Grounded in the Air

By Jai Reed, Editor

My new equine teacher tells me to pick a horse to work with and my eyes fall on the brown, wither bone beauty, Sugar. Karen tells me that Sugar is a mustang, born wild in eastern Oregon, rounded up ten years ago when she was a year old. I steady myself at the synchronicity.

I am surprised when she agrees to let me try to work with the mustang. She observes as I approach Sugar who greets me warmly, nuzzling my hand with her nose and mouth. As I talk to the horse, excited about her response, she begins chomping in my palm and pushing my shoulder with her nose. I begin to feel a bit uncomfortable as she mouths my hand more and pushes me back. At that point, Karen intervenes. Karen shows me how to get the horse to back up without force. Sugar and I approach each other, her nose under my hand and her mouth to my shoulder. Then I ask her to back up. She obeys. We all smile.

As Karen gets the gear and talks of tenets of working naturally with horses. I ask Sugar to approach me. I indulge in affection with Sugar, burying my face against her neck as she nods and mouths my jacket.

When you smell a horse you hear a drumbeat inside the earth. When its dusty velvet covers you and the drunken musky scent of a wild animal carries your eyes upwards as they close in pleasure, you are smelling a horse...sweet scent of clover and alfalfa, wild grasses and country air...horse.

Leaving the high mountain desert was a difficult gate to go through; I left it swinging. In the Eagle Cap Wilderness of Eastern Oregon, the clear scent of sage purifies, the crush of brush under my boots and the grind of red rocky gravel permeate the silent space. Warm layers of air already have risen as my nose nips at the cold. Against the wide canvas of blue and bright light, a solitary red tail hawk glides across the expanse. Sky. Listen, you can hear her wings slicing wind. The beauty of the wind and tragedy carved juniper trees requires time. Hundreds of miles into the interior of this high mountain plateau run a herd of wild horses. Thousands of them, mostly unseen, and that is hopeful. My spirit’s home, this is my inner landscape.

I can imagine Sugar’s birth. A cool May night at Steen’s Mountain ten years ago, a restless wild mare’s milk begins to drip as she lies down to foal. As the sunrise illumines and warms the mountain’s top, a sweet clumsy brown beauty suckles. What was it like for this horse to then be rounded up, roped, and sold at one year? To be separated from her family, her freedom, her land? Did she feel like I did on loosing my family and place in our common lands?

At the stables, I halter Sugar and walk her into the arena. The exercise I learn that day is called driving, learning to move the horse. We attach a long rope to the halter and Karen demonstrates. I can see her using the presence of her body to direct Sugar to move forward from her ribs and hindquarter. The rope remains slack as Karen walks forward, almost invisibly pushing Sugar into a large oval pattern. When it is my turn, I copy Karen’s movements, but Sugar stays too close to me. Karen gives me a talk on taking up more ‘room’, being more of a presence so the horse knows you have her. I imagine this and Sugar responds. Driving Sugar, I feel present and connected to her body as we move in a rhythm around the arena.

Next, Karen teaches ‘untracking’ and I try. Sugar submits, surrendering her hip away from me and bringing her head around to me, eyes with mine and ears perked. I look in her eyes, which are fixed on me and smile. Karen is happy, "I think you’ve found your horse ."

"Once mustangs, always mustangs, huh Sugar?" I tell her.

After the training, Sugar and I are all about hugging and petting. She tracks me and keeps her head near my shoulder. I feel a connectedness, wanting, longing and my eyes tear up. When I get home, sitting on my deck, I feel grief – I think about losing my mom and my brother, of losing my place. I sense a feeling of missing some unknown future husband and our connectedness and have to laugh at this silliness. But also, I have to accept, this is what being with Sugar brings up in me and I have to just feel it. Giddy up. I know that the horse and I carry medicine for each other and perhaps I am crying tears for her also.

My next session with Sugar mirrors my unsteady emotional state. I am working with directing Sugar with my body and intention, no ropes. She won’t budge. I amp up my intention. She is falling asleep. I notice as soon as I approach and there is no response that I cave. I can’t hold a focus about which way to get her to turn and walk so she stays still, looking at me with her bored eyes. I decided to get her to turn to the right but then she looks left so I decide to turn her left instead. Neither one of us know where we are going. Karen directs me to increase my intention, to try to keep the thought of Sugar, to be persistent in my message to Sugar, to go slow and to not stop until I have a response. At one point I am nose to hide with her and there is no response other than a yawn.

I recognize the feeling, confusion of my center – like a lost, nebulous ambivalence. It is hard for me to take up space, to breath, to hold my intention. I’m very uncomfortable and the time drags. I concentrate, as Karen explains that a horse has to know that the human is present and in control so they can feel safe. (I’m the human and I can’t feel my presence!) After 45 minutes, we awaken; Sugar is finally able to feel me, to move with me intuitively in a connection arising like a triple espresso.

But Karen is frustrated; the session did not go well and was not good training for Sugar. At our next meeting, we talk it over and I relate my inner process to her. She tells me, "We'll have to work on you taking your place. When you ride, you have to be grounded in the air." For the next three weeks, she has me work with her other horses Elijah and Dusty. I am able to guide Elijah without a rope. He walks with me, we stop together, he follows my signals and decisions to turn one-way and then another. He untracks and we move together for an hour. I am present and focused and Elijah, he feels safe. We are connected intuitively, in some way through energy that is as palpable as a rope. Soon I am able to ride Elijah a little in the arena. We then repeat these lessons with her other horse Dusty, whom I also ride for a few minutes in the outside corral as Sugar looks on.

The next time working in this way with Sugar, we are focusing on the mechanics of halting from a walk. I try; she stops sideways with her head across my body. Oops. I tell Sugar that if we can’t do better, we might not be working together. Suddenly, she is on her best behavior and we have a perfect halt. Our feet and bodies in perfect alignment, Sugar holds her head up parallel to mine looking to our teacher Karen. Karen is happy and wants to take a picture – as she turns her back on us, Sugar nudges me, knocking me sideways. I quickly recover and nudge her back. When Karen turns back to face us to take the picture, we are both at attention again, in perfect form, smiling.

Last week, I got to ride Sugar. My left leather Justin boot with pink detailed sewing fits cleanly into the stirrup. As I swing my right leg over the black saddle, Sugar decides to start early and heads out with me dangling. Once in the saddle, I pull the reins gently to communicate my thought to stop.

Karen details my riding posture, heels down, center pressed into the saddle to the center of the horse; my legs cradle her sides in communication. We follow Karen’s instructions, and Sugar and I move around the arena. I feel like a beginning driver with a bad case of over steering. But soon, we have it – even untracking from the saddle. Karen tells me to look up and I do. I am grounded in the air, on the stolen horse of my heart. We breathe together, riding into authenticity, aliveness, and wellbeing. I hear the calling of the horse, the landscape, my sacred self and the wild. The heart of my well-being is my connection to the natural world. Through horse, I am riding again.