Let me tell you a little of the legacy I carry within me.
I've lived in very rough neighborhoods for much of my life. First up in the wild far north, and for the last 10 years in the suburban hood. Low socioecomic, cracked pavements, roaming packs of dogs and crackheads. The side of my family I joined as a teenager is 5 generations baked into this place.
This environment really affects the kind of events which get canonized into family history and lauded as heroic. There is all the obvious macho chest thumbing - lost glory days of comradery, debauchery, and power. More interesting, I think, are the stories of protection, mana, and claiming ground to say "NO".
The grandma who leaves her grandchildren inside to walk down her driveway with a straining pitbull in each hand, bellowing at a violent possee to get off her property.
The mother who flies out of her kitchen with a frying pan to knee the roadrager who is beating her son on the sidewalk.
The young woman shrieking obscentities who latches onto her blackout drunk sister and rips her out of the arms of the two strange men attempting to coax them off to "keep the party going".
The teenager backed up against her car at 3am by two leering shadows asking for a light, who squares her shoulders, looks them in the eye and yells "MOVE."
The woman who gets between a lone girl and the man harassing her. "She told you to FUCK OFF!"
The child who steps infront of a younger sibling to kick rocks at a pack of hulking stray dogs. "GO HOME!".
I am in several of these stories.
When I was first starting to learn about horses, I internalized the advice that if a horse crossed your boundary, you should give them a 'come to jesus moment' - make them feel for the next 6s that they were about to die, then immediately turn away and behave like nothing had happened.
I have never lacked the ability to plant my feet, call up a huge well of turmaltulent lifeforce, and curse at another being to get them out of my space.
Let me tell you about another part of the legacy I carry.
I am a woman who grew up attending a very religious school, and sitting through hours of church every Sunday. If there were disagreements, they happened in quiet voices behind closed doors. Any concerns were smoothed over by voices smiling about Gods plan. I toed the party line.
Somehow I lost the ability to admit I was angry, felt wronged, or sustained long term disagreement with someones words or actions.
I love floating hip deep in wild surf, letting each wave push and pull me, buffeting me down then dragging me back to the surface.
Bungyjumping, I melted the tension from my bones and swandived off the bridge. The rope around my ankles whipped taunt to arc me into a urdhva dhanurasana as the sunrise cracked the horizon.
Whitewater rafting, I dove off a raft into the rapids, balled up knees to chest and surrendered to the river to carry me to safety.
I once rode a pony down a kilometres high sanddune. Where others panicked, clutching at their horses faces and thrashing sideways across the sand, I sat back, slipped my reins and let her slide.
Later, I internalized some other advice - to never come into conflict with my horse, but rather arrange things so all happened smoothly with ease.
Then I had a period of grief and mourning, followed by a profound questioning of my right to ask anything of horses at all.
My brief period of apology horsemanship was largely characterized by organizing everything as much as possible so that my horse never experienced the slightest friction to resist her actions. I spent about a year getting gently squished into fences and ragdolled on the end of a line, while handwringing about all kinds of elaborate what ifs and why mes.
I struggled for a while to find a middle ground between floating; boneless, and rooting into a screaming banshee.
I am blessed that I can draw on both of these powerful tools when required. But I dont believe either of them are appropriate for the 99% of the time I spend in everyday, boring horsemanship.
I had to learn how to set a boundary without burning a bridge. I had to learn to disagree, without labelling the other party as bad. I had to learn to be quietly diligent and predictable, rather than formless or spiked.
I'll probably keep working on these things forever <3