Latest / Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson / What Wild Horses Taught Me About Consciousness | Mary Ann Simonds | LFRF 56

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What Wild Horses Taught Me About Consciousness | Mary Ann Simonds | LFRF 56 · Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

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Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
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Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
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I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of
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The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.
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Before I jump in with today's guest, I want to say a huge thank you to you, our
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0:34
So now let's jump in.
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Welcome back.
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I've got Mary Anne Simons, who has been in and around the whole horse
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thing for a very, well, even though she's only 28, a very, very long time
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because she began in her minus years.
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I met her through our great mutual friend Linda Tellington Jones, who is
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a great hero of mine and probably of most people listening and watching.
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And she'd been saying to me for ages, "Oh, you've got to go talk to Mary Anne.
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You've got to go talk to Mary Anne."
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And so finally we did.
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We found ourselves in Florida, and Mary Anne lives there in the
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belly of the beast of the horse industry near Wellington, Florida.
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And, But her work over the pre- the last few decades has been of great
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value to those of us who interact human to horse in any way at all.
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She's worked, you know, with people as diverse as the FEI and also studying wild
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horses and mustangs, graduate degree in consciousness studies, developing stress
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management products for horses and humans.
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She has campaigned tirelessly for better outcomes for horses in the sport industry.
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As I say, she's there in Wellington, which is the sort of center
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nowadays of the sport industry in the world, at least in the winter.
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She's an eco-tourism, tourism pioneer.
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She basically stands, I would say, for nature and the mind with a bit of an
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emphasis on the horse, as do many of us.
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So what a treat to have her on the show to enlighten us and talk to us
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about all the stuff we love to talk about and love to learn more about.
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So, and she also has a new book.
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She has many, many books, but she has a new book called A Horse by Nature,
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which she's gonna talk about hopefully.
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And okay, I've rambled.
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So Mary Anne, thank you for coming on.
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Who are you and what do you do and why do you do it?
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Maryann Simmonds: Oh, thanks Rupert.
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Well, since we had a, a nice short visit when you stopped by in Florida,
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what, four, four and a half hours or so we never stopped talking
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about the touch points that we have.
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And, you know, I think like a lot of kids that grow up aware, and I see so
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many of these young people nowadays that are aware, and they just sort of
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go through life waiting till they can get grown up enough to do what they're
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here to do, and I was one of those kids.
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I was adopted, so I kept thinking, "Well, maybe that's the problem,"
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but I didn't think like my parents.
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And I loved nature, and I loved horses, and my, my whole therapy and my life was
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outside playing by myself in nature, and nothing made me wor- I never worried.
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I was one of those kids that made oleander tea, only to be told if I drank it, after
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I drank it, that I'd be in the hospital.
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But surprise, I did drink it, and I wasn't in the hospital.
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Not that I'm telling you to go drink oleander tea.
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That was a dumb thing, but- Why did
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Rupert Isaacson: you drink oleander tea out of interest?
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Well, it
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Maryann Simmonds: was pretty.
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The flowers were pretty, and I was, like, five or six, maybe seven.
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Uh-huh.
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And I thought, "I'm going to make my special herbal recipe," you know?
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And so I'm outside playing, picking flowers, and putting them
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in water, and drinking my herbal teas, and realizing maybe I should
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learn something about plants.
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But at that stage, I, they were just my friends.
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They didn't have names.
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I didn't know what they were.
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I didn't have a family that taught me much about biology or nature although
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we did do a lot of outdoor stuff.
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And I was fortunate I got a horse when I was five, but I got to start,
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you know, basically riding lessons at four, and then sponsoring horses
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and, and just it was an addiction.
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That's, I mean, you're born with the horse gene, and I'm sure people can
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relate to that, that you, even if you don't have a horse in your life,
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there are people out there who feel like they need to have horse energy.
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So, I grew up, and luckily my parents supported me, and I grew up
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in the hunter/jumper world and, but we did everything with the horses.
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We would go off and play, you know, football in the mud with our
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horses, and go up and herd cows in the hills, and then we'd go to
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the horse show in Santa Barbara.
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So it was, it was back when horses were your friends, and you did everything
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with them, and sport was one of them.
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So I was very fortunate.
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And- This was a
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Rupert Isaacson: California upbringing, correct?
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Maryann Simmonds: In California.
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And one of the things that I noticed in the sport horse world, even back
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then as an 11-year-old, is that people couldn't hear what horses
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were saying, and I would hear them.
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And of course, as a child, you have no idea how you're hearing something.
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Where, where is that coming from?
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And there was one particular time in Santa Barbara- Where a trainer had been trying
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to keep a horse's head down, and they just kept trying different bits and put
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draw reins on, and finally the horse is still throwing its head, and the trainer
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had the person take a crop and hit it between the ears, and the horse fell
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to its knees and rolled its eyes back.
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And I'm like 11, so I'm kind of scared.
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I go over and I'm crying, and I said, "You know, why would you
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hit a horse with a headache?"
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And the look that the person, the trainer gave me was shock.
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I mean, he put the horse away, but I realized then and there as an
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11-year-old that he didn't know.
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He couldn't tell.
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And so my question was, and this was my pursuit, how do I know what I know?
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How do I prove that I know what I know?
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And how do I teach others that same channel of communication and connection?
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And so it's been a lifelong pursuit, and it doesn't end with horses because, as
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you mentioned, it's nature and the mind.
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We're humans by nature, and as conscious beings, we have the capability to
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share that energy at any level of nature we want, and horses happen to
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be one that enjoy sharing it with us.
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Rupert Isaacson: A question.
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So you said you were adopted, and you said that you didn't always see eye
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to eye with your folks, but your folks clearly valued horses and v- you know,
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supported your endeavors with horses.
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Were they horsey?
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Was this something that was important to them as well?
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A bit.
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And what, what, what, what did you differ in thinking from them on, and why do
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you think you found a, a har- a place of harmony with them over the horses?
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Why did they support you?
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Maryann Simmonds: Hmm.
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Well, they loved me, obviously.
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I was adopted.
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My brother was adopted, and so when we started going, "Horse, horse,"
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every, you know, every birthday, Christmas, "I want a horse.
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I want a pony.
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I want a horse," they thought I was kidding, but when they realized it really
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was serious they did let me take lessons.
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And I say I was different.
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I always knew they loved me very much, but they did not come
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from a horse background at all.
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Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
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Maryann Simmonds: So they didn't really understand where it came from.
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I mean, to the extent my mother, part of her life, she grew up on the XIT Ranch in
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Texas, but that was just horrible memories for her, living on a big cattle ranch
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as a teenager in the Dust Bowl of Texas.
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It was not something she wanted to talk about, having to ride a horse to go
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pick up the mail, and so horses were not something that appealed to her.
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But both my parents were animal people in that, you know, I mean,
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I could convince them we need dogs and w- with cats we couldn't do, but
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salamanders and myna birds and, you know, I was constantly bringing things
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home that needed rescuing, and, and they were very tolerant of all that.
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So I didn't grow up in a, you know, an animal unfriendly.
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It's just I had a limit on what I could have.
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So I was very fortunate to get a horse early on, and I think because
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they did love me, they realized that was my, that was where my soul was.
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Hmm.
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That's where I needed to be, and it's, I think, what maybe they're, maybe my
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husband after 50 years might disagree with you a little bit, but I feel like
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that experience of being around horses and being with horses my whole life-
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helped me turn out to be as functional as I am because many a psychologist
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has looked at my background and said, "You should not be functional.
