I Don't Have a Deal for You

It’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday and I wish I had a deal for you.

I’d like a way for you to quickly manifest your health and wellness goals.

On my own home front, I am struggling with a persistent lameness issue in my horse that will take up to 14 months to resolve – if we’re lucky. I bought him this way so that I could give him the care he deserves. I wish he would give me the courtesy of being better right now, but it doesn’t work that way.

There is a Buddhist teaching about how to fill a bucket. It is filled slowly. The writer and yoga teacher Cyndi Lee calls this the lesson of “Drip, drip, drip the bucket fills.”

Our buckets fill one drop at a time, and the Bhagavad Gita teaches us that no effort is ever wasted.

For my horse, we are trying many paths. We are looking at his feet, his fetlock, his shoulder, his back, etc. There are so many variables and we have to do things one at a time to see which may have a positive effect. This could be extremely frustrating, and expensive, but I tell myself – like a mantra – it could also be rewarding.

He still has a persistent and intermittent limp, but today he is a different horse. Together we are learning groundwork that has completely changed his behavior. Now we have a bond. It does not matter how far away he may be in a paddock or a pasture, when I come onto the property he knows, and he comes running. Once he ran so fast that I worried he didn’t have the brakes to avoid crashing into this old lady.

Drip, drip, drip, as Lee teaches us, the bucket fills slowly. But something else may be gained along the way. Cyber Monday will get us a good price, but it won’t get the the thing we may truly want. Whether it’s good health, better sleep, overall wellness or a sound horse, only patience and consistent effort will fill the bucket, and there is no shortcut available on the internet. Believe me, I have looked for it!

Michelle Marchildon is the Yogi Muse. She is a writer, yoga and mobility teacher based in Denver, Colorado. You can find her on the internet, and in bookstores everywhere.