The Sun and the Moon

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,

When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,

When he beats his bars and would be free;

It is not a carol of joy or glee,

But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,

But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –

I know why the caged bird sings.                                     

  – "Symphony" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

Six years ago when I met my horse Little Love, she was classified as a true nut case.  This was a horse that hated everybody and everything.  She couldn’t stand to be brushed, she loathed tacking up and riding was definitely the worst thing that ever happened to her.  She was perpetually scared of the world around her and was completely unpredictable under saddle.  When she was in one of her “scared moods”, she would bolt aimlessly around the arena, hauling her owner around like a ragdoll.  She wouldn’t turn right and barely could make a left turn.  Other days, when she was in her “calm mode”, she refused to move and trying to get her to trot was like running in a swamp filled with molasses.  I really think that the only thing that saved her from being taken to the slaughter house at a young age was her incredibly elastic and larger than life movement, which had every trainer in the country swearing they would be the one to “put that horse into its place.”

 

I worked with Little Love for almost five years before she became my horse.  During this time I discovered that she was a misunderstood individual with a lot of opinions, but nobody who would listen to them.  When I started listening, many things changed.  Suddenly she wasn’t so scared.  She also decided it was alright to cooperate with humans, at least some times.  But, her basic nature as a flighty, spooky horse remained the same. 

“You are wasting your time,” people said, when I relentlessly kept working with the black mare despite the challenges we seemed to face on a weekly, if not daily, basis.  “She’ll never calm down.” 

I think it was about three years into it that I admitted that this much was true; Little Love would never change her nervous, skittish ways.  Even though she had calmed down significantly, she still had that frightened horse inside her, and that frightened horse could show up within seconds, if she encountered something scary.  And she was scared of so many things.

Secretly I wished I would be able to own her one day and give her the life I inherently believed she deserved.  Yes, she was a “difficult” horse, but for some inexplicable reason I was willing to live with whatever this brought to the table.  So when, through some luck, that day arrived, I took her out of her familiar environment of a commercial barn with the covered arena and other works and hauled her to a small barn where she could be outside as much as possible.  And not just outside, but outside with another horse.

 She was shell-shocked at first, not knowing what to do with her new life as a horse, but slowly it all sunk in. And as it did, my horse started to change.

Now Little Love lives at a small barn with three other mares.  She still sleeps her nights in a stall, but spends 12- 16 hours of her day outside interacting with other horses.  This is still not perfect, as my dream is to get her into a situation where she no longer would have to live in a stall, but in the meanwhile, her current situation is the best we can get.  And it has made all the difference.  Gone is the crazy horse, the fearful horse, the insecure, skittish animal that took off in the arena over the smallest noise from outside.  In fact, the change has been so profound, so incredible, that if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, it would be hard to believe. 

So, what is it that made the difference?  This is a question I have been thinking of a lot.  I do believe it is the sum of many things, for not only has her living environment changed, but other aspects of her life as well.  She no longer has shoes; she hasn’t had a bit in her mouth for over three years; she rarely gets ridden and never in the arena; she is never forced to do anything; nobody hits her or yells at her.  But, that all put aside, there are two elements to Little Love’s life that seem to make the biggest difference: free movement and the company of her peers. From what I have seen, I truly believe that no amount of riding or human contact can replace either one of these fundamental needs every horse has. 

Two weeks ago I witnessed first hand the importance of free movement and herd life to Little Love’s well-being.  For reasons I’m not going to get into here, she had to be separated from the herd for a short period of time.  I didn’t have the heart to keep her stall bound, so we set up a small paddock close to the other horses.  In fact, to make her feel “comfortable”, we brought her best friend up to the small paddock next to her.  Because of the mandatory electric wire, the two horses couldn’t touch, but at least they could be close to each other.  I was confident Little Love would adjust to this arrangement for a few days.  After all, this was nothing new to Little Love; hadn’t she lived half her life in solitary confinement, at times never getting to go outside?  In comparison, a few days of restricted movement and social life were peanuts.

It took less than 24 hours for my horse to unravel mentally and emotionally.  Suddenly the horse that had been calm and composed, brave and fearless, started exhibiting strange behavior such as staring at objects she had seen for months in the driveway, but which now appeared to stalk her.  She spooked at the neighbor’s dog she had seen daily; the mailboxes on the side of the road caused her to have a fit.  It was impossible to leave the barn area without the mare having a complete meltdown.  She reared, she bucked.  She stopped and refused to move, just to seconds later suddenly spin around and try to canter home.  She was afraid of everything and anything; even the sound of rain drops hitting the bare, leafless trees freaked her out. 

