Sunday Morning - “The Horse Whisperer”
Good morning and I hope this finds you and yours healthy and happy.
I was wide-awake at 4:30 this morning. So, I decided to see what was on TV. I could not believe how much I was affected by the show I happened to watch. For an hour and a half I had tears in my eyes. The beauty, the passion and pain in this story was so very moving as well some parts being very familiar. Buck Brannaman is the real life inspiration for Robert Redford’s movie “The Horse Whisperer”. The show I watched was a documentary entitled “Buck” which detailed the real life story of Buck and how he became one of the best horse trainers in the world.
Buck and his older brother were childhood performers doing rope tricks on TV at a very early age. But it wasn’t something they chose or enjoyed. They were trained and put into this endeavor by their very abusive father. From a very early age they learned to do what they were told as well as live in fear, not knowing when and why the next beating would occur. Shortly after their mother passed, still at an early age, a coach saw Buck’s wounds and got him and his brother placed in a foster home where they were loved and lived with their new parents.
Buck shared the fear he had growing up living in his home and how it adversely affected him so much that he yearned for peace and quiet, which he found when he was alone with horses. His frightened, shy, introverted attributes stayed with him as a child and well into adulthood. When he began his horse training clinics, he slowly worked his way through and out of his comfort zone, thus enabling him to truly affect those in attendance. After high school he met his mentor and a man that would become his greatest teacher as well as a father figure. He learned that horses were just like people but seldom treated like them. Buck was on his way, as he put it, “Not to help humans with horse problems, but to help horses with human problems” – he discovered the similarity between raising and loving a child with that of training a horse and how one couldn’t blame a horse for being the way they were if they were mistreated. He also realized that when people came to him to seek help with their horses, they were the ones that ended up needing the most help; he said a horse was just a mirror of one’s self. Many of the people in attendance found this to be true. That is when Buck realized he could share what he had gone through, how he was treated and why he was the way he was growing up; an uncomfortable, deeply shy boy that was terribly afraid, to help people understand their horses and what their horses needed from them.
Buck stated that none of his positive attributes were attained from his father. He said he learned a lot, but wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. As he became one of the greatest horse trainers he also had become the exact opposite of his father. He learned first hand what didn’t work so he became patient, kind and started sharing his experience with the people that came to him with their horses. He discovered that people would learn about themselves as they learned about their horses and that discovery was what started the loving, trusting relationship that was needed between a person and their horse, just like with people.
We all go through things in our lives that are not easy, that test us beyond belief. What we need to discover is that who we become is still our choice. If we learn a lesson the hard way we can do two things; one, never teach it the same way to anyone else and two, embrace what we have learned and continue to move forward in a positive direction hopefully affecting those around us as we would want to be affected.
peace & God bless
tjd