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You're still holding things on.
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Let's do past life regression and find out what it is."
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And lo and behold- Why should
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Rupert Isaacson: you not be functional?
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What's, what's going on?
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Maryann Simmonds: Well, I think that's because they, that's the paradigm
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that if someone â¦ The, the attitude I think in our modern-day society
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is that we reflect our parents.
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It's sort of the Freudian approach versus Jungian approach, and
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even as a small child, I mean, my feeling was, "I got here.
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Now let me get to work."
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I didn't hold any judgment against my parents.
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They did the best job they could.
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I had no interest in finding my biological mother.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
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Maryann Simmonds: I figured she has her own life.
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She made her choices.
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I truly felt like, "I got here.
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I gotta hit the ground running."
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So I was very eager to get out of school and start developing the tools
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that were already innately in me.
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And I wanna say my determination because I I look back and I think, I wasn't
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one of those smiley kids all the time.
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I was like, "Hmm, that, I don't agree with you," but I learned to not disagree
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with parents and adults, so I was one of those, you know, overachievers that got
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straight As and just like, "Let me get out of here," and found that I was bucking
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the scientific paradigm in undergraduate school, showing how our scientific
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method for observations is affecting the system, therefore it's inaccurate.
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And that was part of my undergraduate thesis at Wyoming, is that when we
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look at the system, we affect it.
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But when we look with the system and are a passive participant, we can observe
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and we get a more accurate observation.
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So I did a whole studies around that-
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Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
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So you did stuff with horses not so much with your family, but presumably then
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with some sort of adopted or chosen family at the barn or barns that you were at.
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You said you, you know, played football with them in the mud
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and then went to the horse show.
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So you got this aspect of just sort of joy with horses, but also some experience
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in showing horses, presumably jumping.
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Then you go through school, you go off to college, and what do you study at
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college, and do you, do you manage to keep horses going in your life while
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you're over there in undergrad land?
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Because that's not always so easy.
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Maryann Simmonds: Absolutely.
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I started at the University of California, Irvine- Mm-hmm â¦ and, which is where
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I met my husband and realized that they were, they were quite academic, which
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was fine, but on my first ecology field trip out into the desert, I was rather
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shocked when they, the professor killed all the rattlesnakes, and here we are
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supposed to study rattlesnakes and mice.
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I mean, it's in a desert ecology class, right?
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I'm a freshman.
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And so I asked and said, "You know, why did you kill all the rattlesnakes?"
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And they said, "Well, it's a safety reason for," you know, and we
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were sleeping in a cabin anyway, so I didn't see the, the need.
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Anyway, I got very upset about that, and I said, "I'd rather
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sleep out with rattlesnakes than with rattlesnake killers."
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So that- That made you
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Rupert Isaacson: popular.
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Maryann Simmonds: Yeah, not popular.
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I had to sign a waiver Luckily I was 18, just turned 18, so it was legal.
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And the professor was-- told me, you know, what I'm gonna find.
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And it wa- he was accurate.
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At about 5:45 in the morning, I could feel the rattlesnakes under my down
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sleeping bag, you know, the thick.
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But they're reptiles, they're cold.
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They can't move in the morning.
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So I move slow, they move slow, and it was, I guess you'd say,
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the first cognitive communication exchange I had with rattlesnakes.
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And that one really stuck with me because I was so apologetic 'cause when
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I went up on the top of the mountain to meditate I almost stepped on one.
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And just like a wheel, it just sort of jumped up and rolled over and sat on
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a rock and I thought, "Wow, I almost stepped on you, and you did nothing."
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And I was just so heartfelt, I guess, and the snake with his
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little black tongue, his little black eyes is just looking at me.
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It can't strike.
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It's too cold.
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And we just talked, and I was crying and sad and wondering why
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people wanna kill everything.
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I still had this very naive, I guess, childhood feeling
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and I thought, "You know what?
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I'm det- I like my feeling.
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I like being able to feel safe walking out in nature and not afraid."
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So I really never adopted the whole fear thing.
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But I realized I did not belong in the California system because
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they did not like my thinking.
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It wasn't going along with their thinking where it's fine to test research animals
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and it's fine all in the name of humans.
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And I thought, "I need to go study wild horses."
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So off to Wyoming I went And luckily, my advisory professor at the time, Dr.
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Dennison, he agreed that wild horses are wildlife, so if you wanna
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study wild horses, that's fine.
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So I did a double degree.
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I did it in range management, which is the School of Agriculture, and then
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wildlife biology, wildlife management in the School of Sci- of Science.
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And so that also puzzled me.
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You, you can get a whole degree in wildlife management and
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never know what an animal eats?
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I, I just didn't understand, so I took range so I knew all the plants, so
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I knew what the horses were eating.
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And the range attitude were all ranchers and cattlemen, so they
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were very much against horses.
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So I got both sides, and I was the only female, only girl in both degrees, so
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it was, But it never occurred to me that I was, it would be difficult, I guess.
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It's the same thing.
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I just, I didn't have that belief system.
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I just went along my merrily way getting my degrees, but living out
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in the field and studying wildlife and, and studying wild horses.
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It was great.
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How,
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Rupert Isaacson: how is it that one can get a wildlife management degree
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and not know what the wildlife eats?
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Maryann Simmonds: Yeah, well- Is that really true?
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And University of Wyoming at the time, you could take a botany class, and you
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might know that, you know, a hor- a horse is an herbivore, and you might
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know that deer and elk eat certain shrubs, but you don't necessarily
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have to learn how to identify them.
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Mm-hmm.
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And in range management, because you're looking at carrying capacity
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and how much forage is produced- Mm-hmm
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and who competition with, you actually have to know, is that western
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wheatgrass or is it crested wheatgrass?
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And if you don't know the difference , and I did not when I started, but all the
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ranchers I was in school with, they all could look at a little tiny piece of straw
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and go, "Oh, that's crested wheatgrass."
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I'm like, "How do you know that?
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How do you know that?"
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"Well, it's got a little fluffy thing on the glute," you know.
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So I learned to go through a lot of scat and manure and look
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at what animals were eating.
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And I think peop- I was, did a lot of diet overlap studies with horses,
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and at least in my studies, there was more overlap in some of the habitats
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with elk than there were with cattle.
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So it was a bit of a false statistical analysis to say horses
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have competition with cattle.
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They do in certain habitats, but in a lot of them they don't eatâ¦
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Like, horses eat western wheatgrass, cattle eat crested wheatgrass.
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Horses'll eat certain species cattle won't.
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Cattle will eat certain things horses- It's
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Rupert Isaacson: interesting that they, that that wasn't a given.
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I mean, when I was growing up in the UK one would always put cattle.
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It's, it's, it's sort of a d- a dying thing now, but we didn't keep cattle, but
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we would always have our neighbors who had cattle put their cattle on in spring
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For about three months because they would eat all the stuff the horses wouldn't eat,
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and this was just kinda a known thing.
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It, it, it's, so, so it's interesting that even someone like Wyoming at a
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university and sort of a, where ranching certainly was, you know, the thing,
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that that wouldn't necessarily be known.
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Or maybe the ranchers knew it but the biologists didn't, or, or- Well,
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Maryann Simmonds: I think the dis- â¦ where was the disconnect?
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I think the disconnect was in Wyoming at the time.
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Most people going into wildlife management, wildlife
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conservation management, they were there as game wardens.
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You know, they, how many elk you can shoot, so it really didn't
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matter too much what it ate.
