Playing with Hazel

Yesterday it was a damp, cold day and I was feeling very tired, with no energy at all.  I was tucked into a warm blanket on the sofa by my husband and I was instructed to finish a book that I had been reading.  By about 1 o’clock I was feeling better and had a huge urge to go out and be with Hazel.  Chris had done the feeding and tidying up that morning and so I hadn’t seen either her or Pollyanne yet. I wanted to just go and stand with Hazel underneath some ash trees that were on the boundary of our small field. In the spring there will be thousands of primroses and violets in that spot and I think the energy of them persists all year round.

When I lived in the field with our horses for four days I learned one thing, that horses do not demonstrate that they care about us in the same way that humans do. Horses eat for up to 20 hours a day and snooze for most of the rest of the time. They rarely touch each other but this does not mean that they do not care about each other and value each others presence. They rarely even look at each other as their heads are always on the ground sifting through the grasses and herbs. I used to think sometimes that Hazel and Pollyanne must not even like each other because of what I considered was a constant display of plain indifference to each other. But, seperate one from the other and they will tell you something very different. They are not happy about being seperated at all and so there must be an invisible bond between them that goes unnoticed to us humans with our untrained eyes.

I got a taste of this when I was living in the field. When I left, Hazel was obviously at a loss. She looked for me and wondered where I was. She called out to me and I was torn in two as I was exhausted and happy to be back in the house, but I didn’t want Hazel to be upset either. I resolved to keep up this connection and to never forget the lessons I had learned.

As things often go however I kept it up for a couple of months, just wandering around the field with them, doing nothing in particular apart from just being with them for an hour here and there, but then the winter set in and it became harder. A few weeks before Christmas however I started this again. I had to ask Hazel to come out to the field with me as they are now spending a lot of their time in the smaller gravelled area where it is dry and they have a shelter. So after a short session of clicker training I walked out into the main field and Hazel followed. We had a bit of a run and a play and then just stood together under those ash trees with the primroses who were waiting for spring. We stood there together for about an hour. Hazel was not asleep but was watching the cats as they mooched around in the branches and Molly, our dog, as she searched for a suitable stick for throwing. It was good to feel that connection with her again. When I left she came after me a little too forcefully and rose her leg as if she was doing the spanish walk. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. But within a few days the ice came and the field froze and we were more concerned with the practicalities of providing water and a safe place for them to walk around. Exactly coinciding with this day Hazel seemed different, unsettled and a bit pushy. She was suddenly trying to bite me every so often and I had to wonder if had I opened up something.

So with the business of Christmas and New Year gone and the ice all melted away I could resist no longer and I went out to Hazel as she ate her hay in the gravel area. I said hello and kept going, on out into the field. She followed immediately and stayed right behind me as we walked down the track they have worn in the field. Just as we rounded the first corner Hazel took off, running delightedly down to the end of the field. Pollyanne followed at a trot and I eventually joined them as they nibbled at the winter grass. I couldn’t help but feel that Hazel was delighted to have me out here even though there was no interaction between us that you could see. But I have learned. I know what is important to her – my presence. I stayed for as long as I could before I had to go back to the house to get ready to go into town. As I slowly made my way back to the house I looked back a couple of times to see what Hazel was doing. She had looked up and was watching me. After a bit she began to walk after me and as I rounded the corner just before the gate out of the field I could hear the thunder of hooves. Without looking behind I stepped in closer to the hedge for safety and waited for the charging horse. She came and stopped just in front of me as if to say “Where the hell do you think you are going?” She was very worked up and did some playful flying kicks and I decided to go to the safety of the other side of the electric fence that sectioned off some of the field. Hazel charged off, back into the field and ran around in the most amazing state of play. She came back to me and breathed out sharply and deeply in my face. I ran off and she almost yelped with glee as she bucked and charged off again. As I ran along one side of the fence with Hazel thundering her way past me on the other side I felt clumsy and slow in comparison. But I was obviously good enough to play with and that was enough for me. I tried to absorb that power that was in Hazel in those minutes and thanked her not letting me leave so easily. Eventually Pollyanne appeared and ran past us into the gravel area and at that Hazel followed and it was over. I beamed as I trudged back to the house and I went and thanked her.

