Rena, Helen, Fiona, Catherine, Jen: I feel your collective presence and gifts. I am so honored to be in this circle.

The video brought up a lot for me. As some of you may know I actually work in the horse world. I see first hand how captivity and domesticity affects many horses. I have had the opportunity to work with a small group of wild horses that were rounded up in Nevada, teaching their new human "owners" how to feed a wild horse. These horses due to stress and the typical commercial feed diet quickly become metabolic with a disorder known as Insulin Resistance. In humans this is known as Type 2 diabetes.

On my farm we have 8 horses, all retired competition horses, as the farm is a retirement horse farm. Two are mine, the others are boarders. About 20 years ago I had a revelation about keeping them in a herd with minimum human contact. This gave me the opportunity to really observe herd dynamics and learn from the horses how they wanted to live and interact. People thought I was crazy not to keep them in stalls, manage the turn-out, etc. These retired horses in a herd live considerably longer, don't colic, don't get sick. They rarely ever need a vet. My retired Grand Prix horse is now 29 and we have been together since he was 4.

At the heart of horse stall confinement is the human need for control and convenience. I feel this in part why our culture does not honor wildness.

love, tigger