The powerful impact of our relationships with horses appears to defy description, it is after all “beyond words” to use the author’s own phrase. This book is a testament to the senses of grace, strength and agency that this relationship can gift us when we allow ourselves to be open and to let go of our fear. The author’s search for the new home that would allow her to live as one with her herd is intertwined with intimate and compelling stories of how individual horses have touched the lives of others, helping them to heal and to embrace the new and the possible. Both these strands are alive with emotional and sometimes physical jeopardy and cause us to reexamine our concepts of courage and connection. The book allows us to explore the physicality of trust and communication and to reevaluate how we frame the relationships upon which we rely and sometimes take for granted. It is also a playful but vital clarion call to see learning differently and to be prepared to engage more with our hearts and less with our heads, through immersive experiential encounters in which we are given permission to be our true selves.

At its heart, this is a poignant story of the authentic abandonment to the idea of relationship and the courage to be vulnerable. It is a masterful, insightful and occasionally unsettling work, so deftly crafted that you can feel the notions of power, raw emotion and discovery surging through each page; these messages are so urgent in these uncertain and tumultuous times, in which our ability to connect with others in our own human herds has been so severely disrupted. The Spirit of the Horse has left an indelible stamp on my heart and serves as a joyous paean to restorative and sustaining power of the horse. It is nothing short of a marvel.

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The year has been and very almost gone, with the bruise of Covid leaving a mark on our lives, its hue ever-changing but never quite disappearing completely. There have been black days, blue days and then days when just the faintest tinge showed. Many days too when the kindness of people and the magnificence of nature brought great happiness. Hopeful optimism, adaptability, perseverance and creativity have come to the fore, too. And perhaps now we appreciate much which, previously, we may have taken for granted.

A phrase which seems to have punctuated many of the conversations I’ve been involved in is ‘… something to look forward to…’ Whether at moments when someone is sharing the bleakness of losing social contact: ‘I feel as if I have nothing to look forward to …’ Or when mustering positivity for the future, a return to doing what we love doing: ‘…that will be something to look forward to … ’ This fluctuation between feeling emptiness and hopefulness, has been one of the emotional signatures for the year.

What does this ‘something to look forward to’ mean to each of us? A rest? A reward? A goal? A holiday? A buzz of adrenaline? A change? Human contact? A family get-together? An achievement? It can be many things, varying for different people at different times. But whatever it is which we gladly anticipate, the implication is that it is better than what we are experiencing right now. And expecting it makes the ‘right now’ more palatable. The future desire brings us hope, strength, excitement, resilience, perseverance. 

Awareness of this reliance on looking forward to events made me reflect, too, on those in the world for whom existence is about survival and there is no place for pleasure. A deepening sense of gratitude has developed over the year for what I have, even without being able to enjoy, right now, many of the things I cherish: seeing my family including a new great-nephew, carrying out my usual work, even sitting at a local cafe with friends watching the world go by. The suspension of planning the many ‘somethings’ which, ordinarily, I would have been looking forward to has made room for a more profound savouring of the moment, a rootedness in the right now, an acceptance of changing priorities and a need for self care and the care of others.
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So, as we approach the holidays, whether you are able to enjoy what you usually might have done or not, I wish you peaceful, joyful moments in which you can immerse yourself, whatever the future might hold and however the year has affected you. May the New Year too bring a newness which refreshes and finds you restored.


Pam Billinge