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This early, wonderful spring brought a house fly in yesterday. It landed on the inside of my front door pane. I didn't want the fly in my house, so I opened the door and the fly flew out. Can life be this easy? Imagine what it would be like to keep your body and your self safe and separate from anything you don't want!
A recent experience at Sierra Rose Farms.....
Per instruction, I picked four horses from the pasture at random -- the four I could most easily get! I picked one that looked like -- and turned out to be -- a donkey, a very small brown horse, a regular size brown horse and a fourth horse. I had to put halters and leads on each one and take them into the arena. Be sure, this was not easy for me! (After five sessions in Equine Assisted Learning I still do not qualify as a horse woman) Once in the barn, I let the horses go and Christine showed me, there on the floor, my "body." Thank goodness it wasn't a chalk outline! It was created from toys... a hula hoop for my head and styrofoam pool noodles for my torso and limbs. LeeAnn handed me five plastic buckets and told me to put them on "my" most vulnerable areas. Being an Aries, the first one went on my head!! After I'd placed the buckets, I named each horse after something that is a problem in my life right now. I named the little brown one "Physical Pain" and the big brown one got the privilege of being "Emotional Pain." The task, then, was to keep the "problems" away from my "vulnerable areas," which was fairly easily done by shooing the horses away. Then LeeAnn added hay to the buckets! "This is called external influences," she said. More of a challenge to keep those problems out of the realm, but do-able.
As the horses caroused around the arena, we could not help but notice how Physical Pain followed Emotional Pain everywhere. These are the types of coincidences that happen at Sierra Rose Farms all the time. I'm a huge believer in the somato-emotional (body-mind) connection and find in my healing practice and my own life that sadness, anger, resentment, etc. are often harbingers for aches from head to toe!
It also happened that Physical Pain was a juvenile horse and Emotional Pain was, in the arena setting, its surrogate mother. Another coincidence? Doubtful. Just so happens that even though I've got several surrogate mothers I never get over missing my own mom, who passed in 2001. Little Physical Pain was missing his own mom who was back in the pasture and needed to stay near his surrogate in the arena. Just because I'm a certain age doesn't mean I don't need the love and comfort of mom-influences, and I take this moment to bow down to those who have provided this so generously -- Ann, Kathleen, Jewel and Dolores, beautiful women all.
The exercise was empowering and also thought-provoking on many levels.
Think about your most vulnerable areas and what you perceive as problems in your life right now. What if you could just shoo your problems away from not only your vulnerable areas, but your body, your self, and your life? Let an irritating fly out the door....
What could you then allow yourself to be open to?
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Sarah, I'm so glad you are blogging! Even though I'm just commenting on this post, I read them all and am fascinated with both your personal journey and that with the horses. I especially loved naming these challenging critters Physical and Emotional Pain. That's great! I can see why you were both empowered and thoughtful.
ReplyDeleteI have a lot of vulnerable areas in my life right now, too -- but most specifically health issues -- and at this time of year, recurring grief issues. You'd think after 34 years...! The thought of shooing away the problems is most enticing!