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They weren't studying its natural behavioral ecology of an animal, where
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I was in more behavioral ecology, understanding how the habitats
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affect the behavior of animals.
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And then if you're in range management, you didn't even want
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horses out there, so they weren't, you didn't even care about them.
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You, you probably cared more about rabbits and locusts than, than horses at the time.
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They- And,
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Rupert Isaacson: and why would you not have wanted horses out there
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if you're in range management?
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Maryann Simmonds: Well, there was a, again, a paradigm attitude
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that horses were not native.
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They were feral.
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They were, somebody turned them out, and they are better at surviving than
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a lot of the livestock, so they wanted them off the land so that the- Mm-hmm
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â¦ public lands belonged to private landowners as opposed to the public.
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And with the paleontological data and other data there was certainly sufficient
17:29
evidence to show that genetically the horses that are out there, I mean, yes,
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you could say a lot of them were ranch horses and they did come from the Spanish,
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but there was also genetic variability that showed that, for instance, there was
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a lot of Iberian blood in, in a number of them, like the Kigers and things.
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And so, and when you look at the Spanish and when they came over and there's a
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lot of disconnect in ship records showing that horses, you know, were here with
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Native Americans and spotted horses 14 years after supposedly Columbus landed.
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It's like, how did that even happen, you know?
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And so you start putting things together and, and a lot of the data
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on the horse bones of Equus caballus, Equus tandyrgi would disappear if they
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started getting second lab verification.
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And so, it was a very interesting time.
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I'm trying to prove that the horse- Are you,
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Rupert Isaacson: are you, are you suggestingâ¦
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I, I know that this is current these days, particularly from the American
18:27
side, it seems to be important to people to suggest that horses were
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there before the conquistadors.
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I- is, are you taking that position?
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Maryann Simmonds: I think that there were certain horses there before
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the conquistadors, and that's based on multiple points of evidence,
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including native, interviewing native tribes, that their stories go back to
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pre-conquistadors, and their stories of the horse and the fact that, you know,
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you go down to the Chiricahuas in Arizona and their language the Chiricahua Apaches
18:58
is more similar to Chinese than it is-
19:01
Rupert Isaacson: Well, no doubt.
19:02
I mean, one could say this is just a sort of nerd out here.
19:07
I mean, one could say that the Athabaskan languages of the Native American peoples
19:14
are extremely close to the Siberian, and that would make complete sense,
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you know, with the land bridge, and it would make sense that we know that
19:22
there's a fossil record of horses in North America for sure, but there
19:27
does seem to have been a gap- Yep, yep
19:30
Which we don't know why, but did they get â¦ Why did they go across to Eurasia?
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We don't know.
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I myself, I have to say I'm on team skeptical about they were there
19:39
before the conquistadors because I see all sorts of political and cultural
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and aspirational reasons why that might be important for somebody.
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But it â¦ So to me, I'm afraid it does seem like mythology, but I know
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that me just saying that means I'll get jumped all over now on YouTube by like a
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thousand people saying, "Rupert, you're full of because, you know," da, da, da.
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But the f- the very fact that people get so emotional about it strikes me as odd.
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But then again, you see, I, I don't take a side one way or the other
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really because I'm not fully European.
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My family's colonial African and so it doesn't really matter to me
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whether the conquistadors, you know, whether they were there before or not.
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But
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I, having studied the his- I was a medieval historian.
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It, it, I read an awful lot of the accounts of the early Spanish over
20:36
there and I think if they had been horses there, they'd have said
20:40
so because they're horse people.
20:42
But anyway, it's, it- whe- whether or not it's true, it, it doesn't matter anyway.
20:47
Maryann Simmonds: I don't think it's, it's not a, it's not a
20:49
relevant thing at this point.
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Yeah.
20:51
But I did fi- I, I like data, okay?
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So I just collect data.
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Mm-hmm.
20:54
And I did find it interesting that a paleontologist that I went to school with
20:58
in Wyoming kept finding bones that were dated post-Pleistocene, pre-Columbian,
21:02
and they kept getting it verified, and then those bones would disappear.
21:06
I found that really interesting.
21:07
I also found- Sure.
21:07
No,
21:08
Rupert Isaacson: a- absolutely, and there does seem to be this sort of, The
21:10
Maryann Simmonds: Chinese road- Mm-hmm â¦ going through Wyoming and Colorado
21:14
with all the artifacts and things.
21:16
I mean, it's just, you know, you pull data together.
21:18
You can't say, but genetics don't typically lie.
21:24
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
21:25
Maryann Simmonds: Although I won't say they won't, because
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we've come a long way in genetics.
21:29
But to that point that you're making, it's irrelevant because from a wildlife
21:34
standpoint, Roosevelt elk, they're introduced into the state of Washington,
21:38
but they're considered wildlife.
21:40
Why?
21:40
Because you can shoot them.
21:42
Rupert Isaacson: Well, I think this is, this is why it's relevant.
21:44
I, I guess that's perhaps why I'm harping on it, is because I think from
21:49
the wildlife management point of view, of course, the people who are trying
21:57
to either restore or conserve the
22:05
As close to the pre-Columbian rangeland as is, as is possible to do now will
22:09
feel very strongly anti-mustang.
22:13
I myself am surprised by that because although I am skeptical that they were
22:20
â¦ the horses were there pre-Columbus, my skepticism only matters in that I can
22:30
understand why the conservationists take that attitude, and at the same
22:35
time, because this is a 600, almost 700-year-old history at this point of
22:41
Europeans in North America with our livestock having gone over there that
22:47
long ago, is it not now a moot point?
22:51
You know, the same thing as, for example, I lived in Texas for a long
22:53
time, and people were all anti-feral hog there, you know, which were also
22:58
introduced by the conquistadors.
23:00
And it's like, yeah, but guys, they've been there for 500, 600 years.
23:03
I mean, at what point are you going to say that something is of the land?
23:08
Because clearly this is a healthy ecology, and I think that â¦ I, I think that's
23:12
the point I'm trying to drive at here.
23:16
When one looks at rangelands that have mustangs on them in the USA, I wouldn't
23:21
say that one sees unhealthy ecology.
23:23
Would you?
23:24
Maryann Simmonds: No.
23:25
In fact, the horse is a great herbivore.
23:26
It's like the bison was, too.
23:28
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
23:29
I
23:29
Maryann Simmonds: think, you know, the reason the horse evolved in North
23:31
America, nobody argues that one.
23:32
Yeah.
23:33
It's just where did they go when they died out?
23:34
Well, if you get a population that's under 100,000 in a continent like
23:39
North America, and it moves into small places, small niched environments,
23:43
the likelihood of discovering or finding those is almost zero.
23:47
You know?
23:47
We just- Mm.
23:48
So, you know, as they've dug up some of the trails and the Chinese artifacts going
23:53
across Canada and down through- Mm â¦ I mean, th- even those things are like,
23:57
where did these gold pieces come from?
23:59
There must have been some sort of a Chinese trail.
24:01
When you look at the cartology of China and the fact that in, you
24:06
know, some of their dialogues they were exchanging beadwork and horses,
24:10
you know, pre-Columbian in the Northwest and Equus Tundra is very- Mm
24:17
similar to Equus Ca- Caballos that it makes it seem like there
24:20
probably were horses in the north then and the pathways were open.
24:24
You look at the Lakota beadwork and it's like a Japanese or Asian empress beadwork.
24:32
Very similar.
24:33
And so, you know, rather than like you, I'm not â¦ I mean,
24:36
it's irrelevant at this point.
