I asked them to tell me about someone they trust – someone who came through for them time after time, had their back. It was a risky question seeing as how I know for a fact that people indeed do not come through for them: dads in jail, mothers in rehab, bullies at school, teachers who have written them off.

I fought tears as they threw their hands in the air and began to describe cats they loved because the cats loved them, and dogs who ran to the door to meet them the minute they got home from school. There in front of their middle school peers, completely unabashed, they spoke lovingly in childlike voices about their pets.

I’m pretty lucky in my line of work to witness miracles every day, big and small. I get to see totally wigged out, triggered boys go from sobbing to absolute joy when they get in the presence of their horse. I witness kids tough as boot leather turn to mush as their horse relaxes under their caress.

Without speaking, the animals in their lives are teaching them to trust, to have empathy, to love unconditionally. Kids who have no reason to trust, and in fact every reason NOT to trust, have no problem putting their faith in a 1000 pound prey animal. They understand the prey instinct that the horse has, and they honor it and care for it. They’ve been the prey, in ways I can’t describe to you here. But, I don’t have to explain much; the horse says everything for me.

When their dad says they’re not worth his time, the horse says, “I love you…be in my herd!”

When their moms, by not showing up night after night, say they’re unlovable, the horse accepts them unconditionally.

When their teachers say they’re deadbeats, trouble, unfocused…the horse sees right through that to their mindfulness. The horse asks for their leadership, and they come through for their horses every time.

Anxiety is traded for calm.

Exhaustion for energy.

Irritation for optimism.

Worry for ease.

Rejection for acceptance.

And bless those horses – they take all of that negative energy out to the pasture, eat their feelings for the rest of the afternoon, and then forget about it, eager to connect with the kid the next time.

Horses are countering the negative forces in their lives, turning the tide on their trauma histories and giving them a reason to see the world anew, and to see themselves through the eyes of a horse.

I had a pretty tough cookie this week say to me, “When I got here, I was angry. I didn’t even know why. But now? I just feel happy inside.”

And that, folks, is the power of the horse. My only problem is that now I have 16 middle-schoolers that want to live with me at work.

My legs were shaking, and my breath was coming in gasps. This horse felt like a lit fuse underneath me; so much energy that it fairly vibrated out of his muscles and skin and made mine respond in the same way. He is big and fit and powerful, and I often feel slightly out of control when I am on him. This day, even more so. I fought to stay calm, to trust my training.

I couldn’t think; there wasn’t time. I had to dance, to react, to trust. If I took time to consider, he was already getting away from me.

But these are the moments I ride for: when I have to get out of my head and into my body. The moments where thinking puts me at a disadvantage are the moments where things really sink in, allowing me to remember on a cellular level.

Henry Beston said, “the world today is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before their hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot.”

What are you doing that puts fire before your hands? That makes you feel the physical heat on your skin? That makes you sweat and feel your heart race?

What are you doing that allows your body to be in a mineral pool, surrounded and touched on every surface of your skin by the water that wells out of the ground?

What are you doing that puts you outside, breathing the air from the sky, and not the air filtered in a building?

The earth, and the elemental things in it, is there to keep our feet grounded, to keep us in our bodies. In our bodies we get back to our own truth and power, and find what is sacred.

For me, that’s being on a horse that reminds me that I’m not in control, I’m only dancing with the beauty of creation, trying however vainly to keep in step.

What is it for you? Will you go find it?

No one ever wrote your name in the stars.

*

Never sat under the night sky

And pointed up, saying,

See how it makes an A, and an N?

You belong to the universe.

You’re made of stardust, child.

*

No one laid under a tree

In the shade on a sunny day

And pointed up, saying,

See how the world spins?

How all of nature is swirling with joy

Over who you will be?

You belong to Mother Nature.

You’re made of the earth, child.

*

No one wrapped you up

When you were angry or sad or scared

And pointed to your heart, saying,

See how you feel?

It’s okay. I’m here.

You belong to me.

You’re made of me, child.

*

Who taught you to

Narrow your eyes

Suspicious of everything

And everyone

Who will let you down…

Because they will let you down?

