Getting Serious

Bridget is growing up.  Physically, she has all but lost her adolescent disproportion and gawkiness and is returning to the beautiful conformation which made her stand out as a baby. Mentally, she is becoming more serious - and more challenging.

She is still curious and affectionate and goofy. But there is an increasing air of imperiousness about her, and a sense that she is becoming someone who demands respect.

Today, as I was working with her, she became impatient. I insisted, by being stubborn rather than by applying pressure, that she pay attention and work with me. She did, but when I set her free, she left immediately - which is not like her.

She doesn't yet have Chloe's wisdom, nor does she have the immense reserves of kindness and courtesy hidden behind George's gruff facade. Or the great sweetness of Rose.

What she does have is intelligence, boldness, enthusiasm, charm, good sense, playfulness, optimism, communicativeness, and cordiality.

I hope that if I work with her regularly, she will learn that there is something to be said for this activity. Going for walks may be a good way of working together. I think I may suspend the privilege she currently enjoys of swinging her tail towards me so that I can scratch her hindquarters. I don't know. I feel a need now to set some boundaries - at least temporarily - and to discuss with her the reality that as she grows into her new role as an adult, I will not allow her to add to her status by trying to lord it over me.

Enjoying a little home-grown alfalfa on the first day of autumn

Lead, Kindly Chloe

                                               I loved to choose and see my path;
                                               But now lead Thou me on.
                                                                    John Henry Newman

                                               He may have his little thoughts.
                                                                    Celia, Middlemarch, Chapter 50


There is a tradition in Judaism which teaches that when Moshiach comes, the established order will be reversed. Instead of man being the head of woman, woman will be the head of man.

It is taught in Chassidic and Kabbalistic literature that the polarities of masculine and feminine will eventually invert. There will come a time, blessed and welcomed by all, when the feminine will have greater access to transcendent consciousness, and when she will bestow and man will receive from her.¹                                                                      

In a world thus transformed, the body will no longer be subject to the head, but rather the body will become a conduit of light for the head. Material creation, presently distanced from the spiritual realm and dependent on receiving light indirectly, trickling down through more elevated levels, becomes instead directly connected to and inhabited by the source of light itself.

So Moshiach, who represents the ultimate fulfillment of Torah, himself rides the donkey of the material. For he heralds a world in which the material is no longer the lower or secondary element, but an utterly refined resource, no less central and significant a force for good than the most spiritual creation.²

And so it is with Chloe.

She stands by the fence, waiting to be let out. When she is released, her first order of business - before setting off to graze - is to load me up onto her back. Why? I don't know. Perhaps she's training me.

The other day, we had a party at our house, and two of the guests - little girls aged 6 and 8 - wanted pony rides. Chloe was reasonably gracious about allowing the little girls to sit on her back, but she made it quite clear that she was not going to cooperate with any such nonsense as being lead around in the direction of someone else's choosing. She wasn't cross, or mean, or anxious about it. She just said no. She always used to start by saying no back in the days when I would have insisted she obey, only in those days she would have been anxious and cranky. Nowadays when she says no, she just looks at me quite kindly as she refuses. And I say, "Ok, you're the boss." Well, sometimes first I say, "Oh, please, pretty please, couldn't you please, just this once ..." And then I give up.

The next day, the effrontery of my behavior towards her with the little girls apparently had not left too bad a taste in her mouth, because she put me on her back as usual. If I'm slow in getting up and she starts moving with me only half-way into position, she stops, waits, and starts again once I'm properly up.

I realize I just absolutely have to totally give up trying to make Chloe behave anything like a "normal" pony. When a little girl asks for a pony ride, I'll tell her that George (who has a mild, avuncular interest in being helpful with children and beginners) will oblige. But if the little girl insists on Chloe, I'll tell her she's welcome to ask Chloe for a piggyback ride, but that Chloe only goes where Chloe wants, and that's the way it should be.

I love letting Chloe be in charge. When I was little, my dreams of being on a horse did not consist of riding dressage exercises, or sailing over a round of jumps, or riding in the circus - I dreamed of being taken on the back of a magic horse to places I never knew about before.

Chloe waits by the fence.

1. Sarah Schneider, "Voice of the Bride," Moshiach101.com 
2.  "Moshiach's Donkey," Moshiach 101.com

Malchut*

The subtitle of my blog used to read:

"An exploration of how to implement the ideas of Imke Spilker, Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling, Carolyn Resnick, Lynne Gerard, and others in my life, the lives of my horses, and the lives of the horses whose hoofs I trim. And apparently to promulgate use of the Oxford comma."


However, as you see, I have changed it.



