They arrive when you stop needing them to

This isn’t about training horses. It’s about remembering yourself

There are moments in life when something in you breaks open, and not in a dramatic way, but quietly. In the middle of an ordinary day. Lying on the grass, unsure of what you’re waiting for, but knowing something needs to shift.

This was one of those days.

As I laid my head on the earth, I felt her before I saw her.

The golden mare. Quiet hooves on moist ground. She moved closer with a kind of knowing I’ve only ever seen in horses…and maybe in grandmothers too.

No hurry. No announcement. Just presence.

She stood over me, softly, deliberately, as I pressed my palms to the grass and breathed into a heaviness that had been lodged in my belly for far too long.

This house I live in has never felt like home. Not really.

There’s something in the soil that doesn’t want me here. I can feel it through my bare feet. In the way the birds move. In the stillness that feels more like resistance than rest.

This was the day, the day I asked the land to let me go. To let this house find someone who will love it properly.

Someone who wants to tend the gardens and paint the walls. Someone who fits.

I didn’t ask the golden mare to come. I wasn’t trying to connect or call her in. I’d just let go of that annoying need to feel chosen, to be seen, to be held and acknowledged.

And that’s when she came.

For the first time ever, she stood above me. Not out of obligation. Not for comfort. Just to be there, as I finally stopped trying to be anything other than who and what I was in that moment.

She felt it.

The surrender.

The dropping of old stories.

I’ve been holding a vision lately, a vision of a place where my herd can move freely, between the trees and the women’s circles. Where they choose when to offer their presence, and where nothing is asked of them that they aren’t ready to give.

But the golden mare showed me that it doesn’t start with land. It starts with me. With the part of me that still thinks I need to be good enough, soft, impressive, spiritual, useful enough…to be worthy.

The grey mare hasn’t come yet.

She stays at the edge. My old lady. Grazing quietly, watching. I think she’s waiting for me to stop shrinking.

She was strong once. Sovereign.

And then she became dependent. Suppressed. Same as me.

She is my oldest and most potent mirror. And when I forgot how to love myself, she forgot too.

I can feel her near me now. I’m learning not to reach though. Just to stay open.

And as I breathe into that…

The golden mare returns. No fanfare. No message. Just presence.

And somehow, that is enough.

Some stories don’t end with answers. Just presence…the space to keep listening.