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Big News!
Fantastic news! I am excited to announce that Standing in a Field With Horses is becoming an audiobook! Now you will be able to listen to the book while you drive, do chores, or even fall asleep to it. Audiobooks allow the freedom to listen on the go, which I didn’t fully appreciate until I began driving longer distances to the barn.
I’m lucky enough to have the terrific team at SkyDance Mountain Audiobooks producing it. They are a company that focuses on audiobooks for independent authors and publishers. Having a small business such as this one doing the production means I feel well taken care of. The samples I’ve heard so far sound great, and I can’t wait to share this with you all. I will also be appearing on a podcast interview or two in the near future! The audiobook is arriving on Audible, Spotify, and other audiobook retailers in July. In the meantime, check out some of the existing titles produced and narrated by the SkyDance Mountain team: skydancemountainaudiobooks.com
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Clouds and Horses
I regularly listen to a podcast called The Emerald. It’s one of my favorite animist/spirituality podcasts, part informative, part future-dreaming, meaning searching, trance-inducing journey through cultures and environments both foreign and familiar to me. This latest one, On Clouds and Cosmic Law, held significance because it relates very intimately to what I’m going through now. Thoughts about responsibility and natural law, the ways in which our influence on the natural world inherently changes its influence on us.
I have had such significant questions about why I’m continuing to try and work with horses when it seems that they always come wrapped in human chaos. I find it impossible to experience “horse” right now without also experiencing all the stress and human politics and money woes that come with “horse.” Ideas about what a horse should be clashes harshly with what a horse is. Ideas about what a horse should do crashes into what a horse is doing. Chaos ensues. I want to give up. I want to throw my hands up and walk away and say I’m done with horses. Not because of the horses, but because of the human world they exist within. Sometimes I can hardly bear it.
And then I listen to an episode of The Emerald that talks about the gathering and dispersing of clouds as a natural law, that a cloud has impermanence but the laws behind the cloud’s existence is what is unchanging. That humans have interacted with the natural world in ways that made sense for far longer than our current world of fighting for any amount of resources and control we can get our hands on. We know, deep down, how to ebb and flow. How not to take and take until everything is gone. And at the end of the episode, after having lulled me into a state of trance with the words of elders who know how to give and take in better relationship, a voice speaking of horses. And that was the first and last time it was uttered in the entire podcast. I think the Horse Spirits laughed at me, sitting there swearing at a podcast. “You know you’re not done.” They laughed. “Get up. Get up. There is more dancing yet.”
More about my experiences with horses can be found in my book, Standing in a Field With Horses, available from Amazon, Smashwords, and other book retailers.
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The Third Body
My life has been barely controlled chaos for the past few weeks, but it now seems to be giving me enough of a breather that I’m able to form coherent thoughts. Thoughts of things that I’d never considered in horse/human relationships before, because it’d never been so glaring.
Mildly stealing from the title of a new sci-fi film I’m eager to go see, there is a Third Body in our mutual orbits. The horse and human were the ones I concerned myself with for years. Yet horses are heavily influenced by the third entity. The land. Whether through ingesting grasses, finding shelter from the prevailing winds, or traveling across it, horses are in constant contact with this third entity. As humans, sometimes we forget.
I was starkly reminded of this by the land at this newly established boarding location. It was absolutely uncooperative with what we as horse owners and leasers were trying to force upon it. The initial setup, flat grass paddocks at the bottom of a slope, meant clay soil threatened to turn to slippery mush and deep sucking mud with too much horse traffic in too small an area. It’s temporarily solved by keeping the horses in stalls when it rains, but then the horses show the typical behavior problems that crop up with confinement. They become stressed with pent-up energy and boredom. The alternative is an unkempt wetland bordered by hills full of saplings and dense brush, punctuated by small meadows of native grasses. We’re still in the middle of figuring out ways to preserve the wetland while still giving the horses a better environment to thrive in. We’ll see if things work out the way I hope it will. The land has its own opinions on things, just as the horses do. Forcing it might work, if we had enough resources and heavy equipment. However, it would break the land. It would never be the same, and the area would cease to act as a filter and a buffer for the water. Already the entrance to the property, downstream from the marsh, becomes flooded in heavy rains. Damaging the bottomlands would turn it into a deluge. So we stand and breathe. We find the deer path through the dry areas that we wouldn’t have seen without stillness. We test. “What is your response when we do this? What about this?” Operating within the boundaries of what the land can handle is, frankly, odd in our society. Just like allowing horses to disobey is odd. Just like allowing ourselves to feel is odd. To exist mindful of the non-human partners, instead of using them as a backdrop for our own story is something that I’m still continually growing into. It’s a necessary, but sometimes difficult, shift.
