This beautiful specimen is Romeo – a name I gave him, mostly because Fabio was already taken. It isn’t his real name. But, to say I was in love would be an understatement. There is nothing about this horse that doesn’t just scream WOW to me… well, except when you try and get up close and personal……
I met Romeo last fall. He “camps out” at my friend Rod’s ranch. Romeo’s owner is a rodeo stock owner and he has romeo separated out because Romeo is, of course, a stallion… a STUD… He is also said to be one of the up and coming stars in rodeo rough stock.
This beautiful animal is both shy and curious. When I am out shooting photos, he is posing for the shots… He so desperately wants to come closer, but… something always holds him back. You can see it… he is so intrigued by what I am doing, he wants to investigate.. but… there is something in him… something wild and un-tamed… that takes over even his will to come and check it all out. It is fascinating to watch really…..The inner struggle to come and be a part of something… and the fight that happens in his own head… his own being…. by now he knows that I am not going to hurt him.. although, sometimes the click of my camera causes him to jump, which too causes me to pause.. it isn’t new, it is who I have always been when I am around him, yet.. there is something in him that is led my fear. It is instinctual. Anyone that has ever been around this horse and the rest of the stock knows full well that these animals are brilliantly cared for. The lack of trust doesn’t come from the current care that they are getting. And, since he is a baby, we know that it isn’t even the care that he has always gotten… but, rather a call of the wild.. Something so embedded in him……
I have discovered that some people are like this too.. Surprising tho.. it isn’t always people who have been wounded, or batted around…There are no obvious signs in their stories that an inner brokenness may be controlling them. Often times, they are ones whose life, in comparison, seems to be ideal.
Like Romeo, they seems interested in what others are doing, and long to be a part of it, but as they inch closer to the fence, they start bucking and farting and the inner dance becomes a show of it’s own. It’s sometimes hard to get out of the way before you find yourself in dangers way, or at the very least with dirt (or worse) all over you.
I used to get all crazy when this would happen… Made it all about me… what did I do, what didn’t I do, what should i have done, could have done, might have done….. but since I have been working with my beloved horse Sis in the pen, I have come to a deep understanding that everybody ( or animal) show up with their own “stuff” and even if something I do… knowingly or not knowingly triggers something in them…. it is still THEIR STUFF…..
Romeo is such a beautiful animal and there is a part of me that would love to just run up and “MAKE” him learn to trust me. I want to be his friend.. I want to capture that somehow… when in truth – – – somethings… some people… are better viewed from a far. Not every horse can be broken…. and not ever person can be mended.
The Pen has taught me a lot about how I show up in the world….. When I first started out.. I was a wash and Sis knew it… She knew, that she could boss me around.. and she did… BOY did she. She was like others in my life, no shock really.. now that I see what I was doing was leaving myself to open….. showing up as if I was an empty vessel waiting for ANY love to fill it up…
It isn’t about being mean.. or hardhearted, or closed up… it is about showing up confident.. standing in the truth that “In this moment I have, and I am, everything that I need to be have and to be.”
Not every horse.. or every person that we encounter is meant to be in the arena with us.. Some are there to teach us other lessons. Some are there for us to admire and then to send on their way. IN the human world I have learned that there is a huge difference between friends and acquaintances, and as funny as that may sound, it wasn’t something I knew early on in my life.. It took me some time to get it.
I adore Romeo. But, I am smart enough to understand that I wont be getting in the arena with him. Just one more lesson from the pen.
A Cowgirl Called 