Les Kiger
I have long been attracted to activities that allow me to apply myself on the mental, physical, and emotional planes of creative expression. Growing up, I drew, wrote stories, and played hour upon hour of make-believe games. As a teen, I was a competitive rock climber and snowboarder. In college, I dabbled in everything from computer programming to East Asian history to graphic design before finding my fit in a painting program and earning a Bachelor of Fine Art. I have worked at kids summer camps, belayed on a ropes course, coached competitive freestyle snowboarding, and designed web applications. I’ve always been involved in a multitude of activities.
The need to work and play in all three areas of my being is indicative of my view of the importance of creating a balanced life. From this sense of balance comes a wholeness that, to me, is the key to joyful living. In playing with horses, I have found an activity that seems to nurture my physical, mental, end emotional self more totally than anything else I have discovered.
I try to bring to my horsemanship the same sense of exploration and excitement that I found during my education as a painter. I was fortunate to have teachers who understood that technique and form are not ends, but simply tools with which to express a passion. They did not try to teach me to paint like anyone else but rather, to look at the world around me in new ways, so that I could create pieces that expressed my unique view.
In fewer than one hundred years, the place of the horse in our culture has changed from a necessity for transportation, labor, and war-making, to a much-desired form of recreation. Nearly one third of Americans want to be involved with horses. We need new ways of relating to horses in order to stop the cycles of abuse and neglect that occur because of lack of information and mis-education. I believe that the sense of authentic creativity that we find in the modern arts is the same energy that the horse world needs in order to be the relevant, transformational force it can and should be in our evolving society.
That is all a heavy way of saying this: We should all play with our horses, and encourage them to play with us. We have much to learn about each other and ourselves. Together, we will create something magical.
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