The Day I Met Pearl

I haven’t written much this summer.

Not because I haven’t had anything to say. If anything, there has been too much.

My days have been filled with hay and buckets, worry and wonder, quiet observation, small victories and the kind of care that asks you to keep showing up without knowing exactly where the story is going.And at the centre of much of it has been a horse named Pearl.

In late July, I volunteered with a friend to make the 3½-hour journey north to help bring an injured mare safely to Second Chance Cheekye Ranch, a horse and donkey rescue in Squamish, Canada.

The mare had been brought in off the range after concerned locals discovered a screw lodged deep in her hoof and her lying on the side of the highway. Wildfires threatened the area, evacuation alerts were looming, and she had nowhere to go.

She was also visually impaired, had received very little handling and had never been trailered. I knew all of this before we arrived. But I wasn’t prepared for what I would feel when I saw her.

She stood in the field, terribly thin, her head hanging low and one eye closed. Her spirit seemed dimmed by pain.My heart immediately went out to her.

I’d been warned that she might be difficult to halter, so I approached slowly, speaking softly so she could hear my voice and know where I was. She allowed me to quietly slip the halter on. And then she lowered her head into my arms. Her head rested against my chest. I held her there and whispered, “You’re going home now. You’re going somewhere safe.”

I thought I was simply volunteering to help transport a horse that day. I didn’t know that my own heart was about to become part of her story too.

Pearl found the courage to step onto a trailer for the first time, and we began the long, slow journey home down a twisting mountain road.

When she arrived, she didn’t even have a name. There was something about that which stayed with me.

Here was this living being who had already endured so much, arriving in an unfamiliar place unable to understand that the humans around her were trying to help. And so began the slow process of helping her feel safe.

Because of her vision impairment, I became much more conscious of how I approached her. I started singing before I came close so she would know where I was. I watched her body carefully. I tried not to assume that because I wanted to touch or help her, she necessarily wanted me to. I slowed down.

And I found myself returning again and again to a question that has increasingly become part of the way I want to be with horses: What does this horse need from me right now?

Sometimes the answer seemed to be my presence. Sometimes it was food or care. Sometimes it was patience.

And sometimes the answer was space.

Since arriving at the ranch, I’ve watched little pieces of her begin to return. Her curiosity. Her trust. Her gentle personality. Her head is coming up, and she is slowly learning that this new world can be safe.

Caring for Pearl has also become far more consuming than I anticipated. There have been practical things to think about, questions to research, decisions to make and plenty of uncertainty. I’ve spent hours observing her, thinking about what might make her more comfortable and celebrating changes that might look insignificant to anyone else.

Writing moved further down the list

For a while, I thought I should be writing more. Posting more. Keeping my equine coaching business moving. But life with horses doesn’t always follow our content calendars. Sometimes the story asks to be lived before it can be written. This summer, I needed to live it.

And perhaps that’s why, as I return to the page, I feel clearer than ever about what I want to write about. I want to write about horses. The lives they have with one another that exist entirely outside of us. The relationships they form. The choices they make. The ways they communicate when we take the time to notice.

I want to write about care. Not simply as something we do for horses, but as part of the relationship we build with them. About herbs and nourishment, buckets and mashes, aging bodies and changing needs. About the rituals that naturally emerge when we share our lives with horses. And I want to keep exploring a question that has become central to the way I am with horses: What happens when we become less interested in what a horse will do for us and more curious about who that horse is?

Pearl has given me plenty to be curious about. ut I don’t want to turn her into a lesson. She didn’t come into my life to teach me something. She is not a metaphor for resilience or courage or transformation.

She is Pearl.

A horse with her own history, preferences, relationships, body, fears, needs and ways of experiencing the world. Her story belongs to her. I can tell you what I observe. I can tell you about the moments we share. I can tell you what I’m learning as I care for her. But I also want to leave room for the possibility that there will always be things about Pearl, and about every horse, that I cannot fully know. And there is something beautiful about that.

So that’s where I’ve been this summer.

With Pearl. With the horses. With buckets and herbs and questions.

Watching.

Caring.

Listening.

And now I’m coming back to the page. There are so many stories I want to tell. Stories about the relationships I witness within the herd. About choice and autonomy. About natural care and what’s in my horse herbal cupboard. About rituals in the paddock and the rhythms horses create for themselves.

I will write about relationship horsemanship and what it can look like when the relationship itself matters more than what we accomplish with a horse.I will write about healing and the ways being in the company of horses can change us. And sometimes I’ll simply write about horses. Because after all these years of loving them, caring for them and building my life around them, I find myself more fascinated by horses than ever.

There is still so much I want to understand and so much I want to witness. And so much quiet magic and sacredness tucked inside an ordinary life with horses. That’s the world I want to write about here.

For now, though, I’ll begin with Pearl. When she arrived, she didn’t even have a name.

Today, she has people who see her. She has a place to land. She has a future. And she has a name.

Pearl – something precious, formed quietly through adversity.