Standing in a Field with Horses: A Memoir of Equine Connection

By Maeve Birch

If you're not "boss mare" material, can you still work with horses? This was the question Maeve faced each time she interacted with a horse. If it wasn't in her nature to dominate this animal, could she be around them and still stay true to herself? The equestrian world shouted in unison, "Get after him! Tell him who's boss!" Yet Maeve couldn't. When she did, it grated against her soul. Could she successfully navigate a life with equines if her leadership looked different?

In this moving memoir, Maeve Birch explores the dynamics between traditional horse handling and her communications with horses, which often didn’t align with what she was taught. In the stories shared, human issues such as codependency, lack of boundaries, impatience, violence, and fear crop up again and again, shaping horse and human relationships. Standing in a Field With Horses provides a window into the mind, spirituality, and social undercurrents of a woman trapped between obedience and self-expression along with the horses. Will she be able to stand in the current or will she be pulled under?

As horse care and training evolves, so too do the humans who cherish their hooved companions. The two are inescapably linked together, both in the physical realm and in spirit. In the future, will we break horses to fit us and our human world, or will we allow them to guide us into new worlds, new ways of existing and experiencing? The horses have a lot to say, if we are still enough to perceive their whispers through the demands of our human psyche. A new way of being with horses is on the horizon. The hoofbeats approach. Come, stand in a field and listen closely... You may hear more than you expect.

Praise for Standing in a Field With Horses:
"This book is a lucid reflection on the transformative power of horses on the personal development of humans. Birch’s unembellished prose is a departure from the sentimental projections horsey memoirs typically circulate. Instead, this read’s more like one woman’s personal ethnography—a set of field notes—trying to make sense of horse culture, while also making sense of her inner landscape. With an acute self-awareness and determination to attend to core wounds, this author is all of us—confronting emotional patterning to redirect life towards better outcomes. Sifting through science and the felt sense of direct experience to arrive at her own conclusions, she presents an earnest contemplation of how to be in right relation with animal others. An easy, yet deeply insightful read."
- Shannon Beahen
Founder of Humminghorse Equestrian,
Trauma-informed Trainer and Educator

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maeve Birch
• Release date: Nov 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9798987174302

Maeve Birch

Maeve Birch lives on the east coast of the US with her spouse and two cats. She became interested in horses at a young age, but was never able to take lessons. Horses remained at a distance until in her mid-twenties she began volunteering at various horse rescues, leading to an outright equine obsession.After several years observing, interacting with, and listening to various horses, Maeve’s first book began to take shape. In finding the courage to voice her opinions, she realized that the horses had their own voices and opinions to share with her. Many of the initial assumptions passed down to her about horse behavior and training were not what she was hearing from the horses. In searching out other ways to exist with equines, she found mentors online and in books who shared her outlook on what the human-horse relationship could become. Physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of that relationship became clearer. The interactions between horses and humans were changing. This book became part of that shift.The names and details of humans and horses in her books are changed to protect the identities of those at the barns she visits. Her goal is to openly document her own experience for the horses and humans who might benefit from the stories shared.Maeve’s other hobbies include gardening, identifying birds, plants and other wildlife, stargazing, and painting. She spends many happy hours puttering around in her vegetable garden and sitting on a nice rock with a good view of a meadow. Someday she plans to have her own horses, but for now volunteering, lessons, and leasing will do.

Book preview

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all those who helped bring this book into reality, including my barn mentor, various informal advisors, my beta reader, editor, and formatter/cover designer. Without these contributors, this book would still be a scribble of words in a journal. In addition, I would like to thank the horses in my life who taught me to listen and to use my voice. I’m forever grateful.

Forward

I hope that you will enjoy this foray into the beginnings of my work with horses. If you are new to horses, welcome. If you have been an equestrian for decades, welcome. If you have never touched a horse in your life, welcome as well. I’m not a trainer, not a competitive rider. I don’t even own my own horse as of writing this, yet horses have drawn me into their world, as they do for many who encounter them. This book is proof that you can start exploring the wonders of horses as an adult and as someone who is not boss mare material. If you have ever doubted yourself, welcome. If you have ever wondered if things could be different, welcome. If you are perfectly fine with how things are going and picked this book up because it had the word horse on the cover, also welcome. Come, stand in a field of horses with me.

