The Power of Ease- A Reflection from the Herd

In winter, when the paddock fills with snow, something quiet and remarkable happens.

One horse begins to walk.
Not with urgency.
Not with force.
Just with attentiveness to their body and the ground beneath their feet.

They choose a line that works.
Soon, another follows.
Then another.
And before long, a clear path forms creating a gentle trough through the snow-
where movement becomes easier, smoother, more efficient.
No one makes an announcement.
No one debates the route.

Ease organizes the herd.
The path exists because one horse trusted what felt right in their body, and the rest trusted the wisdom of ease.

As humans, we often do the opposite.

We brace before anything has actually happened.
We imagine worst-case scenarios.
We tighten, worry, push, over-exert.
We try to control outcomes instead of meeting the moment we’re actually in.

We tell ourselves that if we don’t strain, we aren’t trying hard enough.
That ease means laziness.
That softening means giving up.

But the horses show me something very different.

Ease is not weakness.
Ease is inteligence.
Ease has its own kind of power.

It doesn’t arrive loudly.
It doesn’t demand action.
It simply settles like truth does when it’s ready to be received.
As I sat with that truth, my thoughts drifted naturally to the horses.

Ease is conserving energy.
It’s the nervous system finding regulation.
It’s awareness responding to what’s real, rather than reacting to imagined futures.

The horses don’t resist winter.
They don’t dramatize it.
They adapt with it.

Ease, for them, is not a philosophy.
It’s survival.
It’s wisdom lived in the body.

An invitation

What would it be like to approach this year not with more pressure, but with more permission to soften?
What if, when a hard moment arises, we paused and breathed into it rather than tightening against it?
What if we softened our jaw, our shoulders, our belly and allowed the next step to reveal itself?

Not the whole plan.
Just the next honest step- like the first horse in the snow.

Ease also takes time

I saw this truth most clearly after Skye died.
On the very day she left the earth, two other horses were also adopted-
members of a herd that had been together for years.
And just days later, Grace arrived.

From the outside, it might have looked like disruption stacked on disruption.
Loss.
Separation.
New energy entering an already tender field.

But the herd didn’t rush to reorganize itself.

There was no scramble for leadership.
No immediate reshuffling of roles.
No urgency to fix what had changed.

Instead, there was waiting.

Weeks of quiet observation.
Subtle shifts in who stood near whom.
Gentle testing of space and distance.

I watched it daily.

Only over time did new friendships form.
Only over months did new leadership and rhythms emerge.
And now there is a kind of magic in how they move together.
Not just in stillness, but when they leave the paddock and explore the ranch.
They are attuned, fluid, and responsive to one another.

Ease didn’t arrive quickly.
But when it did, it was deep.

What the herd taught me

Ease is not about speed.
It’s about allowing life to reorganize itself without interference.

The herd trusted the process.
They trusted time.
They trusted that clarity would emerge when it was ready.
And it did.

The horses remind me that we don’t need to rush our becoming.
The path doesn’t appear all at once.
It appears as we move with listening, with patience, with trust.

Ease has a quiet authority.
It doesn’t push.
It waits.

And when we allow it,
life often reorganizes itself
in ways more beautiful than we could have planned.