24:37
If it's a good herbivore and it manages the habitat, then
24:40
whether it's- Well, right.
24:41
This is the point â¦ like not.
24:41
Yeah â¦ when it
24:42
Rupert Isaacson: comes down to should we shoot mustangs- Yeah â¦ I then
24:45
go to team no, we shouldn't, because, well, A, I like horses, but, B, if
24:51
they were there 40,000 years ago- And left, then they still are indigenous.
24:57
And if they've been back for 600 years and clearly the rangelands that
25:05
they're on, unless there's massive overpopulation- Mm-hmm â¦ are doing fine,
25:10
then why do we need to persecute them?
25:13
Yeah.
25:14
Maryann Simmonds: Well, that is a paradigm and an attitude.
25:16
And, and you get back to your point, you know, a- and I've read probably
25:20
not nearly as much as you have on history and medieval, but it's,
25:22
it's sent me on a path of discovery.
25:25
And what I realize is when we write you can write anything you want- Mm-hmm
25:30
â¦ and it doesn't all have to be truth.
25:31
And when you look at ship logs and reading through that, I realize that sometimes
25:38
they didn't tell the truth even in the ship's logs because they didn't want, you
25:42
know, they wouldn't continue their funding if they weren't in the right place, and so
25:45
there's discrepancies all through history.
25:48
Absolutely.
25:48
And we take it at its face value, like this is written therefore
25:52
it's word, but in a lot of cases I think it was written for a specific
25:57
purpose and it may not be accurate.
25:58
So- Mm.
25:59
A- and we accept, when you see something, I mean, in today's
26:02
world, when you write it enough and you say it enough, we believe it.
26:06
Does that mean it's the truth?
26:08
Maybe on one level, in one dimension, but is it the truth of the timeframe in
26:14
the framework that we're discussing it?
26:16
Maybe- Right.
26:17
Rupert Isaacson: And it, it, it becomes, it becomes, you know, it, it matters,
26:20
I suppose, in inverted commas, when people are making decisions about whether
26:25
they should persecute a species or not.
26:27
And then every argument that one can muster to protect
26:32
that species becomes relevant.
26:33
Well,
26:33
Maryann Simmonds: and then you just said, you know, we
26:35
clump them together in species.
26:36
We call humans a species, horses a species.
26:39
Mm.
26:39
But, you know, my work looked at cultural diversity and functional social behavior.
26:43
Mm-hmm.
26:43
And I guess you could apply the same lens over humans and everything else.
26:46
I mean, I'm all for getting rid of those in the societies that, you know,
26:51
let's move them out to the fringe if they're not supporting a sustainable,
26:55
collaborative, forward-moving evolution.
26:57
That's how nature has been so successful, and when we see these super competitive
27:02
models that dominate, yeah, they- they're good for a while, but they all
27:05
die out because there's nothing left.
27:07
Mm-hmm.
27:07
And so if we're managing towards sustainability and collaboration, then
27:11
identifying those individuals in those cultures that have skillsets to be
27:17
sustainable, I would think would be what we would try to manage toward, whether
27:21
it's wildlife or social societies.
27:24
Which is a tricky one.
27:25
We won't get into that.
27:26
It is
27:26
Rupert Isaacson: indeed.
27:27
But- But, you know, so much of it comes down to, you know,
27:31
people's ideologies, doesn't it?
27:34
I mean, I remember I was a journalist in the '90s when they f- did the first
27:40
wolf reintroductions into Yellowstone.
27:42
Oh, yeah.
27:43
And I went up there, you know, to report on that, and interviewed, as like you, a
27:49
bunch of ranchers who were really, really a- of course anti the wolf coming back.
27:55
And I asked them, you know, "Why?"
27:57
And they said, "Well, you know, they'll kill everything."
27:59
And I said, "Well- Will they?
28:01
And like, "Well, they'll kill some things."
28:03
I said, "Well, that, that's probably true."
28:05
And I said, "You know, it's also true that 100 years ago, or 150 years
28:11
ago, if you were trying to eke out a living here and wolves killed some of
28:14
your livestock, that would probably impact you pretty hard economically.
28:18
But we all know now that it- we're in a different economic timeframe, and if they
28:23
do kill some of your livestock, it, it's already been doc- you know, said that
28:27
they'll, you'll be amply compensated.
28:30
So w- what's the real problem?"
28:33
And every time, when I stripped away the onion layers, the real
28:37
problem was, "We just don't wanna be interfered with by government.
28:40
We just resent this interference.
28:42
And we see now the wolf as a, as a symbol of you know, government
28:47
coming and interfering."
28:49
And I said, "Well, I c- that I can understand."
28:52
But I also said, "But you're also American, right?
28:53
You believe in free enterprise."
28:55
And they're like, "Well, yes, of course."
28:56
You know, and start waving the stars and stripes around.
28:58
And I said, "Well, then what about wolf T-shirts and wolf mugs, and you
29:03
know, if the wolf comes back, can you not make some money off these wolves?
29:06
And then what if, you know, they get a sustainable population?
29:10
Can't you hunt them?
29:10
Do you like hunting?"
29:12
"Well, yeah, we do like hunting."
29:13
I said, "Well, then if you did that, what if you guided trophy hunters to
29:17
hunt a certain number of these wolves once they've reached this, you knowâ¦
29:20
Isn't that kind of you get your jollies, you get to kill them,
29:24
you get to sell T-shirts, and the wolves get to be there, too?
29:27
And you also get to grumble about it, 'cause you love to grumble, you know?
29:31
And everyone happy, no?"
29:35
A- and of course the wolf is back, and so that outcome has sort of happened.
29:42
But it's interesting how, I mean, you must have discu- you know,
29:44
found this with, with the mustangs, it, that it comes down so much to
29:48
ideology now more than it did before.
29:50
It did.
29:50
I
29:50
Maryann Simmonds: worked a lot with the ranchers, and I have to say my
29:53
experience with Wyoming ranchers was not what people's perceptions were.
29:57
Mm.
29:57
The ranchers, they don't wanna risk their lives, their horses' lives.
30:01
They don't wanna waste energy.
30:02
They're, they're very sustainable in their systems because they've
30:05
lived with the land for so long.
30:07
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
30:08
Maryann Simmonds: The good ranchers that I worked with in around Green Mountain
30:11
and different places, they had a system, and it was working very well for years,
30:16
and I think y- you hit the point.
30:17
They just didn't want interference.
30:18
So Wyoming was very slow to meet the BLM's requirement of removing horses
30:24
because they already had, at that time in the '70s, a, a rancher removal
30:29
system, and it was, it worked well.
30:32
They'd, they'd stick a mare, a seasoned mare down in the corral
30:35
and wait for the bachelor boys, the bachelor bands to come down, and those
30:39
are stallions that are running in a bachelor group and don't have harems.
30:42
And they'd come down, and then, you know, they'd be in the corral, and they'd be
30:46
ranch horses s- the next week, you know?
30:49
And the, the stallions that had mares and harems had very functional groups, and
30:55
they were together for years and years.
30:56
And the migrations and where they went, the ranchers knew when they'd
30:59
see them, when they wouldn't.
31:00
Mm.
31:01
And they left them alone because the reproductive
31:03
rates were quite low, 1 to 4%.
31:04
Mm.
31:05
4%, 2%, depend on the year.
31:08
But they didn't have any ingression and much, not much migration.
31:12
A little bit of migration, but because we didn't have a lot of pressure from
31:15
bachelor stallions trying to take over only a really tough, smart stallion
31:20
would even get in to get mares.