Standing In A Field With Horses

By Maeve Birch

I take my time,

Not because it’s gentle,

Or not only because it’s gentle,

But because a horse under pressure

Is a river seeking a crack in the dam.

A human grabs a horse by the nose

And thinks they have tamed it.

They have only touched themselves to the storm.

I must remember

I am holding a tsunami by a length of string.

It has only chosen to be

Smooth glass for the moment.

I take my time.

I feel the gentle rocking of the waves.

I attach myself but hold loosely,

Hold myself still in the current of the horse.

Part 1: Beginnings

My first memory of a horse was a pony ride through an apple orchard. I was perhaps five or six years old, and my family was visiting the pick-your-own farm in our rural town for strawberry season. We went every year but this was the only year there were pony rides. A young woman hoisted me into the saddle and led the quiet pony up and down the sunny rows of apple trees. I don’t even remember the color of the pony, just the strange rocking motion of being on the back of a horse and the feeling of being much taller than usual. It was over too soon, then tucked away in distant memory.

My second ride was on the back of a black and white paint pony named Delaware. My parents took me trail riding for my sixteenth birthday in the rolling foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. I remember distinctly that I had just started my first menstruation two days before. I was in the midst of horrible cramps and afraid that I would bleed on the saddle, despite my mom having given me her prepared lecture on period products. I wanted so badly to ride, though, so I took an ibuprofen and strapped on my bike helmet, ready to try my best. Delaware seemed amicable as far as I could tell, though he didn’t do much other than following the horse in front of him. It luckily meant I didn’t need to know how to steer—past the ten-second introduction to pull on this side of his mouth or the other and cluck at him to go—to get out of the paddock and onto the trail. I could sit and look around at the beautiful fall scenery around me. Every now and then, I would reach down and pat Delaware’s mane, telling him what a good horse he was for existing.

When we got back at the end of the trail ride, I stayed as long as I could to pet Delaware and admire him, but within a few minutes, the next group arrived, and we headed back to the car. It was never long enough for me in the handful of trail rides I experienced. I always wanted more than an hour and more than sitting on the horse’s back trying to figure out how to ride properly. Surely there was something else one could do with a horse. Something more meaningful than going from one place to another.

Chapter 1

Intro: Three White Horses

Years before I became closely acquainted with real horses, I had a vivid dream about them. I walked into a stable where I found three white horses, wide-eyed and snorting, waiting to be released from their stalls so they could gallop across the rolling pastures of my mind. I had the strongest feeling that they were connected to my life and my life with the horses. I believe I have met the first two, and they have changed me significantly. In many cultures, a white horse is a euphemism for death, so maybe I should not be so eager to meet the third one.

I met the first on a beautiful spring night as an undergraduate student. It was dead week, the week before finals, when students turned in last-minute essays and studied for the following week's final exams. A friend had invited a bunch of us to his house in the country for a cookout and yard games, followed by a small bonfire after dark.

I enjoyed the relaxation after so much focused study earlier that day, but I was most excited about the field of horses just across the single-lane road from my friend's yard.

They're my neighbor's, he offhandedly remarked, as if he'd never considered the vast privilege he enjoyed living across the street from horses. They're okay to pet if they'll come up to you, but usually, they're pretty far out in the pasture.

I'd often looked longingly from afar at herds of horses, and I was not about to squander this opportunity. I scarfed down my dinner and then stood at the fence, waving a handful of ditch weeds in what I hoped was a tempting manner. The herd continued to graze. It grew dark.

I returned to the group of fellow college students to help start the bonfire. That must be where I decided that shoes were no longer necessary. After they got it going, I remembered the texture of soft grass and warm asphalt on my feet as I walked back to the horse pasture. The herd was closer to the fence now, though still grazing at a distance from me. The white horse among them raised his head and looked at me for a moment before returning to grazing.

The night was so still and quiet I could hear them as they tore off clumps of grass and chewed, the gentle puffing sound of breath rising from one or the other every now and then. A hoof clacked softly against a rock as they moved across the landscape one step at a time. I fell into a contented trance, leaning on the rough wooden fence, watching them. I looked up, and the sky was so full of stars. I had spent most of my year under the purple haze of the university street lights. I hadn't seen the stars in many months. They caught my emotions unawares, and I suddenly felt happy and sad at the same time. Everything was so utterly alive there under the stars in the silent evening.