*

Who has said,

You’re not stardust,

You’re just dust.

You’re not made of earth,

You’re just dirt.

You’re not made of me,

I don’t want you?

*

Give me a chance, child.

*

Let me show you

The glimmer of stardust in your eyes,

And how your horse responds

To the earth in your body,

You two made of the same clay.

*

Let me show you

That you are me,

*

And I am you,

*

And we belong to each other,

*

And that it is safe to hope.

*

“The cosmos is with us. We are made of star-stuff. We are the way for the universe to know itself.”

- Carl Sagan

“Ugh, what is this? An AA meeting?”

She rolled in with a bravado that belied the tiny little body she inhabited. She came out swinging with an I’ll-hit-you-before-you-hit-me mouth and body language that was sharp and biting and clearly not interested in what we had to say.

It was sort of an inauspicious start to a discussion around horses and feelings and learning. We were here to offer her a chance to have a relationship with a horse, to learn from him; and she said unequivocally that it was stupid.

This is 1 of 16 at-risk middle-schoolers I’m meeting with this week to introduce to our program. The story repeats over and over, with different sized bodies, different genders or gender expressions, different attitudes. There is the tough girl and the hyperactive boy, the boy who puts his head down and hope no one notices or talks to him and the girl whose eyes dart around like a trapped animal – scanning for exits. Kids with so much trauma and neglect and poverty that it’s hard to imagine how they’re still functioning… in schools that feel like I’m walking onto the set of Dangerous Minds. Schools that feel an awful lot like prison: pain and anger simmering so close to the surface that it’s fairly shimmering red.

As an empath, these meetings launch me onto another plane of existence. I’m looking around seeing all of the things the kids aren’t saying as clearly as if those thoughts were written in bubbles floating above their heads. Their anger and neglect rolls off of them in waves that make me physically hold onto my seat so I’m not knocked out of it.

I say something kind, genuine, to tiny tough chick, and she withers me with a look that says, “Try it, bitch. Try to be kind to me and I’ll eat your heart.” Because under the tough is fear that I’ll be one more person who fails her, and she knows I see it, and she hates me the more for it. My mind reels forward 20 years to a tattooed, still tiny tough chick, sitting in prison for murder.

I leave those schools thinking, “Is this it? Is this the group we can’t help? Will the horses not have what it takes to get through to them?” I’ve wondered that very thing at the start of every session, but this might be the one. This might be the kid who will eat my heart out, leaving me bitter and unable to give any other kid a chance. The one who steals my belief in the magic of the horse.

I go home and have a talk with my baby, a gelding named Compass. He, too, is the empathetic type and immediately becomes nervous at the thoughts in my mind.

I ask him, “Buddy…are you strong enough? Are horses strong enough to carry the weight of an 85 pound girl whose anger is double that body weight? Can the gentleness and inbred fear and survival instinct of your species teach her that it’s okay to be herself? To need people? To be vulnerable?”

My favorite horse writer, Anna Blake , says, “If the beauty of the horse is the sum of his bravery and vulnerability, then sharing those qualities puts us at least fifteen hands closer to the Infinite.”

And so I put my hands on his face, and he licks his lips and sighs. His heart tells me that his back is plenty strong enough to hold the burdens of any frail human. And I pray for tiny tough chick. I pray she comes to know this in the depths of her own injured heart.

I call myself a Teacher

but today,

the horse called me

Observer.

~~

It said, stand back.

Watch how I gather

unruly energy

and place it,

quiet, but white hot

in their bellies.

~~

Watch how I pluck

unintelligible words from the air

and make them clear.

~~

Opaque hearts,

now transparent.

Inscrutable eyes,

open.

~~

Observe, teacher,

how I take the shy

the loner

the heartbroken

the sad

and lean into them –

filling the dark holes,

demanding presence.

~~

Making them forget for a moment

their cuts

their violence

their hunger.

~~

And so, today, I am not a teacher.

Like Amos,

“I am not a prophet,

nor am I the son of a prophet,

but I am a herdsman,

plucking wild figs.”

~~

I’m gathering their stories.

Hold out your hand -

I’m giving them to you.

You know what I hate about teenagers? Their honesty.

