I have Petitated with three horses so far and found that
when I Petitate with them, they visibly relax--leaning on me and holding their
necks near me for pets. I am in the
present moment with them—I stop worrying about the past of obsessing about the
future. How does this work?
I have been participating in equine therapy over the past
two months. Each time I go, we are told
to pick a horse that most fits with the exercise and spend some time with them
before we do the therapy. Today, it was
working with a large exercise ball representing something we were dealing with,
having the horse represent a strength and working with the horse to push the
ball around a tree to move forward toward making an impact on the issue we were
dealing with. My teammate and I chose
Flaming Jersey, a beautiful red mare with white spots on her butt, a brown
flowing mane and tail and deep brown eyes.
But, before we could do the exercise we needed to get into
the present moment with Jersey. I went
over and practiced a Petting Petitation with her for a few wonderful moments,
caressing her soft neck, stroking her muscular back, and patting her adorable nose. As she calmed down, I did a quick Pet Scan
Petitation with her. I first checked her
out visually from the tip of her ears down her neck, back, butt, legs all the
way to her hooves. I took in one of the
most wonderful fragrances in the world, the smell of horses and talked to her
about what to expect as we did the exercise.
Although she didn’t cooperate completely throughout the therapy (life
always throws some curve balls), she stayed calm and persistent and about 20
minutes later we guided her to kick the ball against the wind around the tree
and over the finish line. Then it was
more Petting Petitation and a quick Gratitude Petitation—I was truly grateful
to have Flaming Jersey in my life.
During the exercise I was able to move from worrying about
my loneliness that I had been experiencing since I moved to Sacramento from the
Bay Area four months ago to having a deep connection with another being. I identified my strength, that of creativity
and persistence to plan activities during the time between hanging out with the
horses including square dancing that evening (something I had a lot of
experience with and know of a local group with wonderful people), a writing
group (I loved but had stopped prioritizing), an online writing group, and a
writers’ wine party. The persistence
and creativity I showed with Flaming Jersey is quite symbolic of the
persistence and creativity that I have been able to show on and off in my own
life. I also recognized that by
verbalizing the plans to Jersey and the other people in the group, I had
accountability, something that always helps me to move forward in a positive
direction.
So no, Petitating with a horse to stay in the present
moment, move toward a positive goal, and appreciate what I can have is not
“crazy talk”—it is a wonderful reality.
