January 20, 2009
This is my first blog, and supposedly it is about horses, but it is more about life.
I appreciate your eyeballs following my keystrokes. I’d offer some coffee, say, “Come sit a spell,” but the Internet prohibits such intimacy. I can, however, offer my intent—that this site will be fun and inspiring.
Michael Moore wrote, “Watch a thousand flowers bloom…we’ve entered a new era… Anything is possible.”
If I can plant a few seeds...
Oh my gosh, I just walked downstairs to let our little poodle dog Peaches outside, and saw on the Television President Obama and first lady Michelle walking down Pennsylvania Avenue after his inauguration. (TV on mute.) And Mrs. Obama was making that trek in high heels and an open coat. What is it 7 degrees in Washington today? Actually I believe they said 20 degrees but felt like 14. Over a million stalwart souls stood on the mountain top and let the cold wind bombard them while the dream of change washed their bodies warm as Hawaiian sunshine. This is a glorious day.
When my daughter comes home from her Doctor’s appointment, we will watch the inauguration festivities in their entirety. The doctor was her OBGYN. She is expecting a baby boy within the next couple of weeks. Although this is not my first grandchild, it will be the first one to live with us. Both my daughter's and my nerves have been jangled after waiting 12 months for conception, and the 8 ½ months of her pregnancy. Much of her story her appears in my book It’s Hard To Stay On A Horse While You’re Unconscious. which I offer on my website http://www.wishonawhitehorse.com./ For now, though, sit back, prop your feet up and we will carry on.
Regarding the book, It's Hard To Stay On A Horse While You're Unconscious,
I figured with all the books with dogs as life’s teachers, with cats as inspirational companions, and perhaps even kangaroos as jumping partners, I figured it was time we put horses into the mix. Recently I ran across the charming delightful book, The Daily Coyote, by Shreve Stockton, about raising an orphaned coyote pup. She has a website that I love and didn’t find until I bought her book.
First an explanation on why I am calling my web site http://www.wishonawhitehorse.com/.
It came about on a hot summer Saturday as my friend Rita and I sat on a bus heading for the Country Fair West of Eugene Oregon. This was not a hogs and calves sort of fair, but a human drama of costumes, of painted bodies, crafts, music, and 28,000 people jammed into an area of Hobbit-style booths and winding paths surrounding a river called The Long Tom. Across the aisle our husbands talked engineering or some such.
“Quick,” said Rita, “make a wish.”
“Why?”
“A white horse, I always wish on a white horse.”
In a pasture alongside the highway, head bent to the grass, tail swishing against the summer heat and flies, grazed a white horse.
I had never heard of white horse wishing, but considering I had long ago wished for a horse, blown out birthday candles with that intent, wished on stars, and prayed diligently for my heart’s desire, a horse, and I got one, Boots—the best horse in the whole world. I figured wishing on white horses wouldn't hurt.
So here, with horses as inspiration, and wishing and praying and blowing, I'm planning to watch a thousand flowers bloom.
The following is an interview that will explain something about my book, and will explain something about me.
The Interview:
J: “So, Joyce, tell me why should I waste my time on this book?”
Joyce: “Wait a minute; I spent four years on this book. Don’t tell me it is a waste for you to spend a couple of hours on it.
J: “Okay, okay. Let’s start again. In two sentences to tell me why you wrote your book, It's Hard To Stay On A Horse While You're Unconscious?”
Joyce: “Two sentences? That’s all I get?”
J: “Two.”
Joyce: “One: to write about what I learned about horses after a 40 year hiatus without one. Two: it’s about not having a tombstone that reads, ‘Died at 30, buried at 65.’”
J: “Being alive all the days of one’s life. I like that, but what qualifies you to tell us how to do it?”
Joyce: “The wizard gave me a heart a brain and some courage.”
J: “Aren’t you confusing yourself with Dorothy?”
Joyce: “No, the wizard, the Spirit that dwells in all things, endowed me with certain inalienable rights, and that is when you live on this planet you learn a few things. If we all shared what we learned we would all be wiser people. This book happens to be my venue.”
J: “Point taken. I want to know what spurred you into this project in the first place.”
Joyce: “Long ago, when I sold my beloved childhood horse Boots, I thought that part of my life was over, and then eight years ago, my thirty-year-old daughter, asked, “Mom, don’t you want a horse again?” She had left the corporate world in California, bought acreage in Oregon, and decided she wanted a horse. Here she was tempting me to do the same.
It had been 40 years since I swung a leg over a horse's back, except for a couple of isolated occasions. I didn’t know if I was willing to give the time and effort necessary to care for a horse. Yes, I did think that part of my life was over, yet there it was again, that old desire to run my fingers through a horse’s velvet coat, to bury my nose in a horse’s silken mane and inhale deeply, to climb aboard and feel the exhilaration that must have given rise to the term Centaur, half man (or woman), half horse.”
J: "Rather like a second childhood wouldn't you say?”
Joyce: “Definitely. Dr. Christiane Northrup (Woman’s Bodies, Women’s Minds) says at midlife we often return to the thing we loved pre-puberty.”
J. “I wanted to be an artist.”
Joyce: “It’s not too late. When did Grandma Moses start painting? In her 70’s I think. When John F. Kennedy wanted his gardener to plant a certain tree the gardener said, ‘But that tree takes 100 years to mature.’ Responded Kennedy: ‘Then we haven’t a second to lose. Plant it now.’”
