Once every two of three nights, I dream of my horse. She left us many years ago now, but she was so present in my life, that she still is in my dreams and probably always will. Somehow, when I dream of her, she gives me confidence and makes me feel calm.

The picture bellow is one rarity taken one evening on our way back from a ride in the woods. At this time of the world, digital cameras were not that common and definitivly not while riding. I must have felt very confident to take my precious camera in the woods. Anyway. These two hears, turned to our future, was my most common landscape in the evenings, everyday of my life during a long time. It is to me a symbol of peace, serenity and calm. We used to ride up to the top of one of these mountains, where there was a natural sand paddock and we worked whatever was on the program at this moment. She was devoted to the exercices and we had a communication just through our thoughts, my weight, my legs. It was unbelievable to feel that I could transport my thoughts to her almost only with the power of a delicate change of my sitting position. We worked maybe 25-40 minutes up there and then, we would ride down the mountain back home in a calm rythm, looking at what was happening in the woods around. We knew every road, every tree, every stone of the forest and animals were not afraid of us. A paradise on earth. During these hours, nothing else existed for me and I would say that it saved me many teenager trouble.

When we got back home, I would look if everything was ok with her, I would clean her place, change her water and prepare her food. During this time, she would stay around – maybe most interested by the menu than anything else- and being curious about my doings. In the winter, she would sleep inside and during the summer, she prefered to be outside, free at night from the aggressions of the flies. She would come and have a kiss and then, I would go home, take my shower and sleep to be ready for another day to come.

To wake her up was not often an piece of cake: the lady was not a morning lady. She would get up, but would be very slow and liked to have her time to strech and look what was happening outside before to begin to move. The routine was quick in the morning, but the pleasure to meet her was huge.

I would go to school, always happy to learn some new things and then, I would do my homework either at school or in the bus in order to be able to ride directly when I came back home. I think this taught me how to be efficient and reach my goals. I really needed this moment of piece and reflexion on her back. Thank you Vasy for the time!

And mindfulness.

This is what i feel on monday evenings between 20 and 21, when I’m on a horses back. I have no space to think of something or someone else. It’s the horse and me through the dancing on 4 legs.

More people should try to spend time with an animal and try to achieve something without the voice giving orders. Use your body and feel the animals language is a subtil way to communicate. Animals are not trivial to understand and in a lots of way better for the soul than many stressed human beings.

Summer is fantastic: there is nothing to read on the news papper, nothing good on the radio, the weather is swedish (=10 degrees and rain) but we are off work! And there is this marvellous invention: podcast!! I am very hungry of good podcasts, with a preference for history, documentary, and people talking about their lifes or passions. I recently found this podcast about riding: ridpodden. This is in swedish though but wonderfully talked by Lisen Bratt Fredicson, who is a famous jumping rider, 2 times at the OS.

On the first episode, they are talking about hormanship. They killed a lots of ideas and I was happy to hear about that: don’t go and take your horse as he/she was a toy, it is not a teady bear either, don’t give food to your horse direct by your hand. Show your boundaries clearly and be consequent. Horses are not nice to each others when they are living together, they just know who is the boss and how they have to behave. The boss never gives food to a lower ranked horse. If you begin to give food with your hand to your horse, you will give contradictory signals to the animal: on one hand, you are lower ranked and on the other hand you are the boss because you want to decide. This is totally unecessary.

Respect is also another thing they explained. When you meet a stranger on the street, you don’t go and hug this person. This is the same thing with horses. When you meet them for the first time, don’t expect the horse to be your best friend at the first sight. If the horse don’t want to be close to you, respect it. Of course, the horse also has to respect you and if you need to make something with the horse right now, make it, but respect the fact that the horse maybe don’t want to be hugged.

