But what’s going to happen? My inner control freak is coming out. Prior to our meeting, Citron told me to think of an issue I wanted to address. She didn’t want to know what it was until we were en route. Now I tell her. “I’m having trouble sticking with a weight-loss and exercise program. I’m a culinary professional and I know how to prepare great food and what I need to do but have trouble doing is remaining motivated. Is that the right kind of question?”
“Yes,” Citron tells me. “Okay. The horses bring you into the herd. You come in with an emotional or psychological ill and the herd says, ‘Whoops! One of our members is having an emotional ill. Who’s going to attend?’ So, whatever horse picks you to do it—”
“They pick me?” I’m getting freaked out about being rejected by horses I haven’t even met yet.
“One of them is clearly going to be your horse. They just kind of take it from there, and I follow the horse. So walk around and stand in front of the horses’ pens. Stay as long as you like, but don’t touch them or talk to them.”
We’ve come to six horses, each with its own large, fenced area and a small barn. I walk from enclosure to enclosure. I startle one horse and he kicks up and runs. Two give me no more than a cursory once-over. Then I stop. On the far end of this enclosure is a dark rust (that’s bay in horse lingo) horse with a black mane and tail. She is all fine-drawn lines and long muscles, a nine-year-old Arabian named Jezzabelle—Jessie, for short. The phrase coup de foudre comes to mind, meaning literally “hit by lightning,” or “love at first sight.” Instinct tells me she isn’t going to be easy to attract.
I close my eyes and think, Pick me, pick me. Jessie pricks an ear in my direction, which I will learn means she is paying attention to me. I make my way down the length of the fence facing sideways, giving her monocular eyes a chance to see me better. I am overwhelmed with the desire for her to come over to me.
And then she does. I breath into her nostrils (a “cheat” suggested by an equestrian friend), and she breathes back into mine. She licks my gloved hands, then my bare hands, and gives them a little nip. I step back. Score: 1-0, Jessie. I put my hand out and she nips again. This time, I step forward, and she steps back. We are dancing, playing, and the “score” is now tied.
Citron, who has been observing, asks what I am feeling. This is how the human-horse encounter becomes counseling. I tell Citron I’d wanted it to be Jessie, and with a smile, she tells me I am thinking like a predator.
Citron suggests that I get bored with restrictions, especially ones I know are stupid. She asks what it was about Jessie that I identified with. I say she plays by her own rules. In recent years, I’ve tried too hard to play by others’ rules, be they diets or other aspects of life, and found only personal and professional disaster.
Later in the session, Jessie goes to the other side of her pen. Even with her back to us, her ears are cocked, and occasionally she turns in my direction. This is a comfortable distance between herd members, and very much the way they might treat one another. It appears that, however briefly, Jessie accepts me as a playmate.
Did the equisession help? In part, it did. It made me more mindful of eating when I’m bored. For me, part of being bored comes from trying to be someone or something I’m not—just like Jessie can’t be anything other than a headstrong Arabian. She taught me by example. And if I’m really lucky, I can be a guest in her herd now and then.
RESOURCES
American Hippotherapy Association www.americanhippotherapyassociation.org
North American Handicapped Riding Association www.nahra.org
A Horse Connection (845) 417-4646; www.ahorseconnection.com
Southlands Foundation (845) 876-4862; www.southlands.org
Ada Citron (845) 339-0589; www.adacitron.com
Flying Change Farm (845) 626-0020; www.flyingchangefarm.com
