When my daughter was growing up, in her mid teens, she loved horses. One day I took her to a riding stable in Del Mar, CA. It was near the end the day. Being new to horse renting, I didn’t realize that the horses had been ridden all day. When we arrived, we were the only customers. Later I realized that the horses had had enough of people riding on their backs.
We both got into the saddle, and rode away from the stable. We didn’t get very far, before my daughter’s horse wanted to turn around, in fact, did, in fact, turn around to go back to the stable. She couldn’t change its mind, no matter how much she tugged on those reins. She got very frustrated, and I could see why, the horse I was riding was doing the same. Come on guys, I thought, it’s only for a half hour. Is it that bad? Having worked myself beyond exhaustion in construction jobs, I thought that if I could push myself beyond fatigue, they could probable manage a little more riding time. How to get these horses to cooperate?..I wondered. Then I had an idea, and I turned my horse around to go out, and he kept turning to go back in. However, this time, I kept turning him until it got confused, about the direction of the stables. After I had my horse under control, I coaxed my daughter into doing the same with her horse, and we did manage to trot them out for a time until they realized they weren’t going home, and again wanted to turn around to go back. Each time they did that, we would confuse them again. After doing this a couple of times, my daughter, who was much more empathic, wanted to give the horses what they wanted, and go back. Definitely a short lived riding experience, but I see that a renting stable horses are exploited. Their noble and regal characteristics are unappreciated. although, I’m not sure how they would be appreciated more, or what to do about it. That’s the nature of the world, whoever or whatever allows itself to be used will be taken advantage of.
I’m not condoning revolution. The story about the cobra and the saint springs to mind. Once upon a time, a cobra was terrorizing a village. The village people appealed to a saint who was passing throught the village. The saint wanted to help the villages, so he sat and meditated at the edge of the village to wait for the cobra to approach him. When the cobra finally arrived, the saint said, “You must stop terrorizing the villages.” The cobra was persuaded by the saint’s earnest appeal and the loving peace that the saint exuded. Months later the saint was passing through the village again, and decided to look for the cobra. The saint found the poor cobra, lying in a ditch, beaten and bruised.
“What happened to you?” The shocked saint asked.
“When the villages realized I was not going to harm them, they threw rocks at me and hit me with sticks.”
“I’m so sorry. I did not mean for this to happen. I meant that you shouldn’t bite, but you can still hiss at them, to scare them away.”
The Muse Be Willing 