As I stood there wondering at the sky, the horses stirred and began to move. The white one came first, leading the others in a line toward me. I stood straight, anticipating. They didn't hurry but walked steadily closer until the white horse paused just within arm’s reach. I stretched out my hand to caress his cream-colored nose, but he merely touched his nose briefly to my fingers and left, ambling up the field. Almost before I realized the first encounter, the next horse in line, a dark mare with a white blaze, stepped up. I was sure I could manage to pet the horse this time, so I reached out and she looked me in the eyes with her strange horse gaze and said, Don't.

I stopped reaching, stunned. It was not a word inside my head exactly. It was a concept inside my head, and it was not my own. I wanted to pet this magnificent creature so badly, but I didn't know the rules yet. Horse etiquette would be a series of lessons later in life. At that moment, I had only a single instruction, transferred in the half second between the pause and the horse moving off to my left along the fence line. I didn't have time to think on it as each horse, in turn, walked to me, paused, and touched a nose to the back of my outstretched hand briefly before following the white horse onward. Four more horses performed the same ritual as I stood motionless, hand held limply out into the field. In only a moment, they were walking up the grassy embankment away from me. I felt a flash of giddy exhilaration as the herd broke into a gallop. The white horse led the charge up and over the crest of the embankment and onto the plain beyond. I ran too, along the fence in my bare feet until the horses wheeled away into the night.

I ran back to my human companions around the bonfire, unable to put into words what had just happened. I didn't have a way to describe it back then, and even now, I'm not sure what occurred that night. I don't know whether it's as mundane an explanation as they thought I had food or if it was something mysterious and meaningful as I have come to think of it. As it applies to my life, all that matters in the encounter is that it was meaningful to me. It started me on a path I still don't know the destination of, but it started the night I heard the horses speak.

Chapter 2

Spruce

When I first came to the rescue barn, I was in the midst of situations I didn't know how to escape from. Graduate school had left me battered by an overload of stress, imposter syndrome, loneliness, and horrible coping skills. I turned to codependency and masochistic church doctrine purely as an effort to survive if I'm honest. I was certain that my God-given purpose in life was to save people, and I was convinced that the more I could give to others, the better. The severe discomfort that went along with it was surely just my sinful nature. Ignore it, and I would be worth more as a person.

I tolerated a lot of things I shouldn’t have while becoming progressively more secluded and distrustful of those around me. My primary tormentor, a woman I had decided to rescue from her problems with addiction and homelessness, would call me almost daily to pressure me into giving her things. She claimed I was her daughter she never had and praised my generosity and kindness while simultaneously ignoring or downplaying anything in my life not related to her. I called her a friend, unsure how to navigate the complexities of saviorism, race, and class tied up in knots around our tumultuous friendship. Christianity didn’t provide detailed instructions along with its edict for saving people. Despite one graduate school mentor’s early efforts to dissuade me from using someone else’s problems to soothe my anxieties, I still answered the phone every time my friend called to describe yet another small disaster I needed to solve for her with my privilege-guilted conscience and my pocketbook.

At the same time, my church elders were pressuring me into teaching Sunday School each year while simultaneously telling me how disappointing I was in the position. I was asked to be on an ever-increasing number of church committees as I slowly lost the desire to even be in the building. I started to sweat every time the phone rang. It was always someone wanting more than I was comfortable offering, yet I capitulated on repeat.

I had recently gotten married as well and was going through all of the turmoil that comes with realizing that I distinctively never learned how to live in good relations with another person or talk through problems instead of running from them. I was in a little piece of personal hell. The horses were a welcome distraction.

Enter the rescue barn, a small rural surprise in the middle of a highly populated residential area. It was tucked in amongst the older houses, with a plot of land still large enough to fit a barn, some outbuildings, a few dry lot paddocks, a round pen, and a sand ring for riding in. The owner’s house was up a small hill surrounded by sweet gum and oak trees. I found them through social media after I’d stopped attempting riding lessons at various barns in the area. I wanted something more than riding. I wanted contact with horses.

