Fit to be Tied, or Fit to be Free?
By Leigh Shambo, MSW
The
rhythm of my mare’s feet and the feel of her swinging back are
details so familiar to me that I am no longer conscious of them
as separate. It is more like a symphony of feeling and
acknowledging. Not only every physical movement, but also many
thoughts and movements of our attention are shared between us.
And to the extent possible between species, we are held by the
same world. We make our way among the tall trees, the warm
stretches where we glide along sunlit portions of trail. We
share the spring scents: a glade of flowers, then a swampy spot
of skunk cabbage. I marvel at her red ears, outlined in black,
each one a poetic, inverted “V”, rotating to scan the
environment and also in communication with me.
.....
There are so many miracles to our
friendship, this horse and I. This year marks the 20th
anniversary of our partnership. I think back on our early years
together, and can so clearly remember all the powerful forces
that converged in my life then, setting the stage for the
arrival of this graceful and athletic horse. I lived on a ranch
in Issaquah WA, owned by John and Violet Kelly, where I was a
part time manager and also provided lessons and training.
Violet’s vision of her ranch as a haven for people who loved
horses was palpable in the day-to-day activities of her
equestrian center. My colleague Barb Johnson was my first
mentor in the practice of dressage, and I credit her with my
love of dressage as art. Many good friendships were forged in
this community of horse-loving souls, relationships that would
sustain me through the difficult times to come.
It was
in 1987, when an attractive, green two year old was brought to
me for training. Lacking talent for the track, she’d been
traded around, and the then-current owner called her Freeda
simply because she had gotten her for free. She made a profit
when I decided to buy the horse, and I changed the spelling to
Frieda, frequently shortened to the affectionate nickname,
“Free”. And this word speaks to her original energy. Her aura
of autonomy and strong self-sufficiency is unmistakable. As one
client who worked with her in equine-facilitated psychotherapy
remarked, “She’s her own person.”
Frieda’s insistence on freedom challenged me over the years, in
the most profound ways. She called me to a reliance on my own
inner judgment, rather than the expectations or methods of
others. This played out at a variety of practical levels in our
active partnership of living and working together, but most
clearly of all in her rather pronounced fear of being tied. In
the long time that it took me to learn to stand by her in her
fear, she also stood by me as I learned to face some of my
deepest fears.
It was
during our first year together, when Frieda developed a fear of
being tied, that events revealed how tied I was to old patterns
and behaviors that were not serving me well at all! First, I
lost my voice and consulted a therapist who quickly identified
the anger at my family of origin that I could not voice.
Secondly, a single ride on the wrong horse resulted in a broken
pelvis, and as I reflected (during my lengthy recuperation) I
could see that the “accident” was presaged by the pair of
blinders I was wearing, one called ego and another called
ambition. And just as I began walking again, with a cane, I
lost my mother to suicide. My mother —proud and independent,
unwilling to be vulnerable even with those closest to her. And
I was, in so many ways, just like her.
It took
me a little while to see that Frieda had an actual problem with
being tied. It started on a particular day when my blue heeler
Jake jumped in her face and nipped at her nose, while she was
tied, and she pulled back and broke the rope. For months after
that, she tied fine. But one day similar constellation of
triggers activated her alarm system and she pulled again. This
time the rope did not break immediately, and she pulled back
violently and with fierce determination until she broke free.
When it happened a third time, I began to see it as a problem.
Conditioned as I was in many ways to “cowgirl up”, facing my own
fears was not easy. I was afraid of Frieda’s pulling back, not
for my own safety but for her and for others in the
environment. And along with that, I was afraid of how others
would judge me—since Frieda and I traveled to other barns for
clinics, social rides and lessons. After all, as a professional
trainer, shouldn’t I be able to teach my own horse to tie?
I
consulted with Barb on the problem, and her advice was to tie
Frieda with an inner tube link, as we sometimes do with young
horses. Frieda would not pull on this, but would sometimes
become frozen with fear (the set up for an explosive pull), in
which case I would unclip her from the tie. And when I tied her
in other places, there was always a risk that something would
panic her and she would break free.
As
years passed, I tried many different approaches endorsed by
trainers I respected to try to help Frieda become more
comfortable with standing tied. There are setups you can use to
make sure the horse will not break free, and I regretted when I
tried this method with Frieda. Although she pulled hard enough
that I later learned she had injured her neck, her spirit would
not be broken. Instead she became wild with fear and her eyes
pleaded with me for help. I could not proceed with this
approach, and spent a good amount of time afterwards pleading
with her for forgiveness. Other approaches too only increased
her fear, and it was all too clear that this would only lead to
damaging effects both physically and emotionally.
Later I
learned a variety of techniques designed to teach Frieda a more
reasoned response to rope pressure, which were very helpful in
all kinds of situations. But when she was tied fast and truly
panicked the old pull response would kick in, and as always she
would pull until something broke. The feeling of the rope being
fast became a trigger itself; I could often see her test the
feel of the rope when I looped it over a tie post, to reassure
herself that she was still essentially free.
It is
often said that the horse is the most forgiving animal, and this
is true. Day by day Frieda forgave me, not just for the tying
“lessons”, but for any transgressions that were a result of my
notion that I could force solutions to any problem with her.
And one day, I got the message about the tying thing, the
perfect solution. Don’t tie her, a voice inside me
said. Well, duh!
I
thought back on another mentor, a wise old cowboy named Ralph
Heitmann that I had worked for in his pack outfitting business
years before. He had one horse named Diamond that “couldn’t be
tied”—and Diamond nearly pulled my thumb off with the rope on
the one occasion when I forgot and tied him fast. Seeing my
huge, bandaged thumb, Ralph could only bellow, “I told you NOT
to tie him!!!” I thought Ralph was just cold-hearted toward
people; he was a great horse trainer and could surely teach any
horse not to pull, for the sake of wranglers who couldn’t
remember quirks like that when saddling 35 horses before dawn.
Well, on this day I suddenly recognized Ralph’s wisdom. Don’t
tie her, I repeated to myself.
I told
Frieda that day that I would never tie her again unless she was
entirely comfortable. The funny part was, it took me so long to
come to this promise, that along the way we had developed tools
that allowed us to adapt to virtually any environment without
having to tie her. She ground ties well, she understands that a
rope looped around a hitching post means “please stand here”,
and she stops anytime (well, almost) that I call out “whoa”.
The same day I made this promise to her, I realize that
together we had already embodied the solutions.
I
finally learned to stand by her as I would want someone to stand
by me when I am afraid. To seek solutions that increase trust
and confidence in each other, even if those solutions look
unconventional to others. And in this, I also learned how to
accompany myself through fears big and small. Fear gives us
some hard lessons. But it is in listening to fear, and
understanding its messages in ourselves and others, that we find
freedom. This morning, as I tacked up Frieda, I noticed the
deep trust in her eyes and tears of gratitude sprang to my own
eyes. It’s as if she’s saying, “Put that saddle on today. I
still have a couple of things to teach you.” Usually, these
are lessons about learning to go with and not oppose her
energy. Lessons in freedom.
