It is March 28, 2020. There is never a time without problems. That’s life. However, some of our primary problems are unique. Certainly the Corona Virus has created a national emergency, and our responses to that emergency are unlike those our nation has experienced since its founding nearly two and a half centuries ago.

The rules mandated by our government, intended, and necessary, to minimize the incidence of the viral pandemic we are experiencing, hampers our daily routines, the things we do to increase our daily pleasures, our work, and our relationships with other people.

Those of us who own horses, especially if we keep them on our home property, but even if we board them on property owned by others, are fortunate.

When we have time to ride it gives us physical and mental relief from life’s obligations and concerns, including our society’s problems as well as our own. It is difficult to concentrate on financial problems, pandemics, family and community obligations and even more personal problems when we are on horseback.

Physically and mentally, when we are on a horse, or even driving a horse pulling a vehicle, our attention is forced towards the horse. It is a living creature and if we have been blessed with compassion towards animals, especially domestic animals that serve us, physically or mentally as do trained domestic horses, we are, at least temporarily distracted from thinking about our own problems.

Horses fill many roles as domestic animals. They help us. They can be a target for our senses such as compassion, accomplishment, achievement and pride.

During periods of societal disruption, such as war, or persecution, economic failure, or disease such as the current Corona Virus pandemic, the above mentioned positive feelings help to remind us of the factors that can lead us to be more courageous, more understanding, more effective and, in general, a better person.

So, as we reflect upon the current worldwide pandemic, let us simultaneously be grateful that some of us are blessed by owning horses. They can, if we are receptive, help to make us better human beings.