I had been thinking, earlier in the field, that I didn’t need obvious proof that Hazel liked my company, but if she was willing to give it in the form a request to stay and play then that was fine by me. Knowing you don’t need demonstrations of affection or connection doesn’t mean that you won’t be delighted when they come and I certainly was. It’s amazing how motivating it is to know you are valued. Picking up poo and feeding hay was never so enjoyable and today I was itching to get out and just be with Hazel and Pollyanne. No display was needed, but it would be impolite to refuse it if it came, it did and I beamed again.

Lessons I Have Learned So Far

The reason for doing this project is to learn something about horses and how to listen to them better.  One thing that has emerged so far is that I now look at horses in a much more respectful manner than ever before.  On visiting a local equestrian centre to interview a visiting Equine Touch instructor last week I was faced with lines of equine faces looking out over half doors.  My normal dislike of stables was replaced by genuine heart ache as I looked at these tired and spaced out creatures, standing in concrete boxes, stored away neatly for future use.  As I waited for the course to finish I approached several horses and I found that I had no desire to “pet” them and say “oh hello sweetie, you are so cute.”  I simply stood in front of each one, looked them in the eye and held my hand up to them to be sniffed.  It felt right to simply offer genuine contact and respectful interaction and to see if they accepted it.

I wondered what their stories would be.  Would they have traumas to tell of?  Did they have joyful memories?  What were their strengths and weaknesses and what could they teach me?  As one horse barely touched my finger with her muzzle I felt a sense of connection that I have never before felt when meeting a horse for the first time.  I felt that everything had gone quiet around us and there was only this moment.  Through the tiny space where a few hairs on my hand touched the hairs on her muzzle an understanding passed.  I cared about her and she knew it. What was amazing about this was that I was so pleased to have passed on my thoughts of caring and respect.  The fact that I knew she heard me gave me a huge sense of joy and satisfaction.  She saw that I was a pleasant human being and that in itself made me believe that “well maybe I actually am”.  By respecting her I suddenly felt that I too was respected.

There seems to be a very complex and yet simple dynamic that can happen if we simply wait, be quiet and have a little bit of patience.  This is something that has always been hard for me to practice and this project where I am hoping to listen to 100 horses has already helped a lot.  When I am listening to a horse the key thing, the absolute most important aspect of the whole thing is patience.  I have to wait for the horse to tell me what it needs to.  The images that I see often make no sense for a while but I must sit and wait for it to come together.  Sometimes they still don’t make any sense to me when I have finished.  As I sit and watch the images they may freeze for a time and I do not know how long it will be before I see the next image.  But what I have learned is that the horse will not be rushed.

Patience is stretched as my mind can start to buzz with questions or conclusions about what might be coming next or about what this is all about.  Sometimes I think, well that might be enough for, but only because I am loosing patience, not because it feels right to stop.  So I don’t stop, it is easy to tell when I session is over.  Something that has helped me to increase my patience is the notion that I must relinquish control.  I must act as if I am simply a TV set that has no say in what comes through to the screen.  This is hard to do but if I bear it in mind I seem to find it easier to be patient, at least for a few minutes.

And this sense of patience is what I had in mind as I approached the horses in that centre.  Combined with respect and that sense of not being the one in control of this moment a connection opened on a very ordinary level.  Some how this very simple moment demonstrated that in the ordinary every day world a few seconds of patience can be a hugely powerful thing.  It has taken me around 18 years of self development to get to this unbelievably simple realisation.  But it has certainly been worth the wait.

