Talking Horses

Had a chance to talk with one of my favorite people the other day.

Ok, I don’t like very many people, so maybe that’s not much of a compliment.

D.W. is a horseman.

He starts a lot of ponies for a lot of people around here.

Good at roping.

And a decent guy.

One reason I enjoy talking to him is that he’s one of the few people who understands the threads that connect a lot of things that don’t look connected to the untutored eye. In our discussions we’ve explored many times the foundational similarities between horsemanship and, for example swordsmanship. Or dance. Or skiing.

This was one of those times.

I’d just watched him work with a particularly difficult horse (bad history of abuse before he was rescued) in the round pen, and also had the extraordinary opportunity to work with three ponies, myself, while D.W. coached me. Afterwards, we had a chance to sit, have a coffee, and reflect.

In situations like that, I like for him to talk while I listen.

One of the things he says about his approach is that if you give the horse what he needs, he’ll give you what you want.

First, the horse has to have his physical survival assured.

Then to feel secure and safe. Next is a social need, to be part of the herd – which, of course reflects back on survival, doesn’t it? After that it’s about knowing his place in the herd, dominance or non-dominance. Then, at a higher level, when the right horse finds the right job, he does it like he was made to do it, like he really enjoys it so much, he might do it even if some two-legged wasn’t asking him to.

If this all sounds strangely familiar, it’s because this is pretty much Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

It made me think about the highest need in that pyramid, what Maslow called “self-actualization.” This would be that thing that you love to do, that’s so rewarding, so satisfying that you’d do it even if there were no such thing as time and no such thing as money. It’s the thing that feels “right” to you, the thing that you were made to do. It’s the activity where what you do and who you are, are the same thing...

There’s a trail my partner and I ride. At one point, if we go to the right, we go to a big old hayfield and walk the perimeter. If we go to the left, there’s a flat, grassy clearing that’s a natural arena, that we’ve used to trot and canter some circles.

Last time we went out, when we were approaching that fork in our road where we had to choose which way to go, I let his reins out all the way to the buckle, and took my leg completely off. I closed my eyes, tried to remain centered and relaxed – kind of “non-existant.”

I wanted him to choose which way to go.

He chose the arena.

And as soon as we got there, he picked up a trot, and then a canter…

I picked up the reins at that point, feeling like he’d invited me to play, and it would have been rude to refuse.

But I followed his lead.

We trotted when he felt like trotting, cantered when he felt like cantering.

Then, when he was finished, we stopped and ate some grass before heading back home.

Most people say horses (and humans) will always do the easier thing.

And maybe most of the time it’s true.

But not always.

Not when a horse (or a human) is motivated by the need for self-actualization.

I think, to my intrepid companion, cantering feels good because it makes him really feel like a horse, like the ultimate cosmic expression of “horse.”

What’s your “self-actualization?”

Are you doing it?

If not, why not?

Tempus fugit, daddy-o.

sj