Riding a giraffe

I've discovered a great horsey community over at Neigh-Bours, a cool EQUINE social networking site for us horse-mad types. I've also set up a li'l blog over there. Honestly, you'd be forgiven for thinking I am a serial blogger, but that really isn't the case. Yesterday was interesting for this reason. While you're taking a look around the site, keep an eye open for one of my PetPawtrait Giveaways. Sign up as a member, and start blogging, we all think our horses are quirky, so share their eccentricities with other horse lovers. It's a great community. Go look.

Horse-mad

The advent of horses in my life was no surprise, really. My dad had dabbled as a kid, and my aunt had a couple on her farm. It was always presumed that I'd end up riding, which I did when I was ten years-old. My parents agreed to riding lessons as a birthday present. They held back on actually getting me pony, saying that if I was still riding by June that year they'd consider getting me one. They kept their word, and later that year Smokey joined our family.

This is quite an apt full-circle kind of post. In that tomorrow is my birthday, and I had my first riding lesson exactly 27 years ago! I was your typical horse-mad kid. My folks always said I ate, slept and drank horses, and if I wasn't out riding then I had my nose stuck in a pony novel.

It was a couple of years after that that I discovered PONY magazine. It was a Saturday like today - grey and damp with drizzle. I was rummaging through a box of magazines at the SPCA book sale, when I unearthed this treasure. I still remember the cover - a two colour job in green and grey midtones. I was enraptured. If it had a horse on it, it got my attention, and here was an entire magazine full of horsey photos, stories and articles, written and designed especially for the girl who was crazy about horses. That was the day I fell in love with magazines. It was 1984 and the closest to a horse magazine our country had was the Farmer's Weekly, and ancient title which only seemed to focus on Saddlebreds.

That craving to create and organise beautiful editorial – words and pictures – led me to follow a career in layout and design, and finally, twenty years on, I came to do the layout and design for HQ, South Africa's premier equestrian magazine. Issue 46 includes, not only my layout, but also an article I wrote on one of my many passions: the horse-human relationship. It features Megan Jakson and her story of how she discovered the Tao Of Equus and The Way Of The Horse, that sole source of inspiration for so many equestriennes.

Horses have been my true north, guiding and influencing me for a lifetime thus far.

How have horses shaped your life?

The evolution of the horsehuman relationship

Slowly the wheels turn, as evidence of our relationships with these timeless creatures continues to evolve. Horses have patiently waited for human beings to wake up and recognise their value.

That to be more horse-like is to finally have the courage to deepen the relationship we have with ourselves.

That to be more horse-like allows us to discover the freedom of living an authentic life.

That to be more horse-like, we can begin to experience true presence and the bliss of being...

I am so excited about being alive, on Earth now. To see the changes and feel the new energy as it shifts mindsets, making us question who we are. I too have been looking for answers to endless questions. So I am grateful that a horse led me to a place where I could fling myself down a path, eyes closed, guided by a sense of wonder and purpose, to arrive here now. All the painful steps along this journey have gotten me a place where I finally understand, and can guess what some of the answers to those questions might be.

That to be more horse-like is to be patient with those slow to understand.

That to be more horse-like is to be graceful and dignified...

Still so many lessons to be learned...