J: “Except for your personal connection with the horse, why it is an important enough animal to occupy an entire book.”
Joyce: “I’m shocked you would ask that question. Many books have been written about horses, my favorite childhood book was Walter Farley’s The Black Stallion. That was fiction, yes, yet people want to read about the horse. They want to know about gentling the noble beast that has served humankind for six thousand years. They want to understand the animal that once served Knights and Kings. Today there are 7.1 million people involved in the horse industry. Almost two million people own one horse or more.
"Once too valuable to be placed in a peasant’s hands, the horse carried us into civilization, into the crusades, into war, into the west. Horses are the animals that gave the human wings, they are symbolic of freedom, a metaphor for life, and some think that the horse helped accelerate the intellectual prowess of human beings."
J: “Okay. I love horses, too. But aren’t horses skittish, claustrophobic, cowards?”
Joyce: “Skittish and claustrophobic yes, cowards, no. Do you like snakes?”
J: “Scare the hell out of me.”
Joyce: “Imagine this. You are asked to walk across an arena where 2,000 poisonous snakes are hissing and writhing on the ground.”
J: “No way.”
Joyce: "Well, let's say I spend 5 minutes convincing you it is safe. I duct taped their mouths shut,’ I say, ‘They can’t bite you.’”
J: “Duct tape or not, I’m not going, you probably missed taping one anyway.”
Joyce: “Okay, I spend two hours trying to reassure you. I walk through the arena myself showing you it is safe. What would you do?”
J: “I’d go around.”
Joyce: “At this point I’d slap you on the backside, and tell you not to be a coward and to get across that arena.”
J: “I’d fight.”
Joyce: “Humans are fight animals, horses are not. Horses are flight animals. Fifty five million years of evolution made them into a flight machine. “If in doubt, run,” was taught to them at their momma’s knee. The ones who lingered were eaten. We ask them to go into trailers (caves—traps), to cross horse-eating arenas, and to cross water that might be one inch deep or 100 feet; with their depth perception they can’t tell the difference. We ask horses to make life-threatening choices on a regular basis. And they do it for us. Is that not bravery?”
J: “I hadn’t thought of it that way. Aren’t those some of the things the horse whisperers know—people like Monty Roberts?”
Joyce: “Yes. Monty Roberts says he is an observant man who learned the horse’s body language, ‘The language of Equus,’ he calls it. Pat Parelli says there is nothing mystical about training horses. Yet, I consider both of these men horse whisperers.
"Most of the time when I use the term ‘horse whisperer,’ it is meant as a term of endearment rather as someone would call an older wiser mentor ‘Grandma.’ It is more than that, though, I am calling those highly skilled individuals who practice the non-violent art of horse gentling horse whisperers.
"Originally, the term ‘horse whisperer’ simply meant a groom who whistled or hummed as he was brushing the horse. He altered the sounds as he brushed, he raised the cadence when he wiped the eyes or nostrils, and he used another sound when he ran a sponge inside the flanks. This communication told the horse that there would be no wincing, biting, or kicking as long as a true note of friendship existed between them.
“Later on the term was given to horse trainers who had an uncanny knack of handling a wild or dangerous horse.”
J: “I’d like to know more.”
Joyce: “Glad you asked. I have a chapter on the horse whisperers in my book It’s Hard To Stay On A Horse While You’re Unconscious."
J: “Good, I will look for it. Most of the time publishers want their writers to be experts, or someone who gives seminars. Are you a horse guru, or a clinician or something like that?”
Joyce: “I’m just an old-time horse lover with new vigor. When I wondered if I did want a horse again I realized I didn’t know much except, ‘Jump on the horse’s back and take off for tall timber.’ A new horse wouldn’t be Boots, I am not as agile as I used to be, and I felt my balance might be shot. So I began to study.
“After learning some of the new horse gentling techniques, I became intrigued with the way a horse sees.
“If one studies the horse’s eye it becomes imperative to also study the brain. I wondered if the corpus callosum, the bridge between the two brain hemispheres, could account for the phenomenon in foal imprinting that happens when you massage the baby all over, but leave a part untouched. Let’s say it was an ear. Later on touching that ear will bring about a reaction as though he has one wild ear on an otherwise tame body. That imprinting phenomenon, as well as the horse’s need to be trained on both sides made me wonder if the answer lie in the way his brain made connections. So, I placed two appendices after the book’s narrative. First appendices: The Horse’s Eye, the second: The Horse’s Brain
J: “I am still wondering if I want to read an entire book about horses.”
Joyce: “Do it if you want. It’s a choice. Dean Knootz is a better writer than I. Richard Bach spins a better metaphysical tale. Monty Roberts’s is wiser, knows more about horses, and is more articulate.”
J: “I’ve read them already.”
Joyce: "Then you might want to give me a try."
J: “Okay, in conclusion what would you do if Oprah Winfrey showed up at your door?”
Joyce: "She better not, my house isn't clean."
J: “What if she invited you on her show?”
Joyce: “First I’d faint. After I recovered I would dream of riding my horse Velvet on stage, but then Velvet might go ballistic at the lights and people, and dump me. There I would be in front of millions, a horse loose in the audience, and me flat on my back, mortified, unconscious, or dead.”
J: “I think I’ll ask Oprah not to do it.”
Joyce: “Good plan.”
