Energy and the Power of Healing

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to go on about this for a long long time 🤣♥️,” Nina texted after our experience with her beloved OTTB gelding, Val.

It started when I got a panicked phone call from her. Val was acting weird, neurologic, like he couldn’t get his head up. He was refusing to eat his grain and moving around with his nose on the ground. He always ate his grain. As we talked, she sent me two videos, one of Val outside, acting distressed. Another in the stable: Her other horse Hero eating; Val with his nose on the ground, occasionally attempting to raise his head, but always dropping it immediately, his eyes anxious.

As a bodyworker I can’t diagnose, and I hadn’t seen anything quite like this before, but my sense was something was stuck, his TMJ probably, and my gut told me releasing his fascia might bring him relief. But still, what if something was broken? What if he were neurologic and needed vet care?

As we talked through the options, we decided to try a remote session. If we didn’t see improvement she would call the vet. Circumstances were less than ideal. She had nowhere secure to prop her phone and no earbuds, so communication was a bit spotty. Hero knocked the phone down once, and some of the time I could see only part of Val. And yet…. And yet….

Nina started by approaching Val. His distress was such that he moved away immediately, nose still down, but with clear intent to stay away from touch. “Let’s use energy,” I suggested, and gave Nina a few suggestions to help ground her. We’ve worked together many times, so soon she was more settled and able to send quiet Reiki energy in Val’s direction. I directed her to the poll area, not touching, but teloi to the spot where she could “feel” his energy. When I asked could she feel it, she said yes. Then she moved carefully down the line. Sometimes he moved away. Sometimes he stood stock still, looking deeply inwards. She followed his lead. Gave him space if he needed it, then asked again. Waited as he processed. Let the little releases have their moment. After a bit, he started nibbling the hay on the floor. Occasionally he would lift his head a little, then drop it again, but his eyes were less distressed. Soon she was able to move her hands with a light touch to his SI area, to hold and wait there as he grew thoughtful. He was now in a space where I couldn’t see either of them well, but she knew what to do and she finished out the line. At some point Val turned towards the camera, lifting his head part way and holding it there. Nina said something about going down the hind leg and I responded, and just as I started to speak, Val fully lifted his head, walked straight towards the camera with his ears and eyes on me, and then went to his grain bucket.

Oh my heart. 🥹

The image below is a screenshot of the videos Nina sent initially, plus a little of the ensuing text conversation.

Fascia is astounding. It’s a 3D matrix interwoven all throughout the body, a vehicle for communication between the brain and everything else, a structure that stores memory and emotion. It’s viscous and osseous. It can change form with the lightest touch. Intentional, mindful gentle communication with it ripples through the body. Recently I worked on the tail of a horse who could only chew on one side. As I worked with her tail, she started chewing bilaterally again.

Horses have huge energy fields. If you tune in, you can feel it – prickles in the hand or fingers, heat, a sense of springy pushback against your own energy, then a melding. It’s strange, feels impossible, and yet in physics energy and matter are equivalent. I’ve seen horses physically change from work done at a distance. I’ve seen them tune into each other’s bodywork sessions, and benefit, the muscles softening, the stride lengthening. I have pictures of Sadonis taken 20 minutes apart, his body looking completely different in response to a session that was mostly energy.

 

Val’s beautiful response to Nina’s gentle energy, his ability to tune in and let go of the tension in his fascia, then his willingness to invite her in to touch the fascial line (which really is touching the entire fascial matrix, because it’s all connected) is a testament to the incredible power of horses’ connection to the non-physical, something so many of us struggle to recognize.

I am grateful in all ways for horses who teach me, for owners who trust me with their beloved friends, and for the power of healing.

Equine leg position and body asymmetry

Have you ever watched your horse eat? If your horse eats from a pile of hay, have you ever looked to see which leg is forward during meals? Is it always the same one?

And why does that matter?

Remember the pictures of Eason on my last post? If you look carefully at each picture, you’ll see she always had her right leg forward. Why does that matter?

Because she never has her right leg forward.

