Equine therapy

I had a strange dream when I fell asleep last night. Something about a more effective way to pray and some kind of conversation where it is considered surprising that your heart can hurt for more than one person at the same time.

It was kind of a hard night. I was feeling really bad about myself. I am still feeling really strange. I am exhausted, first of all, and I plan on soon taking a nap, but I just feel strange, and jittery is not the word but something like it perhaps without actual jitters, and also just socially really awkward. Like I want to run away from people or can’t find anything interesting to say. Someone asked me ehat I have been up to and this morning I could not even remember even though I am up to some things. I get asked that wuestion on the spot and I try to think about it: enjoying the fall colours? Oh yeah, I have been reacquainting myself with physics and learning Spanish and Japanese and Python and exploring the strange world of options trading, but I never think to mention any of that stuff. I want to tell them something interesting I am up to and I always feel like everything I am actually doing is going to be boring for everyone else?

My heart feels strange. It felt like its brokenness was beyond hope of repair but then something happened that gave me hope.  I don’t know how to make sense of anything. I don’t know what it would take to feel a sense of stability in my life. I don’t know what I’m ‘supposed to’ be feeling as though there were a ‘supposed to’. All I know is meditation helps in a huge way but I really miss spending more time with others just living life and doing some kinds of contemplative practices. Whether I feel like I have faith or not I love contemplative practices because they are often so calming and help me understand how my own organism works so much better, plus it helps me discover what is really true for me and to follow my leadings. I like being around people who like to intuit what they are led to do next and that is one thing that makes me feel right at home with Quakers. I mentioned at meeting today that it feels like home. It is the closest thing to groundedness and safety that I have right now and maybe the community (in the sense of the larger Quaker community) where I feel more at home than anywhefe else.

I am pondering how there are certain things that to me are so important in community for it to feel like community for me. One, space for contemplation and reflection and what Quakers call ‘worship sharing’ but really just an opportunity to share about your life as it unfolds and about your joys and sorrows with others, some of whom are ideally around long enough to watch that process unfold. Another is that they have some kind of fund to help people who are in need in multiple ways, whether they have dire financial needs or have some passion or dream that they need help funding. Sure, you may be able to ask folks for individual support, but that can often be really hard, for so many reasons, and having a fund that can be drawn from for the purpose of helping people be a little happier and more fulfilled is for me an essential thing in community. The third thing that feels essential for community to be community for me is that there is some group of people who are dedicated to listening without judgment and offering some kind of appropriate support when people are in a crisis or simply need spiritual guidance. In the Quaker world there is a committee (Quakers are up the wazoo with committees) that nurtures the spiritual life of meeting and that you can come to with issues and concerns. Really having people that can support a person discern next steps when they have a leading or are trying to find their way out of a crisis makes a big difference.

I met someone today from a part of the state where I once visited an incredible nature sanctuary where a bird sat on my shoulder. He is passionate about equine therapy. I learned that his friend, who I was already acquainted with, also does equine therapy but they have different approaches. He has a practice and writes about it. There are people who focus more on riding, I guess, but he helps people nurture a relationship with the horses. I forget what he called it but I like the term: the interspecies bond and interaction, basically, and there was talk about mirror neurons and the healing of trauma. I feellike this is a genuine leading, something that I would really truly like to do, and it is such a grace for this possibility to have come into my life. Equine therapy, yes, but horse connections and bonding in general, yes, spending much more time with the animals. I used to love horses and I still do but I feel so sad like I lost part of myself. I lost my interest in reading about horses, maybe because I wasn’t spending time with them anyway, and they were not part of my life. It is kind of scary to take steps in this direction: it still breaks my heart that my mother fell off a horse when we were on vacation because the saddle was not put on correctly and… she never wanted to get on a horse again. Then of course my dog was sooo therapeutic but that was wrenched from my heart in the most hurtful way so it is really, really hard to do what I need to get my heart back. I love dogs but dogs hurts too mich right now. I need a connection with other beings, and horses, well, I cannot deny my soul. Horses are also often such natural companions to goats (like me!) . That actually came up today and I was so excited… but so tired so I am not quite sure I expressed the extent of my enthusiasm.

A genuine leading, about something I want to make part of my future that makes me *hopeful* about my future and not feel all alone! I think we both thought this was a serendipitous meeting, like maybe there was a reason he was led to come today. We exchanged contact info and I am excited to read his writing and maybe even try ewuine therapy with him. Just last night I was thinking about different kinds of therapies that might help me heal what is going on with my nervous system. Everything that was coming to mind was so unsatisfying: I love Jung but depth psychology isn’t going to do it. EMDR might be effective to some extent but ideally for me a therapy is a joy in itself. The only thing I could think of was playing with goats, but despite that being the most healing anf therapeutic experience of my life, I was like, that’s not therapy. At least not officially! And besides how am I going to find more time to spend with goats if I do not up and start a goat farm? I feel quite alone in the world around my absolute love of goats but lots of people love horses. Somehow it feels easier to figure out a way to spend more time with horses than with goats. I mean, nobody offers goat riding lessons, though it might be nice if they did. Or on second thought…

I feel like… what is missing in my soul can be found in a connection with horses. I feel like being around horses can make life feel like it is worth living. I had a dream once about a horse that I think was black as night. It was like a spirit guide and it felt deep. This is a leading I want to follow, somehow or other. This could be what helps me relax and not worry so much about the passing of time, what makes everything else I do feel more worthwhile, what makes me feel less terrified of having a future where I end up more and more alone. Maybe I do know what it might take to feel a sense of stability in my life. Hey, I don’t need a counselor, you, I need a horse…