Okay, okay. The cheesiness of instituting New Testament references a few days before New Years is not lost on me. I have been musing on how to proverbially resurrect this blog but I was perpetually at a lost of where to begin, what to write that hasn’t been said or inferred at some point or another. We are all striving for authenticity and uniqueness but if the professional equestrian lifestyle has taught me anything is that we aren’t unique, special and oftentimes are discouraged from being authentic. That is our own fault of course. But, I’ll take if far back. Case 1. How I learned to stop worrying and love the (drama) bomb. I ran away to a small barn in Oregon City and battened down the hatches against external tumult. I fired clients who didn’t mesh with me and pulled away from shows and hunter/jumper clinics which reminded me of how dysfunctional the microcosm had come too. The elephant in the room, two men I admired for their grit and determination had utilized their social capital to prey on young girls. This is more than an elephant. It is the explosiveness of a tropical storm, a hurricane that demolished the buildings, flooded and cleared the developed land that had become a community of individuals who I gilded as gatekeeper to the art of the horse. And I know I’m naive. Incredibly naive I wanted so much to believe in the successes of the self-made man because so much of my own story was wrapped up in the belief that if I worked hard enough I too could hone a mechanical craft into an art. What I didn’t realize is that by dismantling the idols I would eventually empower myself, find confidence in my voice, my experience, my skill. Then again, it could simply be that increasing age and experience simply coincides with the timeline of current events, an accidental coincidence but not a necessary cause for the freeing of external validation. Stick with me, this goes back to horses I swear. I think the breaking moments happened at the Buck clinics. Where he talked to the crowd while I rode in freezing weather, rarely talked to me merely through. I spent the first day riding as I always ride in lessons, suspending thought and personal feel and simply trying to repeat whatever procedure told to me seeking approval and affirmation from the man on the horse, standing on the outside. I didn’t get it and Kat was antsy and I was forced to deal with the repercussions of an electric little filly who couldn’t keep in her skin as thirty hapless flaggers thoughtlessly, deafeningly “desensitized” their horses. Buck might have said three words to me at the clinic. He certainly never seemed chipper or engaged with a love for teaching people. And there I remembered one of his often repeated lines he loves the horse because they don’t exhibit any of the flaws of human rational, they don’t envy, lie or cheat. The myriad of mislaid anthropomorphisms, she fakes it to get out of work, she is stubborn, she is defiant, she loves jumping, etc, etc. aren’t true. I gravitate to horses because they don’t lie to me, what I see is what is, no ulterior motive, no complicated backstory, they are simply perpetually present, flight animals with very short evolutionary pronounced domesticated history. They are the wildest thing I have ever come in contact with, and with wild the perfunctory bs of late stage capitalism is temporarily abated. I am not a social station, I am not token of capital or purchasing power. Phoenix doesn’t give a damn about his Rambo blanket or the maker of the tanned-hide of another animal that is strapped on his back. In that clinic with Buck it finally dawned on me that the only approval I should be searching for is from the animals I throw a leg over. And with that I lost the flood for external validation, I stopped seeking for the thumbs up from Jeff, or the other Jeff, etc. etc. At the foremost of the decision process is the horse I am on and mentors can help me iron out other interpreters of the horse but I wouldn’t for a second loose the conversation between me and the horse.
Two months ago an unstarted Azteca came to the barn. He was wild on an Indian Reservation and then found his way to our farm. He is scared of his own shadow and I was afraid of what he might do, could do, would do. But I took my time. I take my time. What I don’t have in experience and talent the horses have taught me to make up for in patience. To wait, to let it happen. To go slow, to be present to feel present. The answer is so incredibly obvious and simple I almost blush to say it, but the key to good riding is to simply be in that moment with the horse. Not yesterday, not some future moment of skill but right there with the horse, where you and she is at. Every day these thread of present moments add up to something build something. To what? Well that only time will tell and isn’t that the mysterious connection and purpose we are all striving for? And I am just as guilty. Mindfulness is a meditative practice. Presence without anticipation or anxiety is difficult. But like all difficult things, it is beautiful and here lies the process of making a craft a true art form. Here begins the steps to the dance.