Grounded Words, Speaking Beings, Fields of Language

I gave a talk on Zoom a few weeks ago to my colleagues in the equine facilitated practitioners group (LEAP) where I trained. On the back of that, one of my colleagues invited me to visit her place to see how she manages her venture. I looked on the OS map and discovered that her yard was based right next to an Anglo-Saxon burial site on the North Downs of Kent. I saw that it was a short riverside walk from a station that was directly connected to one near where I live, so I dug out my enhanced CRB certificate and my passport and we made a plan for me to visit the very next weekend.

When I arrived I saw three women deep in conversation close to a chestnut horse who was standing quite still, as if presenting his whole right side to their gaze. This was Frank, who had made it all the way to 36 years old and now looked rather tired. The three women were talking seriously about him, making plans, and deciding what to do. I noticed the quality of his fur, the look in his eye, and his stance as I was introduced to the women: Laura, a “level 5” equine facilitated practitioner who would be working one to one with a couple of young people that morning; Ellie, a young mother whose son has benefited from Michelle’s work, and who now regularly volunteers as a “a spare pare of hands.”

Michelle is the Director of The Little Horse Yard, Kent Equine Facilitated Learning CIC – a not-for-profit community interest company. She set it up in 2018 as a zero-share attachment, and was awarded a couple of important grants early on. One of these grants enabled her to establish a sand ring in the top section of her 9 acres where two of her seven horse were standing when I arrived. Beyond them I could see a small group of men wrestling a long mobile home into position on the concrete slope next to the new disabled toilet, close to the traditional animal shelters. Michelle underlined that no one would be living in the mobile home, a fact that was of great interest to her neighbours. It was going to be a place which could be used for work in the event of inclement weather. She bought this with the proceeds of wellbeing days that she organises with local businesses. “They take a lot of energy to organise,” she tells me, “but generate a lot of energy in their turn.” She charges one price for the participating businesses, and an entry fee for people to come in. She has a series of regular events that are linked to the equinoxes and other landmark dates and has been doing this kind of thing since 2020. This network of women business-owners that she has built up over time boost each other’s businesses by commenting on social media. In this way they make sure that they harness the energy their activities create and get some return back into their network.

Alongside her seven horses Michelle also has four alpacas and three cats. One of these alpacas only arrived a few weeks ago and is still quite young. He draws my attention throughout the morning, and Ellie nails it when she says that “Archie thinks he is a dog.” He is constantly trotting up to greet people and tries to get his nose into whatever is going on. “Having alpacas here is good for the children,” Ellie tells me, “because some of the younger ones can be a bit wary of the horses. They add a good way to start new work.” Like the horses, alpacas are grazers and stay out all winter. There is a wooden shelter near the fence made by one of the fathers of the children who use the place that the animals can stand under if they choose.

Letting the animals choose is central to Michelle’s way of working. I think it is key to her success. “Some horses are telepathic,” she tells me “and many people mask their problems, so we don’t know what we are taking on at first.” She gave me two startling examples of the way the horses read what is under the surface and react to it. It’s important that there is space for the horse to move if he needs to. It is important to be able to exclude a human from the space in which a horse might be restricted.

At the group meeting last month, Michelle sketched out one of her activities which is conducted from the other side of the fence. It is not necessary to bring people in to meet the horses straight away, she said. In fact, on my first visit to her yard, I sat on lump of metal in the middle of a field a long way from the horses and wasn’t introduced to any horse other than Frank. We spoke while gazing out over open landscape in which half a dozen other horse-related ventures were all quietly getting on with their business, separated by a series of wooden or barbed wire fences.

Michelle believes that the horses and their space can create a oneness which we humans can join. Her role, she says, is that of matchmaker and safe space creator. She takes care of the edge of the space and makes sure the animals are safe, happy and willing. She keeps her mind on the exchange of energy that forms the basis of her work, and which contributes to the economy that keeps things going.

In our conversation, I learned that Michelle is a mother, has been a PE teacher, and has travelled widely and lived abroad. She has her land, her animals, her business, and has built a network of close and reliable people who in turn have connections. She is keenly interested in the welfare of women, children and horses, and so far, she has proved to have a knack for winning grants. In one of the conversations I had that morning, Ellie testified to Michelle’s success and told me that most of the work that comes to the yard comes via word of mouth.