You know what I love about teenagers? Their honesty.

It’s like they haven’t learned to filter their emotions to please us, yet. Either that, or their feelings are too big to try to contain and manage.

On top of being teenagers, these were the walking wounded. I entered the room and I could just feel it. A cloud; a heaviness. Hurt. Anger. But there was also excitement and a good kind of nervous energy.

As we began, my heart sank as I heard stories of loneliness, alienation, and betrayal. They’ve been let down over and over. They have no reason to trust anyone or anything; but there they were, laying their hearts in the middle of the circle and staring at us and at each other defiantly… expectantly…what were we going to do? Would we laugh? Turn away? Say something meaningless? Or would we come through for them?

I could tell you their stories and say, “See, your life is not so bad in comparison.” I could state the percentages of their homelessness, lack of parents, drug exposure. I could tell you how all of them struggle with poverty and finding meals and how low the odds are that they will all graduate high school. I could try to make you feel really guilty about how little your problems actually are compared to the rest of the world.

But that wasn’t what I learned today. I learned a whole lot about honesty. For some reason, these kids who have no reason to open up decided to try one more time. At the risk of being let down, they let go and got real. They worked and pieced together a little quilt of a family. It had leaders and nurturers; disciplinarians and peacemakers. They looked to us, the adults, for encouragement; but they realized that they’ve got what it takes to be whole. It was right inside of them.

I wonder what holds me back from this kind of earth shattering honesty? I think that too often, I count the costs of what I have to lose and decide to lie to myself and everyone else about how I’m feeling.

These kids? They’ve already lost it. They don’t have anything more to lose. And once you put them on a horse, the floodgates open and they figure out quickly that it’s trust or failure.

Being real or failure.

Cooperation or failure.

Teamwork or failure.

Mindfulness or failure.

And given the chance, they choose right, every time.  Because they trust the horse, the horse trusts them. Because they open up to each other, others open up to them. Their lives have forced them to be like a prey animal: hyper-vigilant and aware of danger. So they understand the horses and have empathy and it washes all over their hearts and faces in a visible way.

I observed and helped and cried many times. It wasn’t because I felt sorry for them, but because they challenged me to be real about how I was feeling. I was honest. And they looked at me, right in the eyes, and didn’t look away. They didn’t try to make me feel better, but they didn’t disregard it, either. I couldn’t pretend or fake it – their survival depends on reading the emotions of the adults in their lives. I would have lost a connection had I been dishonest. I was gut-checked by a bunch of 13 year-olds.

With only our eyes and our hearts, we recognized each others’ honesty, and walked away a little more real than we were before.

I was told last week that I have a “hot seat.” Normally, I would take this as a huge compliment; but as it relates to riding horses, I didn’t like it. To put it simply, it means I ride forcefully and sort of insist on my way, my pace, my rhythm. I was riding a horse new to me, and he didn’t particularly like my hot seat; we both were irritated and wound up by the end of the ride.

After I went home and thought about it for a while, I began to realize that my little Welsh Cob mare has been having a similar sort of reaction to my riding lately. She’s very obedient and knows her stuff, but she can get really wound up and barrel around the arena like a freight train – her little legs pumping madly. I’ve found myself in a wrestling match with her many times over the last few weeks. I just attributed it to the fact that she’s a pony mare, and pony mares are known to do things their way without any regard to what you want. I would try to keep my cool and just get more direct and clear with her (and let’s be honest, sometimes stop her, throw my head in the air and yell “BELLA!!!”).

Thanks to some tips from a couple of really amazing mentors, this weekend I took a different approach with her. My goal was to not insist on MY pace and rhythm, but to help her find her calm, even, big horse gait. She’s a pony, so she has to work very hard to move like a big horse, but I know it’s there. It occurred to me that if I wanted her to be calm and smooth, I needed to be calm and smooth.

I focused all of my thoughts on helping her melt into her transitions.