They even talked about the fact that a human being is the only animal that is looking after reward. Other animals don’t need that tp be satisfied: if nothing wrong comes, then it’s all good. The exception is dogs/animals that are trained and if they do something good, the trainer gives them something to eat. This is not a natural behaviour, the dog could be happy as well even without food, just by looking at the trainer and seeing that he is satisfied with the trick. This is the same thing with horses and clapping. To clap them don’t give the horse any satisfaction. This is a random human sign to give reward, but this is not translated like that by a horse. If you clapp your horse randomly while riding, he/she will not understand what you are meaning. The voice is a much better help for that. On the other hand, you may clap your horse for example just once during a riding session just when you finished for the day and will just go down and dry. If you clap at this only moment, your horse will translate this like a “good for today, i can relax”-sign and it will be a way to communicate. This was what they told in the podcast and I like their idea. This is all about to be consequent. If the horse is making the mooves you want her/him to do, just give it back with your behaviour, your voice but clapping will not help.

That a horse has a mood that varies with the period of the day was something I wasn’t aware of until I got my own horse at home. This meant that I meet her every morning, lunch and evening and could see the difference. Actually, this is not that difficult to understand but I think that too much teenager forget this and transform their living horses in my little pony. A horse is still a horse. And because a horse won’t scream if something is hurtful or painful, you have a responsability to read your horse perfectly.

Anyway, this podcast is wonderful! Listen to it if you understand swedish and you’re interested in horses (pretty high level though in technicality)

This was my horse and me somewhen in 1999, so not yesterday…

I have been pretty serious with my study today, but there are so much things left to read and think of that I give me a little break. This is still raining cats and dogs and M went to the gym. Courageous boyfriend!

Some days ago, I promised a little post about the big thing that happened 19 years ago. If you don’t mind, you get it in Swedish, maybe the beginning of a little secret and slow project of mine.

How it began 19 years ago

Himlen hade varit grå hela dagen. Jag hade inte sagt ett ord sedan ett tag tillbaka och visste inte vad jag skulle tycka. Nyfiken, hon hade närmat sig och hon tittade på mig med sina stora bruna ögon och undrade vad vi gjorde här. Mamma bröt isen: “Visst är hon fin? Jag tycker att hon ska bli din.” Det måste ha varit något fel med mina tolvåriga öron, tänkte jag. Jag måste ha hört dåligt. Hur kunde det bli så enkelt att Mamma plötsligt skulle säga de orden jag hade längtat efter i hela mitt liv. Hon skulle bli min! Varken hon eller jag fattade det. Hon skulle bli min bästa vän i så många år, dela med mig glädje och sorg, lyssna uppmärksamt när jag skulle behöva lätta mitt hjärta, gå med mig på äventyr, lära mig vem jag är och hon var den finaste sto i hela världen. Vasy.

And how it ended

Pappa ringde en mörk söndag kväll i november 2008. Det var ovanligt, han brukar prata med mig när Mamma har tömt hela sin påse, ställt fem gånger samma frågor och då tröttnar jag och frågar efter Pappa. Men denna gång hade han ringt. Jag kände direkt att något inte var normalt. Allvarligt. Jag satt mig på sängkanten och frågade “Vad har hänt?”. Han svarade bara med hennes namn. Då förstod jag att jag hade förlorat hon som betydde som mycket för mig. Allt såg bra ut på morgonen, men hon la sig och hennes hjärta slutade slå. Bara så där. Utan förvarning. Hon hade gjort sitt och nu var det dags för mig att klara mig själv. Då gjorde jag exakt samma sak som jag gör nu: jag grät. Jag grät och grät och grät. Jag kunde inte gå upp dagen efter, jag hade gråtit hela natten och spelade om i mitt huvudet filmen om vårt liv tillsammans. Jag kunde minnas så väl den eftermiddagen Mamma sa till mig “Visst är hon fin? Jag tycker att hon ska bli din.”. Nu var hon borta och jag kunde inget göra. Bara stå här och gråta.

 Back to the study before I fill the living room with tears.