
Foto van Aline Valster
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He is there
When I think I lose control, he is there
And says: don’t worry;
When I get anxious, he is there
And tells me to relax;
When I feel shattered, he is there
And shows me he is complete;
He energizes me, teaches me, he is there
He helps me heal and open up, he is there
My Horse is there
Ineke Rietveld
Let’s Shine
If you could change your life, what would you want to change?
The numbers on your bank account?
Would you wish to be friendlier, or less angry?
Or maybe change your employer’s attitude or your partner’s or your parents’?
The truth is:
we can change our lives,
we can change our beliefs,
we can change our perspectives
and with changing ourselves,
we change the relationships we are in.
Let’s shine.
When we are ready to make changes in our Life, we attract whatever we need, that is the law of Attraction. This works both ways: if we dwell on what we don’t want, we get more of what we don’t want.
Science has discovered what native Americans, Aboriginals and animals, especially Horses and dolphins, already knew:
We can use our bodies as tuner, receiver and amplifier,
We can learn to trust our body language,
We can learn to recognize our Inner Wisdom.
Let’s shine.
Would you like to listen to your Heart’s desire?
Would you like to be Authentic?
Each of us is like a box filled with precious jewels.
We only have to sweep the dust off and shine.
I have never met greater teachers and healers than Horses.
Let’s give them a dust rag or even a broom and
Let’s SHINE!
Ineke Rietveld
For a new beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped unto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
John O’Donohue
(To Bless the Space between Us)
You are me and I am you.
It is obvious that we are inter-are.
You cultivate the flower in yourself so that I will be beautiful.
I transform the garbage in myself so that you do not have to suffer.
I support you, you support me.
I am here to bring you peace
you are here to bring me joy.
– Thich Naht Hanh
“A Message from the Spirit of the Horse”
You seeth not
what stands before the eyes.
It is time
that you spoke for us.
We need your voices.
We take heart that many
are awakening to our needs.
We are united as one.
By Linda Tellington-Jones, famous for her TTouches.
Love after Love
The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each of you will smile at the other´s welcome,
And say, sit, Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
All your life, whom you have ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
By Derek Walcott
Guest House
Being human is like
A guest house.
Each morning a new arrival.
A joy,
A depression,
A meanness,
Some momentary awareness
Comes as un unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they´re a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture,
Still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
For some new delight.
The dark thought,
The shame,
The malice,
Meet them at the door
Laughing,
And invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.
Poem from Jelal´uddin Rumi, a 13th century Mystic Poet
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
As you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.
By Mary Oliver
(New and selected poems)
West Wind #2
You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
Your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
Me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
Penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
Dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
Away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
As it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging an steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.
Mary Oliver
(West Wind)
To all my wonderful horse loving friends..
A page from an 87 yr. old horsewoman’s handwritten Journal:
I ride. That seems like such a simple statement. However as many women
who ride know…. it is really a complicated matter. It has to do with power and empowerment; being able to do things you might once have considered out of reach or ability. I have considered this as I shovel manure, fill
water barrels in the cold rain, wait for the vet/farrier/electrician/hay delivery, change a tire on a horse trailer by the side of the freeway, or cool a gelding out before getting down to the business of drinking a cold drink after a long ride. The time, the money, the effort it takes to ride calls for dedication. At least, I call it dedication. Both my ex-husbands call it ‘a sickness.’
It’s a nice sickness I’ve had since I was a small girl bouncing my plastic model horses and dreaming of the day I would ride a real horse. Most of the women I ride with understand that meaning of ’the sickness.’ It’s not a sport. It’s not a hobby. It’s what we do and– in some ways– who we are as women and human beings.
I ride. I hook up my trailer and load my gelding. I haul to some nice trailhead somewhere, unload, saddle up, whistle up my dog and I ride. I breathe in the air, watch the sunlight filter through the trees and savor the movement of my horse. My shoulders relax. A smile spreads across my weathered face. I pull my floppy hat down and let the real world fade into the tracks my horse leaves in the sand. Time slows. Flying insects buzz loudly, looking like fairies. My gelding flicks his ears and moves down the trail. I can smell his sweat and it is perfume to my senses. Time slows. The rhythm of his walk and the movement of the leaves become my focus. My saddle creaks and the leather rein in my hand softens with the warmth.
I consider the simple statement: I ride. I think of all I do because I ride. Climb rocky slopes, wade into a lily-pad lake, race a friend across the hayfield… all the while laughing and feeling my heart in my chest. Other days just the act of mounting and dismounting can be a real accomplishment. Still I ride, no matter how tired or how much my sitter bones or any of my other acquired horse-related injuries hurt. I ride. And I feel a lot better for doing so.
I think of the people, mostly women, that I’ve met. I consider how competent they all are. Not a weenie in the bunch. We haul 40 ft. rigs, we back ‘em up into tight spaces without clipping a tree. We set up camp, tend the horses. We cook and keep our camp neat. We understand and love our companions, our horses. We respect each other and those we encounter on the trail. We know that if you are out there riding, you also shovel, fill, bathe, wait and doctor. Your hands are a little rough and you travel without makeup or hair gel. You do without to afford the ‘sickness’ and probably, when you were a small girl, you bounced a little model horse while you dreamed of riding a real one.
“My treasures do not chink or glitter, they gleam in the sun and neigh in
the night.”