Celebrating Life

 

I wrote this blog after Westy passed away, on my birthday!

This is a very personal story, which I seldom share but over the last year or so, the Parelli community has become my extended cyber family.

Like most people of my generation, I was brought up on fairy tales with happy ending and a belief that life was fair and if you were a good person, you would be immune to disasters and tragedy. Looking back, I can’t quite believe that I had such a naïve worldview, but there you go!

After 30 years of blissful ignorance tragedy struck my family twice. We lost 2 sons in 2 years and my world fell apart. My reaction was, why me? It’s not fair!

It was a slow climb back from the abyss of depression and despair. I just didn’t know how to be happy anymore. Whenever the phone rang I expected tragedy, whenever one of the children had a cold I thought it might be leukaemia. I was totally paralysed by fear.  Eventually, I learnt to live again, to smile and laugh but I was never truly engaged in the moment. In my search for peace, I read the great philosophers, looked into Buddhism, meditation, yoga…By then, I knew what I needed, I needed to be able to live in the moment instead of always worrying about what might happen. Sounds pretty easy!

Now, I bet you have all guess where all this is leading us! This particular garden path had a horse paddock tucked at end.  When I discovered Parelli, I saw immediately a brilliant way to be with horses.  As a LBE cusp RBE, I threw myself heart and soul in the program, bought my first horse, studied every night, determined to become if not a great horsewoman, at least a good one.

Little did I know that the answer I had been seeking for the last 15 years was just in front of me in the form of the most honest magnificent creature: The Horse.  Parelli principle number 7: “Horses teach humans, and humans teach horses” and so my horses have taught me to what no yoga teacher or meditation guru could, to live in the moment and enjoy the gift of life. They have heal my soul!

So, even when sad things happen, let’s not loose sight of how truly and incredibly fortunate we are, as individual and as a community, to have horses in our lives and to have each other for support.

I want to dedicate this blog to Pat and Linda Parelli who share so much of themselves, endlessly and patiently teach us and have made this incredible journey possible.