Maeve Birch Home

    • Book Updates

      Two brief but important updates for the Standing in a Field With Horses book:

      • Price has dropped on both Amazon and Smashwords from $6.99 to $4.99 for the holiday season. It’ll go back up in January, so use the opportunity to get yourself the eBook if you want something to read over the holidays!
      • I am working on the paperback version of the book, which will be released sometime in February. Wish me luck, because it’s my first time formatting a printed book! I want to make it beautiful for you all. I’m confident it’ll be much more elegant than the eBook version because I won’t have to worry about it converting between eBook formats.

      I’m spending the rest of my afternoon decorating the house with lights and greenery. The morning was full of feeding drippy horses and scooping soggy manure in the rain. I wish it were snow instead, but we do need the moisture! I hope you’re having a cozy season so far.

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    • Travel and Thankfulness

      I’ve been traveling a lot this week for the Thanksgiving holiday, one part of which was ten hours in an Amtrack train to visit my in-laws. I wasn’t prepared for the ten hours of trying to balance in a constantly rocking train. Even sitting down, my upper body insisted it needed to be more stable than my lower body, making micro-adjustments until my lower back was screaming at me, insisting it couldn’t take anymore. Getting into a car for the final half hour stretch of the trip was a relief, and I immediately fell into bed at my in-laws’ house, apologizing for the lack of socialization.

      I thought about horses who are moved in a rocking, jostling trailer across country and realized, in a pretty physical way, why it’s recommended to stop every few hours to let them have some rest. Travel is exhausting! Mentally and physically. For part of the trip we were seated in the very front of the car where all we could see was a carpeted wall immediately in front of us, and I was so motion sick that my spouse and I asked if we could be moved to different seats. Thankfully, a stop or two away, we were able to move. It’s amazing what a difference a window makes. It was small things like a window, food from the dining car, a walk up and down the train car and a stretch, that made the ten hour journey bearable, even with back pain.

      My holidays are going well, but I know I’ll need to get back on that train again to go home. Perhaps I’ll need to think more like a horse, taking one moment at a time to get through it. Appreciating the small things, a podcast to distract me, a cup of hot tea, when things get uncomfortable. I’ll be better prepared for the next journey.



      Maeve Birch is the author of the eBook Standing in a Field With Horses, available through the buttons on the main page of her website. Note: there has been a price drop for the holiday season! If you enjoyed reading her book, please leave a review on Amazon! As a new author these reviews really mean a lot. Thank you!

    • Good Days, Bad Days, and a Request

      One of the things that continuously tripped me up in learning how to work with horses was that I would make a lot of progress and then one day it would seem like none of it mattered. The horse would suddenly regress, spooking at things they had accepted before, refusing things, getting fidgety, or outright ignoring me.

      “What did I do wrong?” I would ask myself. “It feels like we did nothing.” We would return to basic things that the horse could do and end the session early. I would leave disappointed.

      The following day, the horse would be back to doing the task normally. All my worrying about regression and doing things wrong evaporated. What we tend to forget, as humans, is that animals can also have bad days. When we visit an animal for an hour or so out of their entire day, we have no clue what the rest of their time has been like. Maybe they had an argument with another horse in their field. Maybe a tree crashed down in the woods nearby, causing a field-wide panic. In some cases they legitimately don’t feel well physically. They have a headache or a mild stomachache without obvious symptoms. Just as we have off days, so do the horses. I try to remember this when things aren’t going well, seemingly “for no reason.” I can offer more grace and patience if I’m not wrapped up in the idea that this change is permanent or somehow my fault. The horse has an easier time of it, and so do I.

      I wanted to thank all those who have bought a copy of my eBook, Standing in a Field With Horses, during its launch week. For those who have bought it, I have a request. As a new author with no following yet, it’s difficult to get the book seen by others. If you enjoyed the book then please leave a review on Amazon. If you think others would benefit from the memoir, please spread the word on social media! I’m so grateful for all of your support, and so excited to have this book out in the wide world. It means a lot.

      If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, the buttons on the main page will take you directly to the book on Amazon or SmashWords. I hope you enjoy the book!

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    • Today is the Day!

      Book officially LAUNCHED! Click on either Amazon Kindle or SmashWords link on the maevebirch.com main page. It will take you directly to the respective book sales. I hope you enjoy Standing in a Field With Horses. I will be back to my regularly scheduled blog posts after this weekend. 🙂 If you like the book please leave a review on Amazon or SmashWords. Thank you for your purchase, and please spread the word!

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    • A reminder for tomorrow!