By this, I mean that I didn’t forcefully insist on her moving into a trot or canter or even back down to a walk. I just sort of “thought it” and relaxed and asked very quietly. As you might have already guessed, she was amazing. She was calm, focused and worked very hard for me. There was no throwing her head up in the air and running around the arena like a pony.
It’s never very hard for me to connect the things I learn in the saddle to my daily life. It’s the reason I find riding so incredibly therapeutic. Lately, I have been fighting and trying to control transitions in my life with all of my might. I anticipate them, tense up, get a plan in my head, and attack them with both barrels. And often, I get the right result, but I’m thoroughly stressed out and exhausted by the end of it.

So, not to put too fine a point on it, here’s what I learned from my fuzzy little pony:

When a transition is approaching, instead of tensing up in anticipation, take a deep breath and let it all out. Repeat until heart stops racing.

Instead of attacking change, try melting into it. Think.  Breathe. THEN do.

Change is hard on humans. Give yourself some space to ease into it and time to wrap your brain around it.

Check in with your body. Are you teeth clenched? Tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth? Shoulders up around your ears? Breath coming in fits and starts? Don’t make the transition, yet. Unclench, unstick, stretch, breathe. NOW get started.

Life throws us so many transitions and changes; everything from little things like cancelled appointments to big things like career moves. We can’t always control the outcome, but we can work on allowing ourselves room to move through it gracefully and quietly. Take it from me and my pony, heading into change with a smile and a soft, grateful heart not only gets great results, it makes you happier in the end.

Sometimes I catch her gazing at the sunrise.

She faces east

and looks up, staring

as she chews her hay.

~~

She seems to be contemplating;

but, what?

~~

She cannot fathom its creator.

She cannot understand beauty or delight

such as I do.

She cannot compare it to yesterday

or wonder if it will be there tomorrow.

~~

Yet she gazes,

her eyes fixed on some

luminous point,

ears relaxed,

body quiet.

~~

And I think maybe she is just

acknowledging the sun

for what it is –

light

after long hours of darkness.

~~

And I think maybe she is right.

Maybe she’s onto something.

I felt like that kid from Home Alone; you know, the one on the front cover with his hands clapped to the side of his face yelling “AHHHHHH!!!!!” Of course, I stayed cool and cheerful on the outside, while horses went their own way, kids ignored directions, and my lesson plan disintegrated into ashes.

If you don’t know this about me already, I am in control. I didn’t say I’m a control freak; no, I am ACTUALLY in control. Of everything. All the time. I am over-prepared for any eventuality. Planning is power, people.

So today, when kids let go of their reins (when I asked them to hold them), when they went left (when I asked for right), when horses stopped (when they should go) and took off trotting (when we wanted halt), I was the Home Alone kid. I mean, really, horses and kids…how did I ever think I would be completely in control?

All ended well today, and there were lots of smiling faces, but I left feeling less than great about the outcome. Naturally, I had to come home and shovel horse manure so that I could think about it.

I have been talking with lots of folks lately who are discouraged because they feel like something is off the rails: family illness, work projects, personal finances, health, children. Sometimes, we just can’t get the train back on the track, and the problems seem to get bigger and more chaotic, or at the very least, keep us spinning uncomfortably with no end in sight.

Nine 200lb wagon-loads later, I think I have some ideas for all of us.

Get Back to Basics: I had to remind myself quite a few times today to simplify, simplify, simplify. I marry myself to the complex ideas I have in my head for a project. I have very good reasons why these ideas are right and good. But you know what? No matter how good they are, they’re not going to work if I don’t have the basics under control. For my students today, it was truly as simple as “sit up straight, focus on where you’re going and breathe.” It doesn’t matter that we did so much more last week, today needed to be simpler. Sometimes, despite the chaos around us, we need to sit up straight, focus on where we want to go and breathe.” No good comes of staying in the center of the tornado, spiraling away with it.

Get an Objective Perspective: There are loads of people out there smarter than me. After the lesson, I walked around and chatted with the volunteers who helped in the class, with my mentor, and I even chatted with my husband when I got home. Every single person had something unique to add. Again, sometimes it is important to drop our precious control and ask for help, or just someone else’s spin on a problem. It’s like “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”: phone a friend. The only skin your friend has in the game is making you happy. That’s pretty fantastic.