*http://www.inner.org/sefirot/sefmalcu.htm

A Missed Opportunity?

For the last many months, I've been trying to give the horses more credit. But sometimes I wonder if I'm still not giving them nearly enough.

I've been pondering an incident which happened a couple of days ago. Really, it doesn't merit the status of "incident" - it was the briefest of interactions between George and me.

If George is standing with his head by the fence and I want to walk along the fence line in front of him, I'll stop beside him, indicate that I want to pass, and then wait. He always steps back, with more or less good grace depending on the mood he's in.

The other day, it was me who was standing by the fence and George who wanted to get past. He came up - didn't exactly stop and ask - but neither did he push past. He made it clear that he was planning to get by me.

I didn't tell him no or shoo him away. However, I didn't move - and there wasn't room for him to pass. So he executed the horsey equivalent of a teenage eye roll, and went around behind me instead.

I must confess that in my mind some unformed atavistic thought was brewing - along the lines of: "Mustn't let the horse push me around." But - ahem - excuse me - can't we have a little give-and-take here? If he moves for me, why shouldn't I move for him? Why shouldn't we aspire to an egalitarian relationship characterized by mutuality and cordiality? I don't know from herd dynamics, and frankly I don't care if such relationships don't exist in the horse world - I want to have a relationship where the fact that I give way to you freely today in no way suggests that tomorrow I can be forced to give way. If horses don't know about that kind of arrangement, well they're smart enough - and moral enough - to desire it anyway. Hopefully so am I.

It may be a dog-eat-dog world, but in the Kingdom we're preaching, the lion eats straw like the ox, (poor ox, don't we have anything better to give him for supper?), the baby plays with the viper, and the George can be given an inch (or a few yards), and be trusted to not take a mile.

When George wanted to get past, I could have connected my attention to his, paused, and then invited him to pass in front of me. Why didn't I? Not surprising, as Jen-ska said in her comment to my last post, that he is still wondering about me.

Some Are Watching the Superbowl. I am Writing This Instead.

When it comes to deciphering dominance, George is not a very good example to follow. George gets what he wants, but getting your own way is not the be-all and end-all of dominance/leadership.

Dominant horses often enjoy very cordial relationships with others in the herd - sharing space, grooming, or playing. Sometimes they'll even allow another horse to share their food.

Between George and the mares, however, although a rapprochement is in progress, relations are little more tense. Dear George is, I feel, slightly dysfunctional, socially speaking. He doesn't really know how to play with the other children. He gets along very well with more dominant horses, but he has not figured out how to be dominant himself without becoming crabby. Noblesse oblige is a concept George has yet to fully take on board.

So I look to Bridget to explain things to me.

Bridget is clearly more dominant than Rose. If Bridget wants what Rose has, Bridget will get it. However, the two of them are friends and are able to eat together and be comfortable in each other's company.

What I can learn from Bridget is how a more dominant horse reacts when a less dominant one is "rude."

How does Bridget react? She doesn't.

If Bridget walks over to take Rose's food, Rose will give her the evil eye and snake out her head - even open her mouth and swipe. Does Bridget get mad? Not a bit of it. She just calmly proceeds with her coup de food. If Rose seems to be raising more objections than usual, Bridget produces the trump card - she turns around and backs up toward Rose, adding a ladylike kick if necessary - but the turning/backing usually does the trick. And no rancor or excitement accompanies the maneuver.

Bridget isn't always intent on taking something away from Rose - often she's simply saying, "Ok, I'm going to eat/stand here too, so move over!"

If Rose reaches out to nip at Bridget, Bridget sometimes flinches backwards, but she is not intimidated or deterred. Neither will she be moved to reprisal. It's enough that she knows she can win - she doesn't need to punish or scold in the process. And if all Rose wants is for Bridget to just stay out of her space, then -  no big deal - Bridget will shrug her shoulders and give in.

I have given up trying to be "dominant." However, I still sometimes need to be "in charge." Maybe it's a fine line linguistically, but to me there's a difference. I guess it helps to think of it in terms of children. When my children were little, I never thought it would be appropriate to "dominate" them. But there were (are!) many times when it was necessary to be in charge.

Bridget's example could be helpful for those times when I have to be in charge. I don't need to be superhumanly unflappable - Bridget flinches or startles when Rose produces one of her patented stink-eye swipes. Nor do I have to be punitive or defensive. I just have to choose - do I really want this? Or is it not a big deal? If I really want it, I can just politely insist, and if it's not a big deal, then I can let it go.

George Has to Muster Up His Courage

George has been acting all distant towards me. Can't blame him - the poor lad is probably feeling totally bored and neglected.

