Too Hot for Humanity

It’s just the right temperature. Too hot by all accounts but just hot enough that no one wants to stir out. Just hot enough I can sit in the garden and not listen to humanity. Aside from the odd clonk of someone puttering about or a passing car my garden is my secret place with just me, my book, the dappling sun and the birds. Overhead barely off shore seagulls gawk about and it seems like they’re not a warner of bad weather coming but right now in this sunshine they're reminders of childhood holidays at the beach and all the things we forget when we leave the place of childhood. 

I think my most precious moments with horses are also often without humanity or at least the worst side of their interference. Don’t mistake me, I love to ride and I’m remembering my love for competition but the really joyful moments are like the same shine that dapples across my back as I lie skin to the sun, brief and moving about. Not always something that I can search out but often found just walking my horse from the field when he greets me, just a quiet moment but when his personality is there, mostly trying to see if I should be acknowledged with snuffles or tasted for eatability. It’s in the grooming before a ride where I can run my hands over his body and already tell where he’s confident in the work and where nervousness might be hiding out. That kind of contact which isn’t a question or demand. Whatever the sentimental moments, I do have to admit in the work under saddle when my brain stops fizzing and my signals are clear enough to convey where he might find courage and he moves into his body with more than willingness but true courage and excitement I do find it there too. The least amount of interference from humanity while still being able to do something I can love and make a life out of. The rough and tumble of basic training is bearable knowing that the signals can become less, the asking more whispered and the outcome more assured and staunch. 

The business glamour of demos and talks and lessons are all in aid of being able to find the equivalent of lying in the garden, sun warming the soul, not for me, but for a rider with their horse. A way to find quietness, stillness and confidence in the work that both fuels the riders and adds to the horse. Making sure if we are going to intervene with a horse it's a supplement to them not a take away. I will have to resume yelling that at some point but for now, in this moment I’ll stay in the sun in my little paradise and dream of what can be.