When we first met I had only been around horses a few years and he was a five-month-old foal that had just been saved from slaughter. He was saved by a group of people in Canada that came together to save as many foals as they could out of a large group of them. They didn’t have the ability to save them all and had to make the extremely hard choice of which ones to take. And in the middle of these foals was a little palomino horse with four white socks and a white blaze from forehead to nose. He was chosen, given the name Rocky, and then slowly, bit-by-bit, made his way to Maine. And once he arrived at the horse rescue that adopted him, he burst off the trailer and ran away. He was wild, scared, had no sense of safety or home, had never been touched by humans, had no horse friends, and was afraid of everyone and everything.
A few days after he arrived I was asked to come help him. When I first went into the stall with Rocky I just sat down and breathed and talked to him. I didn’t want anything from him. I only wanted to be a friend. And I remember that first moment when he looked at me but then quickly turned away like he was afraid he would get in trouble for it. And then, slowly, he turned again to look at me…softly blinked…and then breathed. And I remember I felt something. It wasn’t like something new or something beginning…it was like I remembered something already there between us.
Rocky taught me much about horses, but it’s what he taught me about heart and soul and love, and fearlessly being myself, that I thank him the most for.
And so moment by moment, day by day, we began to trust each other. It was electric the first moment he bravely reached out and touched my hand; inspiring when he courageously stood there and trusted me as I cut off the rope halter that he’d worn for months and was now so tight it was embedded in his hair and skin. I was the first being he ever trusted in this world, and he was teaching me what trust in another really was. Within a couple years Rocky became my horse, sold to me for the grand price of one dollar, and we began traveling the world of relationship together. There was something he instinctively knew about freedom, heart, connection, love, and how it fit into a horse and human working together. And soon that wild and fearful little foal became a strong and confident adult horse, proudly showing all his heart and soul as we moved together on the ground and in riding, having transformed that long ago fear into the deepest of trust.
Clinics, demonstrations, shows, schools…Rocky and I traveled far and wide together talking about the relationship between a horse and a human. We worked together free with no tack, no halter and lead rope, no saddle and bridle, no equipment on him or between us whatsoever. It was just him and I together on the ground and in the riding. Many people would also come to the farm and connect with him in some way, with the thread that ran through it all being Rocky’s presence, his way of connecting and the safety that came with it physically, soulfully, and probably most of all–emotionally. Someone who once came to visit him said “I felt so safe with Rocky, and I felt, for perhaps the first time in my life, that I had nothing to prove in order to be loved and accepted. He gave me permission to just be me, and to know that was enough.”
Young horse years moved into teen horse years and soon he was in his twenties. As his body slowed, his heart seemed to grow and expand. In his later years he shared his magic more through presence than his movement, moving with us in more soulful, heartfelt ways. He cared for so many young people who learned to find their own confidence, joy, and trust within themselves through their time with him on the ground, in riding, and in just being with him. And he would stand with people of all ages while they laughed, cried, and found healing and inspiration and a forward feel for life. And with a look of his eye or a touch from his nose he could move mountains.
And when I was with Rocky on his last night, during those last breaths he was to take in this world, it was still there…that same feeling from that first day I met him. The little golden palomino foal with that halter tied tight, and me sitting with him in that stall. And I knew what that feeling was and it never changed from the moment we met until his last day.
Home.