4. Rituals

Today was the first day of a clinic Stina is holding together with Farah DeJohnette. As a working student, I am an assistant at this clinic, so I get to participate in most of the programme (when I don't have to shovel poop or make tea). It is very interesting. Stina is a certified trainer of the Carolyn Resnick Method, which operates with something called the 'Waterhole Rituals'. This is essentiallly just a breaking down of how horses treat each other in a normal, wild herd.

Humans also have rituals. We have rituals for hygiene, for mornings, for evenings, for meals, and also for social life (in fact in most areas of life). For example we shake hands when we meet each other the first time, and we respect other people's personal space. Especially in cities, where lots of humans live very close to each other, we have lots of rituals (or norms) which we use and follow to feel safe. For example avoiding eye-contact with others while you're taking public transport, and staying at least one metre away from other people while shopping for groceries. Since humans naturally form and rely on habits, habits and rituals that are constant create a structured and reliable life and environment, and we feel safe when they are in place.

It is the same with horses. They are very social animals who live in herds, and have to function in a unit with others quite often. To make this work, there has to be a structure and a way of communicating that is universal for all horses (since horses change herds all the time in the wild). Carolyn Resnick studied wild horses and found the most important and covering rituals or set ways to interact that horses have and use actively.

The first two are quite intuitive: sharing territory and saying hello. I think I have mentioned this earlier, but these are very important basics when you deal with horses. Sharing territory is just being in the same space, and allowing the horse to come and go as it wants, while not paying much attention to the horse. Saying hello is analogous to the human ritual of shaking hands (except you do it quite often with the same horse). It involves holding your hand out to the horse (if the horse is close to you) with the back of your hand up. You then allow the horse to smell your hand or blow on it and then you go away. When two horses meet for the first time or are reunited, they blow in each other's noses, so this ritual is an imitation of that. You don't want to invade the horse's space for too long, therefore you move away afterwards.

I hope this wasn't too much horse talk for you, and if there is anything else (or more of the same) you would like to hear about, just leave a comment.

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