For a moment, I could hear horses whisper

My apprenticeship in horsemanship continues. Each time I drive to the farm, I carry fewer expectations. At first I’d arrive with a lesson plan, wrote it down even: First I’ll do this, then that, and afterwards, another. But, All too often, I’d leave the barn feeling that something hadn’t worked the way it “should.”

Then my trainer’s voice from within: “Notice your expectations and put them aside. Scan your body – sense your feet, notice boots kissing the earth. Feel your breath; and another. Notice the surroundings, the temperature, the wind, rain on your face. That’s what horses do: always in the present, relying on hearing and seeing and smelling. Unless threatened, they don’t charge ahead but prefer to stand still and see what’s going on.

I don’t know whether Lao Tsu, the legendary philosopher from ancient China, knew much about horses (although this image shows him on a water buffalo). However, his words* are spot-on —

“In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of [the Way], every day something is dropped.”

The next time I went to the farm, I approached the paddock not in a straight line as a predator might, but in a zigzag pattern to demonstrate peaceful intentions. Coming to a halt a few feet short of the fence, neither Dante nor his two companions seemed to care about my being there. Avoiding direct eye contact, I half-turned away and began observing their behavior, Dante’s in particular.

Minutes passed. All the while, Dante’s ears and eyes were tracking me and also his mates. Suddenly he turned away and began to take an interest in bits of hay amid muddy hoof prints. The others moved as well: one walked straight towards me and the other followed in her tracks. Dante, the one I really wanted to connect with, walked yet further away. He did what needed to be done in accord with his place in the herd.

Was this a more successful encounter? All depends on expectations: to get things done or learning how horses behave? Remaining in place, I remembered to sense feet in boots, breath coming and going. To the eye of a casual observer, nothing much had happened and nothing had been accomplished. And yet — my body and mind felt at ease. And the horses continued being horses. From what I understand about Lao Tsu’s “pursuit of learning,” he speaks to the accumulation of knowledge (facts and skills), while the “pursuit of Tao” points towards spiritual enlightenment (which, in my situation, meant a momentary opening to the unknown).

* In Tao de Ching. There are many translations, commentaries, and spelling of key words. 
Image credit: “Laozi”. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.