A Blogger's Journey...A Journal

The writer in me needs to write more. Hennybird is 400 pages into a book about her personal journey through kidney transplants and addiction. "Every Pill Has A Story".

So does every day. 

I'm not sure if anyone comes around here anymore, but my intention is to let my heart empty itself here. It could be a good place for self reflections as an instructor and as a student. The writer in me says I could be prolific. The sloth in me says it will be months before my next blog entry.

This journey with EQUU8 has been challenging to say the least. My inner Pollyanna wishes to share only the good things, while secretly hoping the bad things and near misses disappear in the darkness at the end of each day.

Tuesday was our fourth grant rejection and second rejection from the city of Murrieta. It's not because what EQUU8 is doing isn't worthwhile or worthy of a grant. There was only $40,000 to distribute between charities. $15,000 goes to the food pantry every year. City Council is pretty stuck on keeping monies going to the same charities year after year. Last year, we were too new. This year, we lost to a newer program. It's a very good program. We are all deserving of funding. But stretching the truth really scrambles my brain. 

Maybe EQUU8 is a hard sell. It's not easy to explain how healing horses are (except maybe to our participants who experience this healing), or how to convince city councilmembers that our relatively small program can double or triple in size in the next year and how their grant could help us achieve accreditation and apply for grants elsewhere. But maybe we were meant to stay small a little longer. I've always valued quality over quantity. 

Either way, it's challenging for me to abide by one of my mantras: everything happens for a reason.

Which brings me to the fall of the day. A talented pair of pre-teens take occasional lessons and I'll just call them Bema and Hapa. 

Bema fell off her own horse today while my back was turned. My attention was on Hapa riding Cherry, as my focus was on building confidence with her since she'd been spooked by a runaway horse. Bema has plenty of confidence and has never fallen off, but Tiny took to bucking and by the time I looked over my shoulder, her horse leapt over her body after it hit the sand. I called to Hapa to put Cherry into a one-rein stop as Tiny barreled across the arena.  You just never get over seeing a student fall off a horse. 

Once we'd determined that Bema was OK, other than a sore finger, and Hapa had handled the scary situation with full control over Cherry, we redirected the lesson to a roundpen session, where we were going to get back to the basics with Tiny. He's a pretty broke horse, meaning he gets along pretty well in the bridle and knows his job. However, he's a little rude and disrespectful and doesn't follow much of a feel. Foundation work, it is for these girls. 

As an instructor, each fall leaves a whipmark. This year, I've had a few falls and so have my students...and they never feel good. Most of the time, the falls come from doing too much too fast. A couple of times, reins are too long or the rider forgot the one-rein stop that could have saved them...even though my voice is straining for them to hear me. Sometimes, there are just plain accidents. And sometimes fear takes over. 

Every time, there is something to learn. 

And learning leads to healing.