31:22
And so when you looked at natural die-off and you looked at removal of most of the
31:26
stallions that wanted mares, which were ranch horses, it was pretty managed.
31:30
So the BLM came in and just decided to take a bunch and gate cut, and that's
31:34
when reproductive rates just skyrocketed.
31:36
They destroyed the social culture.
31:39
And yes, you know, people have this- I don't wanna say mythology, but
31:43
beliefs of the, the family bands, which in some groups were very strong
31:48
and in other groups were very loose.
31:50
The, the social society of horses while it did not completely match with ecology,
31:56
in other words, as a behavioral ecologist, we like to think that the, the land
32:00
dictates the behavior of the species, and to a point, you know, getting food and
32:04
water, they're gonna migrate to food and water, but the behaviors of the different
32:08
cultures of horses were quite different.
32:10
There was one herd that even another group of horses ha- could not understand them.
32:15
They would come to the water hole, and they would all just, you know,
32:18
up and down with their heads, and even the youngsters, the foals, would
32:21
go up and down with their heads.
32:22
And I remember seeing another band s- look at them, just stare at them like,
32:26
"What are they say- what are they doing?"
32:29
You know?
32:30
Like, "We don't understand you."
32:31
Whether they did it and developed a behavior like this from flies or
32:35
because of thirst, requesting to, toâ¦
32:38
Who knows?
32:38
But the entire group, they taught it.
32:40
And since so much of social mammal behavior is learned, horses learn
32:45
from us, they learn from other horses, and that's where we can't say horses
32:50
are this way or horses are that way.
32:52
You have to really look at the context of which you're making those statements.
32:56
You can say loosely what things are, and you know, it'sâ¦
33:00
But when you look at other researchers around the world- Dr.
33:04
Dan Rubenstein, who did the intro on the wild horse part of my book,
33:09
he's from Princeton, and he has studied equids all over the world,
33:13
zebras, Przewalski's horses.
33:15
And while we see similarities in terms of bachelors and stallions with harems
33:21
and social facilitators of mares there's unique cultures out there, and that
33:26
they have decided to make a different decision and go a different direction.
33:30
You see cross-species cultural groups where there was a bighorn sheep that
33:35
decided to stay with first a bachelor group, and then he moved in when the
33:39
bachelors got mares, and he never went back to being a bighorn sheep.
33:42
He stayed with his bachelor horse friends.
33:45
Well, they weren't bachelor anymore.
33:46
They were stallion friends that had mares, and he was right up there with them,
33:49
protecting the herd, with some big horns.
33:53
So, you know, that to me is what amazed me about being in the field
33:56
as a field biologist and spending so much time alone with, you know, I have
34:01
to say, no cell phones, not even a computer, so you're still taking notes.
34:05
Probably you remember those days where you write notes in
34:08
a notebook before you, you can-
34:10
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, I, w- when I- I was daubing on the cave walls
34:14
Maryann Simmonds: around about that time.
34:14
Yeah, about that time.
34:15
Yeah.
34:15
So there's something different when you're making pictures and notes and, you
34:19
know, s- I did have a camera so I could snap some, but mostly I realized it was
34:24
my field notes that were most helpful.
34:25
Because when I would try to bring a camera into the picture, whether it was
34:29
with wild horses or then later in life I was doing dolphins and behaviors, it,
34:33
there was a disconnect, and that's why I so admire photographers, because they
34:38
have to just sit there and be a part of the landscape for so long before they can
34:42
really capture what's going on, where I would be there And I would be watching
34:47
and observing, and then I, I remember so many times I'd go to get my camera and
34:51
that observation would, would disappear.
34:53
I wouldn't be able to get it, and it's like, "Okay, I'm not gonna
34:55
even take- try to take a picture."
34:57
And I think of all the times, the one picture I finally did
35:00
get was actually of a badger.
35:03
It was a young juvenile badger, and he kept going up and through
35:06
the cattle guard with me.
35:07
He'd come up and look at me, and then I'd go to get my camera, and then he'd
35:12
go back to the other side of the cattle guard, and it was almost like a game.
35:15
And I'm like, "Okay, no one's gonna believe that we're playing this
35:18
hide and seek game with a badger."
35:20
And finally, I got my camera, and he sat up on the other side of the
35:23
cattle guard just like this, and I got his picture, and it's like, there.
35:27
He was just the cutest thing, and it was just curiosity.
35:31
And I noticed that wildlife behaved very differently, again, going
35:35
back to my thesis, when you're looking with them, not at them.
35:39
Mm-hmm.
35:39
I had pronghorn antelope coming up behind me.
35:41
I'm studying with binocs, you know, pronghorn antelope out there, and
35:44
feeling like, Rupert Sheldrake actually wrote The Feeling of Being Looked At.
35:48
You know, he's written on that.
35:50
Mm.
35:50
And when you turn around and it's, like, a young buck with his head
35:53
down sniffing my camera gear and my backpack, and I'm like, "I don't
35:57
think you're supposed to be over here.
35:59
I think your mom's gonna look for you are."
36:02
But that innocence of curiosity with no fear is what brought wildlife around.
36:08
And so, you know, getting back to the- Mm â¦ attitudes of what we read and
36:12
what's written you know, I'm careful as a scientist, and I think this is a
36:16
progression that perhaps other people have gone through too, is that you start out as
36:20
a scientist and you honor science and you make things very, quote, objective, which
36:24
in reality they're not that objective.
36:26
And then you start to be more subjective and put it into context.
36:30
And then as you start to merge with nature, you start to become a naturalist.
36:35
And then you get deeper into connecting with nature, and you start
36:40
to become a spiritualist, and nature just draws you in because I think
36:45
it feeds our souls the deeper we go and the more connections we have.
36:49
Rupert Isaacson: Well, right.
36:50
It, it, it is our souls.
36:51
We, we cannot s- you know I find it very interesting when people
36:55
talk about, oh, the separation from nature as if that were even possible.
37:00
You know, here we are talking through Zoom, right?
37:02
So there's silicon involved, and there's electricity involved, and
37:05
what are these but products of- Yeah
37:07
the universe, which is nature.
37:09
And we both are breathing in oxygen, you know, currently, and so even if we were
37:13
sitting in the middle of some, you know, highly artificial-looking environment.
37:21
Hell, I've even got an AI background here.
37:24
Yeah.
37:24
But it's all nature.
37:26
It's just-
37:29
processed by humans.
37:32
But that's what we've always done as humans, ever since we first
37:35
started messing about with fire.
37:37
But it's, it's still nature.
37:38
And it, it's interesting to me that it's again, ideology, that there's a
37:44
concept that one can, that it's even possible to separate oneself from nature.
37:49
But of course, we know what people mean.
37:51
It, it, it's a, you know, b- people d- be- taking a destructive attitude.
37:56
And speaking of destructive attitudes, so why at the time that you were studying
38:02
out there on the rangelands, why was the BLM, Bureau of Land Management,
38:07
by the way, for the British and other non-American listeners and viewers,
38:11
who are the people who manage the, the rangelands, the government agencies that
38:15
run the big rangelands out in Western North America, well, in Western USA.
38:20
Why did they take this approach?
38:22
And then you also mentioned something about cross-fencing and
38:26
gates, which disrupted the social-
38:29
Maryann Simmonds: Oh, how they- Did I, did I
38:30
Rupert Isaacson: hear that correctly?
38:31
And, and then numbers skyrocketed when actually numbers
38:34
before that had been stable.
