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"I recently learned that in an average lifetime a person walks about sixty-five thousand miles. That's two and a half times around the world. I wonder where your steps will take you. I wonder how you'll spend the rest of the miles you're given." -- Fred (Mr.) Rogers
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March 12, 2010 | |||||||
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 The Horse Knows The Way Karin Widengren, Boston, MA December 28, 2000 What's the best medicine? With increasingly positive results, more and more people are using creative remedies -- outdoor activities, art, music, laughter -- to cure the things that ail them. A Boston freelancer sends a goodletter about animals that are silently, gracefully helping people with illnesses feel better. NEW Reader Responses are coming in all the time! Follow along by clicking here. Join "The Horse Knows The Way" conversation below! Dear goodthings, Do we truly know what makes the most difference when we're sick or in need? I wonder sometimes if our compulsion to medicate is always the best answer. Do we miss important healing opportunities when we fail to explore more creative, less traditional options for taking care of ourselves? I'm learning that some of these options are not necessarily as "alternative" as we tend to think. Today I visited Windrush Farm in Boxford, Massachusetts. It was the last riding lesson before the holidays, and riders and horses were sharing truffles, cookies, and cider with staff and volunteers. From where I stood in the corner of the large riding arena, the place looked like a typical New England equestrian center. The horses were lined up after the lesson, each one held by a volunteer. Their riders -- Cheryl, Donna, Cindy, and Joanna -- were sitting in a circle, sharing jokes and laughs with their instructor, Priscilla Donham. What was different, though, was that some of the riders were in wheelchairs. Tucker, a gray dappled Welsh cob pony, lifted his head in apprehension as Joanna, a 52-year-old with both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, was helped onto the ramp. It takes a lot for an animal to withstand being crowded by five people and held still by a wall, but Tucker was steady. Joanna was so weak today that she kept her eyes closed as she was led around the ring. Riding Tucker, though, energized her. Priscilla sensed a change in Joanna and instructed the volunteers to lead the pony up to the mirrors that run along one wall. "She's opening her eyes," the instructor said. Every Tuesday, Windrush Farm's therapeutic riding center offers disabled adults like Joanna as well as children a chance to expand their physical, personal, and emotional boundaries. I learned from director Mandy Hogan how kids with learning disabilities and at-risk youth can learn responsibility and concentration with the horses: "Sometimes it's easier for them to respond if it's the horse who lets them know boundaries, how to be respectful and patient, rather than an adult telling them what to do." The group lesson today included a relay race. Each horse and rider had to round two cones, sing a Christmas song, and head back. Sandy and Cheryl were the winners, but it was hard to judge since the group dissolved in laughter and the horses moved out of line. "This is a chatty group," smiled Priscilla. The volunteers were rewarded for this semester's work with flowers, a green seedling of English ivy decorated with a purple velvet bow, and a hand-drawn Christmas card depicting the stable and its lodgers. Cheryl petted her 28-year-old mount. "She knows where the good things are," said Donna, as the horse reached for the last piece of Christmas cookie. A happy and healthy New Year to you all, Karin Widengren Boston, MA A few of Karin's favorite goodthings: Puccini operas, galloping down a trail, working with people from 12 different countries, laughing at private family jokes, a really dry martini, the Animal Rescue League, Harry Potter, singing old Smiths' songs with my boyfriend on guitar. . . TALK ABOUT IT Know about an innovative, creative program that's improving the lives of people in need? Tell us about it. LEARN ABOUT IT Music Therapy: Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart's Rhythm of Life project serves Alzheimer's patients like his grandmother. Art Therapy: The aesthetics of healing. Humor Therapy: Why laughter is good medicine. The "real" Patch Adams' work with the Gesundheit Institute. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT Find a therapeutic riding center near you. Readers Respond Want to share your thoughts or ideas with other people who care about good things? Send 'em our way. Dear goodthings, I am a volunteer for Gentle Giants Equestrian Therapy, a non–profit in northwest Kansas providing hippotherapy to children and adult with disabilities. We serve 25 children and adults and have 20 volunteers. Our riders struggle with multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, child stroke, deafness, blindness, Down's syndrome, and head injuries. We have 15 donated senior horses, aged 25-3O years old who have their own disabilities, like blindness, deafness, genetic leg deformations, and arthritis. Some were rescued from abusive and starving situations. We are the only known hippotherapy group to provide physical therapy for free. We have no administrative costs because our staff is all volunteer, but we are in desperate need of funds and donations. As a volunteer, there is no greater joy than to work with the kids and watch them smile and light up! I had the awesome opportunity to work with a man for eight weeks. At the beginning, he would not even touch the horse. Slowly, we worked and worked and then on one of the last sessions of last summer, he got on the horse and rode. He was so happy, all the volunteers and other parents cheered (and cried). Now he can hardly wait until this summer when sessions start again. Another little girl, who is three and doesn't speak, was so excited when she rode for the first time, she could not stop smiling. When she was on the horse, she had two side walkers with her. She let go of the saddlehorn and, with both hands, was waving to her parents who were videotaping her. When one of the side walkers tapped the saddlehorn and asked her to hang on, she put her little hand down to their face and waved it, as if to say, "I got it - don't worry." This is a wonderful opportunity to serve and make friends. Thank you, Billie Crawshaw Hays, Kansas Dear goodthings, I used to work in riding therapy in San Diego (the Helen Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe), and I can't say enough good things about the benefits to the riders (and the volunteers and the instructors). It's actually not an easy life for the horses -- not inhumane by any means, but they have to deal with riders who don't necessarily have a good sense of balance and who may yank on the reins -- takes a lot of patience to be a therapy horse. The horse "does" know the way. We had horses there who really KNEW when they were carrying a rider with disabilities. My favorite therapy horse, Skye, just died this past summer around the age of 30. He was such a character -- a very distinct personality and a lot of heart. Skye was a former show horse -- a purebred Morgan who had been shown in harness -- and at Christmastime we'd hook him up to one of the carts and give "sleigh rides" around the arena. He was really in his element then; you'd never have known he was in his mid-20s. When I first started working as a volunteer at HWAC, I got him out of his stall to groom him, and one of the instructors warned me to be careful with him because he'd garnered a reputation as a bit of a wild card. He had also developed a little kicking problem. (He would "cow kick," or kick out to the side, when he was being groomed.) I decided this horse was NOT going to get the best of me, and I started arriving a couple of hours early to groom him and warm him up before his first rider got there. The extra time we spent together over the course of the four years I was at HWAC forged a very strong, almost telepathic, bond between us. Whenever I was uncertain about a lesson for whatever reason, I'd use Skye, because for me he was completely reliable. I know horses are living creatures and thus can never be 100% predictable, but it was as if Skye understood and honored the trust between us. I've been around animals, including horses, most of my life, and this was the first time I'd had that level of psychic exchange. There were many other fine horses in the program, but Skye was special, and the fact that HWAC is now putting in a memorial garden for him is a fitting testament. I could go on forever about this. It's really a passion of mine -- and if I never do anything else worthwhile in my life, I can (and do) take great satisfaction in knowing I was part of something profound at HWAC. Susan Mihalic Taos, New Mexico |
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