OK, she does now, sometimes.

How did that happen?

Gentle suggestions from me during bodywork and groundwork, and scent exploration and getting to "graze."

Very few horses spend time grazing these days. So many live in small runs with shelters, or even in enclosed stalls with little turnout. Wild horses would spend 10-17 hours a day grazing, one foot forward, then the next, then the next, always moving. Many large farms are implementing track systems where the food is spread out and horses have to walk to get to it as a way of recreating a more natural feeding environment. We can’t all do that, but we can help horses rethink their posture and way of standing with bodywork, scentwork and the right kind of groundwork. In the video below, you’ll see Eason moving around after her scent exploration adventure. She’s relaxed and snacking on the weeds that are breaking through in the round pen. She alternates feet, and spends quite a bit of time with her right foot forward, something she didn’t do when she first got to Shadow Rose Farm, even when grazing. She would take two steps to line up with her left foot forward.

After I’ve finished playing with her in the morning, I put her out in a dry lot pasture for a few hours and I scatter a couple of flakes of hay all over the pasture for her so she can “graze.” As in the round pen, she alternates legs.

At night feed and breakfast, she now will sometimes stand with her right foot forward at her slow hay feeder, but mostly she still picks the left foot. I’ll be watching to see if she alternates more frequently as we continue on this journey.

Which leg does your horse lead with when eating, and what do you do to encourage more symmetrical posture?

I like to sleep on my stomach sometimes, but maybe 10 years ago I realized I always slept with my head turned to the right. When I tried to turn it to the left, I couldn’t. I was locked into an asymmetrical stiffness that felt permanent. I’m pretty stubborn, so I decided to fix it. First, I made a concerted effort to do things right-handed (seeing as I’m left-handed). I mucked stalls, shoveled snow, swept, ran the vacuum cleaner, switched my mouse on my computer, changed hands to brush my teeth. I was terrible at it and had no muscle tone, but week after week, month after month, I got more coordinated and stronger.

I also started turning my head to the left when I lay on my stomach. I could tolerate only a few seconds at first. Then a few minutes, then finally long enough to fall asleep in that position. Now either side is comfortable.

I also did Pilates and took my daughter’s yoga classes.

I’m still crooked, but a lot less crooked than I used to be. Injuries from multiple surgeries on my left side have made my left shoulder problematic. Back in the day (1999) they didn’t prescribe physical therapy or massage after mastectomies. They provided a leaflet with a few exercises, which I did diligently, and let you go on your merry way. And so here I am, 24 years later, with pectoral muscles that hold a grudge and the resulting deep-seated compensations. It’s OK, though, because I can help myself, now, with what I’ve learned from equine massage.

What has that to do with Eason’s right leg being forward in my last posting?

Horses are like people. They are “handed,” in a sense, asymmetrical like us. And if we don’t help them release those asymmetries, they harden over time.

Humbled by Hero

I am humbled every day by the energy and understanding of horses. I just finished off a weekend of equine bodywork, and it was phenomenal. I worked with three lovely horses in Benton City, and then drove to my friend Nina's place. Nina is the owner of Val, the horse who started me on my exploration of scentwork with horses, and a new equine friend, Hero, an enormous senior former jumping schoolmaster. Hero had been getting harder and harder for the farrier to trim until at his most recent appointment he could not lift his left hind leg at all, even under sedation. Nina was hoping to help both him and Val become more comfortable.
 

Hero caught my heart immediately. He was big, black and stunning, but his eyes told a story of worry and pain. The before and after picture shows a moment in time (or two moments in time), and it’s one reason I sometimes hesitate to share pictures. After all, a horse might move and present a totally different picture just a second after taking the first picture. But if a series of pictures would show basically the same posture, the same habitual ways of standing, then it’s more than a moment in time. And in this case, beautiful Hero tended to stand like a goat on a rock. He also had a reflexive hind end reaction that looked somewhat like shivers. It involved him raising and kicking out his hind legs, with the left more forcefully.