Don’t forget to Tell your Horse…

The first horse that I listened to as part of this project was actually 8th on the list.  I could not get away from the fact that from the moment Briar’s name appeared on the screen in front of me she was calling out to me and was very upset.   So I sat in the field and listened in.  I didn’t know anything about her and had no photo, so my mind was clear and was going to pick up the most important message from her.  This is the way I like it so that I do not get confused by the issues that might be obvious to an owner.  I try to give the animal who I  am listening to the chance to tell me what is the most important issue for themselves.
This is what I picked up.  I saw a foal who had a burning pain in her chest.  It was absolutely excruciating and red hot and was in or around the position of her heart.  Then it was as if it was a stone and it suddenly shattered, crumbling into a little pile.  This image just stuck like that for a few moments with me staring at the tiny mound of rubble.   I was pretty sure that this young horse had died.   The images that I could see in my mind then moved on to a horse who was crying very dramatically but it quickly shifted to a person who was also crying and saying “why?”  She cried and cried and then put on her cardigan and went up to Briar as if nothing was wrong.

When I am listening to horses they seem to go through two stages.  They set out a concise history of the event that is now causing them a problem and then they go through some kind of process of moving on through it.  So far this was about the past but as I listened and watched the images unfold some kind of resolution was found.  The woman who was crying suddenly laid her head on Briar’s shoulder and she cried in front of her, with her.  Briar was satisfied, thanked me and retreated.

It turns out that one of Briar’s foals had died when he was 15 months old from a “mystery” illness.  But she had not been with him when this happened as she was in a different field.  The people who owned this young horse were completely distraught and shocked themselves but hadn’t thought about Briar and what her reaction would be.  A few months later when Briar was turned out in to the field where her foal had died and she became very distressed and she had to be taken out.

It is now clear that Briar was not only upset that her foal had died, but she wanted to make the point that she had not been included in the grieving process at the time of her son’s death.  The people around her had not grieved with her.  They had not acknowledged that she too needed to be upset.

In my experience of listening to horses I have learned that we should assume that horses require as much attention to their emotional needs as humans do.   This story has given me the opportunity to think about what some one should do if they find themselves in a similar situation.  If something happens to a horse, or to anyone important to them, put yourself in their position and decide how you would like to be treated.  If some one close to you died or was hurt, you would want to know about it when it happened, not three months down the line.  You would want to grieve on your own and with others.  What else would you want?  Whatever it is your horse would more than likely want that too.  Because horses cannot talk it can be very hard to really appreciate the depth and complexity of their emotions.  Because they eat, or should eat, for between 16 and 20 hours a day they don’t look like they aren’t doing a whole lot of feeling.  But having had the privilege to see right into the minds and hearts of many horses I have learned that they have pretty much every emotion that we have.

Could Briar’s owners have brought Briar to the field before his body was removed and acknowledged that they were all upset?  It may not have been possible at the time.  But at the very least it would have been possible to tell Briar what had happened and to be upset with her.  Horses understand us more than we realise.  Even if it is the not the words that they pick up, they pick up the meaning of them.  Briar’s owners requested this listening session as they have been trying to get to the bottom of several her issues she has had since they got her some years back.  For Briar, the simple fact that she could pass on her message to the people that obviously care a great deal for her gave her quite a big sense of relief.   Possibly the fact that I hope to share the lessons I learn from horses during this project may have given her some sense of peace as well.  People are eager to understand how to look after their horses as best they can.  I think Briar knows that and she also knows that if this situation comes up again for some one else they will understand what they need to do.

Since listening in to Briar her owners have noticed she is more interested in people, happier to be in contact with them, and so they hope they will now be able to do equine touch on her.  This will undoubtedly peal aware more layers with Briar and hopefully she can find a fulfilling role in the centre where she now lives.

The Confusion Abates…

The horse that I wrote about in the last post is called Indie and this is a summary of what I picked up from her when I attempted to listen to her for the second time.

When I tuned into her she was very very sullen.  She had no interest in eating and the grass itself seemed to taste awful.  Then she showed me that she was hugely pregnant and was gestating one if not two babies.  I couldn’t be sure about this and the images seemed to keep changing between one and two babies.  In the end however she showed me that she lost two foals in what seemed like one devastating moment.  She seemed to feel incredibly sick and had tried her best to hold onto her babies but had not succeeded.  She then felt as though she had failed them and was incredibly sad about this.  She was completely rejecting herself.  She then began to stamp at something on the ground and wanted to obliterate it.  It was an animal of some sort but I didn’t know what.  When I am listening I really try to be careful not to put my own interpretation on things that may not be perfectly clear.  If something is not clear to me I need to leave it that way and not try to guess what it might be.  In this case all I could think was that she was stamping on her dead foal in some kind of frustration.   This seemed very strange and unpleasant but it was important for her to play this out to me.  This interpretation turned out not to be completely accurate.

