Feeding the Inner Horse

It has been wonderful and revealing to now have the opportunity to play with Maverick, a horse with none of the baggage that often comes from horses interacting with people. The people who do interact inappropriately with horses rarely if ever admit it is their problem. But that is for another post. Maverick loves people, a tribute to Rachel, his owner of 3 1/2 years before she sold him to Wendy and me. What Maverick has revealed to me is the importance of feeding the inner horse.
For horses to excel, they need an excellent feeding regimen, which at Huntington Stables, I believe we do. Horses need plenty of exercise, not just for the body, but also for the mind. They need interaction with other horses. As important as all of these things are, I am now convinced that what is most important for horses is how we feed their souls, the things we can give them that mother nature and other horses do not provide. Horses and humans did not evolve together, and yet, when I see a real connection between a person and a horse, I know it is because that person has fulfilled something in that horse that could not be filled in any other way. There is a divine connection open to those of us who choose to seek it.
When Walker and I started our journey together, he had been so emotionally and mentally damaged, only until recently has he trusted me enough to begin to allow that connection between us. Maverick is so trusting, he has allowed us into his inner world almost immediately. Yesterday, Wendy and I played with Walker and Bingo first and had an excellent session together. When I play with Walker now, it's fun; I don't have to worry about him losing his emotional or mental control, at least not long enough to be worrisome. When we were done, Wendy went to give Bingo a quick hose down, as the day was unusually warm for a February, even in Houston, and Bingo has gotten a good sweat up. Walker had sweated very little, so I turned him out in the large front pasture in front of the barn to graze. When I went to get Maverick, he was waiting for me, head over the gate, ears focused forward. There was expectation, energy and excitement in that look. I placed the halter on him, asked him through the gate, and he had plenty of energy, so we trotted together to the arena. Wendy joined me just as I was starting to groom him, and as we stood chatting and grooming him, he started to yawn; not a small yawn, an eye rolling, tongue lolling yawn. Wendy looked at me and said, "He was stressed out that we were not playing with him!" All the thoughts I had started to have about the divine connection between horses and humans coalesced in that moment. He really needed us. And the truth is, for those of us who feel that connection, we need our horses too.
For now, I will give one example of how we feed Maverick's inner horse. Everytime he is learning something new and we draw him back to us, he starts to lick us. Sometimes it's just a few licks, sometimes it can be for minutes at a time. Most of the time, he does not blink while he is licking. Then he starts to blink,  then to nibble us with his teeth and we know he is ready to move on. We get it. We know he needs the time to process, and he knows we know. With horses, it's all about dominance games, but with his humans, Wendy and me, it's all about becoming more than any of us could be without the others. It's not about the instinctual, it's about the relationship.