Trail Riding as Creative Art

While riding my 14.3 Morgan gelding (Mozart) today, I alternated between trotting and loping along on a beautiful stretch of trail and I kept finding myself on the verge of tears. Not big fat types of tears or anything, but feeling choked up all the same. And it dawned on me, that riding is kind of an art form, even if you are not in one of the disciplines. Riding is how I express myself, and I get to do it with my beautiful rescue horse with whom I have built a relationship based a kind of mutual assurance. We expressed that today. We jumped over small obstacles, and zig-zagged through a little shady Sycamore grove, and changed paces based on terrain (stones, sand, gullies, etc) and signals. He trusted me to stay seated and remain present, and I was trusting him to find his way and to carry us through even as I was alert to the beauty I was immersed in. The smell of the creek bed, the spring of his little body, the blue sky, insect swarms, and the sound of his hooves on the hard packed ground were my inspiration. You see, once you get to the point where you feel secure in the saddle, where you and the horse are moving as a balanced whole, you can start improvising and taking on whatever comes up. You blend your talents. I felt as much as I saw. I was untethered because he gave me height and wings.

I was riding with emotion. With creativity. I find myself swept up with joy mostly, but also there are elements of fear, exaltation, tranquility, and loneliness. Yes, even loneliness. But on Mozart I embrace where I am because things transpire much more quickly. I am who I am as I ride. When I cross the creek and look down for footing, when I look up across the grassy soft hills so I can get a sense of the space, when I briefly close my eyes to hear his hooves and the Black Phoebe. I am responding with what is around me. I am in communication with the dirt, the birds, the horse, myself, and whatever or whoever crosses my path. I remember once happening on a coyote crouching under a Toyon bush, her golden eyes met mine and she scampered off. I held my breath in that moment, and exhaled as I saw her disappear. She took part of me with her. Mozart didn't miss a beat. He glanced at her too, likely smelled her before he saw her, and continued trotting along. My heart rate, my breath, my skin, my brain, everything responds to these never ending series of moments that make up a trail ride. And they filter down into my emotional center. My core. My breath. Because it is my breath that keeps me centered and present. It is my best friend in finding a quiet seat and a quiet mind. 

Mozart and I, two different species, working together requires my physical and emotional lightness, and his trust. We create this experience together that, like theater, is there, but then gone. The creativity is in the doing of it, in the responding to what is around us, and in finding where to go in an instant. I've never thought about this before. There isn't art just in a dressage arena, or in a jumping competition, there is art happening out trail rides, the lowliest of the horse arts. It is an art with therapeutic value. Therapy through creation, through a mindfulness required for presence, centeredness, sensitivity, responsiveness, and emotional availability.

I was talking about this mindfulness as a zone for creativity, presence, and centered self-awareness with a friend of mine, Laurel Friedman. Laurel has started teaching Yoga as a practice for healing trauma. Yoga, like riding, is based in the idea of centeredness, breathing, and open presence to the moment. Facilitating this openness and presence is the breath because it takes us to our center and it also connects us to the world around us. I've taken a few Yoga classes with Laurel, and I am not a Yoga aficionado, but the connection to riding is unmistakable. Balance, mobility, stability, and flexibility are all aspects of Yoga achieved through deliberate movement and breathing and awareness. By drawing on a vibrant connection to our core created through this kind of movement I think we tap into our most creative selves. Creativity might not always result in an art gallery opening, or a book, or any kind of art that we perceive to be "art", but it typically widens our capacity for feelings and what seems possible. When I put up my saddle after riding, and relinquish Mozart to his own motivations, I walk away released, for the time being, from what "should be", and instead I am made acutely aware of the rich possibilities of right now.