When this was done she exploded into grief and was out of control, wailing and crying for a few minutes.   Again it is important for me to simply watch this and do my best to get a good sense of how the horse feels.  As I am watching a scenario unfold it is simultaneously being processed by the horse and hopefully this processing will help the horse to feel better in some way.

Once Indie had expressed all this grief to me she looked straight at me.  She was going to make one thing very clear.  She looked at me as if to say “you are going to listen and you are going to believe every word”.   Then I very clearly heard the words “I would have been great… I would have kept them safe and would have been proud to do it.  I was doing everything right.”  I let this stare continue for as long as was necessary to really get a sense of how adamant she was about this.  By the end of the session Indie seemed to feel a lot stronger and while she was still very angry and upset she had regained her sense of determination and seemed to realise that there was nothing more she could have done for her foals.

As I said in my previous post I was a little bit unsure of how well I was listening to Indie as I had gotton it wrong the previous day.  I had in fact listened to a different horse and not Indie at all.  So I was very nervous when I sent off the report to Indie’s owner Louise.  I wondered how I would feel if I got it wrong again.  But I needn’t have worried.  Louise quickly wrote back to me and said this made perfect sense.   In 2004 when Indie was only 2 years old she had given birth to a foal.  But one night, only 10 days later, her foal had been attacked by a pack of dogs and killed.  They also killed another foal that night and after this Indie went down hill quickly.   When Louise Mitchell herd about Indie she took her home with her and has been trying to help her recover ever since.

The fact that two foals were killed explains why I thought Indie had had twins and this brings up the point that it can be hard to see the exact situation.  The horses that I listen to are not actually talking to me, they are showing me pictures and I suppose it can be hard to explain every detail precisely.  Indie had shown me two foals and at least one of them was hers, that’s all I really knew.  Again, I should not guess about what I am seeing.

Louise told me that it had always been clear to her that Indie desperately wants to be a mother again and she quickly adopted two weanlings that Louise bought in 2007, protecting and grooming them.   Louise is even on the look out for an orphan foal who needs a mother.  She feels that there are enough horses in Ireland who need homes and she would prefer not to breed more, but she also understands Indie’s desperate need to regain that role that was ripped from her so tragically.

This story clearly shows how traumatised a mare will get at the loss of her foal and also that she may take years to get over it.  The depth of emotion that I come across in horses is immense.  And like us humans they hold onto those emotions until at some point in the future some one will help them move through them.  In Indie’s case she had a huge sense of guilt and failure.  Even though she had been very young herself she had taken on the role of being a mother without question.  We will never know how strongly Indie fought to protect the two foals on that horrible night in 2004.  But from what I saw during her listening session she would have had no qualms about killing whom ever she could in order to protect them.  But who would have been able to stamp out a whole pack of dogs?

Indie will never get her foal back but she will be able to get herself back.  By the end of the session she had lost that sense of guilt and failure and seemed to find her fighting spirit again.  And I have no doubt that her owner Louise will do everything she can to help Indie find the happiness and sense of purpose that she deserves.

Getting Confused

One of the reasons I started this project to listen to 100 horses was so that I would learn how to listen better.  I have been wanting to do more of this for a few years now and by committing to listening to 100 horses I hope to get some of the practice I need to build confidence and improve my approach with each horse.  Well, 5 horses in and I have already learned a good bit.  The main thing is that when you have 45 names on a list it can be hard to make sure you are listening to the right horse in a particular session.  I normally only need a name from an owner and off I go, but then again I normally only have one horse on my list so there is no possibility of confusion.  I was not expecting to get so many horses signed up in so short a time so I had not considered this issue.

