Good Energy Work Takes Horse Sense

My favorite energy teacher was a horse.

A few years ago, our block in Brooklyn organized a block party. As part of the festivities, we hired a both a horse named S’mores and a pony named Butterscotch. Along with the animals came an older woman and several friendly teenagers.

The teenagers would place children in the saddle and give them the gentlest, slowest ride imaginable up our block, an easy U-turn, and back down again.

Nothing much to it. But this was a hot July day on the pavement. And there were several little kids who were quite heavy, clamoring for rides on the pony. How their mothers picked them up to deposit them in the saddle, I do not know. We were concerned for the animals, and hoped that the people from the stable would intervene if they saw a problem.

At one point I saw Butterscotch began to limp. His front right leg was buckling. I went to the pony and asked, “Do you want some Reiki?” And I bent down to work on the ankle.

The pony took the energy right in, and soon was back in action. No more limp.

I was happy that Butterscotch was better and went back to my job using a Polaroid camera for “Pictures on the Pony.” Suddenly I felt something tickly like a hairbrush hitting my left palm. Bam. Bam. Bam.

I turned around, and there was S’mores, the big brown and white horse, pushing his whiskery nose into my hand. “Do YOU want Reiki, too?” I asked.

I placed my hands around his front legs. The horse stood, relaxed, his eyes closing gently, then opening again. I could feel through my hands that he was drawing the energy in very nicely. When the energy wasn’t running through my hands any more, I stood up and he and I both went back to the activities of the day.