      A reminder that I’m releasing my first book, Standing in a Field With Horses, tomorrow morning, November 13th! Click on the respective buttons on the main page of the maevebirch.com website to be taken directly to the book sales. Because I’m not a well-known author by any stretch of the imagination, getting my book seen by others relies on feedback from readers like you. If you enjoy my book on Kindle please give it a rating and/or review on Amazon. It will help to spread the word by making it show up more on the Amazon Kindle webpage. If you’re not into Amazon, or you don’t have the Kindle app, it is also available on SmashWords, where you can also leave a review! SmashWords has downloadable file formats from epub to pdf. If you feel so inclined, please spread the word via blog, social media, and in person. I hope you enjoy the book, whether you’re an equestrian, a backyard horse enthusiast, or someone outside of the horse world altogether. The hope is that everyone will relate to some part of it. Thank you for being the recipient of this memoir.

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    • Book Launch Sunday

      Three days to launch! Well, less if you count that it’s late afternoon on Friday where I am. I hope you’ll forgive me if I end up doing multiple posts this weekend… Is everything going to go smoothly? Yes. Am I still losing sleep over the launch of my first book? Also yes. Enjoy the book blurb, though, while we eagerly await the launch!

      If you’re not “boss mare” material, can you still work with horses? This was the question Maeve faced each time she interacted with a horse. If it wasn’t in her nature to dominate this animal, could she be around them and still stay true to herself? The equestrian world shouted in unison, “Get after him! Tell him who’s boss!” Yet Maeve couldn’t. When she did, it grated against her soul. Could she successfully navigate a life with equines if her leadership looked different?

      In this moving memoir, Maeve Birch explores the dynamics between traditional horse handling and her communications with horses, which often didn’t align with what she was taught. In the stories shared, human issues such as codependency, lack of boundaries, impatience, violence, and fear crop up again and again, shaping numerous horse and human relationships. Standing in a Field With Horses traces the psychology, spirituality, and social dynamics of a woman trapped between obedience and self-expression along with the horses. As the practice of horse care and behavior study evolves, so too do the humans who cherish their hooved companions. They are inescapably linked together. The horses have a lot to say, if we are still enough to perceive their whispers through the demands of our human psyche. A new way of being with horses is on the horizon. Come, stand in a field and listen closely… You may hear more than you expect.

      Standing in a Field With Horses is available through both Kindle and SmashWords. Sign up on the Maeve Birch home page for more content and updates!

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    • Intuition and Experience

      Intuition, or “going with your gut.” How do you view it? Is it a valuable tool used in gauging a situation? Or does it bow before the irrefutable evidence of experience? In my book, Standing in a Field With Horses, initially intuition, even messages seeming to come from the horses, were dismissed as folly. Of course, the people who had been working with horses for decades had the right answers. Of course, I was imagining what the horses were saying. The evidence was in how well behaved and obedient the horses usually were under the hand of these experienced equestrians. However, as intuition blended with an accumulation of experience and research, it proved useful in finding new and different solutions to horse-human conflicts. Solutions that looked different than the traditional horse handling I’d been taught.

      Intuition doesn’t operate well in a vacuum. We could “intuit” whatever we want about a situation, but without feedback it can quickly veer into fantasy. Intuition with feedback, however, is a significant tool for learning. I feel it in my gut when something might work out if I just tried this… and then I try it and it either works out or fails spectacularly. Lesson learned. Suddenly intuition is transformed into an experience. What have you intuited that led to a valuable lesson being learned? How did it feel in your gut? In your body? Was it accurate?

      Only five more days until the launch of Standing in a Field With Horses on November 13th! I’m so excited to share the journey with you. Find it on Smashwords and Amazon Kindle.

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    • Excerpt from the Chapter: Mirrors

      My barn mentor once told me, “The horse is a mirror where you can see your feelings reflected.”

      If you’re afraid, the horse becomes afraid. If you are calm, the horse is calmed. This is why horses are such good partners in psychiatric and behavioral therapy. They can sense emotions hidden even from the human feeling them and then act on those emotions, bringing them into the conscious awareness of the handler or the attendant therapist’s attention. However, knowledge of horse emotional expressions is needed for the therapy to be effective. Unless those leading the session know what horses look like when afraid, nervous, calm, frustrated, or curious, they won’t be able to interpret the mirrored emotional response. Some of the most sensitive horses are seen as “reactive” or “unpredictable.” They may indeed have some ingrained problems, and/or they may be so in tune with the people interacting with them that they act in strange ways in response to the hidden emotional baggage the humans carry around with them. If they are healthy, alert horses, then they respond as if the emotion were on the surface for everyone to see. Horses are the ultimate empaths. It is up to humans to see them as mirrors and stay curious about what their reactions to us mean. – Standing in a Field With Horses by Maeve Birch

      There are so many parallels between the mental worlds of horses and humans. Both humans and horses are social creatures, living together and trying to read other’s cues. Both want safety, security, and companionship in relations with others. Throughout my early journey with horses is a slowly swelling theme of learning to successfully navigate human-to-human interactions through the less-threatening work of human-to-horse interactions. Many others have also found this to be the case, to the point where equine therapy exists to take advantage of these cross-species skills.

