I'm So Blessed

I came across this very cool little article that makes so much sense I wanted to share it.
I knew the first moment I saw the man who would become my best friend,husband, and biggest supporter, that this was a person of infinite character, depth, and love. I feel so fortunate to have him in my life. Although there may be a point or two we could work on, we have instinctively followed this advice for years.
May you be blessed with a genuine soulmate- someone who truly loves and believes in you, no matter what. Someone who celebrates and supports you just the way you are, and always has your best interests at heart.

10 Signs Of A Healthy Relationship
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

"My parents had a very good relationship," I often hear my clients say.

"What do you mean by good?" I ask.

"They didn't fight. They spent a lot of time with each other."

That may have been the definition of a good relationship years ago, but now most people want more. Following are ten signs of a healthy relationship.

KINDNESS

Is kindness more important to each of you than having your way, being in control, or being right? Do you each receive joy out of being kind to each other? Being kind rather than controlling with each other is essential for a healthy relationship.

SPONTANEOUS WARMTH AND AFFECTION

Do you and your partner well up with warmth and fullness of heart for each other and express it with affection? Are you each able to see the beautiful essence within each other, rather than just the faults? Are you able to get beyond the
outer to the unique inner Self of each other? Do you enjoy sharing affection? Warmth and affection are vital for a healthy relationship.

LAUGHTER AND FUN

Can the two of you laugh and play together? Do you appreciate and enjoy each other's sense of humor? In the midst of difficulties, can you help each other to lighten up with humor? Can you let down and be playful with each other, letting
yourselves be like kids together? Laughter and fun play a huge role in a healthy relationship.

ENJOYING TIME TOGETHER AND TIME APART

Are you both each other's favorite person to spend time with? Are you motivated to set aside time just to be together? Do both of you have friends and interests that you enjoy doing? Are both of you fine when you are not together?

Some couples spend a lot of time together because they really enjoy it, while others spend a lot of time together out of fear of being alone. It is important for a healthy relationship for each person to have friends and interests, so that they are not dependent on each other. Dependency is not healthy in a relationship, particularly emotional dependency.

A METHOD FOR CONFLICT RESOLUTION

All relationships have some conflict. It is not the conflict
that is the issue, but how you deal with it. Do you have a
method for resolving conflict, or do the issues just keep
getting swept aside? If fighting is part of how you deal with
conflict, do you fight fair, or are you hurtful when you fight?

LETTING GO OF ANGER

If one or both of you get angry, do you hang on to it, punishing your partner with it, or can you easily let it go? In healthy relationships, both partners are able to quickly move on, back into kindness and affection.

TRUST IN YOUR LOVE FOR EACH OTHER

Do you each trust that the love is solid, even in very difficult times between you? Do you each know that you can mess up, fail, disappoint the other, emotionally hurt the other – and the love will still be there? Do you each know that the love is
about who you are, not what you do? This level of trust is essential for a healthy relationship.

LISTENING, UNDERSTANDING, ACCEPTING AND LEARNING

Do you each feel heard, understood and accepted? Can you share your secrets with your partner without fearing being judged? Are you each more interested in learning about yourselves and each other than you are in controlling each other? Is listening to each other with an open heart and a desire to understand more
important than judging each other or defending yourselves?

SEXUALITY

Is your sexual relationship warm and caring? Can you be sexually spontaneous? Can you talk with each other about what brings pleasure to each of you?

FREEDOM TO BE YOURSELF

Do you each feel free to be all that you are? Do you each feel supported in pursuing what brings you joy? Does your partner feel joy for your joy?

While some people may naturally be open, kind, affectionate, accepting, and emotionally responsible for themselves, most people need to heal the fears and false beliefs they learned in their families. Healthy relationships evolve as each person evolves in his or her ability to be loving to themselves and each other.

http://www.innerbonding.com
email margaret@innerbonding.com

A Ponderable Thought

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems”
- Mahatma Gandhi

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a beautiful e.e.cummings poem

when god lets my body be

by e.e. cummings (1894-1962)

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From each brave eye shall sprout a tree
fruit that dangles therefrom

the purpled world will dance upon
Between my lips which did sing

a rose shall beget the spring
that maidens whom passion wastes

will lay between their little breasts
My strong fingers beneath the snow

Into strenuous birds shall go
my love walking in the grass

their wings will touch with her face
and all the while shall my heart be

With the bulge and nuzzle of the sea

We've Lost Another Great One

LEGENDARY HORSEMAN RAY HUNT DIES

America's Horse, March 12, 2009 -- Editor’s Note: The name Ray Hunt is legendary. He took the mantle of natural horsemanship from the Dorrance brothers and spread it to a larger audience. He, in fact, was the first traveling clinician, taking his teaching methods on the road more than 30 years ago and continuing to teach through 2009 when he had a spring workshop scheduled at his Texas ranch. Today, however, we mourn the loss of a legend. Ray Hunt, in his late 70s, passed away March 12.