38:36
So can you just clarify that?
38:38
So why was that decision made?
38:40
What was this change in policy?
38:42
And, and also, howâ¦
38:44
what were you studying?
38:46
Were you studying sort of quote unquote, "in defense of the mustangs" being there?
38:50
Or at this stage were you just purely objective?
38:55
Maryann Simmonds: Part of my undergraduate work at the University of Wyoming was
38:58
doing a range comparative study in the 1973 through '76, and it was on
39:05
'72, '73, '74, I guess is when it was.
39:08
It was looking at dietary overlap of horses with cattle, sheep,
39:12
elk, pronghorn And actually, I never thought much about it.
39:18
I res- turned in the, the research until I was on the National Advisory
39:22
Board for the Wild Horses & Burros for United States in the early '90s.
39:27
And I thought, y- you know, it, it initi- which it was a National Academy
39:32
of Sciences grant that in- that was substantiated through the University of
39:38
Wyoming competitive diets that horses were competing with other livestock, which
39:44
initiated the removal of wild horses.
39:46
That's what it started with.
39:48
So they passed the Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act, which was due to Wild
39:53
Horse Annie, because they were justâ¦
39:54
You know, not all ranchers were good at the time.
39:56
I'm just- I gave you my window view of m- the Wyoming ranchers I worked with.
40:01
But in Nevada and other places, it was quite cruel, and they were
40:04
doing horrible things to them.
40:06
So that was the largest outcry to Congress outside of the Vietnam War,
40:10
because children wrote into Congress, "You can't do this to our horses."
40:13
So it stopped.
40:14
They had a National Protection Act.
40:16
But what happened with that is that the, the land managersâ¦
40:22
And realize the Bureau of Land Management was never a wildlife manager.
40:25
They were a land manager set up for railroads and, you
40:29
know, managing livestock.
40:31
And so here they got thrown to manage wild horses, and in their
40:34
mind they're like, "So now we gotta manage a bunch of feral ranch horses?"
40:38
You know, that was not theirâ¦
40:41
It wasn't their fault.
40:41
It wasn't their niche.
40:42
And Fish and Wildlife didn't want it 'cause you can't shoot it.
40:45
And so if you can't shoot it and eat it, which I've been on record
40:48
testifying on that one when I was on the National Advisory Board, making
40:52
the statement that if you can't shoot it or eat it, it doesn't have a value.
40:55
And that's when we get to, what is the human value?
40:58
So, they started removing horses.
41:02
And, and the ranchers got the finger pointed at them, so some were ranchers.
41:07
But when you really dive into it, there's a lot of oil and gas leases.
41:11
And, you know, it's- the whole Wild Horse and Burro program has been more about
41:15
getting the public off public lands.
41:18
The, the group of people that hunt and fish and typically, again, I've
41:22
known great hunters and good, you know, people that are good about it.
41:26
And I have made the comment, if you're going to, if you're going to remove
41:30
horses shooting horses on the range like we would remove other wildlife species
41:37
may, in fact, in some cases be the most humane way, as opposed to putting them
41:42
through helicopter chases and separating them and then sending them in adoptions.
41:46
And, you know, the stress of separation and travel and doing all that.
41:49
While we have some wonderful programs out there, In some cases with, again,
41:54
identifying the cultural integrity and what those horses' stress level
41:58
is, that should have been an option.
41:59
But we tend to go over here and over there with fertility control, no
42:03
fertility, going back to gate cut.
42:06
There was no- What's gate
42:07
Rupert Isaacson: cut?
42:07
That was the word that you used
42:08
â¦ Maryann Simmonds: Yeah, it was gate cut.
42:09
So in the early days, they just said, "Well, there's too many horses."
42:12
So let's just say there are 2,000 horses on the Red Desert and they
42:15
wanna bring it down to 500 horses.
42:17
Now, recognize there was no range management studies done.
42:20
There was no competition studies done.
42:22
They were just simply going off the National Academy of Sciences
42:24
study, which as I started to say, I thought they must have had more work.
42:28
And when I went in and looked at the research, it was my study.
42:32
I was the field biologist doing the comparative data under, you
42:36
know, my maiden name, Cannie.
42:37
So I called the University of Wyoming, had them go back in the microfiche
42:42
files and say, "Did, was there more studies in my range study that, at the
42:46
time, that showed dietary overlap?"
42:49
And Mike Smith was the head of range at the time, and he went back and
42:53
said, "No, it's Mary Ann Cannie.
42:55
Your name's on here as a field student."
42:57
And I said, "Could you please look at the summary?"
43:00
And he looked at the summary, and there were like, I think there were 14 sites.
43:03
I can't remember now.
43:03
But there were four of the 14, I think it was, that there was
43:08
direct overlap with cattle.
43:10
The rest had overlap with elk or pronghorn or something else.
43:13
It, there really wasn't a huge overlap with cattle So I asked him, I said,
43:18
"Do you think that that would lend itself to be significant overlap?"
43:22
And I'll never forget what he said.
43:23
He said, "Even at the University of Wyoming, we don't
43:26
statistically do it that way.
43:27
That is not significant."
43:30
So what happened is they basically made the data say what they wanted it to
43:34
say to initiate the removals of horses.
43:36
And what they did in the early days is they'd just run a bunch of horses in with
43:40
a helicopter or cowboys chasing them, and then when they had the first 100 horses,
43:45
they'd just sh- close the gate and turn the rest back, and then they'd bring more
43:49
in, close the gate, turn the rest back.
43:51
Well, there was no study of the behavior of the groups, and my work on behavior
43:56
and studying horses showed that very often you had a lead mare often in the
44:02
front, and she's taking the group forward.
44:05
The stallion oftentimes was in the back herding together.
44:09
So what you did is you broke up a bonded pair with their group.
44:14
So now you've got the lead mare trying to kill herself to get out, and you've got
44:18
the stallion with not his favorite mare.
44:22
And so that led to not having stable society in horses because the social
44:28
facilitator being the mare took over a lot of responsibility in terms of when we're
44:33
moving and moving the foals and alertness.
44:35
And so now you had young males not being raised by good mares or older
44:40
mares trying to breed two-year-olds.
44:42
And so we saw quite quickly within two or three years that the reproductive,
44:47
the mares coming in in foal went from an average of, like, the young mares
44:51
back in the '70s was, you know, five.
44:54
You might see a fourâ¦
44:54
You'd see a four-year-old.
44:56
Rarely would see a three or two-year-old.
44:58
But it went from your four and five and six-year-olds to two-year-olds were now
45:02
in foal, which in a functional herd, they'd never even get to a two-year-old.
45:07
She'd still be with her mom, with her natal band.
45:09
So that, again, is in Wyoming.
45:11
Other areas had different behaviors, but there was no effort to try to manage by
45:17
species, which we did in other wildlife.
45:19
You know, we would look at elk behavior.
45:21
We would look at how many, who, who we wanna hunt, which ones you wanna take out.
45:26
You wanna take out big ones or little ones?
45:27
How many points, you know?
45:29
And there was a lot more wildlife study, where the horse
45:31
was not treated as wildlife.
45:33
It was treated as just an excessive agricultural you know, as, I won't
45:39
use the term, but they used to call sheep in Wyoming range maggots,
45:42
and I think that there was a lot of attitude that that's what the horses
45:45
were, just something- Well, no, I
45:46
Rupert Isaacson: th- I think you're right.
