The hair is coming off of senior mare in clouds. She’s always been the last to shed, even when she was much younger. This year with it’s colder than normal alternating warmer than normal, the shedding is coming later, but right now it is happening. The newly grown spring coat usually shines with dapples. It’s darker too since it isn’t faded yet by the sun. And as I was brushing hair off senior mare, I realized, I think we all need a shedding season.
A lot can happen over the course of the year. Disappointments, unfulfilled expectations, loss, grief, and so much can happen even in the span of a week or two, not to mention several months to a year. It’s okay to let go, to shed those old pains, to release them.
This hit me pretty hard in my personal life. I realized it’s been almost a year since I experienced a pretty big betrayal, one that hit me pretty hard and has stuck with me because that individual’s behavior has only gotten much worse since then. As I watched the hair fall away, I realized I could just let it go. I didn’t need to use my precious energy, my precious time focusing on someone who talks a big game, but then never follows through unless it benefits them. I shed it. I release it. It’s time for something new to grow.
The horses whispered this to me as I was spending quiet time with them. It’s okay to let things go. It’s okay to shed. The hair we drop will regrow when it’s time, and this new growth is shiny and good.
My goal this week, as I recover from some of life’s roller coaster ride, is to spend time with the horses, to brush them, to hear the lessons they whisper to me.
Shedding happens automatically when the time, namely the hours of daylight, are right. Horses kept under lights can be artificially induced to shed (or to cycle), but much like keeping chickens under lights, that can be hard on their body. It also requires more care with blanketing and checking to make sure the horse is comfortable and kept in a healthy way. I think this is a good lesson for us too. We can’t force ourselves to shed something or release something we no longer need. We can try to induce it, but it may not work right, and it will require extra effort on our part to keep it released.
The horses tell us that we’ll know when it’s time to let something go.
In an interesting twist, as part of last week’s roller coaster, we ended up not being able to finish a load of laundry. I put a new load in the washer tonight, started it up and…the washer wouldn’t fill. It remembered that it had been stopped in the middle of a load of laundry and thought that it needed to finish what I’d started last week. Thankfully the old IT trick of unplugging it and plugging it back in again cleared the cache, and the washer resumed normal operations and laundry is, as I’m writing this, being washed. But still, it was almost like the universe wanted to give me a little extra nudge for this blog. Yes lovely, it is time to release whatever you’ve been holding onto.
Is there something that it’s time for you to release? Let me know in the comments.