The best way to describe Hunt is to let his words speak for themselves. What follows is an excerpt of a story published in the May 2002 American Quarter Horse Racing Journal:

Ray Hunt has shared his equine philosophy and techniques around the world. In 2002, he presented a two-day clinic at New Mexico’s Sunland Park Racetrack and Frontera Training Center, focusing on gate-training young horses and correcting problem behavior in older runners. But whether it deals with racehorses or ranch horses, the advice was vintage Hunt.

“We’ve got to look at things a little more from the horse’s point of view,” Hunt said. “We’ve got to try to help him to learn to reach our goals.”

Hunt worked with – instead of against – the horse’s natural sensitivities to pressure. He often pointed out that a horse can feel a single fly land on its body - so whips and chains aren’t necessary. He urged people to combine their knowledge and understanding of horses to create situations that increase the likelihood of the desired results.

“Make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy,” Hunt said.

Before a horse is even asked to enter the starting gate, Hunt established boundaries with the animal. While facing the horse, he applied slight pressure with the lead rope (enough to take out the slack) to encourage the horse to step forward. Hunt wasn’t talking about walking off – he was looking for the slightest clue that the horse was willing to move its foot. As soon as the horse shifted its body weight, Hunt released the pressure.

“Think about controlling the feet and shifting the weight,” he said. “If you get the horse to move his weight, he has got to shift his feet, but I bet he doesn’t move his feet first. He shifts his weight, then moves his feet. He prepares his position, and then there’s a transition. Don’t try to get the horse to go without getting it ready.”

If the horse stepped as Hunt wanted, he was rewarded with a rub on the forehead. If the horse didn’t step forward, the pressure was applied again, but never in a tug-of-war fashion. This wasn’t a contest.

“The horse doesn’t know what a contest is – what win or lose is – but the human does,” Hunt explained. “The first thing you know, you’ve got the horse contesting you – and don’t be surprised if he’s the winner. The horse doesn’t have any pride or ego – the two things that really get in a human’s way.”

If the horse stepped back, Hunt stepped back also, keeping the pressure steady but not increasing it. Hunt wanted to make the wrong thing difficult, not necessarily impossible. He stressed that the horse had a choice – he could do the right thing the easy way or do the wrong thing and face difficult consequences. In this case, the easy option was for the horse to simply take a step forward. But if he stepped back, Hunt went with him – if Hunt had stood his ground, when the horse hit the end of the line, the man would probably have had a fight on his hands.

To get a horse in a starting gate – or to do anything else – he has to be prepared, to be ready to do it. The horse’s body gives all the clues to his readiness. Hunt compared the unprepared horse to a steel rod. Tense muscles, wide eyes and planted feet are signs of excitement that show the horse needs more time to relax.

Most horses that are not ready to accept the gate will walk up to the open stall, stop and shift their hindquarters out of line, making a smooth entrance into the gate impossible.

Hunt suggested supporting the horse by twirling the end of the lead rope near or even tapping the horse’s hip to get the horse to line up. Then back the horse and approach the gate again to gauge the horse’s willingness. Don’t be surprised if you have to do this several times. As Hunt said, “It’ll probably take more than once but less than a million times.”

Other pearls of wisdom from Hunt:

