One weekend before Benoit arrived, I went to Nazaré and stayed next to the stormy shore. It was so windy, that the van was rocking for most of the night.

Driving home, I see this guy, cold and wet, crouched behind one of the perimeter fences of the farm. The next day, cycling to work, I see that he’s still there. It’s a long story and the important bits are that on the way back home I offer him some tuna thru the fence, discover that he’s very friendly (not wild), jump the perimeter fence (discovering that, yes, the electric does work quite well – ouch), lift him out, bring him home and start looking for his owner (much later we discover he’s not only chipped and spayed, his owner abandoned him. Nice huh?)

Eventually, a former volunteer of the farm adopts him and they brighten each other’s lives. She named him Tejo after a local river.

These walls are quite high up. Not long after mounting, I had a very strong experience. As we approached one section of the wall, I suddenly felt terrified. I was paralyzed with fear. I couldn’t move. All I could do was stand there and hold onto the wall. Pretty quickly, Benoit senses that something is wrong and walks back to me.

The only way that I could walk was for him to hold my arm as I clung the wall. Once we got passed that section, I was fine again. Shaken, but I could walk alone. I am convinced that that is where people, maybe criminals, were thrown from the top. I was feeling the terror of people being thrown to their death. Not fun.

I’ve had this kind of thing happen to me before. I often feel the emotions of the people who’ve been there before. Some people say it’s because matter absorbs emotional energy (the rocks, the walls, etc.). It’s most noticeable when the emotions are strong, like in churches or battle fields. I think most of us feel this as the “hush” that falls over us when we walk into a well loved cathedral or a sacred grove. For instance, the enormous wave of fear I felt washing over me one afternoon during covid was one of the reasons I decided it was time to focus my life on creating a better world (eg, Portugal).

This, however, was the first time the emotions have been so overwhelming that I couldn’t move. I don’t know why they were so incredibly strong there. I do know how happy I am that Benoit was there to hold my hand.

Back home, it was starting to rain. At first, it wasn’t so much, but it never seemed to stop…
Funny things happened. Like the horses got even muddier. (Who knew that was possible?) Their paddocks became mud baths. And one weekend, we drove to a wildlife preserve near the farm.

On the farm, I learned the basics of one of the two methods that made natural horsemanship famous in the 90’s, Parelli Natural Horsemanship. The principles of this method are quite nice: to have horse oriented interactions, communication that’s more natural to the horse, versus depending on equipment, force and fear to tell them what you want. The downside is that a lot of the subtlety gets lost in the mass marketing of the system.

There are 7 basic exercises taught to everyone – to use in the same way for every horse. What requires quite a bit of observation, nuance and adaption to do well gets taught by rote, as if it works universally. But, horses aren’t machines. In no way do they respond uniformly. Beginners, learning the exercises via video in their backyard, often don’t know how to adjust the them to fit their horse. As you can imagine this can get quite messy.

Another complaint, that my experience bore out, is that these exercises can train horses to be anxiously awaiting the next signal. Instead of being a relaxed form of communication, these exercises can be used just as forcefully as traditional ones, as in “Hey! Respond immediately or there will be consequences!”

Enough horses have suffered these two fates that they often get described as “ruined by natural horsemanship.” Ouch. In any case, I was glad to learn these exercises, and understand the controversy for myself.

Meanwhile, it stared getting cold. I brought wood over from the farm on a little 4×4 and quickly discovered that our stove was a beast to work with. I later learned that it’s designed to burn coal, not wood, which helps explain its incredibly awkward design if you’re burning wood in it. It did help me appreciate every other wood stove I’ve worked with. Heh.

And I finally befriended this guy. His humans got divorced, rented out this house and left him here with us strangers for a few months. He stayed outside for the first month and a half and wouldn’t come near anyone. Finally, one day he decided I was worth getting to know, and we became great friends. I really enjoyed his company and his ability, like many cats I’ve known, to be utterly comfortable in his body…

And so we end this episode. Almost 3 months here.
Lots of horses, plenty of mud, tons of dancing.
Manicured gardens, murderous walls, magnificent waves.

Life is FULL of surprises.
May you be one of them.