I worked with him lightly and carefully, releasing his ventral and dorsal lines and gently softening his rock hard glutes and hamstrings. I made sure to let him know I would never go past the threshold of what he could endure, and he spent a lot of time processing, his eyes finally releasing a little of their worry. Towards the end, he was able to release his left hind and stand for a little while with it cocked, but he wasn't ready for me to pick up either of his hind legs, so we left it for the day. We decided it would be worth trialing both him and Val with some Equiox before working with them again in the morning.

On day two, we headed out to the barn again to see how far we could get with them. "Oh, they're leaving," Nina said, as both horses headed out the door into the pasture when we entered the barn. I think they wanted to show us how good they felt, as the next 10 or so minutes were a show of speed and dexterity as they galloped and bucked and kicked up their heels. After a bit, I walked down to the bottom of the field and stood, and after a little happy, fancy snorting, both horses trotted up to me to exchange breath and touch. They followed me up to the barn, then took off again when my dog Dandy, who was across the fence, startled them.

Here's where magic happened. If Hero had indicated he didn't want help, I would not have forced it. I wanted him to have the right to say he wasn't ready for more yet after his challenging session the day before. We can mechanically soften the muscles, but if the horse is not receptive in heart and mind, nothing will stick.

When the horses came back up, I walked out with the halter. Hero thought about leaving, and I backed up and waited. He came my way and stood. I held out the halter and he turned his head away. Again I waited. Finally he turned his head and dropped it into the halter. He softly followed me into the barn aisle, where he stood for me to work with him again. Again I released the fascial lines, and I was able to get more deeply into the glutes and hamstrings without his leg reacting as much (or as violently). He was able to let me pick up his right hind, at first with a typical shivers reaction (reminding me so much of my beloved Sadonis), and later fairly softly and easily, but still the left hind was a no-no area. I could touch it, could release the fascia, could massage it up and down, but the moment I approached it he planted it and cocked the right hind and I knew he wasn’t able to lift it for me yet.

I told Nina I thought we needed to be done, even if we hadn’t accomplished what we wanted. I was afraid we would lose everything we had gained if we pushed it because the moment I even thought about asking him to lift his left leg, his eyes grew dark and his body tightened. Nina was concerned, rightfully enough, that if he can’t be trimmed in two weeks it will cause more damage to his posture, so she took a moment to see if he might trust her enough to lift his leg for her. But the moment she moved towards his hind end with the intent to ask him to lift his left leg, he shifted his weight onto it and hooded his eyes. His mouth, which has finally begun to relax, tightened again.

And Nina, being Nina, knew what he was telling her. She backed off, telling him she wasn’t going to ask him to lift that leg. The next moment was magical: In a way we both immediately recognized (it wasn’t the first time that weekend he had communicated very clearly what worked for him and what didn’t) he gave a huge sigh, then very deliberately widened his base in front and cocked the left leg.

And he stood like that for at least 15 minutes, in deep, deep processing, holding a stance he had been unable to hold for weeks, maybe even months. We stood there until he was ready to move, in a space that felt sacred.

It was fascinating that Val was in the stable where he could see and participate. If Hero was anxious, Val was beside himself, but as Hero calmed, so did Val, and time and time again I heard Val take huge, shuddering breaths as Hero settled and was able to let go of his tension. He also gave a series of yawns and neck stretches. And then he coughed.

“Uh-oh,” Nina said. But I remembered a post by Tami Elkayam saying that as horses release their diaphragm they will cough, and given his deep breaths, the way he had been moving right before the cough, and his yawning, I think perhaps he was releasing his own diaphragm. I asked Nina to pay attention to whether he coughed any more or had any signs of illness. Since he is fine, I figure he was probably doing his own bodywork as I was helping Hero.

Both horses are happier in their own bodies. Since we trialed Equiox, the changes could be due to the drug, but I’ve not seen horses play the way the horses played just because they got Equiox, so I think it’s deeper than that. Nina’s working with their legs daily and we’ll see if Hero can maintain enough flexibility that he can get trimmed at the next appointment.