Destiny
As you read this story about how Oliver came to be with us, please know that I strongly believe that he was meant to be here with us. His destiny is here and everything that brought him to us was meant to be.
I was asked to do a healing session by distance on this horse who had just had a big floating accident. The lady who owned him was concerned that he “had a screw loose” – that’s an expression about being a bit crazy. The last in a long line of crappy things was when he was being evacuated from a fire, went crazy in the trailer, ripped loose from the tie up, got his giant body turned around and was trying to jump out the back. I cant imagine how scary that was and she thought that there had been no reason for it.
She spoke of him as being a major disappointment and dangerous and that she couldn’t sell a horse that she “couldn’t think of a single good thing to say about” and could only give him away because of all of that.
This was a horse who was not abused. In fact he could be considered to have been given the best of everything. But everything was wrong – she had bought him a new hand made and fitted saddle and that was wrong, she bought him a big new float and that was wrong and these two things were at the end of a long list – she felt that everything she did with him was wrong and she considered him dangerous and arrogant.
I was a few minutes into the healing session when I felt him grab me by the heart and squeeze me. It was very intense and something I had never experienced before in hundreds, maybe even thousands of healing sessions that I’ve done by now. It still makes my eyes tear up to think of it. In that moment I understood that he was terribly misunderstood and was reaching out to me.
In the healing session he came up with a homeopathic medicine for cancer (it turned out that he had a sarcoid on his face) and if I remember correctly, that medicine had to be administered over a period of several weeks.
I emailed back to her the things that came up in the healing session. I had cleared a fright imprint from the floating accident, did some emotional releasing work, gave her the instructions for the medicine I was posting to her and suggested that given the seriousness of the condition, that she not ride him while he was having the medicine, because it was quite intensive and that this period of not riding would both give him a chance to heal AND give her an opportunity to find some love for him. I suggested that if she couldn’t find some love for him during that time, that she should give him away like she was thinking of, because I thought he was a really special horse who was looking to be loved.
Well that night I was cooking our dinner and I had a short bit of this darned song playing over and over in my head. The rhythm of the music was driving me nuts because I couldn’t remember the words. I had over half an hour of this same bit of music from this same song repeating over and over again in my head until it was driving me crazy.
I turned to Tihana, a young worker who was helping in the kitchen and said “Hey, do you know the words to this song?” and hummed the music.
“Yeah” she said. “It’s ‘I’ve been a bad boy and baby I’m yours tonight’.”
With a whoosh of strong emotion I was crying, it was like being punched in the stomach it was so strong – realizing that it was Oliver and a message about Oliver – that he wanted so desperately to be my horse. I’m laughing and crying a bit even now writing this and remembering.
I was standing in the kitchen shaking my head, saying to Tihana, “Gosh I CAN’T have another horse. I’ve got all these horses out in the paddock already doing nothing. I can’t have another one. Over the years, I’ve just gone and got all these other horses without any consultation with my husband and with finances the way they are, I just can’t do that again it wouldn’t be fair.” And yet all the time there was this incredibly strong pull of emotion to Oliver and I’m trying to talk myself into it and out of it.
Then I realized that Tihana was standing there looking at me and comically pointing her finger over my shoulder behind me to where Merv was standing there listening to me.
So I proceeded to manipulate him into approving of me having this horse that was drawing me so intensely.
Ahh well the next morning when I woke up I was a better person and took the manipulation back… 🙂
With Merv’s “Well dear, if you think this is really important then it’s OK” kind of approval, I rang back Oliver’s owner and said with a genuine wish that she DID find the love for him, “This is an incredibly special horse and if you can’t find love for him by the end of this period of not riding, then I’ll take him.” I actually thought that in “everything happens for a reason” that maybe my offer would make her realize how special he really was.
Three days later I got a text message saying “He’s at such and such address, come and get him.” She’d tried to MAKE him have those incredibly important meds and he’d kicked her.
After lots of to’ing and fro’ing of phone calls and emails, making sure that she really didn’t want him any more, checking what she would feel like waking up next week without him in the paddock (“relief” she said), I organized the transport and with the help of a friend, Oliver was shipped 500 kilometres from New South Wales to Victoria.
The night before the truck arrived to collect him, I was just sitting down to eat my dinner and I was hit by a wave of intense anxiety – completely out of the blue.
When I quietened my mind to see what was going on, it was Oliver. He was having an anxiety attack that I might not be able to handle such a big horse – he’s 18 hands. And he’s right, I had never handled such a big horse, specially such a big horse with big problems. So we did a little connected meditation together and worked out that if I was ever worried about his size or feeling intimidated, that I would ask him to stand back or take myself back until we were comfortable together and then we could build on that Comfort Zone.
Bless him, he was right. There were many occasions where we had to stand back from each other to find a comfort zone again, because he was like a giant gangly teenager who neither knew where his body was, nor knew his own strength and the impact of that strength on a human. It was, I believe, the fundamental cause of all the problems that the humans around him had experienced right from his babyhood.
When he first arrived, I could be standing beside him and as he moved his head from one place to another to look at something that wasn’t even a big deal, he would just knock me to the ground with his head and then look at me as if to say “What are you doing down there?” He just had no idea.
Anyway, that night before his traveling, as I understood how we needed to deal with our Comfort Zones around his size, all my anxiety disappeared and he and I both felt really excited about his coming here again.
Oliver’s arrival.
Oliver arrived all wobbly from the transport in a crappy ordinary racehorse truck, not the super duper truck with the specially comfortable suspension for such a long trip that was in the photos when I ordered the transport. I had also ordered a double bay because he’s such a big horse and I don’t believe that they gave him that either. Note to self, never use that transporter again.
He was all gangly long legs and a body whose bits didn’t seem to belong to each other. He had noticeable and pretty big sacral damage, he was very swollen over the croup and his vertebrae were bumpy behind the saddle area. He was incredibly thin as well as stressed. With what I know now about his lack of robustness with his weight, he may well have left Yass in much better condition than he arrived here – specially in that crappy truck.
I spent about 8 hours out there in the paddock with him on that first day. After 3 or so hours when he had his legs back under him, I put Pepi and Rapunzel in with him to keep him company.
On Day Two I did a healing session on him that had a lot of Bowen muscle therapy in it and then on Day 3 I took the video below on his first day out in the big paddock with just Peppi and Rapunzel. Then the miniatures asked to go in and then later in the day I added the rest of the herd one and two at a time.
Boots the young herd leader in training had improved dramatically since the last time I put a new horse in with the herd. Oliver was a gentleman and they met and greeted softly with only one squeal and leg strike by Boots. The herd leader and the dominant horse allowed Boots to do that checking out and greeting. We have understood for a while that they had young Boots as a herd leader in training – so that was interesting!
Oliver wasn’t so tucked up by Day 3. His back had also improved dramatically from the healing session the day before, but I’ve realized since that it won’t stay completely in place until the muscles are strong enough to hold it in place while it heals. Oliver himself talks about riding to wellness for that reason.
Video of Oliver’s first day out in the big paddock.
This is nothing special from a learning point of view, but I thought it might be interesting for some of you to see part of the farm here and the kind of pasture that I like to graze the horses in AND (I’ve added this bit later) it’s incredible how much his face has changed. He is a seriously handsome horse these days, with all the planes of his face relaxed. it’s one of the side benefits of our work here! 🙂
I look forward to sharing with you some of the HUGE lessons that Oliver has brought to us in the coming lessons. 🙂