I called the rescue barn and got in touch with Joan, the barn owner, who told me to show up at the next volunteer orientation to sign waivers and learn what chores needed doing.

The volunteers do everything from picking manure out of stalls, to filling water buckets, to walking horses around. You’ll get up close and personal with the rescue horses. They stay here in our herd for life once they arrive. A lot of volunteers develop favorites.

It sounded perfect.

I arrived at the barn’s volunteer orientation a few weeks later in my still-stiff paddock boots, sweating profusely in the mid-July heat. I was shown around and introduced to the rhythms of feed shift and stall cleaning by the barn keeper, Leslie. Leslie was a petite older woman in patched cutoff jeans with a penchant for yelling things and the strength to throw full bales of hay into wheelbarrows. Later she would become my primary mentor and a good friend, but initially, I was terrified of her. More than once, she would find me silently crying while picking poop out of a stall after she had told me irritably that I wasn't doing it right. It seemed like just one more thing I was bad at, but I had such an intense desire to be near the horses that I would stay and cry instead of leaving.

Spruce was a shy, nervous grey thoroughbred who was the only barn resident who had not been rescued but was a family friend's horse, boarded there while his owner went to vet school. He had been competed in hunters and jumpers courses for several years until the tendon issues in his hind legs got too bad to jump. He was brought to the rescue barn with the hope that he could be happily retired there and occasionally ridden as a lesson horse. When I first arrived, I called him a white horse and was quickly corrected. White horses were white from birth with pink noses and pale skin. Spruce, though he looked white, was a grey horse, born black with black skin and a coat that slowly changed color as he aged. When he was bathed, and his pale coat was wet and translucent, I could barely discern that he had a white blaze on the black skin of his face.

After a few weeks, I grew fond of this barn resident who seemed to be just as anxious with the things going on around him as I felt with all the situations I found myself in, both in and out of the barn. I was told Spruce was the lowest ranking horse in the herd because he didn't really assert himself with the other horses. He meekly tottered out of the way when other horses would come to take his hay or his water. When faced with an uncertain or troubling situation, he would sometimes work himself into a panic, making him unsafe for beginner riders. He spooked at shadows. He shied from being brushed. He was familiar with all the goings on at a barn and would comply with what he was told to do, but was visibly uncomfortable much of the time. I saw my own insecurities and vulnerabilities in this horse, so I felt more connected to him than to the other horses and humans at the barn. To be completely honest, I wanted to protect him, projecting my inability to protect myself onto his twitching, snorting persona. Unfair as this was to Spruce, it was the truth buried beneath the surface of my attachment. The core of my dysfunction in a tangible big, warm, hairy beast form.

My barn mentor-to-be recognized my affinity for Spruce after a while and began encouraging me to be the one who brushed him after evening feed. I'd go into his stall, still a little nervous at being there with such a large animal, and watch him eat his hay for a little while before brushing. Some days he would be nervous and pace around his stall while I followed, trying to curry his sides as best I could. I got stepped on more than once. Other days he would stand quietly, his jaw working back and forth, back and forth on the sweet-scented hay as I brushed.

Though my mentor tried to get me to brush faster at first, coaching me that a good groom should be able to brush an entire horse clean in ten minutes! I got slower and slower with Spruce. When I brushed quickly, his skin twitched, and he started circling his stall to escape the brush. When I brushed slowly, he stood and sighed.

He likes it when you brush him, she finally told me and gave me the softest curry they had for his sensitive skin. That is how Spruce and I became friends.

When I had been there long enough to gain some experience with leading a horse around the enclosed sand ring, I was allowed to take Spruce out for walks, which involved leading him from the ground around cones, over trot poles, and between barrels, as we navigated the ring. The rescue barn had only small dry lots for turn-out, so horses were walked for supplemental exercise and mental stimulation that they might not otherwise get from standing around at various hay piles. I didn't realize this was an unusual activity for full-sized horses until I went for another random horseback riding lesson with a friend at a barn nearby. Do you have any experience with horses? my peppy instructor asked.

Well, I've been on a few trail rides... but mostly I walk them.

You've ridden at a walk?

No, I like...walk them. With a lead rope, I offered, miming holding a rope.

Still not quite grasping the idea, my instructor guessed at what she could only assume I was doing.

"Oh, you hand graze them. Well, we'll