Several years ago I was asked to work with a cute red and white paint horse pony. In Norman Rockwell picturesque concept, a father and his 7-year-old pigtail blond daughter, had gone partners on a dream of equestrian bliss.
I have always had a passion for sharing my love for horses and the magical experience of riding people, especially with eager “youngens“. And so I had no issues with taking on this project. Seeing that this miniature Annie Ocklie had not been “ahorseback” that much, I worked out a plan with the dynamic duel in which I would work with her little horse on the weekdays and she promised to come out and learn about how to create a partnership with Strawberry .
While talking to the father on the phone before this little mare arrived. He related to me that Strawberry’s former purpose in life was as a carnival pony. Which entailed being tied to a metal bar walking in a circle with other carnival ponies, while little children, lathered in sunscreen and hyped on cotton candy, wiggled ,whining and screamed on her back in five-minute increments. With that same carnival music, and flashing cameras.
Needless to say, after relating this information to a cowboy friend who helped me work with the tough ones, I was given a good share of cowboy humor about the type of rough stock I was having to take in just to pay his wages.
Now Strawberry was around 13 hands high, and round as a pickle barrel, not so short as to have my feet dragging the ground, but still a humorous site for onlookers. She was about eight to ten years old, with kinda “what ever ” disposition, and as gentle as a professional carnival pony can get. There was just nothing the could scare this horse.
Sitting on her back wasn’t a training issue. That little girl could have moved into that saddle till she was twenty, and old Strawberry wouldn’t have cared less. But it became rather apparent that going somewhere was the challenge in this relationship.
She would walk for you, but only in a circle to the left. Everything moved in a circle to the left. And only for four to six minutes. Always and I mean always walking. never trotting or looping. Once you put a saddle on her back. She moved in a slow consistent walk, in a convenient circle to the left, for a short period of time.
I earned my fee and then some opening the door to the right. And little by little it became a straight line. Amazingly enough, she started going to places and become a real horse who wanted to see what was over the hill with someone on her back . Her “horsenality” came up and although we had to “relationship” our way though some insecurities, she became a lot of fun to be with, and in the end a wonderful partner to share in the dreams of a little girl.
It is always an amazingly rewarding feeling when you have the opportunity to help someone with their dream. I believe it the motivation of life to connect in our humanity. See the impossible become reality. It is un-natural of our created humanity to discourage the dreams in others, and only is accomplished by our reaction to our individual disappointments.
We are all dream makers or dream takers.
I have a feeling that about now you’re waiting for me to give you a bunch of clichés about getting out of a route, because I feel the influence of taken the easy road and just say what others said. But I have come to realize that if all we do is quote someone else, it is not real in our lives.
Being created to feel creative, but thinking we must have ordered constancy, leaves us conflicted in our existence.
A few months ago I needed to replace the internet router in our house. I went to the nearest convenient box store. Which conveniently had several different kinds, all conveniently in the same place with in the building itself.
I love *quick and easy,* so that I can quickly and easily get to more important things, that I hope will be quick and easy also. (I like to call this mentality: the horse race with no finish line).
I am a price shopper, and the prices of the different types routers are conventionally located right there below the idem. I never buy the cheapest one, nor the most expensive one. I quickly find the midrange router and simply look at the easy to read institutions. The big selling point for me was when it said, “1,2,3 easy setup”.
Life is so good when we have convenience. We need convenient order and consistency. Getting back to the house. I quickly begin to set it up. (knowing how much of a need there is for the power of WiFi, which magical allows the family to sit in the living room,watch t.v. and Utub at the same time).
Opening up the little set up instruction book, I soon realized that three steps had become seven, and the seventh one opened up to another five steps, and in the end was right back with step zero: having no Wi Fi.
(Now folks by the time I was done, I could have conveniently built my own router with a curling iron, old horse shoes, and extra lawn mower parts in barn).
I have come to see that there is a great conflict between what we believe we need in the physical, and what we were created to want in the spiritual.
We are created to want a spiritual connection with our Creator and His creation of humanity, through feeling. Our lack of response to this reality causes a need for ordered steps of convenience.
Now that l have WiFi again, l can get my steady dose of emails that are intended to help me feel better by meeting a need. I get most that say: Five ways to build your retirement. Three things to know about your credit. Four steps to a stress free life. Two ways to a better relationships with your spouse. One secret you need to know to help you poop.
I’ve noticed also that the bigger of a “hot mess” we are the more steps are involved and the more time must be invested. It take 30 days to love Jesus more. 60 days to lose the weight you wanted and keep it off. 90 days to the yard you’ve always wanted. (And all for only the cost of a cup of coffee a day).
And when your life really sucks, we need the circle steps. 12 steps to sobriety, that brings you back to step 1. There 15 step approach to getting out of debt. Which seems to be headed in a straight line until you actually spent some of the money. Not to mention all programs, meeting and gatherings that must be attended for life, in order to see any improvements to the issues of choice.
The humor in all this is that we have to be taught to live like this. Our physical beings are trained to live in a circle. Our individual circle may cross my cross the path of another’s, but the very idea of the circle is that they quickly go in different directions again. All because of a manufactured need of convenience and simplicity.
It seems that we believe our personal human being powers are most useful when used in the direction of the circle.
(Evidently l was offensive to someone the other day for making a comment that “roundabouts” at traffic intersections are “stupid”.)
I find it intriguing that, for the sake of the presumption of needed convenience, that a straight line with signal lights, which would require interaction with other people in a patient and caring way, is not as safe as controlled chaos of the circle. Apparently other people are an inconvenience.
Watching that little red and white paint pony out in the pasture one evening, I noticed that she did naturally walked and run in straight lines, turn to the right with ease, while grazing and relating to other horses.
It wasn’t that she was created to walk in a circle for five to seven minutes, it was created in her that this was her job/purpose, and as noble of profession as it was, it was a shallow existence.
Perhaps, for the sake of convenience and simplicity and most importantly safety, I should have just convenience that little girl that: “this is what good horses always do. This what good riding is. This is how all horse people ride. We real cowboys/girls always ride in a slow circles, to the left, for six minutes. Isn’t this a wonderful life, just liven the dream! “
I’m often reminded of old Strawberry, when I confuse my job/work, with my the reality of who our Creator is, and what He breathed into our spiritual humanity.
We are created with the DNA of relationship, and recognize that it functions best in a straight lines, at different speeds. (Sometimes with signal lights that turn red.) Always with twists and turns, in all kinds of adverse conditions, inherently dangerous: this is who we are.
It is the spiritual that influences our humanity and motivates our being human.
Back Country Thoughts 