Nothing Happening Here

I wish! Been really busy getting ready for the workshop on August 5th. More about that later, though....

I've been reading Linda Kohanov's book "The Tao of Equus." Fascinating stuff, I highly recommend it for pretty much anyone, horse lover or not. Among many other things, she discusses doing nothing with her horses, as in she just hangs out with them and soaks in life. Through doing nothing, she gained valuable insights and a constantly deepening relationship with her equine companions.

The other day I tried this. I had no idea how busy I can make myself. I've always considered myself fairly laid back, able to avoid doing anything quite skillfully. So I figured, how hard can this be? I threw a bareback pad on my equally laid-back Wilma, hopped on and took her out to the pasture so she could graze and I could just sit there and do nothing.

Except....I found myself getting impatient with how long it would take Wilma to decide a particular patch of grass was eaten enough and move on to another. I started seeing things in the pasture I thought deserved a closer look. I wondered if the fence on the other end of the pasture had indeed been removed and wanted to find out. Hey, Wilma, let's go look at that...

Excellent teacher that she is, Wilma pretty much ignored my attempts to get her to move until I was just so annoying she would shuffle forward a few feet and then quite emphatically plant her hooves. We did this several times until it occurred to me what I was doing. I was being BUSY. This was not the same as doing NOTHING.

I got on Wilma with the agreement that we would do nothing together. She could graze, I'd sit there and enjoy the scenery from her broad back. And then I broke the agreement by trying to move her to (what I thought was) a better patch of grass, or over there to that weed that maybe I could pluck while sitting on her. She was quite content to let things flow. "Busy, busy human, just enjoy the sun and being together and get on with doing nothing!" My mare is always kind with her reprimands.

So I stopped directing, started flowing, and just sat there. I let my mind idle as I listened to the birds, and realized just how often planes fly over our house and disturb the silence. I watched Wilma choose the tastiest pieces of grass and pull them into her mouth, and reveled in the contentment created by her munching. I felt the sun on my back. I guess I was still a little busy with all this observation, but at least I let Wilma alone. It's a start.