Well before I moved into a two hundred year old log home set into the rolling landscape of the southern Kentucky bluegrass region I lived in a gritty rough-edged inner city Chicago neighborhood. I had an ice-blue eyed rescued fighting dog, Zippy, whom I counted on to accompany me safely past knots of loitering gangbangers (“Folk Nation” allies, a contingent of west side Latin Kings). We would walk briskly the several blocks to the Junior’s corner store to pick up emergency milk or dog food.

It was within these circumstances I found myself actively seeking reading material that would transport me up and away from these tense streets and the cacophonous sounds of the nearby elevated trains and the instant adrenalin rush triggered by random one two three four five six shots popping off somewhere down the street at night. I read “The Man Who Listens to Horses” by renowned expert ‘horse whisperer’ Monty Roberts. As a lifelong lover of all things animal, reading how Monty taught himself to understand the body language of horses I was richly inspired. His words renewed within me a longing to find a way to be with horses.

The 200 year old log home

Seeds of inspiration get planted within us all the time. When I moved to Kentucky I remembered Roberts’ work and picked up every one of his other books. I was keen to learn Equus, the name he coined for this subtly cued language of equines, myself. I enrolled in clinics and trainings (one a six month long intensive at the Kentucky Horse Park) whenever and wherever I could. All the big name clinicians started parading through my awakening consciousness. As a practitioner of non-denominational natural horsemanship though I am a disciple of no one method and remain open to the gems within them all. Still Monty’s words and projects always ring true for me.

Oh how I wish more of my new neighbors would open themselves more to these techniques. Traditionalist horsemen throughout every discipline here in the ‘Horse Capitol of the World‘ are sometimes shockingly obtuse when it comes to understanding horses. Bottom line motivated, many tend to create unstable equines they end up having to dispose of one way or another with far too many ultimately ending up on trucks bound for slaughter. Fear crazed saddlebreds, broken down standardbreds, arthritic thoroughbreds, beaten down quarterhorses and abandoned ponies are all too often  ‘run through the system’.

I understand Equus now. I’m not fluent and I have a decided canine accent (Zippy taught me a lot about communicating with animal partners) but what my full time professional horsemen neighbors call ‘rankness’, ‘stubbornness’ or flat out meanness in horses I now know is often just a fearful horse or a horse in pain; as do most who get involved in equine advocacy and rescue.

The Garden of Hope the author planted just before the Bucktown neighborhood real estate prices went through the roof.

Back when I lived in Chicago I planted the first garden on the parkway between my studio building and the street. As I did so people walking to the train would shyly say hello and the more outgoing would suggest I was wasting my time. “It’ll get vandalized within the week.”, they’d say. But the sunflowers, giant amaranth and elephant ears grew sky high. As I watered them all on hot afternoons who passed would give me a smile. The next year — more gardens sprouted up in front of buildings up and down the street. If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference” then you’ll recognize the familiarity of such small gestures and the ultimate impact they have in affecting change.

Sometimes it takes a semi-ignorant outsider optimist to plant the first seeds. That’s me to a T. So that’s why it was always probably up to me to start EquineConnection.org the global network for equine rescue and advocacy. I simply don’t know any better. Here’s the thing about we gardeners of hope; we do what we do because we think we can. We’re too uninformed to know we can’t! But here’s the other thing – we’re getting our seeds from somewhere. For me in this case it was from the wise words written by a guy who also maybe didn’t know any better about learning the language of horses.

So now you’ll know the deep significance for me this past weekend as an equine based new media workshop came to a close where I shared a conversation with the delightful Debbie Loucks (First Daughter, Monty & Pat Roberts, Inc). We discussed our own organizational Join Up© opportunities through our synergistic Missions; me in equine advocacy and rescue and the Robertses through their continued work in sharing the knowledge they’ve learned working with horses and humans. I love when the Universe supports we gardeners of hope like this.