Goldie Luv

Goldie the sensitive

She came up to me as usual, full of curiosity and mischief, and then promptly turned around. My hand went to the little divot between her sacrum and tail head. I gently started tracing very light circles there. Immediately her eyes began to close to half mast and she let out a sigh. I felt a lot of heat coming from this spot. Too much heat it seemed, although I don't know why I felt/thought that. I began to bring in cool energy and mix it with the heat by going in a counter clockwise motion. "I really need to get a book on equine acupressure points," I thought. My hands intuitively seem to know where to go on a horse (and on people) and I often find these 'buttons' that are major release points. I'm sure the horses are also guiding me. Yup. Definitely sure about that. Goldie agreed and backed up so that her head was now next to my belly.

Goldie is a challenging little mare. Highly sensitive, emotional, reactive and quick/athletic she's usually quick to come into my space. This is not something I tend to welcome from horses that I don't know well. It tends to unnerve, frustrate and irritate me and causes me to push them right back out of my space. It's a safety reflex I guess, and while it can seem a little 'in their face' I'm learning to trust it more, especially with pushy and disrespectful horses. I would categorize Goldie this way, although in the past couple of months, thanks to my askng her to back up as a first reflex rather than crowding me, she's made big strides in her politeness. I don't hesitate to let her know when she is being respectful. I reward it often.

The other interesting thing about Goldie is that she doesn't want to be touched. So she's pushy but also says "hey, don't touch me!" "I call the shots here lady!" A funny combo for sure. Mostly, I have respected her wishes and it seems to have paid off. Other than basic respect, I haven't asked much of her at all and I think she's come to trust and respect me for that.

So today I was surprised when she let me in quite far into her bubble of energy.  At first when she approached me, I thought it was about me offering her some light mastersons method touch (this is like barely touching the hair of the horse and calls attention to the area, thereby making the suggestion that they relax that spot and rebalance the meridian there) just behind her left ear. She was facing me, standing with her left nostril touching my coat. I worked on that area, her TMJ and massaged her ear. She was being so adorable I could barely stand it!

As I moved down her neck a bit her breathing became very deep, slow and audible. I remembered Eric from www.animalcomm.com describing this particular sound as a horse crying (or the equivalent in human terms). Along with this memory came my own tears welling up. I admit, I have been feeling quite low the last couple of days and several times today I felt that I needed to let tears flow, but without 'story' or 'reason', I usually find this hard to just let happen. Well dear Goldie helped me with this. I started to matched her deep breathing and closed my eyes while still touching her very lightly on the neck. Tears started to flow and I saw red behind my eyes. I'm not sure what the meaning of the colour is in this context, but it was only a few minutes and I felt the energy cleared out of me. I felt relaxed, calm, and clear. One last nuzzle into my coat and Goldie turned and walked away.

The gift of these highly sensitive mares is worth all of the challenges they present.

My horse IS my GURU.
until next time
Jai