“Notice the smallest changes and the slightest tries.”
“You direct the life in the horse’s body through the legs to the feet to the mind.”
“Slow down so you can hurry up. In the end, it’s a good way. Speed ahead of accuracy is no good.”
“You think you’ve got to hold the horse, but you don’t have to,” Hunt said. “You’ve got to have a feel – a feel following a feel, not pressure against pressure. That’s what happens in the starting gate, pressure against pressure. We don’t really think about it in that manner, but the horse does because he learns what he lives. He learned it the way he lived it.”
“There has to be firmness and discipline. I’m responsible for running the show, and the horse is going to work for me. He’s going to go where I want him, but he’s not a slave. You make him want to do it. First thing you know, he’s your partner.”
Hunt compared the human-equine relationship to a dance between a man and a woman: “If I was going to dance with a lady, I wouldn’t just grab her and say ‘We’re going.’ I’d get slapped,” Hunt said. “A lot of people don’t understand that you are trying to get the horse to turn loose in the same way. There’s a place in there where he turns loose and then you give. I feel of him, I feel for him, and we both feel together.”
“I’m trying to get my idea to become the horse’s idea. It’s not like turning a dial that is going to work today. It’s what led up to today that you need to change. It’s the little things that make the difference.”
"Keep in mind what you are working toward,” Hunt said. “You might not get him in (the starting gate) today, but when you feel he tries – which is a plus toward that – you can put him away. Quit on pluses, don’t quit on minuses. That’s negative; always quit on positives. He will never forget it. Build on positive things. When he finally wants to do things for you, that’s building confidence in him. By doing too much, you can take that confidence out. You’ve got to work from the horse’s point of view.”
-- Excerpted from “Hunting for Help” by Jennifer K. Hancock in the May and June 2002 issues of The American Quarter Horse Racing Journal.

A Day To Honor Our Forebears

May you all have a wonderful Saint Patrick's Day!
May you also take a moment to reflect upon the lives of your ancestors, who most likely came to these shores without the proverbial two cents to rub together, and who perserved through hardships unlike anything we have ever known. Whether they were Irish or not does not matter. Just hold them in your hearts for a time, and send out a little prayer of thanks for all that they did to help themselves, and ultimately you, to have a better life.

Earliest domesticated horses dated 5,500 years ago!

WASHINGTON – People and horses have trekked together through at least 5,500 years of history, according to an international team of researchers reporting in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

New evidence, corralled in Kazakhstan, indicates the Botai culture used horses as beasts of burden — and as a source of meat and milk — about 1,000 years earlier than had been widely believed, according to the team led by Alan Outram of England's University of Exeter.

"This is significant because it changes our understanding of how these early societies developed," Outram said.

Domestication of the horse was an immense breakthrough — bringing advancements in communications, transportation, farming and warfare.

The research also shows the development of animal domestication and a fully pastoral economy may well be independent of famous centers of domestication, such as the Near East and China, Outram added.

Compared to dogs, domesticated as much as 15,000 years ago, and such food animals as sheep, goats and pigs, horses are relatively late arrivals in the human relationship.

"It is not so much the domestication of the horse that is important, but the invention of horseback riding," commented anthropologist David W. Anthony of Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y. "When people began to ride, it revolutionized human transport."

"For the first time the Eurasian steppes, formerly a hostile ecological barrier to humans, became a corridor of communication across Eurasia linking China to Europe and the Near East. Riding also forever changed warfare. Boundaries were changed, new trading partners were acquired, new alliances became possible, and resources that had been beyond reach became reachable," observed Anthony, who was not part of Outram's research team.

Some researchers believe this new mobility may have led to the spread of Indo-European languages and many other common aspects of human culture, Outram said.

In addition to carrying people and their goods, horses provided meat and even milk, which some cultures still ferment into a mildly alcoholic beverage.

The date and place of horse domestication has long been subject to research, and the steppes of Central Asia and the Botai Culture have previously been suggested as possibilities.

But the new report adds extensive detail to the tale.

Outram's team developed a troika of evidence for horses being domesticated by the Botai.

• Studies of the jaws of horses from the site show tooth wear similar to that caused by bits in modern horses, an indication of riding. A 1998 paper by Anthony raised the possibility of such findings, but the new report is much more extensive and detailed.

• The leg bones of the Botai horses are more slender than those of wild horses, indicating breeding for different qualities.

The new way of measuring and analyzing horse leg bones "shows here for the first time that the Botai culture horses were closer in leg conformation to domestic horses than to wild horses. That is another first," Anthony said.

• And complex studies of ancient ceramic pots from the location showed evidence they once contained mare's milk.

"This is, apart from being fascinating, something of a smoking gun for domestication — would you milk a wild horse?" said Outram.

Anthony agreed: "If you're milking horses, they are not wild!"

"The invention of a method to identify the fat residues left by horse milk in ceramic pots is a spectacular and brilliant advance," he said of Outram's paper. "It is really important to be able to identify the fats in the clay pots as not just from horse tissue, but precisely from horse milk."

Still today mares are milked in Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

"The Kazakhs ferment it into a sour tasting and slightly alcoholic drink called Koumiss. It is clear that dated back at least hundreds of years, but beyond that no one knew. Who would have thought it was a practice that went back 5,500 years, at least," Outram said.

The new research was funded by Britain's Natural Environment Research Council, the British Academy and the U.S. National Science Foundation.

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On the Net:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org