At the starting gate

Riding is one of the few things I do that is hard for me. I am fearful, over-intellectual, and lack self confidence. The first two or three years after I started taking lessons (at 40!), I got horrible migraines after each ride and had to spend the next day collapsed in bed. I was furious at my lack of progress and pushed myself, becoming even stiffer and angrier. But I knew it was something I wanted and I guess I was so used to being miserable anyway that it just seemed part of the package.

What I've learned from riding is that horses teach you, or at least teach me, about yourself. Riding a horse is unique, in that you are communicating with another being, one who has its own perceptions of the world, and trying to tell it what to do. Most of us, nowadays, are never in contact with an animal when it's actually working, trying to learn a task and understand what is wanted form it. People who train their dogs extensively have some of that. Because they are animals, horses are utterly honest teachers:

They say princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his groom. -- Ben Jonson

The gap between people and horses is bigger than the gap between people and dogs, and to communicate with a horse, you must be physical. I've spent most of my life in my head and to learn to convey confidence with my body, not get stepped on, keep my focus and determination, has had a profound effect on my being. Having been a perfectionist all my life, it has been as important to learn to fall as to learn to ride. Every time I ride a horse, I learn something about my body and my spirit.

In particular, riding a horse -- or grooming a horse, or being around a horse -- teaches me about the profound relationship between my own mind and my unconscious physical being. I have thought often of Plato's tripartate theory of the soul which I don't really know, but the idea of the self as divided, with an intellect that must learn to listen to and communicate with the deeper inner parts of me, fascinates me. In this sense, I feel learning to know and be myself is like learning to ride my own inner horses. (Unlike Plato, however, in this over-intellectualized world, I would say that both inner horses have their own nobility and purpose.)