I caught a snippet of West Taylor’s science-based horsemanship seminar this weekend at Summit Equestrian Center here in Fort Wayne. Geronimo, a formerly wild mustang who trained at West’s Utah ranch last winter, was the star of the show for a Saturday demo.

Geronimo, with whom I’ve worked in my animal Reiki and animal communication practice, did a great job! Over the last few years, we’ve shared many a Reiki session — often while he was in horse time-out — and some good talks. Moment to moment, he’s had to decide that connecting and learning were worth the risk.

So I especially loved hearing from West about teaching horses to find and keep their center despite “trash-talking Tweety birds” and other threats. It’s about responding rather than reacting, which of course is something I have to work on myself.

I hear more trash talk from squirrels than birds, actually … but the point remains.