Saturday, October 9, 2010

Lessons from Thunder




During the time I was active on the NHE forum and in the online school, I became quite close with several people there, and got to know them and the horses in their lives through their postings,photos, and, particularly, the diaries we all kept. Through emails and phone calls we maintained and developed our friendships in the years since I left the school and forum, but we never met “in person.” That changed a bit this past week-end (October 1st - 3rd, 2010) when my long time, real-life friend, Karen, and I made the 6.5 hour drive to Saint Saveur, Quebec where the NHE seminar hosted by Michael Bevilacqua and Cloé Lacroix was held.


Those of you who are regular readers of this blog are already familiar with Thunder. (Those of you who are not can read here: Thunder stories). He and his person, Cloé, have long been an inspiration to me. Meeting them ‘in the flesh’ was my main reason for attending the seminar. An added attraction was the opportunity to meet Michael, (whom I knew only through his writing in Natural Horse Magazine and on the NHE forum), and to actually see him interact with horses.


Our two sessions with the horses, one on Saturday afternoon and one on Sunday afternoon (which I missed because we had to leave) took place at the facility where Thunder and his herd mates live. We were expecting to be joined by Thunder, Miss Cue, and Tiki -- the three horses whose person Cloé is -- as well as two other horses whose people had kindly given 15 strangers permission to spend time with them.


We came to the pasture, greeted the horses and made our way to the fenced arena where we would be working. Thunder, Miss Cue, and Tiki came with us to the arena. So, did Sybil, a lovely black mare. The fifth horse had a last-minute change of mind and chose to hang back. Instead, Taco, an unexpected arrival, made it clear he wanted to participate, so he came into the arena with us, too.


So, there we were -- 5 loose horses and 17 people (including Michael and Cloé) together in a large fenced paddock. Michael began working with one person and one horse at a time to teach the proper use of the "cordeo" and, more importantly, how to recognize and acknowledge when a horse is saying “no” or “not right now.” While he was doing that, the 4 other horses -- loose in the same arena with the 15 or so human attendees -- were teaching lessons of their own.





Tiki, shown below with Cate, was moving from person to person, testing each one’s skills at finding and scratching an itch. She reminded me of a wine connoisseur at a marathon wine-tasting. If a person found the right spot and had the right touch, Tiki would linger for a while in scratch heaven. If the scratching was not entirely to her liking or, if an otherwise good scratcher’s attention wandered, Tiki would walk off to the next person. In all fairness to Cate, Tiki had been with her for quite some time clearly enjoying Cate’s expertise at scratching itches. I didn’t get any photos of that -- just this last one as Tiki was about to walk away.








Thunder was teaching, too, and I managed to get photos of a few of his lessons.


In this first series, he is showing us a horse’s subtle “no.” Cloé asks him for a kiss ..... and you can see that he refuses. What is noteworthy is that the very obvious connection between horse and human is not broken off just because the horse says “no.”













Here is another example of “no.” Cloé asks Thunder to put his leg on the chair, something he learned to do long ago.... He refuses this request, too, but stays near Cloé and remains calm and attentive.






A bit later on, Cloé asks again for a kiss.







This time Thunder changes the subject.

He decides to practice his zipper-pulling skills. Notice how Cloé goes along with Thunder’s idea..












Thunder taught another very important lesson to anyone who happened to be paying attention at the time. Unfortunately, I did not get photos... but here's what happened:


Cloé was asking Thunder to "back to the hand" -- something he and she have done together for years. She was standing a few feet behind him with her hand raised, giving him the usual signal. Thunder did NOT BUDGE from the spot. He was attentive to Cloé (you could tell by his ears and his expression) and he knew what she was asking, but he did not move one millimeter rearward. What Cloe did not notice was that Taco was close behind her with his rear end pointing toward Thunder's rear end. If Thunder had gone along with Cloé's request just then and backed up, he would have been making a very aggressive move toward Taco, probably prompting a double barreled kick that would most likely have connected with Cloé !!!!


When Thunder didn't move after a couple of requests, Cloé went to his head to reassure him.



At the same time Taco walked away. After a few moments,Cloé went back to her position behind Thunder and tried again. This time he backed up beautifully. :-)


A bit later when Cloé came back to the sidelines, I asked her if she knew where Taco had been when she first asked Thunder to back up. No, she had no idea. When I told her, she realized that Thunder had likely saved her from serious injury. What a lesson in awareness those two horses gave us!


I do not know if anyone else at the seminar saw those few moments but I found that lesson very moving.... a wonderful illustration of the NHE maxim: “the horse is always right.”







Thunder says "yes" to a kiss.



To see some lovely photos of this event, photos taken by Catherine Scott (Cate), click here: Cate's photos

15 comments:

  1. Gosh, this post made my heart come open and my mind run back in time, hoping I have been trusting and listening to my horses. The way you wrote it is so understated and powerful -- in the end its as if the horse is speaking as much as you are writing. I am going to share this with the people who interact with my horses. Thank you. Lori

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  2. p.s. it would have been so easy to get caught up in my ego at an event like that, wanting to "show off" the relationship between me and my horse. But she didn't. She stayed true and true and true.

    Lori

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  3. I love these lessons Kris. So much is going on in these wordless dialogues between Cloe and Thunder, which you so marvelously captured with your third eye. One senses the ease and the depth of understanding between these two friends, even in the act of Thunder saying "no."

