When I brought Cherish into the arena, I went straight for the cones. We did some figure 8 around the two cones, with little success on the "flow" part. I was not using my body language, nor was I employing lightness, nor was I really mentally into it. Both of us were extremely bored. I went over to the barrels, to try figure 8 there. Cherish walked one Figure 8 around. For one moment, I thought "Wouldn't it just be so much more interesting to do Touch It? The moment after I thought that, Cherish stepped forward, put her hoof on the barrel and chewed on the edge. I had to laugh at her sense of humor. "So can we stop the Figure 8s now?" Cherish asked. I shrugged, and decided that that was fine. If we weren't enjoying it now, why would we enjoy it in a few minutes, after we had already worked on it for a while? What was the point of doing something if, at the moment, it was completely boring? I made a note to myself to figure out how to make it exciting.... energy!
In order to bring both of our energies up, as we were both lagging slightly by now, Julia and I went to smack the carrot sticks on the barrels... we had seen Linda doing it before, but I had never actually tried it. The harder I smacked the carrot stick on the barrel, and the more times, the more bored and tired I became... I
made a mental note to try and figure out how to get my energy up without either bringing up conflicting emotions or having one tiny, short little spurt and then getting even more tired than before.
Julia and I told a story to each other for much of the trail ride, a story of a turtle who had a large heart and a gift to see people's intentions. Julia let her story come out, planned while ahead, while I listened. Once her voice stopped and her face showed the recognition of her finish, I took a deep breath. My words were thrown out quickly, some of them unexpected by both of us, others only turning and twisting the story further. My brained raced, reaching for words quickly and with little effort, letting them escape from my mouth as they came. The general story was this: He fell into a hole, into a world in under the earth's soil, with a large, white, furry creature with icy blue eyes. He was a "rebel" and was taken to another world through long hallways. The world was dangerous, with "gremlins" which were dragon like things. The turtle didn't know if they were dangerous or not.. He befriended a giant creature who took him in under a large tree, where there was another world there.
Even though the story was a distraction from the world, from the trail ride, and from Cherish, it was the kind of distraction that Julia needed. If she had not had the distraction of the fascinating and calming story, she would have instead had the distraction of thoughts buzzing through her head. By stopping the story when we did, we were able to make sure that both of us were ready to go on and focus fully on the trail ride. She was able to melt into the trail quite easily then, without any further bustle from her brain.
The grass flowed over the valley softly, something that I took hearty note of. The calm of the fields always soothed me. As we walked down the pathway, I realized all of these things about the trail that I hadn't before as my mind slowly explored everything with the tips of its fingers. Both Cherish and I were at a nice place of calm, able to continue on the trail ride well.
As we neared the top of the first slope of the ridge, I chose to stop and enjoy the surroundings while Julia, my mom, Sharlie, and Hope went on up the ridge. Cherish watched the world as I did, both of us completely engrossed in the environment of the place we were in. When we finally turned together, we soared forward happily, first trotting at an elongated stride, then cantering, then finally a slow and calm gallop. We reached the other two horses and the girls with complete joy in our hearts. As I turned to look over the hill, the view from the top of the ridge was breath taking.
After we got back from the trail ride, I believe that I rode Cherish around the obstacle course for a bit. She was too unconfident to get on either of the pedestals, so we just played with the maze, the box formation, the squeeze, the "cavalettis", the arched poles, and the hill. She did fairly well, although she was slightly confused at first with some of the things.
I spent the afternoon, or a part of it anyway, figuring out what I could do with the horses, in specifics - not would. After setting a thing that I could do, I would then work out how I wanted it to look and how I would do it. I would then go and picture all of the ways that you could do each thing, and pretty soon my imagination was going wild.
The other part of the afternoon, I spent reading Carolyn Resnick's blog. I was able to tell both my mom and Julia about how much your expression, intrigue, excitement, and emotions mattered (things that I had known before but had never really thought of telling them to others) when you were playing with your horse. All three of us sat there, dumbfounded, or at least I was - I had known this for the longest time, but it only truly sank in now, when it was repeated to me.
When I went to play with Cherish, I was completely open and expressive. We had an amazing, flowing with ease, time where we played with every single thing in the obstacle course and never ran out of ideas. I had so much fun! Julia came out shortly after that, where I noticed what she was doing... She didn't realize it, I think, and I won't go into detail because it's her story to tell if she wants to. I was glad that I could help though, and I hope that she learned a lot from it - I know that I did.
I never become frustrated simply because I look at everything as an experimentation, as a way to learn, as a way to understand more. Even though I will tell people that my ultimate task goal would be being blind folded and being able to dance with horses, preferably one white and one black, in the middle of a large field with music flowing through us in the dead of night and still being able to sense exactly where they were... That is not my real ultimate goal. This goal simply shows that I would understand horses to the ultimate level, that I would sense physical and spiritual beings at the ultimate level, and that I would be at an ultimate peace. This goal is more the show of my ultimate goal - what comes out of it. Whether I really will ever actually do that never really matters, it's simply that I understand the horse as much as possible, that I sense things as much as possible, and that I am at one and understanding with the world as much as possible. How is "as much as possible"? As far as I get, and that must be as possible as it is for me in the moment.
Julia ended up doing an AWESOME job after that. She sent Sharlie around several circles at phase 2 at the trot, where Sharlie had her ears pricked, neck and back arched, and her gait was SO floating. Julia had the biggest smile on her face, and energy just flying around her. Both she and Sharlie were amazingly caught in the moment and excited. I know that this is one of the most important moments - the moment of connection, the moment of excitement, and the moment of relationship. That is really what it is all about. If she could create that over and over again, and make the tasks more and more refined, she would have absolutely everything that she could ever wish for. Julia looked, and her energy felt, as if she was at such peace..... The beauty of horses and the experiences you have with them.
After that, I went and got Finale and then came back. Finale and I were grazing on the hill, because I always enjoy letting the horse do what they want to first. Suddenly, I saw my mom skipping, SKIPPING, with hope towards us. And what did Hope look like? Hope had her ears pricked forward, her neck and back arched, and her legs floating across the earth. She was so alive, so free. Ah, it was a beautiful thing to see and feel. To see two accounts of that in one day, and then also experience it yourself, is just the most amazing thing. Ah, beautiful. My mom was completely at peace when she approached me. And so was Hope.
We stood and let our horses graze for a while. As we continued, I began to feel this extremely negative energy coming from the right. Finally, I looked over at Julia, assuming that it couldn't be anyone else and yelled, "Relax!" I couldn't see her face expression, couldn't really hear her, but felt her emotion. You can feel negative emotion just as prominently as you can feel positive emotion... and so I do.
After a bit, Julia joined my mom and I grazing. We enjoyed grazing together until it got too dark to see in front of our feet....
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