45:47
I think, I think the, the mustang thing seems to be divided into those
45:51
who love them and those who hate them, and the ones who hate them seem to
45:54
hate them with a peculiar passion,
45:56
Maryann Simmonds: Well, I can tell you why â¦ regarding
45:57
Rupert Isaacson: them as vermin, you know, which is very, very
46:00
strange to me given- Well,
46:02
Maryann Simmonds: I have an answer for that.
46:03
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
46:05
Maryann Simmonds: I actually surveyed the ranchers in Nevada.
46:07
There was a lot of killing of mustangs going on at the time, of
46:10
wild horses, and I thought this is what sent me off into graduate school
46:14
to study consciousness, to be true.
46:16
I watched a person testify at a local BLM meeting, and they hadâ¦
46:22
were testifying quite nicely, and one of the BLM wild horse
46:26
reps threw his briefcase at the guy, like threw it at him.
46:29
I'm just like, "Oh my God.
46:31
I've never seen that behavior before."
46:33
And I thought, "I am really not prepared to handle people here.
46:36
I'm good with the wildlife."
46:38
And so I thought, "I need to go back to graduate school and understand humans."
46:42
So part of what I was doing was interviewing ranchers and saying,
46:46
"Why were you killing them?"
46:47
And I found it very interesting, and to gain their understanding, and I'll
46:51
never forget, one of the ranchers near Winnemucca, Nevada told me, he said
46:58
He said, "I'll tell you why I hate those horses."
47:00
And I knew he had poison- he was, this is many years ago, but it, he had poisoned
47:05
some horses, and so there was a big, you know, 60 Minutes or whatever going on.
47:09
And he said, "I know those horses were here with my grandfather.
47:15
I know my father's, some of his horses got out.
47:17
I know those horses were kind of put here by us."
47:21
And he said, "I can't pay my mortgage.
47:25
I'm struggling to keep my land."
47:28
And he said, "When that stallion comes down," the one he had con-
47:31
and he says, "He looks at me in the eye and he eats my alfalfa field."
47:36
And he said, "I'm jealous because he has freedom and I don't."
47:43
That was
47:43
Rupert Isaacson: very honest
47:44
â¦ Maryann Simmonds: really hit me.
47:45
Yeah.
47:46
That, that- Why do you think
47:47
Rupert Isaacson: he was so candid with you?
47:49
Maryann Simmonds: Well, he knew that I w- I'm not a judgemental person.
47:51
I was truly interested in understanding.
47:53
I worked with ranchers on ranch management.
47:55
Mm.
47:55
I turned ranchers into ecotourism, and what you were talking about- Mm-hmm
48:00
with, you know, the wolves.
48:01
This is back in '70s and '80s.
48:03
Mm.
48:03
I would put together, facilitate workshops between Audubon and
48:06
ranchers, and I wouldn't let anybody say who they were from.
48:09
You become friends, and then we come up with ideas.
48:12
And so, you know, when I could convince ranchers, you can get people from San
48:15
Francisco to come out to your ranch and help you, and they'll pay you money.
48:20
One rancher in southeastern Oregon,
48:24
he sat there and, and he had also been killing horses on the Kiger Plateau,
48:27
and his son one night came to my room.
48:29
We were staying at the ranch, and it was over near the Kiger Plateau.
48:34
And he, the son came to my room and knocked on it.
48:36
It was late, 10 o'clock at night, and I had just gone through
48:39
driving home with this person who tried to run over a rabbit.
48:41
So you can ima- me, it was just like-
48:43
Rupert Isaacson: I've seen a couple of people like that
48:44
too â¦ "Can you stop this?
48:45
Maryann Simmonds: Yes.
48:45
Can you just stop this?
48:47
Just humor me."
48:48
"Quit trying to hit every rabbit you go over."
48:50
You know, it was just like, okay, and I have to stay.
48:52
But it was part of trying to understand each other.
48:56
So-
48:56
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
48:56
No
48:56
â¦ Maryann Simmonds: anyway, he came, knocked on my door, and I went out there, and
48:59
he's, he's having a hard time talking.
49:01
And he said, "I gotta tell you something."
49:03
I said, "All right.
49:03
I'm listening."
49:04
'Cause I'd learned to have non-judgment.
49:06
I learned to just have this blank face where you just go, "Okay.
49:09
I hear you.
49:10
You know, I hear you.
49:11
I don't agree with you, but I hear you."
49:14
And he said they had killed, he had killed a, another group of horses
49:18
along the, the desert on the, below the Kiger Plateau there, and he
49:23
said, "But here's why I killed them."
49:25
And I guess I could do a whole storybook of why ranchers killed horses.
49:28
They're- You know, you
49:29
Rupert Isaacson: should â¦ oh- I think it would actually be really informative.
49:32
As you know, if you followed any of my work, I'm an autism dad and we have
49:37
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49:45
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50:00
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50:02
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50:07
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50:10
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50:11
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50:13
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50:17
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50:31
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50:36
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50:38
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51:17
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51:21
Maryann Simmonds: And he said, and he was crying at the time because I think
51:24
he needed to let it out- Mm â¦ and he didn't have anyone to really tell it to
51:28
because I had had a different opinion.
51:31
I'd been sort of, you know, telling stories and letting him know.
51:33
And he said, "Those horses, their manes and their tails, they were dragging.
51:38
The tail was dragging on the ground, and they were skinny, and they were
51:41
walking just, like, in a single file."
51:44
And he said, "They looked so pathetic and sad.
51:46
I just thought, they'll be better off dead."
51:49
And I looked at him and I said, "So are you telling me if you look like that,
51:54
I should kill you and shoot you too?"
51:58
And he looked at me, and he thought about it, and he said, "So maybe
52:05
I wouldn't do the same thing now."
52:09
So he changed, and we turned that ranch into ecotourism of getting people.
52:15
And so his father was the one when I said, "You know those
52:18
little stone cottages there?
52:20
Let's get them cleaned up," because everybody's up early, you know,
52:24
nursing cows, calves, and things.
52:26
And he was saying how hard it was to get help, and he was following
52:30
what the USDA made them bring cattle in and vaccinate them.
52:33
And I said, "Why don't you think about going to organic beef?"
52:37
And he goes, "How do I do that?"
52:39
And so we had a long talk.
52:40
Actually, I think they did National Geographic had him on
52:42
the cover of The Last Cowboy.
52:44
This is many years ago, back in the '80s.
52:46
But Ed and I talked, and I said, "People will pay more for your beef.
52:51
You don't have to bring them in and get them vaccinated all the time.
52:54
You can let them rotate from your different pastures so they
52:58
don't need to be handled as much.
53:00
You don't need to give them all the crap, and then you can harvest
53:03
them a little earlier and sell them direct to organic beef," which he
53:08
did do a production, which saved him a lot of time and a lot of money.
53:12
Then he when I- we talked about redoing the little cabins, and he looked at me
53:16
and he goes, "Okay, you're telling meâ¦"
53:18
He couldn't believe it.
53:19
He's just like, "You're telling me someone's gonna pay me money to come
53:22
out in the middle of nowhere, get up at 4:30 in the morning, and go out and
53:26
work hard all day, and, and, you know, nurse cows and do this and do that.
53:33
You're telling me that there's somebody stupid enough that they wanna do that?"
53:37
And I said, "Ed, listen to me.
53:39
I'm gonna tell you the life of the person who's going to do
53:42
Rupert Isaacson: that."
53:42
Maryann Simmonds: I said, "He gets up at 4:30 in the morning, he goes to the gym.
53:45
And at 6:00 o'clock he gets on a commute called BART, and he has to go into
53:49
San Francisco and walk to his job.
