When we arrived at Blue Star Equiculture a couple of weekends ago for the Medicine Wheel Workshop with Chief Phillip Whiteman Jr. and
Lynette Two Bulls, the first thing that I did was go see Tex, the leader of the
BSE herd. Tex was having a hard time that afternoon because
one of his favorite horse buddies had just left the farm. As soon as I came to the paddock, Tex ran
right to the fence to meet me, and we had a very emotional encounter. My heart went out to him, and he responded by
licking my hands, never biting me, but really covering every finger with his
big wet tongue.
The rest of the weekend is
very difficult for me to put into words.
I tried to soak up everything that Phillip and Lynette presented like I was a
sponge. Then, I went home to my horses
and my life and have been trying to process the changes and the contradictions
and the insights that I was fortunate enough to have been given. One of the ideas that they repeatedly expressed was that whomever we
are interacting with - human or horse - is presenting us with a mirror
reflecting back our own mindset and emotions.
I have been thinking about this concept
as I go through my daily encounters with my family and my horses, considering
carefully whether their reaction to what I say and do is a reflection
–especially if it annoys me or I disagree with it – of some related aspect
within myself that I have trouble facing up to and owning.
Today, Siete was especially pushy and
rudely barged between me and her mother.
She refused to let me put on her fly mask, something that she usually
welcomes as a relief from the irritating “no see ‘ems”. Normally, she comes to
me and bends her head down soI can cover her ears with the mask. Instead, she
ran away from me. I kept trying to understand what I should see reflected about myself in
her behavior. I didn’t feel belligerent
or uppity. If anything, I felt tired, preoccupied and rather weak. It was the opposite, it seemed to me, not the
mirror.
Then, I came inside and looked at these photos of me and
Tex, and I remembered how I was feeling as I ran out to greet him. It was a pure rush of love, and I had a true
understanding of how one feels when someone you care about deeply is suddenly
gone. I felt Tex’s pain and offered him
friendship and love. That’s what Tex saw
in the mirror as I approached him. As
Chief Phillip said, “You can’t give what you don’t have.” I wasn’t giving Siete anything this morning,
except weary, distracted energy. No wonder she ran away and wanted nothing to
do with that.
"Horses know what you know, and
they know what you don't know," the Horse Medicine man told us. I’m trying, Siete, I’m learning.
