Member-only story
The day I went horse-riding with angels
It’s like any other riding lesson — only with disembodied entities.
One bring spring morning a few years ago I found myself in rural Surrey, a leafy and affluent part of England where horses and horsey people predominate. A land of jodhpurs, four-wheel drives and stables. I was here for my first-ever riding lesson — one with a difference.
It all started conventionally enough. I greeted my fellow students — a group of well-spoken ladies in their thirties and forties who I learned were regular visitors here — in a spacious covered paddock on an expansive farmstead that looked so many others I had just driven past. We were each given our kit and sat on our horses.
Because I was clearly a novice I was given a gentle older mare called Daisy. She was calm and mature, I was told, and however badly I rode she would be tolerant and forgiving. Then things got a little different.
Our horses stood obediently in a circle while our leader, Phil, a soft-spoken Irish woman with bright blond hair tied in a tight bun and the most extraordinary green eyes, said we would begin with ‘a horseback meditation’. She began by opening a pretty little perfume-type bottle which she said contained the essence of a spirit guide.