      Less than ten days until the release of my book. I’m counting down! Standing in a Field With Horses will be released as an eBook on SmashWords and Kindle on November 13th. Want updates on the book release and interesting tidbits from the blog? Sign up on our Home page for email alerts!

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    • A Study in Horse

      When I first started working with horses I was given time limits on how long it should take me to do an activity with them. Horses were given a window on how long it should take them to respond to a request. Brushing and tacking up should take ten minutes. Three seconds tops between a cue and the horse obeying. Schedules had to be followed, after all. The next lesson was in an hour. The next feed shift in three. There was no room for dawdling, soaking up precious minutes.

      The difficulty in these human time tables is that horses are an animal that stretches time. Their way of looking at the world is in segments of thought, flowing along on sensations and experiences. They don’t recognize hours or minutes. To look at a horse properly I feel I need a long stretch of simply standing with them to get a real impression. Time disappears. Was it an hour, really? Maybe it was only a handful of minutes but seemed an hour. Maybe I stood there an entire afternoon, absorbing the feeling of Horse. A horse is a big gulp of reality that requires a while to savor fully. It requires my full attention, not busyness of the hands and a continuous stream of words in my mouth.

      When a horse pauses, it’s inside of that pause that deeper understanding seems to occur. A large constellation of possibility opens up ahead of the action. The horse peers into it, considering. Is it safe? Is it useful? They lick their lips. They sigh. They walk into the space and the constellation collapses into a singular line of motion. If we interrupt it, the expansion never happens. An action is a simple cause and effect without the answers to “Is it safe? Is it useful?” I’m still in the process of learning when to press and when to hold, but in the meantime I’m observing. I’m swishing that reality around, waiting for the Horse to appear.



      Standing in a Field With Horses by Maeve Birch will be released as an eBook on Amazon and SmashWords on November 13th. Sign up for blog alerts and book updates!

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    • The Fear of Embarrassment

      All of us have felt the sinking feeling of embarrassment at some point in our lives. Something goes wrong and suddenly you’re wishing you were anywhere else but there. Maybe your heart was racing, you broke out in a sudden sweat, or felt numb. Maybe you got angry or struggled to hold back tears.

      The fear of being embarrassed drives us into fight or flight mode. Our brains interpret it as “risk” even though we aren’t physically endangered by embarrassment. It is a social risk. As social creatures we are hardwired to want acceptance, even if that would require betraying our morals, hiding parts of ourselves, or pretending to be something we’re not. The inner struggle presents itself as fear.

      Horses are absolutely a recipe for embarrassment. They act in unpredictable ways; their responses change from moment to moment. They are huge and powerful, yet held by a paltry strand of rope, the other end of it grasped in your little human hand. Worse, they sense fear and become more nervous in its presence, whether it’s from a real physical threat or your embarrassment. Equids are a catalyst for developing strong emotional skills… or strong emotional disasters.

      In my book, Standing in a Field With Horses, there are plenty of embarrassing moments with horses. It’s the humans’ reaction after recognizing their embarrassment that decides the outcome. In unfortunate cases the horse is the recipient of the human’s anger or fear at being placed in an embarrassing situation. In more hopeful cases the human is able to calm themselves and focus on the situation in front of them instead of the judgement they may receive from their fellow humans. How do we become less affected by the eyes on us when we’re in an embarrassing situation?

      I have found that laughter helps. Besides being a way to inhale deeply and exhale fully, laughter frees us from the pain of ridicule. We are the fool. It’s ridiculous, yes, but non-threatening. Instead of being in a situation where the horse is not “behaving correctly” we are simply playing around. Laughter frees others to laugh as well, a group exhale and a realization that this is not life or death. It is simply how things are going at the moment. The horse, sensing no fear, steps into the trailer. They lift their hoof to be picked out. They stop pacing frantically. They sigh. Perhaps there’s a way through this after all. It was just a silly little thing.

      Don’t forget to sign up for email alerts for blog posts and book updates! Standing in a Field With Horses is released in eBook form on SmashWords and Amazon on November 13th, 2022!

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