The Herd is Calling

I know a girl who was having a rough time.  Before this, when she was very small, the world seemed to make more sense; it felt somewhat orderly and reasoned.  Through the narrow lens of her innocence, her mom and dad were calm, loving and present.  Her life had a nurturing rhythm.  But, as she grew, the once constant landscape of her childhood began to shapeshift.  Her parents split up; they became distracted and stressed, unable to offer counsel or comfort.  This also happened to be when she became aware of her changing body; it no longer felt like her own and she was wary of it.   At school, kids were loud and often mean and confusing.  Friendships could be tenuously, conditional upon a million uncontrollable factors.  The girl began to feel lost and like she had no place to go where she could feel comfortable in her own skin.  She felt disorientated, like she was stuck on a disconnected channel, within the random, garbled, snow of a tv screen.   She forgot about joy.  She was lonely. She didn’t belong anywhere.  She was invisible.  So, she began to hate herself and she wanted to hurt herself and she thought about ways to do just that.  

Suddenly, something happened that disrupted her dark thoughts and challenged her sad story.  A horse came into her life.  A dream horse, a gleaming white mare, who was beautiful and powerful.  The mare pierced the girl’s mask of grief and shame and in so doing, mirrored what was beneath, which was love, wholehearted, unending, glowing love.  The girl was astonished.  The horse had shown the girl what had been buried under layers of pain and fear.  

Admittingly, the girl in the story is me.  While it is never easy to share the darker moments of your life, especially these days (thank you, social media), I know that I am not alone in my experience.  Unfortunately, our culture doesn’t exalt the ugly or messy parts of life, even though they are the parts that are integral to learning perseverance and growing empathy, the parts that illuminate the path toward growth.  Instead, we are expected to deal with our troubles in shadow, hidden for fear of being exposed as weak or, God forbid, ...unsuccessful.  

In my story, the time before the horse’s arrival is a common narrative for many young people who are transitioning through adolescence into the great beyond of adulthood.  I see it daily in my own kids’ journeys.  It is a hard, bruising road that can be treacherous and lonely, leaving us depleted and scarred. When we add the veritable deluge of doomsday issues like the degradation of the planet, racial inequality, social injustice, political immorality, and the general suffering in the world, it is no wonder that our kids are depressed, disillusioned and at risk for self-harm or worse. 

For me, horses were, always will be, the antidote.  There is more than a twinge of privilege there, I know.  Growing up, my family was not wealthy, in the least, and actually quite broken in many regards, but I did have access to horses, when and where many do not, and that was a fortunate opportunity. I was lucky.  I formed my antidote into a career.  I became a professional horse person because I knew it was the only way, financially and logistically, to guarantee that horses would remain elemental in my world. Given horses are part of an essential framework for my well-being, doing horses for a living was a foregone conclusion. The white mare?  She was a real horse that not only saved my life, but also taught me so much about its precious value.  She taught me to remain grounded even as I strived.  She taught me to reach for and feel another’s pain at the expense of my own comfort.  She taught me how to walk through the world, fully engaged, head high, soft eyed, mask tossed aside.  

But, how did she do it?  At first glance, horses’ ability to help humans learn and heal and grow is a bit of a magic trick, one that science is just now beginning to explore.  As equine therapy and equine guided learning have become more popular and widely accepted as effective therapeutic modalities, researchers have begun to look for explanations. Fledgling studies on the healing power of horses for veterans suffering from PTSD have corroborated the anecdotal notion that horses help soothe psychological pain.  The same goes for the burgeoning studies involving people living with anxiety and depression.  Physiological boosts of oxytocin and serotonin, increased mindfulness and an overall sense of wellbeing are just a few of the published, peer reviewed benefits people have experienced working with horses.  Still, the question remains, how? 

Horses possess unique qualities that specialize their connection with humans; it is different from other animals, like dogs and cats, for example.  First of all, horses are nomadic, familial, prey animals who rely on their collaborative, herd instincts for safety and comfort.  They seek connection as a means of survival.  Each horse plays a part in the safety of the whole herd.  Relying on each other, trusting other herd members to take their respective places, while wholly, dutifully, playing their own roles, creates an impenetrable fortress against predators and other danger.  This is why human partnership with horses is possible - if we do our part to keep them safe and comfortable, they will reciprocate in kind.  This process feels really good for both the horse and the human; partnership, reciprocity, and security are emotional commodities for both species.  If these concepts are lacking in a person’s life, a child’s life, working with horses fills an otherwise, precarious gap.

But that’s not all.  Horses are truly Zen masters, meaning that they exist fully in the present, the here and now.  They assess each singular moment in all its sensory glory, reacting or not reacting accordingly, genuinely, instantly. Hence, they move in sync with the next moment as it rolls into the now.  In this way, we know their interactions with us are honest and contextual, which develops trust.  Horses do not lie.  Without any judgement, they mirror our behavior back at us, in all of its unaltered glory.  Furthermore, horses are master communicators in using and deciphering body language, energy and facial expressions.  In this way, they can sense our incongruencies and phony personas like they are pesky flies buzzing around, or a mountain lion lurking around the next bend.  Horses do not tolerate deception; it is a paradigm that is simply too dangerous for them to condone.  For people who are seeking fully conscious relationships centered on integrity and veracity, horses provide a valuable model. 

As the how of their healing powers becomes more clear, we can begin to understand why we are drawn to seek out the company of horses. For me, the young girl who was having a hard time, the grown woman who still struggles more than she would like to admit, horses have always been my teachers, my mirrors, the grounding force in my life.  These are the offerings of the herd: simple, ancient, holistic lessons that foster belongingness and deeper connectivity to the world around us.  

So, what are you waiting for... the herd is calling. 

- Victoria Williams