For more on the beginnings of my time with horses, check out my memoir, Standing in a Field With Horses. It’s available from Amazon, Smashwords, and several other book vendors.
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Changing Worry
I walked Rex for the first time in almost two months and found that I had changed. Between an illness, a new project at work picking up, and leasing a horse again, I had not been able to do more than stop to visit with Rex in the pasture for a few minutes every week or so, just to show him that I still existed. For a while I let others entertain him on Saturdays. This is the benefit to not owning a horse, I’ve found out. You can be absent for a while without worrying that they’ll be feral when you return.
I spent some time learning how to let things happen without trying to shape it with worry. For a long time I thought that if I cared about something then I should spend mental energy worrying about it, and somehow that would convey to the universe that it should go how I want. More recently I’ve tried a new strategy. I ask myself “am I going to change my actions and make a change in the situation?” If the answer is yes, then I take that action. If the answer is no… I work on dropping it entirely from my mental space. It’s difficult. Worry has a way of sneaking up and grabbing you, pulling you into a circle, tugging on your thoughts. Wrestling free of it takes effort. Still, something has changed.
I walked with Rex up the neighbor’s driveway, where we hadn’t been before. That neighbor had told the barn owner last week that they could use some of the property, including the driveway, for hand walking the ponies. Rex was excited and a little nervous. As we walked I sometimes had to bring him in a circle around me to use up some of that nervous energy. Before, I would get a sort of tense rushing feel in my chest when Rex was like this. With the practice in releasing worry, though, I found I could identify and release the feeling faster. It no longer built up. In return, Rex grew calmer as we walked on, not more antsy. It was a great experience that I hope will repeat in the future.
I have a potential surprise in the near future for the book! Stay tuned…
To find out more about Rex and the other horses, read Standing in a Field With Horses, a Memoir of Equine Connection. Available from Amazon, SmashWords, and other book distributors. -
Riding the Line
In working with horses I’ve been lucky enough not to run up against time limits very often. Time limits like “we have to get this horse ready for this show,” or “the farrier comes in two weeks and if this horse can’t be trimmed then it’s feet will start degrading before the farrier comes around again.” Many horse trainers are slotted into 30, 60, or 90 day “colt starting” limits that are dictated by how many horses they can train at one time and how much money their clients can reasonably spend on training. Time limits, in our human world, are inevitable.
I am finally faced with a limit, though I am reasonably sure I’ve left enough time for us not to feel the squeeze by the due date. I have a young horse I’m offering to help get ready for a trailer ride to a new home. Like Rex, he hasn’t been on a trailer since he arrived as a yearling. Unlike Rex, he’s large pony/small horse height. Trailer loading, if he takes a fright at the wrong moment, can get dicey. So, I’m riding the line for the first time in a while between “just get it done” and “stay below threshold.”
Thankfully this horse is trusting of people and has a really good foundation in ground handling. It also helps that he’s a pretty steady guy, willing to investigate things instead of running from them immediately. I just have to stay focused on the present and not get anxious about the “what if’s.”