The first horse I listened to was actually 8th on the list and was jumping out at me to listen to her.  That session worked fine and the information that I picked up matched up with the horse.  (I will write more about each session when I have finished chatting with each owner).  The second one I knew was a definite match before I checked in with the owner, but as I got to the third and fourth and the list was growing at a massive rate I was beginning to feel a little bewildered.  I had a feeling that the two stories that I picked up from these would not match the names I was given and my suspicions were confirmed when I passed on the stories to the owners.

Obviously my first reaction was to be disappointed that I had gotton it wrong but my instinct was to just think about this and to remember that this was never meant to be easy.  This is a challenge that I have set myself and I already know that I need to improve my approach.  So I mulled it over and that’s when I decided that it would be a good idea to request photos for each horse.  I have now listened in again to one of the horses where I originally got it wrong.  Hopefully I will find out today if what I picked up makes sense or not.  Fingers crossed.

With my confidence shaken a bit I found it hard to listen to this horse again but she reminded me that this project is not about me verifying that I am great at listening, or that I am wonderful.  It is about helping some horses and learning about the depth of their emotions. For this particular horse she needed help with a past trauma and that was all that was important.  While typing up the story to email it to the owner I was very nervous that I may have gotton it wrong again and I found it hard to send it off, but I just kept that horse’s message in mind – it is not about my pride or image.  It is about the horses and I must get on with the project and learn as much as I can.

The one thing that I was very pleased about was that this mix up confirmed one thing to me that I had been wondering about.  I had wondered if it was possible to see your own horse in any story that I may pick up.  In other words if I told the wrong story to a person would they see some similarities even though it was not actually relating to their horse.   I wondered how discerning people would be and funnily enough that day I found out.   The two owners whose horses I mixed up were very clear.  The stories did not match their horses.  They were not going to see one connection and take my word for it.  Now all I have to do is to find the two horses who own these stories.  No problem.

While mulling over this whole issue of mixing up horses I asked Pollyanne and Hazel if they had any ideas and Pollyanne piped up immediately with one word – patience.  That was it, no vast explanation or compelling arguments as to why being patient would help.  It was self-explanatory as far as she was concerned.  Be patient, take your time and everything will work wonderfully.  There is nothing more to it.  This is not about rushing through 100 horses and simply having a list of stories at the end.  It is about doing it right however long it takes.   It’s about something else too.  But I will learn that along the way, I don’t know what it is yet.

Monchie’s Message

This is one example of the type of thing that I pick up when listening to some one.  In this case I was helping a friend with her horse, Monchie, and I kept getting the overwhelming urge to listen to her.  Monchie definitely had something she wanted to say.

I listened into her with her about 10 feet away and just closed my eyes.  Very quickly there was an image of Monchie and her owner trying to learn to dance.  They were side by side and walking in step as if in the early stages of line dancing!  Monchie was in fact the one who seemed to know what was going on and my friend was watching her to get cues.  This then developed into scenes where Monchie was having the time of her life, dancing, looking beautiful and being incredibly expressive with her body.  She was kicking out her legs, holding her head high and following lots of intricate moves.  She was really excited and it was clear that she was trying to tell her owner that this is what she would love to do.  She normally does jumping and it was clear that this was not her first love.

A huge grin was plastered across my face as I picked up the excitement that Monchie was trying to express.  She was also keen to pass on and a sense of connection between her and her owner.  She conveyed that she wanted the chance to express to her owner that she really enjoyed spending time with her doing this new activity would give her the chance to prove that.

So when I was finished listening to Monchie I went and asked the owner if she had ever done dressage with Monchie.  She smiled and said that a friend of hers had a few months back and Monchie had been a natural.  She had been entered into the beginners section in several dressage competitions but it was clear that she should really be in the intermediate ones.  Unfortunately the owners friend had moved away and so Monchie didn’t get her chance to go further.  She also confessed that she felt that she wouldn’t know enough about dressage to do justice to her and when I said that Monchie was more than willing to show her she was not surprised.  She felt that she was the one that needed the lessons and not Monchie.  The owner is now thinking of getting some lessons from a top class dressage intructor and we’ll just have to see what happens.  After this conversation I tuned back into Monchie again for just a few moments and she felt very relieved to have gotton this message across.  My friend also said that she was really pleased to know that Monchie liked her because she had wondered about this.

