Roll Away Your Stone

'Roll away your stone, I'll roll away mine

Together we will see what we will find

Don't leave me alone at this time

For I'm afraid of what I will discover inside...'

From Roll Away Your Stone, by Mumford and Sons.

As I cruised down Romsey Rd on my way to day two of the Emotional Horsemanship introductory clinic on Easter Sunday I was feeling pretty good. Unlike on day one, I was not going somewhere I had never been to spend a day with people I had never met. I was tired and a bit sore, but ready to take on another big day.

Ava seemed pretty relaxed in her paddock, and glad to see me turn up with her breakfast since all the resident horses around her had already been fed. It was her first night away from home alone, having lived with her mother all her life, only leaving previously to spend time at the vet for AI with her foal at foot. It was also her first time in an indoor arena. Friday night she had been left alone with a rug on for the first time. My home-schooled, homestead-raised pony was stepping out into the world, and part of what I wanted from the clinic was to learn more about who this little mare really is.

I'm a fun little multipack of trauma, myself, and it's kind of boring. Childhood stuff, relationship stuff, chronic illness and near-death stuff, just to name the Trauma Trinity. I'm a lot of the way through healing it, but one big block that I've had trouble breaking through is probably related to the reason I gave up horses 12 years ago.

I really want to ride again. I really want to re-claim the joy of riding and have fun on a pony I trust to keep me safe while we have a go at all the things. And for a few years I've suspected that Ava is the answer. Clever, resilient and well-raised. Over our first few years together I took her from taking 40 minutes to catch her and panicking if anyone touched her muzzle to go-anywhere, do-anything and let me lick your hands. In that time I went from afraid to put a headcollar on to being comfortable with trimming hooves and halter training youngsters.

When you've loved and lost it can be hard to love again. When I lost the equine love of my life 12 years ago my love of riding went with him. I sent all my other ponies away, in one way or another, sold my gear and float and even turned my back on a lot of my human horse-loving community.

So when, in the morning meditation session at the start of day two of the clinic, Lockie asked us to think of a horse from our past that we wished we had done better for, emotional cracks began to appear.

The day before I had come out of our morning group session wondering what the hell I thought I was doing and questioning my life choices. What made me, a self-professed social potato, think I could waltz into an environment loaded with amazing horse people and somehow hold my own? What was I even doing trying to do horsemanship when I was clearly useless? I didn't realise it at the time, but every negative thought I had ever entertained about myself as a horsewoman was crawling out of the woodwork. I spent the entire lunch break hiding in my float, sat on a pile of hay nets, with tears flowing out of control. I considered not coming back the next day. I considered giving up horses altogether.

I pulled myself together for the afternoon session on empathy, held sans horses, where I was supported by the amazing Dianne as we took turns pretending to be horses. We got to feel the importance of good posture and the effects of compensation in the body. At the end of the day I left my pony at the venue, meaning I had to come back the next day.

Sunday morning I returned sporting a good impersonation of confidence. Our morning group in-hand session, already haunted by memories of failure and loss, was difficult. We had trouble with a lot of the exercises, despite having performed them the day before as well as multiple times at home. Ava was constantly either shoving me or turning away from me. I was starting to unravel.

I don't know why I volunteered for the first private lesson of the day. Partly I didn't want to walk all the way down the hill to put Ava back in her paddock and then walk all the way down there later to bring her back to the indoor arena. Mostly I think I just wanted the way I was feeling to end, one way or another.

When I say 'private' lesson, it was not private at all. It was participant, horse and clinician, with a microphone, in a big indoor arena with a gallery of 20-odd spectators and the other five participants.

And right there, under that spotlight, was where the lid blew off and every insecurity I had about what I was doing there came tumbling out. I don't remember much about what I actually said at the beginning, or what Lockie said in response. I was cracked wide open and exposed, for the second time in twelve months, only this time it wasn't my blood that poured out, it was tears and a fair whack of snot.

Without missing a beat, despite being faced with a rapidly crumbling middle-aged woman and a somewhat bewildered pony, Lockie sent me to pick up Ava's saddle pad and then called the other five clinic participants to join us in the arena.

An invocation of sisterhood. Hugs and support as together we saddled a pony who had been raised in company but only ever saddled in isolation. Then we set off around the arena, six women and 14hh mare who kept checking in with all of us like a hen with a brood of chicks.

Saddling circle. Photo credit Cathy Cichy.

A wise woman once said 'it's possible to trot and cry at the same time, and if you can't then maybe this isn't the sport for you'. As it turns out, I can't jog next to a trotting pony and cry at the same time. To be fair, I can barely jog and breathe. I somehow managed to jog and laugh, jog and smile, if only for short bursts. Ava had her first trots with the saddle on and stirrups bouncing. She seemed to get a kick out of drawing us all around the arena. Her trot was expressive and forward, far from the shuffle I had to coax out of her when I first started her training.

The forward comes when the mind and body are ready.

Emotional Horsemanship does what it says on the tin.

Sunday I spent the lunch break talking to other participants and attendees. I talked out loud about things I have previously only discussed online and in some cases never said at all. A very experienced horsewoman with years of instructing behind her approached me to tell me that my lesson was the most moving lesson she had ever witnessed.

The rest of the day I was able to relax and watch the other lessons. I was finally unwound enough to appreciate the incredible community I had found myself in and the energy that it created.

Lockie's final piece of advice for me was to work on my connection with Ava and not be afraid to ask her for connection. On the long drive home I started to realise that she had actually shown me exactly who she is. All this time I have been worried about putting too much emotional pressure on her. I have worried about burdening her with my fears alongside the pressures of being the caretaker in the herd with her mother, brother and daughter. Yet every time I ask her to step up, she does, with grace and enthusiasm.

I realised that while I was expected to take on more caring responsibility than I was capable of at a younger age than I should have been, she doesn't find caring difficult or burdensome. She is made for it. She effortlessly cares for her pony family. She takes care of me. And when taken somewhere she had never been with horses and people she had never met, she set about taking care of them too. Even the horses in the mirror.

I've always felt that there was something incredibly special about Ava, but she has also always felt a lot like a closed book to me. Now I can set about learning her secrets and creating a partnership that serves us both.

'Stars, hide your fires

These here are my desires

and I won't give them up to you this time around

And so I'll be found

With my stake stuck in the ground

Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul.'

In with both feet. Congruent. There is a stillness in me that I have no reference for. The aftermath of an emotional boss battle. I know what I'm going to do now, and it's going to be epic.

Group photo. Credit Cathy Cichy.