief. It seemed my horse would live. It seemed I would ride. A couple of days later, Randall let me step into the stirrup and onto her back for the first time. At the end of the week, we rode in the smaller round pen while the regular riders in the clinic rode in the adjacent large arena. The ground work communication translated easily to riding. Zara was as light and responsive as I could hope in responding to each cue.
It thought we were back on track.
But surrender is not acceptance.
With 20/20 hindsight, I see that Zara had not really given her consent; sheʻd merely decided that the best way to survive was to surrender. We kept upping the stakes until she went along. She was compliant and obedient but she was not really ok with what was happening. She was not a willing partner.
This story, one which I have told many times, I have often told as a success story. Or as a story of resilience and growth. It is only recently, doing healing sessions with Equine Guided Education clients, that I have seen it differently and shared other meanings. Some of our key stories quickly get a singular meaning and others take lifetimes to fully unpack. Perhaps Zara and I still have more meaning making and healing work to do together. Perhaps something in our story will be healing for you.
Feel free to share this story. And please meet me back here next week for more reflections.