In this situation there was no big trauma expressed but a lot of air was cleared and there is now an opportunity for an even better relationship between Monchie and her owner.  Monchie’s owner always has the best interests of all her horses in mind but sometimes it can be hard to know what those best interests are.  Our horses definitely have an opinion on that, it is just a matter of finding ways to listen.

100 Horses, 100 Stories.

Another Adventure

Living out in the field with our two horses Hazel and Pollyanne left me with a much better understanding of what it is to be equine and what it is to sense the world the way they do.  I learned more than I could have guessed and now I would like to take things a step further.  I have been dancing around the idea of communicating with animals for a few years now and I have gone well past the point where I doubt what I am seeing or hearing in my mind as all the stories have been verified by an animal’s companions.  And since being in the field I have found a bit of the focus and clarity that is necessary to do it on a more regular basis.  Now I have the overwhelming sense that there are many horses, not just our own, who are trying to get some message across and I want to listen.  Every time I listen to a horse a fascinating story unfolds and each one is utterly unique.  So, in order to take my listening skills to a new level I want to listen to 100 horses and tell you the stories they tell me.

What is Listening?

In some ways I have no idea what it is, but in others I know exactly what it is.  I do not know how listening works nor do I ascribe a set of traditions or beliefs to it, I simply do it and listen to whom ever needs to be listened to.  I tune in to the individual who has either requested the listening or who has been nominated for the listening and just wait for images to start to pour into my mind’s eye.  They appear as if I am watching a short film.  There always seems to be a number of scenes before the end of the film and the key is to watch each scene carefully and with all my focus until it naturally moves on to the next one.  The point has been made and the story moves on.  At no stage must I try to interpret or understand what I am seeing.  I must simply watch and wait.  It is normally clear when the little film has ended because either the last scene is a more positive one or it just keeps repeating without changing.  At that point, I again do my best not to interpret what I have seen and I just pass on the story to the person associated with the horse.  It always makes very clear sense to them and it is generally useful in some way.

This is not intended as a healing modality but rather a chance for some one to express something that is important and may have been weighing them down for some time.  Just as we humans find relief when we find a truly listening ear, animals will feel relieved too and will feel a little lighter in themselves.  Fundamentally I feel that the most important thing we can do for each other and for our animals is to simply listen.  This is something I want to explore more through this project to see what are the benefits and also to learn how to listen better.  It is strange that something so simple is in fact really hard whether that is during a simple conversation among people or when listening to an animal in one’s mind.

In order to listen to some I just need to be asked.  I do not need to be with the horse, I do not need a photo nor even a name.  I just need a request and the person who makes the request will know where I should go.

The Plan

For this project I plan on listening to 100 different horses from around the world.  I am hoping to listen to as large a variety of horses as possible, from your average privately owned horses, to rescue horses, wild horses, world class competition horses or who ever comes my way.  I would like to listen to as many different breeds as possible but most of all I want to listen to those horses who simply need to be heard.  I’m sure they will know who they are.  I plan on spending the month of September doing this.  I will document each message and then pass them on to the readers of Courting the Horse.

So if you would like me to listen to your horse just drop me a line.  Please do not tell me why you would like me to listen or anything about the horse at this first email.  Sometimes I find this confuses me, but I may get better at ignoring this kind of information in the future.  Just tell me that you would like me to listen to a horse that you have in mind.  You can just tell me his or her name.  Once I have listened to the horse I will send you the report and at that point feel free to tell me all about your horse.  There is no charge for this and all that I ask is that you point a few people in the direction of the stories that will be printed here so that more people can learn about the inner workings of horses.

I will shortly put up a couple of examples of the type of things that I pick up when I am listening to a horse.  For now send in your request and pass this on to as many people in as many different countries and settings as possible.

(All photos by Cody Vinikq)