Today was a nice, relatively warm Sunday - with the snow still pretty on the fields, but no ice on the road -  so I took him out for a walk.

There's got to be some grass under here somewhere.

He set off at a fine pace down the road, veering off now and then to see if he could find anything growing along the verges, and stopping occasionally to survey the distant fields. At times, I had to run to keep up with him. Other times, I stopped and waited for him. And sometimes I said, "George, I'm bored, let's keep going."

Checking it out.

Wonder who lives here and if they keep any grass about the place?

Paydirt.

Then terror loomed on the horizon in the form of our neighbor's flock of sheep. George has seen them once before, but once was not enough to convince him they are not a serious threat to life and limb.

Actually he looked much more alarmed than this.

From this point, he proceeded by prancing and jogging and circling. His attitude towards my ability to handle the ovine menace was evinced by his continually pushing in front and placing himself between me and the ghastly flock.

Here I am, safe behind George.

Hmm, what does that tell you about George's esteem for my leadership capacity? I can't even be trusted to fend off a few sheep.

We continued our walk down a lane, George very much on edge with the sheep now behind us. We came upon two horses in a paddock. George whinnied at them but remained much more concerned about the sheep.

After we'd turned back toward home, George's worry began to subside.  Finally I thought he was calm enough to practice a couple of things.

We practiced yielding his shoulder over at the walk. Quite good. And we practiced the duckling walk, i.e. I am the mother duck, and he is the duckling, and he walks nicely tucked into my shadow. Well, sort of. The deal is that he can walk a little ahead of me if he wants, but if I feel put upon and dragged about, I go on strike. As soon as I feel uncomfortable, I stop in my tracks and repeat, "Duckling!" in an annoying voice. After a couple of repetitions, George turns his head back toward me, quite kindly, and then we continue walking side by side. 

Back in the pasture, I realized our excursion had restored me somewhat into George's good graces. After I released George, Bridget came over and was very affectionate towards me. George returned to shoo her off. She crept back and was banished a few times. Finally George, almost grudgingly, put me next to him and stood with me by his shoulder.

She may not be good for much, but dammit, she's mine.

I guess our walk restored our connection a little bit. George is a mighty complex guy, who doesn't hesitate to show his annoyance, but who nevertheless does not wear his heart on his sleeve. I really think he feels things quite deeply and doesn't always know what to do about it. We need to go for walks more often.

p.s. Today Bridget mastered the technique of completely undoing my anorak zipper.

A Day with George

My day with George began when I went to administer Rose's eye medicines.

The first order of business was a search mission around the field to locate the missing fly mask. George followed me on, and the mask turned up near the fence. Rose probably used the fence post to rub it off.

After I had retrieved Rose, George of course wanted to be in the thick of things and, if possible, to interfere. He hovered close by, while I summoned my best schoolmarm manner, admonishing him to keep his distance. After a little while, he did something which I thought was very nice. He turned and placed his hindquarters towards us. I felt that in this position he was clearly taking the pressure off us, and also possibly standing guard. Rose felt relaxed too and stood quietly while I applied her ointments.

The day's next George episode was in the afternoon, when I went out to trim his feet. I brought him out of the field, tied his rope to the fence, gave him a bale of hay to nibble, and told him that his feet were definitely going to be trimmed and no nonsense thank you very much.

He was the best he's ever been about letting me keep his feet up for longer periods of time. I even managed to go through all the required stages on the front hoofs - exfoliating, measuring, marking up, nippering, and rasping (inside and out). His back hoofs were, happily, quite nicely worn and only required a little rasping. After finishing one back hoof, I walked around to the other side and found the other hoof already lifted up and waiting for me.

When I went to wipe fly spray on his back legs (not wishing to be caught in the cross fire between his hoof and a fly), he was annoyed, and I gave him time to relax before proceeding. There is a time to insist - "George, you really don't have to put your foot down yet" - and a time to back off and breathe - "Ok, it's fine to just stand here for a while." I don't pretend to always know when it's time for one and when it's time for the other, but I reckon the important thing is to be aware of both options.

After feet, we had some grazing.

Later, at the time of Rose's evening dosage, George once more lurked close by. This time, when I asked him to back up a little, he sidled away, turned around and bounced his back legs at Rose. This was not the tooth-bared snaky-necked get-out-of-here George; it was a cheeky, almost flirtatious, little kick. I chased him away very emphatically. He drifted back, looking innocent, and kept his distance until I was done.

Then he came over and plonked me into the happy spot, where we stood quietly for a few minutes, breathing peacefully, returning to simple friendship at the end of the day. Thank you, George.

Meanwhile, Bridget discovers a more entertaining purpose for the fly mask.