To help with this, I’m using the same tool that I learned from some of my early riding lessons. In those, focusing on an outside objective kept my mind off of all the things that could go wrong. I was fetching a hula hoop from a post to hang on a barrel across the arena for the riding exercise. For this “intro to the trailer” exercise I was fetching a lantern from where I had hung it on the trailer door. The horse getting familiar with approaching and then leaving the open trailer was a “side effect” while I stayed focused on the primary task. It worked to keep me calm, even while feeling waves of nervousness coming from the horse. It kept him below threshold, having someone attached to him who knew exactly where they were headed at all times. Hopefully this can be extended to steps into and out of the trailer, with some pauses for investigating and snorting at the strangeness. Everything is still just experimenting and seeing how it affects the horse. We’ll see how we do with a deadline, riding that edge without going over.
If you’d like to hear more about Rex, early riding experiences and more, it’s all in my memoir, Standing in a Field With Horses. Available on Amazon, Smashwords, and other online bookstores. Now also available from small business stores! If you own a small business and would like to carry my books, please get in touch through my Contact page.
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When “Truths” are a Lie
One of the hardest parts of understanding horse welfare has been the lies and omissions that pervade equestrian activities. Shortly after I took my first riding lesson I went to watch a four star eventing competition. I studied the professional sport riders, hoping to see what “real” riding looked like. However, I was confused by how wound up the horses appeared much of the time. “That’s what a high level horse is like,” I was told, “they’re really hot blooded.” One dressage test involved a horse wringing it’s tail every time it was asked to move into a different gait or switch leads. I asked about it, and was told this is how horses stay balanced and upright while being ridden. By flipping their tails back and forth rapidly. Not every horse did it, though, so it was confusing to me. I wonder if the person who told me that truly believed that, or if it was something they told me just to stop my questioning.
In the subsequent years of handling and observing horses, it became frustrating for me to hear different “truths” about what a horse was expressing or thinking from the horses’ behavior vs from the people surrounding me. A horse bucking and shaking its head after every jump was “excited,” a horse standing stock still without breathing was “calm” in the crossties. They were sensitive but thick skinned in the same breath. Lame in one leg and naughty in misbehaving under saddle. A professed soulmate and proclaimed idiot. It made my head spin. How could a horse be avoiding work by “faking” an asthma attack pre-lesson, yet also not have the foresight to know that knocking over their water bucket meant being thirsty all night? How could it be both? Yet somehow it made perfect logical sense to the more experienced horse trainers and owners. I was the one who didn’t know how horses worked.
The truth is we need people from outside of the equestrian world in order to change the equestrian world. There are some things that do require knowledge of horses to understand the nuances, but many times the anecdotal “truths” about horses break down under scrutiny. We need adult beginners to ask WHY and then follow up with “no, that doesn’t make any sense.” When people start as children they absorb whatever they’re told as the truth because it comes from a trusted adult. Adults have a keener nose for bullshit. Adults are fully aware of their ability to say “no, and I’m taking my money elsewhere” if things don’t compute. I think as more folks are attracted to horses as adult amateurs, we may start seeing more rapid change in how horses are treated, both in and out of horse sports.
Maeve Birch is a horse enthusiast trying to find a better way to be with horses. Find the beginning of her explorations with horses in her memoir, Standing in a Field With Horses, available from Amazon, Smashwords, and other online bookstores.
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Celebrating a Year of Standing in a Field With Horses
It’s been just past a year since I first released my book in eBook form. Since then more than 200 people have at least purchased my book, if not read it. More folks in the horse world have begun trying to figure out how to change the way they relate to horses. More have simply been introduced to a different point of view, certainly not just by my book but by the slow rolling wave of autonomous horse advocates, gentle horse handlers, and emotionally savvy trainers online and in the media. At the same time, there have been horrors of horse abuse at top-tier barns exposed, more horses dumped into the slaughter pipeline, and the casual disregard of horses’ emotional lives. There is still such a long way to go.
What has become obvious to many is that not only do horses benefit from better horse welfare, humans do too. Unfettered from the clash between emotional awareness and dominance theory, humans are able to follow their intuition into better relationships with horses. Calmer, closer, more trusting relationships. They’re able to recognize that the things that make sense with horses then also make sense when relating to other humans. We are all, at the core, social animals. We, too, only want to feel safe and be treated well in our relationships with others. Horses are just more honest about it.
