I have had (if that’s the right word) horses for about 20 years, finding them again post childhood when we lived in California. They became central to my world for over a decade, and then, after a serious fall and a move back east, a beloved bunch of pals who entertained one another more than worked with me.

A few weeks ago, we lost our Arab mare Ivy, to a colic after a series of pretty horrifying infections. On a snowy day, our vet and I (and, honestly, I think Ivy, too) agreed that it was time to let her go. Cancer, probably, causing all of these large and small system failures, and a horse who’d gone from a serene beauty to a grim existence, losing weight, hurting, and getting so very tired.

Ivy in the summer on a happier day. She truly did look like a unicorn.

I’ve been the arbiter of life and death for several animals now, and it is one of the most complicated things I’ve ever done. There are those I still feel guilt over, unsure if how we humans decided their ending was the right choice. With Ivy, my sorrow wasn’t colored with uncertainty. She was so, so tired.

Her departure left my Haflinger mare, Circe, the last horse standing in our pasture. Circe is a delight – a character, strong-willed, smarter than me, affectionate, and social. She was withering, standing there alone in her field. Grieving. Lonely. I had the sense that she was physically getting smaller every day.

Enter our friends at Rosemary Farm Equine Sanctuary – where three of my horses since moving to the Catskills (including Ivy) have come from – a rescue and sanctuary committed every day to their motto, “where horses get to be horses.” They don’t actively seek adoptions much of the time, but are open to consider sending a horse on to a new home if conditions seem right for them, and for the horses they will be joining.

My friend Dawn, the founder and wizard of Rosemary Farm, had been watching our process with Ivy, and gently poked me about ensuring that Circe didn’t disappear into herself without a herd. Horses don’t do well on their own. They are creatures created to be in a tribe – they struggle with everything when left in the lack of safety and security of being alone.

Dawn was right. A new horse was exactly what we needed – both Circe and me. Not to forget Ivy, but instead to honor her gentle presence with someone who could both bring life to us and, hopefully, enjoy what life we could share with them.

And so, the day after Christmas, Circe and I got a Christmas pony. Her name is Astrid. She’ll be five in April (much younger than Circe’s seventeen!), and is an elegant Tennessee Walker cross. And, I’m discovering, she too, is a delight, and a character – strong-willed, affectionate, and social. And I’m getting the impression she’s smarter than me, too.

She arrived, along with trainer Dan McCarthy of Catskill Natural Horse (who works a lot with the 100 or so horses who live at Rosemary Farm), and Circe followed her around for two days like a puppy. I tried not to do the same…

The picture at the top of this post is of the moment they first were greeting one another. Circe’s face undoes me.

Circe and Astrid shortly after Astrid arrived. (Circe’s the blond, Astrid the brunette…)

We are getting to know one another. Her arrival has opened a flood of horse desires within me again, lost to the thrum of a new life and a new business in a beautiful but not-easy place.

I am remembering, learning, discovering. And am reminded that these lessons are, indeed, horse lessons, in the sense that much of the teaching is coming from the horse herself when I show up in ways that open up possibilities. This learning reverberates out into my life in ways that continually surprise me.

I figured I might share some of these with you as I learn with Astrid, and with Circe. They probably will learn some things, too. And I’m hoping that we together, with you, might also learn. In the way of my brain, these will probably ebb and flow as myriad interests and curiosities bang up together to make meaning, and time expands and contracts for such things as blog writing when I’m doing my standard plate-spinning routine. But that’s okay. (And is something I’m being reminded of with these very early horse lessons with Astrid. It comes when it comes…)

Welcome to Horse Lessons.