Even thought I had seen it a hundred times before, it actually took me a few moments to recognize this behavior and the message behind it.   But, when I did get it, it hit me on the head like a bag of bricks; Little Love was demonstrating the same behavior I had seen for years, before she was my horse.  This was not a “crazy” horse, this was a horse that had been denied two of her basic needs in life. 

I called the barn owner and discussed other options for Little Love and as soon as we discovered a solution where she was able to be in actual physical contact with other horses and move around freely, she went from crazy to calm within minutes.  In fact, when I saw her face as she approached her friends, I realized that no matter what it took, I would always do my best to make sure she could continue living as part of a herd on a daily basis.  Horses are herd animals and they should never be treated as anything else.  They are also animals that are born to move and they should have this opportunity preferably 24 hours a day.  Living in a stall for 19 hours out of a day just to go outside alone in a postcard-sized paddock is not the life horses are built to live, no matter what people say. 

So many horses are dismissed from our human world as problem horses, but have we ever truly stopped to analyze the reasons these horses act like they do?  Human mishandling issues put aside, how many horses at this moment are suffering from their restricted lives in a small stall, without any hope of ever again having real contact with another member of their species?  I can assure you we are talking of many, many horses.  Perhaps many of them seem alright, even happy (by human standards) for not every horse is a freedom fighter like Little Love who can and will exhibit her opinion about her living conditions to anyone close enough to take notice.  Most horses, in fact, accept their fate and find solace in the dull world of learned helplessness where dissociation from reality saves their life, but eats away their soul.  This works very well for humans, as these horses are valued beyond measure as “kind and calm”.  But, having seen the transformation of my own horse, I can only wonder what lies within all those horses that endure similar, or even worse, living conditions Little Love did.  If we freed all the riding school horses and competitive show horses and race horses to live a more species-appropriate life, what kind of personalities would resurrect from the ruins of these animals?  What sort of lessons of humanity would they be willing to teach us? What kind of aptitude could we discover?   How would this change our relationships with these animals?

The difference in Little Love’s current personality compared to who she was a year ago is like talking about the difference between the sun and the moon.  The sun and the moon are both round and from our perspective they live in the sky.  There are a lot of other similarities as well, but when it comes down to differences, we all know what they are.  Maybe the most striking difference in the way we perceive these two planets is the fact that the sun is always whole whereas the moon can only appear to us in its whole beauty once a month and even then it pales in comparison to the sun’s extraordinary splendor.  That is exactly how I see Little Love when I think of her past life; she looked like the same horse she is now, but it was only very brief moments that I could see glimpses of the real horse within. 

Whereas now that real horse is present all the time. 

And the wisdom and beauty she brings to my world every day takes my breath away.

 ~K

"Caged Bird"

A free bird leaps

on the back of the wind  

and floats downstream  

till the current ends

and dips his wing

in the orange sun rays

and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage

can seldom see through

his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and  

his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings  

with a fearful trill  

of things unknown  

but longed for still  

and his tune is heard  

on the distant hill  

for the caged bird  

sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn

and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams  

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream  

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied  

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings  

with a fearful trill  

of things unknown  

but longed for still  

and his tune is heard  

on the distant hill  

for the caged bird  

sings of freedom.

By Maya Angelou from Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?

Little Love cantering with her friend Col 

Finding Freedom

“Freedom for horses begins in us.” - Imke Spilker in Empowered Horses


One day, after spending the good part of the afternoon outside with Little Love, it was time to take her back into the barn. Before this, however, I wanted to tend to a minor cut she had on her back leg. We walked over to the grooming area, but it was occupied by a gelding. I asked the owner, a lady in her sixties, if it was alright to park next to her at the wash area just for a few moments.

“No problem,” she agreed.

Little Love, however, didn’t. She had her mind set on going into her stall. She stopped and gave me the one look I recognize as “I know what you are up to and I want nothing to do with it.” I stopped, releasing any pressure she had created on the lead rope. The lady asked me if I needed help.

“Thank you,” I said, “but I think Little Love and I can work this out.”

The woman nodded and continued brushing her horse, making long strokes down his back.

Lilo stood still, I stood still. One of the many stallions in the barn stuck his head out of his little window and called at us; Little Love is, after all, a mare. This made no difference to her; she was preoccupied telling me she didn’t want to be medicated. I, in turn, told her we really had to take care of the cut – just in case. She lowered her head and started chewing. “All right then,” she seemed to say and took a few steps towards the wash area, her feet already touching the cement ground. The stallion called out the window a second time, then tossed his head.