    But actually, he is not really saying no, he is engaging her in a conversation "yes, Cloe, ....but, my friend..... consider this!" It is wonderful that there was space in this seminar for spontaneous interactions of this sort and for the horses to take on active roles as teachers and be heard.

    No matter how you look at it, a clinic remains a planned event driven by a human agenda and the desire for things to "go well." I wonder if Thunder had a sense of the contrived nature of this event, and was deliberately doing his own thing as if to say, look I want to support you Cloe but I am not going to pretend I am a push-button toy.

    Lori, you sum it up quite well, Cloe stayed true, and so did Thunder.

    Kris, thank you for capturing and sharing these precious moments. I wish i could have been there...

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  4. Thanks, Kris!

    I'm so happy for you that you finally got to meet your friend Cloe - isn't it amazing how we can be such good friends, almost like sisters, with somebody we have never seen "face to face"?

    Your post really gives me a nice picture of Cloe and Thunder from a new perspective and it shows the beauty of the relationship where a conversation can take place between friends as equals.

    Vicki Reesor(ponysong on NHE forum)

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  5. Very nice photos of in-the-moment reciprocity between horse and person and protectiveness too.

    Máire

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  6. Thanks for reporting on this event and for the great photos! Very nice.

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  7. thank-you for these great stories and photos.
    wonderful to see the spreading of horse knowledge around the world! i was with you all in spirit,
    love kathie(leavinlois on NHE forum)

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  8. Kris,

    Thank you for the wonderful photo’s and the story about Thunder and Cloe. What I find especially great about you is that you always seem to notice things that seem small, but are o so important. The photo’s show a step by step conversation between Thunder and Cloe and I bet they are very interesting for Cloe to see too. She is “in the process” and that is always different from when you look from a little distance. Now she can look at the photo’s afterwards, which I think will be very nice for her.

    Miek

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  9. Every time I see in the blog roll that you've posted something, I feel like I have just tripped over on an enormous diamond thas has a "finders keepers" post-it in it <3

    Thanks for the pic link! Almost felt like being there to see pics after reading your notes.

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  10. How fortunate we are to experience some of this NHE seminar. My favorite bit is how Thunder refrained from backing when asked because a potentially dangerous outcome may have resulted. Reminds me how broad and open our awareness around horses must be, and how right it is to not punish "disobedience".

    Thank you for these lessons from Thunder.

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  11. Thanks everyone, for reading and commenting --
    Vicki and Kathie, what a lovely surprise to see some new readers to this little blog.... It *was* wonderful to meet some cyber friends face-to-face -- and interesting to already know someone really well when you see them for the first time.

    Eva, your comment about Thunder's 'no' being more a "yes, my friend, but consider this..." is right on. An emphatic "no" would be a horse moving determinedly away, at speed. This was, as you pointed out, a horse very happy to stay with his person, very attentive to her, AND very comfortable expressing his own opinion. Thunder's calm and confidence are a testament to the relationship he and Cloé have.

    Lynne, it was a privilege to be able to witness that interaction between Cloé, Thunder, and Taco... and I'm grateful for the reminder to continue cultivating "broad and open awareness."

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  12. Hi Kris,

    Great feedback about what you liked in this Seminar. I think it is safe to say that most participants enjoy those " Horse sessions" as they are more entertaining then the "Technical" presentations.
    The only thing I don't agree for the participants sake is that:

    "Michael began working with one person and one horse at a time to teach the proper use of the "cordeo" and, more importantly, how to recognize and acknowledge when a horse is saying “no” or “not right now.” While he was doing that, the 4 other horses -- loose in the same arena with the 15 or so human attendees -- were teaching lessons of their own."

    Even yourself you have missed some interesting interactions.

    I think people should be aware that you don't only " Spread the horse knowledge..." but you are a good promoter as you gave all participants "LIZ LOVELY" organic cookies (which I am eating now while typing) for those who don't know this Vermont company see www.lizlovely.com
    Who knows this has the potential to become a tradition at Seminars or Workshops among horse owners!

    Monica B.

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  13. Thank you for reading and commenting, Monica.

    You're absolutely right when you say" "Even you yourself have missed some interesting interactions." I'm sure I missed many, many more than I actually perceived... and I think that's true for any participant in, or observer of, a situation like this where a lot is going on all at once. If I put my full attention on one thing, I'm automatically not paying attention to the other things that are going on in other parts of the large arena.

    There were moments I observed and photographed, there were moments I observed but did not manage to photograph, there were moments happening just in the periphery of my awareness -- I was aware of them, but my attention was not fully on them. And there were the moments of which I was not at all aware. :-)

    At any rate, as a report on the seminar overall, my little blog entry would be a colossal failure. I just wrote an entry on a few moments of that event....

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  14. Being there and not hearing a single word Michael said I was aware of many very beautiful moments! And what I didn't notice... well it was all perfect too whether I witnessed it or not. <3

    I love reading your words about very special friendships.

    It was great meeting you Kris!

    OK, I have to go get a cookie now... ;)

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  15. It was great meeting you, too, Cate!

    I agree -- it was all perfect, whether I happened to notice it or not.

    Is that a Liz Lovely cookie you were going to eat? I hope so... I really want this company to succeed. I don't know what I would do for a cookie fix if they went out of business. I've even got my 93 year old mother hooked. Her downfall is the Lemon Coconut gluten-free variety.

    Mine are the Cowboy Cookies... or the Chocolate Moose Dragons ... depending on my mood.

    What's yours?

    :-)

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