Horses do not wear wrist watches

[Barb Dwyer]

One thing about mingling among herds is, you leave behind the human habit of keeping track of time. You live in the moment, with whatever it may bring. Day and night may come and go, and nobody punches a time clock.

I like that freedom. I enter into a herd and I don't know how long I will be there. Nor do they know; we improvise as we wish.

 

[Indigo Dreams]

the human habit of keeping track of time

Our obsession with keeping to schedule is a recent affliction, imposed on us by the regimentation of human labor, first by agricultural society, and then more severely by industrial society. For most of human history we lived in tribe or band societies, much more in touch with the natural rhythms of the world and ourselves.

Do you think among equine enthusiasts this is a common outlook, a sort of romantic agrarianism? Because I've seen this before, and I also feel a sentimental urge, a longing to somehow escape civilization, to reconnect with something so fundamental we scarcely have the words to describe what we've lost. It's curious, though, because the domesticated horse is itself a product of civilization. Perhaps there's a recognition neither of us have yet to become fully domesticated. Or maybe it's that horses have long represented freedom in the Western imagination.

 

[Barb Dwyer]

I learned that horses are horses 24/7. You can go check on them absolutely any time of day or night, and the herd is aware.

You would have liked the time I was in the herd at dawn. I was attempting to flirt with a mare but she stood facing the sunrise and she could not be distracted.

 

[caikgoch]

It's been my observation that horses like to sleep around dusk and dawn. It makes sense if you think of it as in the gaps between the day predators and the night predators.