This and that

I'm finding blog entries to be unruly devils. This one in particular was giving me a lot of trouble. It is not that I could not think of anything to write about. The problem is more the opposite -- as soon as I started writing a post about one thing EVERYTHING else about which I've considered writing wanted to come in too and I was left with an incoherent jumble of thoughts. The “delete” button has been getting a good workout lately.

For some reason (perhaps it has to do with the author’s recent death), J.D. Salinger’s novel, “The Catcher in the Rye” has been coming to mind, even though more than 40 years have gone by since I read the book. The thought was so persistent, that, as an experiment, I decided to look at some favorite quotes from the book and see if they led me anywhere that has to do with horses. Here's what happened:

People always think something's all true. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 2

This brought to mind our tendency to seek out teachers and gurus and experts and clinicians in an effort to have a better relationship with our horses. A man (or woman) achieves a certain something with some horses, writes about it or makes a film, and we beg them to teach us what they do, exactly how they do it. We want step by step directions so that we can build that perfect souffle... and in doing so we forget that we’re not building a souffle, we are trying to create a relationship, build a friendship.

Very often in the process of trying to put someone else's method into practice or just follow instructions, we forget all about the horse whom we want to befriend. In trying to diligently follow the guru’s prescription for “happiness in relation with horses” we run our would-be friend around a round pen to the point of exhaustion, damaging his body and his spirit; we up the phases of “punishment” exactly as directed(what does that do to a friendship?); we decide to keep our horse by himself in a small pen, in sight of other horses but unable to interact with them, so that he’ll be more eager to engage with us because that is what our teacher recommends ("you'll interact with me whether you want to or not"); or we put our timid horse out in a large herd of horses in an overcrowded paddock where he is bullied, run ragged, and kept from his hay because the expert we’ve consulted says that this is good for him ("it's for your own good, builds character").

What I’ve noticed is that different horses respond differently... to diet, to the weather, to insect bites, to herd mates, to me, to a request given in a certain way, ... to almost everything. Each of the three horses who share my life communicates with me in his/her own unique way; each hears me differently. No “method”, no set of step-by-step instructions can take into account all that individuality and variability.

In “Empowered Horses” in the section titled “About this Book” Imke Spilker writes: “Where your own personal communication with a horse is concerned, there can be only two experts. One is reading this book just now. The other will know that you have read it.”

Even that is not always all true. Sometimes, a third party -- another expert, four-legged or two-legged -- can help the two experts -- you and your horse -- communicate better.

:-)

People never notice anything. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 2

When I read that, I thought: That could be a horse saying that. It is so true... we human beings usually just do not notice when horses communicate with us in their own quiet, subtle way. Sometimes the horses go to greater lengths to get our attention -- they buck, or rear, or run away as we approach. The push us, bite us, kick out at us. Eventually we finally notice that something is wrong -- but what usually happens next? Very often, we automatically leap to the conclusion that what is wrong is the horse’s behavior. We consider it a “training issue” and do whatever it is we do to get the horse to behave differently. The real cause of the "problem" goes unacknowledged and untreated.

What would happen if we disciplined ourselves to regularly exercise our noticing muscles, if we diligently practiced paying attention? What would be different?

What has happened with me is that I notice more. I notice my thoughts and feelings as I’m entering the horses’ space. I notice more subtle signs of unease or tension... in myself and in the horses.

I’ve come to realize that “behavior” -- whether I consider it “good” or “bad”, whether I like it or not-- is just information about how the horse is feeling. Instead of focusing on how to get a horse to stop behaving in a certain way, I focus on other things. “What happened?” “How did this behavior start?” “What caused this horse to go from feeling good or okay, to feeling bad”?

Or, at any rate, I do my best.

Old attitudes, old habits of thought die hard. Some attitudes are so big and run so deep, they are so much a part of me that it seems as though if they go, I won’t be “me” anymore. Sometimes (in my desire for a certain something) I struggle against what is. Instead of going with the flow of life, I swim against the current. I want the horse to be different than he is. I want me to be different than I am right in this moment. More and more, I notice this. When I do, the feeling passes, like a cloud floating by. Eventually, the next thought or feeling arises. Will I notice when it does?

All morons hate it when you call them a moron. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 6

The second (less common) definition of “moron” and the sense in which I am using it here is: “a very foolish or stupid person.” (New World Dictionary of the American Language).

When we take the bridles and ropes and halters off our horses, when we take them out of the enclosed arena, and give them room to run away, we give up control of them in the moment. (Let us leave aside for the moment the horses that have been so broken in spirit that they are totally under a human’s thumb, under "control", even when they are “at liberty.”)

Then what? What happens when I want a horse to come to me and he doesn’t, when I want him to follow me and he goes the other way?

The simple answer is that I am confronted with my own lack of knowledge and skill. I am brought face to face with my inability to communicate with this being, and the mistakes I’ve made in the relationship.

The horse isn’t calling me a “moron” -- he is just doing what he prefers to do in the moment. But, because I cannot get him to do what I want, I feel like a “moron." I feel like an extremely stupid person.

Feeling stupid and/or powerless and/or out of control is neither pleasant nor comfortable. Sometimes it is very frightening. I think that is why people persist in using bits even after they learn how harmful and hurtful they are to a horse. It is why they keep their horses well restrained during every single interaction, even grooming. They’re afraid of their own uncomfortable feelings. They don’t want to face the prospect of being made to look foolish, stupid. They hate the idea of “losing face,” of being called a “moron.”

It is, I think, why Alexander Nevzorov brings up such anger, resentment, even hatred in some people. He bluntly points out the harm done to horses by using them in sports, by forcing bits into their mouths, by shoeing them; he calls out stupidity and cruelty as he sees it, and he usually has facts at hand to prove that what he sees is so.

It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 9

What if bits were actually good for horses instead of harming them? What if all riding -- no matter how bad the rider, no matter how punishing the course or terrain -- built up horses rather than broke them down?

Isn’t that a lovely fantasy? Wouldn't it be great to be able to go ahead and do the things that are fun for us with a clear conscience?

The reality is -- bits and most riding are “crumby stuff” for the horse. They are harmful. Can we still have fun knowing that is so?

"Take most people, they're crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer. I don't even like old cars. I mean they don't even interest me. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake." ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 17

As far as I know, J.D. Salinger wasn’t a horse person. What struck me as interesting about this quote is that he recognized horses as sentient beings, as being essentially different from cars. Yet, so many horse people -- who should know better -- treat these intelligent, sensitive beings like objects, like cars, for example -- they no sooner get a fancy horse and they start thinking about trading "it" in for one that’s even fancier. They worry about a minor injury -- an unsightly scrape -- to the horse’s body but are oblivious to the condition of the horse’s spirit. They communicate with this feeling thinking creature as though with an appliance... push here, pull there, whack hard if it doesn’t function as expected.

"........ you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry." ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 24

This made me think of groundbreaking books, books that offer us a different perspective than the ego-based human one, books like “Black Beauty”, “Kinship with all Life”, “Empowered Horses”, etc. It made me think of the websites like that of the Communicative Horses and Nevzorov Haute Ecole. And, it made me think of the bloggers out there, like my friend Lynne Gerard, keeping a record of their troubles and their joys... sharing their experience of a different way to be with horses, making history, creating art and poetry.

Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 26

Don’t ever start questioning anything. If you do, you start questioning everything. Kris McCormack, “Words about Horses”

:-)