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The
Wheel of Time
Karin Schenkel
A friend of mine recently asked me
how it was possible for me to live a life dictated by the schedule of my
horses. She said, that she could not imagine in her dreams being tied to
a very rigid schedule that demanded almost the exact feeding time in the
morning and again in the evening, turning out and bringing back in with
just a little flexibility and of course, stall cleaning every day.
....
Yes, I agree, horses need their daily
routine for their well being and health, but my friend was not aware of
the fact that she also has all kinds of routines in her life. Routines
that make her days look like “groundhog day”. Routines that she doesn’t
want to give up and, if she had to, would create quite a turmoil in her
soul. Her routines might not be tied to another being’s health and
therefore she might get the impression that she has more freedom in
giving them up or changing them.
True – I have to admit it, with
horses you don’t have much of a choice. But if my friend thought twice
about what she just said, she would realize that all these little things
that appeared repetitively in her life were just as irreplaceable for
her and ingrained into her soul as my horse chores were into mine. And
she would also become aware of the fact that she has not all the freedom
she thinks she has to just skip them and do something else instead.
Thinking about this, I asked myself,
what it was in us human beings that makes us hold on to routines and let
our days unfold according to an unwritten internal schedule.
Every morning at 5.45 am my alarm
goes off but by then, I am already awake and ready to go. I get up, have
my cup of coffee (or maybe 2 or 3), read the newspaper and greet the new
morning as it slowly awakens on the horizon. During the winter months,
when the world is still resting under translucent covers of twilight, shadows hover like ghosts on eternal
fields outside my kitchen window. When the moon is full and
hanging up there in the sky, it always reminds me of those Chinese
lanterns with colorful faces and a burning candle in their middle. Its
light creates dancing silhouettes of mystical creatures on the walls.
This image takes me back to my parent’s house on the night of the Swiss
National Holiday when we used to decorate the patio and sat out there,
telling stories, laughing and just watching the lanterns till the
candles burned down and the darkness took possession of us and the world
around us.
After this little excursion into the past, I leave the house
shortly before 7 am to feed
our three horses. When I open the barn gate, they are already waiting
for me. I measure the grain, toss it into their feeder and climb up to
the hayloft for the hay. I check the water buckets, fill them up with
fresh water, have a little chat with each horse and go back to the house
– the horses’ routine became mine and mine became theirs.
It is only the rhythm of nature that
inflicts tiny changes to this routine. During the winter months, I have to
wear rubber boots to keep my feet dry as the relentless winter rain
turns our pastures into soggy swamps. When the temperature at night has
dropped below 32, the water in the hose that is hanging outside is
frozen and I have to haul water from the big water troughs on the
pasture. These are the only interruptions to the routine. During spring,
summer and fall, just the background scenery is different. The color
and intensity of the light, temperature, wind on my skin and in
my hair and the chirping of the birds remind me of the turning wheel of
time. Time now is no longer linear but circular. Hours turn into days
into weeks into months into years into Eternity. Ageing has seized us and
births and deaths are like seasons, coming and going.
Even if you don’t have your horses in
your back yard, even if you don’t have any horses at all, think about
your daily routines and what you would do without them. Routines give us
safety and security, especially in our fast paced world full of changes.
Change happens at the job, in the family, at school, among friends.
People are moving around the globe and have to deal with cultural
changes. They have to adapt and adjust to new surroundings, maybe far
away from what they are used to. They leave family and friends behind
and hope that they will be accepted wherever they end up living. The
only thing they can take with them is their little daily routines. And
believe me, they do. They will set them up again and hold on to them
as if they meant their life. They help rebuilding “home” and add up to
that warm, cozy feeling of safety. If we feel at home, we can cope with
change, we can endure suffering and we can overcome obstacles.
Every morning when I do my horse
chores I am back in that present moment which is Eternity and Eternity
which is the present moment. It’s the rhythm of nature that we are bound
to follow as we are part of nature as well. With our little daily
routines, we connect to what lies beneath mankind’s cultural
achievements. We step out of the realm of time and space and all becomes
one and one becomes all. Everything is framed in the daily routine of
taking care of the horses. Protected by this frame we are creating every
single moment of the new day differently. It’s what Ralph Waldo Emerson
called: “The wave in the ocean”. The wave is changing but the water that
is carrying it remains the same.
The frame might be different for
everybody. For me it is taking care of horses, for others it is taking a
walk with the dog, stopping by the same coffee place every morning or
going on a daily run before school. It might be a tiny little thing
that we repeat every single day. But it is there and we might not even
notice it anymore unless something happens and we loose it. It feels
then as if we were disconnected, disconnected from our internal safety
which grounds us, centers us within ourselves and the world we live in.
Only then do we realize that we need our daily routines in order to create
and live our life to the fullest.
Karin Schenkel
is a Psychologist and an Epona approved instructor. Before
discovering the healing power of horses, she has worked in several
different Psychiatric Hospitals and had her private practice, where she
worked predominantly with cancer and eating disorder patients. She now
runs “Chiron Counseling and Consulting, LLC”, an Equine Experiential
Learning organization in Maple Valley, WA, which is focused on Team
Development, Leadership, Personal growth and Identity and Eating
Disorder.
Karin can be reached under
Karin_schenkel@msn.com
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