Get Information: Look over the problem or the project…is there a critical piece of information you might be missing? After class, we began getting texts and emails from parents explaining late nights with no sleep, medication issues, forgotten breakfasts….it was an a-ha moment. It would have been nice to know that ahead of time, but sometimes we can only see things in retrospect. If things are really off the rails, write everything down, step back, and look at it with a critical eye. Ask: what’s missing here?

Get Creative: Unique problems require unique solutions, right? Well, when I sat down with my mentor and began brainstorming possible fixes for next week, she suggested something completely outrageous. It was so crazy that I immediately thought of 14 reasons why it wouldn’t work. I started to list them off, and she looked at me, gave a sly smile, and evil-y waggled her eyebrows. I suddenly understood: it was time to get creative. You see, it’s that control thing again…I have a plan. We will WORK the plan and the plan WILL work. Until it doesn’t. The more I thought about her insane idea and her waggly eyebrows, the more it dawned on me that this may be the exact solution we need. Very few things are so precious that they cannot be improved with a little creativity. Sometimes letting go and going off the wall are the very things that are required to get the project back on track.

Let’s be real. I know that every problem, project, hurt, or bad situation cannot be solved overnight with a 4 step method. As Pollyanna-ish as I tend to be, even I know that life can hand us some pretty big problems that aren’t easily fixed.

So, if all else fails, sometimes we just need to :

Grab a Nice Vodka Drink

Grab a Good Night’s Sleep and

Get Back to Work the next day.

And if you’d like to come shovel manure with me to get some perspective, we’ve got plenty. Trust me; it works.

We show up with pitchforks and passion,

with Carhartts and compassion, and a whole lot of courage.

We are not slowed down by the blizzards and gale force winds of winter, or the roasting heat and dust of summer.

Day after day, week after week, month after month…adding up to thousands of hours, we are not deterred in our mission to serve horses and riders.

I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It’s a tribe, a family, really. I’ve volunteered at a lot of places in my life: schools, churches, as a court appointed special advocate; but the Hearts and Horses volunteers are the most dedicated, passionate, wonderful group of people I’ve ever met.

We’re just regular folks. Some of us have a lifetime of horse experience, others of us are just figuring out how to catch a horse and put them in a halter. One might argue that we’re sort of eccentric and a little weird outside of the HH home, but here, we fit in. We have a place. We understand each other and the mission: “to promote the physical, cognitive, emotional and social well-being of people with special needs through equine-assisted therapy.” And we dedicate our bodies and souls to it entirely.

Driving up the winding road Carter Lake Road, I can bet every volunteer feels like me: a sense of excitement, a lowering of blood pressure, a gut feeling that we’re probably going to witness some kind of miracle today.

And when we step out of our cars, it’s like we step into a cocoon of support and kindness and passion. We hear the leaves rustling in the giant cottonwood trees and the sound of horses whinnying for their breakfast. We hear children laughing as their parents round them up for their lesson and we hear wheelchairs and walkers clicking into place to bear their rider to the arena. We take a huge happy breath and smile and know we’re home for a little while.

The days can be a whirlwind of activity: miles and miles of walking, brushing, catching, tacking, setting up arenas, tearing down arenas, chasing wayward kids, cleaning up the occasional vomit, wiping a snotty nose. Our feet hurt sometimes and we often can’t feel our fingers or our faces in the winter. We take turns throwing the Western saddles on the tall horses, based on whose back doesn’t hurt that day.

It doesn’t matter if we’ve seen each other a few minutes ago, we always exchange a smile or a joke or a nod of the head as we pass each other, leading our horses to and fro.

And sometimes, we get the treat of sitting down to lunch together, wolfing down a hodgepodge of what we brought in our brown bags, some leftover cookies from a few days ago, and using the chili pepper from last week’s pizza. We joke and tease each other, and occasionally share a tear over a poignant ride.

We all have our reasons for being there. We don’t often ask why, we just get it. We understand that many of us see Hearts and Horses as an escape from a world that is often cruel and devoid of miracles. We crave the joy and endless positivity we find here.

We are an army. More than that, we’re a family. We’re the barn cleaners, the horse leaders, the side walkers, the office helpers of Hearts and Horses.