A while back I attended an equine therapy session. It was fascinating learning about this unique remedy that brings together broken people with gentle giants. The therapist began the session by talking a little about horses in general. As herd animals and as prey animals, she said, horses are blessed with a certain “sixth sense” that helps them understand the world around them in a way that many other animals cannot. Their existence, she explained, their ability to survive in the world depends on their level of awareness of changes in their environment. They can read our body language, and they can understand things about us that maybe we don’t even see ourselves.
One of the exercises involved in equine therapy (which NEVER involves riding a horse) is to approach the horse quietly and lead him or her from point A to point B. For those of us who have not spent a lot of time around horses, this can be a frightening thing. Later, we were asked to touch the horse in different places around his body such as his upper leg, his neck or his chest. There were revelations to be had from these exercises. Some of us coaxed the horse gently, trying to “talk him into” coming with us. Others attempted to force the animal by pulling on the lead or a light swat to their hindquarters. Others (me) used bribery. Whichever method we used told us a little about how we relate to other people.
The point of equine therapy is to help participants become more self-aware, and to help them overcome obstacles that may be in their lives, keeping them from reaching their life goals. This happens by seeing oneself reflected back as the horse reacts to the person’s movements. It is a gentle and beautiful thing to see two species interact on such profound level.
I learned a thing or two about myself during that session, but what I took home with me, the thing that haunts me almost every day is what I learned about horses that day.
I imagine an animal with a heightened sense of awareness, an animal that can perceive nuances in the environment, an animal that can understand the subtlety of a relaxed human body as opposed to one that is tense and rigid. I imagine how gentle and temperate that animal must be if he is so keen on his surroundings.
So when I think of horses with this newfound knowledge, it breaks my heart to see them portrayed on the movie screen being yanked this way and that in Westerns, being tripped with piano wire or having to endure the sound of gunshots, explosions and all manner of chaos that Hollywood dishes out. I truly ache to think that such a sentient creature must endure all that noise and violence. We drag them into our world and treat them like a movie prop and people pay lots of money to see it. I really hate the scenes where the horses are forced to lay down on their side so that the gunman can use the horses’ body as a shield and a barrier behind which to shoot. What must the horses think when this is happening all around them? And it isn’t just in the movies where horses are mistreated, it’s on the streets where they pull heavy carriages on hot asphalt and cars with which to contend and it’s rodeos where horses are bullied and abused while revelers get drunk, applaud and delight, oblivious to the suffering of the animal.
I knew that animals suffered greatly at the hands of humans before I attended that session. Of course I knew. But being more enlightened about the sentience of horses has left me thoughtful and angry at my fellow man. I know I am not alone in these feelings.