That was when things started to happen. The lady’s husband came out of the barn, cussing and swearing. He slammed the stallions window shut so hard the horse barely had time to get his head out of the way. In an instant Little Love jerked her head up with the whites of her eyes flashing. She started backing up, as if I was suddenly asking her to go into a fire hole. The man stalked over and smacked her hard on the behind with his hand.

“You women folk don’t know how to control your horses, get the mare out of here!” He yelled.

Little Love yanked on the rope, she was remembering all the times she had been beaten into the trailer, forced into small spaces. She was no longer with me, but somewhere else, the place she has spent most her life in.

“Honey, stop,” the lady tried to say to her husband, but he wouldn’t hear a word of it. I was too shocked to say anything.

The man proceeded to yell at me and tell me that I didn’t know how to control my horse and that he was going to get the whip to show me how to do it.

The whip?

He marched off, muttering to himself and now that he was no longer behind Little Love, she relaxed a fraction. I took a deep breath and called after the man. When he stopped and glared at me, I said (as calmly as I could muster with my best French):

“There is no need for the whip. I don’t want to force Little Love into anything. I was just giving her time to think about what I was asking for.”

“asking?  That is just insane!” The man yelled at me from the barn door. “Didn’t you see the stallion was going out of control?”

I took one look at his beat red face and decided not to point out that the stallion had merely neighed, something he did every time a mare walked by.

“You know what, I think I’ll just take Little Love to her stall,” I said. Sometimes it’s just not worth the energy to argue.

“Oh, go ahead. Teach your horse that she’s the boss,” the man said and stalked off, obviously disgusted with my horsemanship skills.

Control is a central issue when handling horses. Even children are taught that control is essential; the better you are able to make the horse do what you want, the better a rider you are. Ultimate control also means ultimate safety. For many people, such as the man in this story, the thought of losing control of a horse is absolutely horrifying. Every sign of unrestrained behavior (like a neighing stallion) needs to be tended to before it becomes a disaster.

But what kind of a life is this for a horse? Every step, every sound, sometimes even every turn of the head, is monitored, watched, punished, controlled?

And how does this need to control and dominate make us feel?

I believe one of the reasons humans are drawn to horses is our inherent need to find freedom. Horses are powerful, and because of their power, they are beautiful. We want to be like horses. In our current society, where we have lost touch with the old wisdom we used to possess, we seek to feel whole again. How ironic that in search of our own freedom we take it away from another being. Does this truly give us the freedom we seek or are we, too, involuntarily slaves to our own desire to control? We want to be connected to something wild, something that will take us back to those days humans were in harmony with nature, but how can we ever become close to these animals, if we are constantly thinking of ways to dominate them?

I have spent a lot of time dwelling over my own journey from the person in control to the person who has given up her power. Where did it all start? I didn’t truly realize the process I had gone through until I read Imke Spilker’s book Empowered Horses. She writes: “The person who understands that he, as a human being, has all the power and that there is none left for the horse, has reached a turning point in his relationship to the animal. He suddenly feels very different needs and desires with respect to these creatures. He begins to pull himself back a bit and gives the horses more space. He begins to adapt himself to them and learn about them. And he starts to become open to their completely different point of view and in doing so, he gives their world a new reality.” (p.24)

I realize now that to do things differently, I had to reach my personal turning point. This was not one single moment, but rather a period in time when I had power, but this power left me feeling frustrated and incomplete. This was not who I wanted to be. I would guess that most of us don’t want to be a dominating person, if given the choice. Deep down we all know that true connection with horses (or with anyone for that matter) will never be achieved through domination, pressure and control.

The only way to truly receive something is by first giving it up. By letting go of the position of control, I have given Little Love’s world a new reality. Little Love now has space to express herself, to be who she is; a horse with a big heart and big opinions. Sure, sometimes I don’t like what she has to say, but that is something I have to learn to accept – we cannot always agree, but we can and we must always continue to listen to each other.

Ironically this “loss of control” on my part has not lead to disaster, but rather it has lead to power and peace – power and peace within Little Love, but within me as well. This is a far cry from the power and peace horses once had before humans decided to take their lives over. Little Love, like any domestic horse, doesn’t have a lot of space in the all-encompassing world of humans, but she makes do with what she has. The world horses lived in for millions of years before man may no longer exist; that kind of freedom is gone. But, no matter how much breeding and domesticating we do, this lost world still lives in the hearts and spirits of all horses.

So, the question we all have to ask ourselves is: Am I going to allow this inner world of freedom to exist?

May the horse be with you,
~K
There are two freedoms - the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought. ~Charles Kingsley