So Much for Harmony

Who knew Feng Shui could be so unsettling? Here I was trying to add some harmony to my living space and all I'd met so far was disruption. Could this woman really be telling me to remove the horse photos and paintings from my walls? I understood that the sheer number of them might seem excessive to some people or that the fact I had only horse images and no humans throughout my house might appear anti-social. But did this woman really expect me to take down the pictures of pretty galloping horses with manes and tails sailing in the wind? Really?



She met my resistance head-on. Had I considered the fact I might have an obsession with horses?, she asked. Well, duh, that's the nature of being involved with them, I blushed. Being "sort of" into horses is like being "sort of pregnant." There's no such thing. You're either full-on or you aren't. The way she said obsession, though, made me feel diagnosed. Like I had a problem. Perhaps a certifiable addiction or something that could be cured if only I would allow it.



To bolster my protests about removal of my beloved horse paintings, I tried to explain the equestrian community to Ms. Feng Shui expert. I steered clear of words like fanatical, devotional, and single-focused and attempted instead to convey us equestrians as exceptionally inspired about what we love.



I mean, it was perfectly normal for me to be wearing horse motif socks and a horse-patterned sweater and be drinking tea from my Thelwel Pony mug, I explained, because every other equestrian that came to mind would be doing the same thing at this moment. We all had horse towels and doormats, horse cutlery and Christmas ornaments, horse pajamas, horse key chains. When not at the barn, we read books and magazines about horses or watch movies like Seabiscuit or Hidalgo or Disney's Spirit. If all this were such a problem, wouldn't there be self-help groups or special therapists for us? To date, I had yet to see any listing for groups focused on "helping individuals recovering from horse addictions."

The Feng Shui woman, however, ignored me. She wanted to hang photos showing me with my arms around family members, not childhood ponies. She wanted to frame images of me laughing and leaning into friends, not praising a sweaty stallion at a competition. She thought my office should have more candles and fewer horse show ribbons and medals. Ditto for the bedroom.

All in the name of harmony? Granted, I may have paid this woman to come to my house and share some of her expertise about the finer nuances of prosperity, harmony, and all that other good New Age stuff. But I now found myself in the odd position of pondering whether any of it was applicable to us horse folks. She could call us whatever she wanted. But obsessed or not, we with our cluttered homes seemed to have our own brand of harmony.

For an equestrian, prosperity means finding a good bale of hay for $1 less than normal. It's finding that perfectly colored saddle pad to match your horse, or having spare change in your pockets to buy him carrots. Harmony is the ability to sit his trot without bruising your bum. It's the compulsive desire to fill-- and I do mean fill-- your house with trinkets and images that remind you of all the special horses throughout your lifetime. Harmony is hearing your horse nicker when he hears your car tires arrive at the barn. It's the moment your trainer chooses the right words to push your skills without making you feel hopeless.

Yet, I couldn't find references to any of this sound knowledge in the Feng Shui materials. And the more I talked to this Shui expert, the more I started to think maybe we were a little nuts, we equestrians. Yikes. I babbled on and on about everyone I knew in the industry and how their passion for these four-legged creatures just doesn't get left at the barn. My friend Mark, who has trained horses seven days a week for over 40 years, still wants his phone to "whinny" when it rings. For his birthday, he wants to ride horses down a pretty trail (never mind that's exactly the thing he does 365 days a year).

Another friend of mine used to run home from the barn in order to watch horse videos on-line. Sale videos, Olympics, training videos, whatever-- so long as they showed horses doing exemplary things. My own mother, who has been around horses for what seems like all of eternity, still gets excited to decorate her Christmas tree with about one thousand horse ornaments. Then, she anxiously puts out her holidays horse motif chinaware, which differs only slightly from her everyday horse chinaware.

So, the more I talked to this poor Feng Shui consultant, the more I realized two things. First of all, she had never before dealt with equestrians. Secondly, she may have been right that we were a bit obsessed. But I wouldn't admit that part out loud. In the end, we struck a deal.

I hung some red cords around the knobs of exterior doors, said a few chants, promised to keep my bathroom door shut. But, if she so much as removed a single horse photo from my wall, I would break her fingers. Understood?