I hope you’re able to take some slow moments during this holiday season, whether it’s with your horses, with fellow humans, or even just with nature. Find a little pocket of breathing room and let yourself feel whatever you feel just then. I know it has helped me.
You can find my book, Standing in a Field With Horses on Amazon, SmashWords, and other online book retailers. If you’ve read it, leave a review! Thank you so much.
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New Herds, New Discoveries
It’s been so many weeks since I last posted. I think whatever algorithms drive social media traffic have probably forgotten about me, but oh well. Sometimes things in real life are moving fast and you just don’t have any words that can be shared with a wide audience. That’s fine.
I’ve been getting to know some new horses, since I’ve been presented with an opportunity to interact with another herd. This group is much younger, with one foal being only a weanling. It’s been so interesting learning how the group dynamics change with a baby in the mix. When Rex was a baby he was kept with his mother away from the rest of the herd until he was around a year old and about to be weaned. Most foals are weaned much earlier, at around six months. That’s the case with this foal, who now lives with some other youngsters in the 2-3 year old range, and one older gelding.
I was surprised to learn that babies are treated like, well, babies. The other horses are very gentle with him and he’s allowed to stand anywhere he wants at the hay pile without being driven off. The other horses just eat around him. One gelding in particular has taken up a sort of uncle role and shepherds the little foal around the field. When I first arrived this gelding kept the foal away from me, but as he got to know me better and I hung out in the field more, he’s discovered that I deliver excellent face scratches, and the foal has been sniffing my jacket and nosing my hand while I’m scratching his uncle’s ears. It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, and it takes a goodly amount of self control not to fixate on the adorable youngster. If I do then he scampers off.
There’s always something new to discover when hanging out with horses. I look forward to getting to know this new herd and learning from them this winter.
If you’d like to learn more about my past adventures with horses, read my memoir, Standing in a Field With Horses, available on Amazon, SmashWords, and other online book stores.
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Dark Season
Well daylight savings time ending has hit me like a truck, as it does every year. Those of us who have full time jobs outside of horses must squeeze in horse time in the cold and dark. The horses are fuzzy and don’t fit any of their tack, the barn cats are instantly in the lap of anyone who sits down for more than a few seconds, hoping for warmer paws. Picking out hooves by headlamp… it’s tempting to just get the barn chores done and go home. The horses would certainly be content with just ’round the clock munching of hay.
Yet, I have a lease horse this winter, and I’m trying to get to know him and form some semblance of relationship in these dark months. I get to the barn after it’s already dark, find the horse by flashlight and pray that none of the other horses interfere as we exit the field. I brush him, pick his feet. We hand graze in the small lit area of the yard, or I go to the outdoor ring to drag poles across the dimly lit sand to make pole mazes and trot patterns for us to navigate together. I’m not sure either of us are fully motivated to do much, but we are at least learning each other’s body language and personal preferences for interacting. Maybe by the end of February we’ll know each other well enough that we can begin doing more outside of the arena, when the trails will be navigatable by the setting sun. In the meantime, simple meetings in the cold dark of the year.
Find more horsey adventures in my first book, Standing in a Field With Horses, available on Amazon and Smashwords.
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Fall is Book Reading Season!
It’s November, and we’ve had chilly weather here on the east coast for the past few days. Soup weather. Cozy blanket weather. Book weather. It’s also time for me to begin thinking about holiday gifts for friends and family. It sneaks up on me every year, and by December I’m always so busy.
If you’re looking for a wonderful holiday gift, or even a good book to read on these cold dark evenings, check out Standing in a Field With Horses: A Memoir of Equine Connection. When you’re done reading, don’t forget to leave an Amazon review! Only 7 more reviews to go until we reach 20 and I have another prize drawing. 😊 Help us reach the goal!
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