53:52
And noisy and busy, and he's working hard.
53:55
And then if he's lucky, he'd onlyâ¦
53:57
He gets one or two trains at 6:00 o'clock at night, maybe gets home at
54:00
7:00, has dinner, gets to say good night to his kids, goes to bed, and
54:04
starts all over the next morning."
54:07
And Ed looked at me and he goes, "You mean people live like that?"
54:13
And I said, "Yeah.
54:14
And those people are gonna think they died and went to heaven to come
54:18
out here and be able to get up in the morning and smell fresh air and
54:21
go out and help be, be in nature."
54:25
And so we converted his ranch, so.
54:28
Rupert Isaacson: Here's a qu- two questions.
54:29
One is the dude ranch concept had been alive and well for, well, it started
54:34
in the, what, late 19th century.
54:36
So- Ranchers know, have known for a long time that people from the city
54:42
will come out and pay money to e- experience some form of ranch life.
54:47
Why, why was this so that's question number one, why was
54:50
this news to these people?
54:53
Even though I'm not suggesting it was quite like a dude ranch, but
54:55
nonetheless, they were familiar with the idea that people would value that
55:00
way of life and want to come out and pay to, to- Well- It, it was sort of anâ¦
55:04
But the se- the second question, just quickly, is at what point did
55:09
you go from scientist to activist?
55:12
Because by this point, trying to convince people to go organic or
55:18
Turn their land over to ecotourism, and therefore also prot- help
55:22
protect ecology while doing that.
55:25
That's now moving into the activism range.
55:28
So first, why were the ranchers surprised, and B, at what point and
55:33
why did you be- become activist?
55:36
Maryann Simmonds: Okay.
55:36
Well, one I think they were surprised because they don't have a very
55:40
big, wide lens for their life.
55:42
It's very narrow.
55:42
You know, you just don't have time to do much more than ranch.
55:46
And I don't think that they thought a working ranch had
55:49
much to do with a dude ranch.
55:50
Those are- Mm â¦ people that, you know, I mean, hunting parties and
55:54
people, they, they don't have time to put the exper- unexperienced
55:58
people on a horse to do anything.
55:59
I mean, I go back to Wyoming, same thing.
56:02
I mean, I, I was, you know, still in college at the time, and one
56:05
of my rancher friends was saying I mean, we're talking, like, 1979.
56:09
He was saying, "God, I just don't know how it's getting so expensive to move our
56:12
cattle from winter range to summer range."
56:14
And I was still in the horse world at that point in time, and I said,
56:18
"Oh, I bet if you put an ad in one of the horse magazines or the Denver
56:21
Post, you'd get lots of people that would want to come up here for free.
56:24
And they're equestrians.
56:25
They ride.
56:26
They'll bring their own horses."
56:27
And again, he looked at me and goes, "You gotta be kidding me."
56:29
And I said, "Just try it.
56:30
You got nothing to lose."
56:31
So they did.
56:32
They put an ad.
56:33
They had, like, 100 applicants of people that wanted to bring their
56:35
horse up, and they startedâ¦
56:37
You know, years later, the movie City Slickers was made, but this
56:40
was back reality of people that had a horse that said, "Oh my God,
56:44
let's go herd cows in Wyoming.
56:45
This sounds like fun."
56:47
And they did.
56:47
And they realizedâ¦
56:49
And the funniest thing, this is the funny part, is years later I was in
56:52
Wyoming, I want to say 10 or 12 years later, and I looked up that rancher
56:57
to see if they were still doing it, and he said, he said, "We don't even
57:02
take our cows to market anymore.
57:04
They know the way, so we just stick people.
57:06
They, they can just take the horses.
57:08
The cows know where they're going."
57:09
And they, the cows are the guides back and forth, and they made way more money.
57:14
They went from not, they went from providing food and not paying to getting
57:19
paid from people that wanted to do it.
57:21
So- Yeah, sure.
57:22
Okay.
57:22
So second question, I don't consider it an activist.
57:25
I consider it a solution finder.
57:28
I, I'm a whole systems thinker.
57:29
That's the best kind of activist.
57:30
Yeah.
57:31
So when I hear a problem, and I listen to all sides, my brain thinks like nature.
57:38
Where's the point in the system that if we made this change, it
57:41
might sustain the whole system?
57:44
And so ecotourism, to me, didn't even have a name at the time.
57:48
Mm.
57:48
To me, it was just a way to monetize a skill set that you're losing
57:54
money on to get you to make money to do the right thing And again,
58:00
most of the ranchers I worked with, they wanted to do the right thing.
58:04
In fact, another study I did on range analysis was â¦ And again, getting
58:08
more into the consciousness work, we used what's called the Daubenmire plot.
58:13
You know, you throw this little rectangle thing out in the range, and you look at
58:16
the plants in it, and you look at the condition, and you, you rate the range.
58:20
Well, I did it that way on a transect, you know, the way science
58:23
does it, you know, very accurate.
58:25
And then I would interview the ranchers about what they thought, what condition
58:29
they thought the range was in.
58:30
Do they think it was in good condition, fair condition?
58:32
You know, what do they think next year's gonna bring?
58:35
And I found that the ranchers were more accurate than our scientific studies,
58:39
which is not unusual because they're living with nature, so they know, you
58:44
know, when this happens and we get a late frost like this, it looks like
58:47
it's gonna be, you know, a long, cold winter, or when we get this in the
58:51
summer, we're not- we're gonna have a drought this summer, so we're not
58:54
gonna use those pastures this summer.
58:55
We'll wait till fall before we use them.
58:57
They had an intuitive feel for how to move.
59:00
They weren't just saying, "Well, let's put as many cows out there
59:03
as we can, let them graze down."
59:04
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
59:05
Maryann Simmonds: Certainly there were some, but the good ranchers,
59:07
no, that's not how they did it.
59:08
They â¦ This is their livelihood.
59:10
This is their land, too.
59:12
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
59:13
Maryann Simmonds: So I was looking for solutions, and ecotourism offered one.
59:16
Rupert Isaacson: Who were you working for at that point?
59:18
So, you- you've been an academic.
59:20
You've gone on to grad school.
59:22
By the time you're getting into the ecotourism thing how are
59:25
you making your daily bread?
59:27
Are you making it from the ecotourism?
59:29
Are you making it from something else?
59:31
Why, why are you getting involved in this solution, making thi- â¦ The
59:36
time that you put into it, somehow you also have to pay the rent.
59:39
So talk to us about that, yeah.
59:41
What are you doing at
59:42
Maryann Simmonds: that point?
59:42
That's an interesting â¦ I've never been asked that question,
59:44
but it's an interesting question.
59:45
Well, first place- It's always been my passion to help, and so I
59:50
was very fortunate that I married an engineer at University of
59:53
California who supports my passion.
59:55
And so, he's allowed me to continue doing what I wanna
59:58
do, whether I get paid or not.
59:59
And so, when I was in an undergraduate work, I worked for
1:00:03
Utah International, which then became BPT Mining and then GE Mining.
1:00:07
I went to work for Atlantic Richfield in the early days in my undergraduate,
1:00:12
and again, looking for solutions.
1:00:15
When I started working with Atlantic Richfield, they thought I was a guy
1:00:19
because there were no women- What is
1:00:21
Rupert Isaacson: Atlantic Richfield?
1:00:22
Maryann Simmonds: Atlantic Richfield, ARCO, is a gasâ¦
1:00:24
is a big oil and gas company.
1:00:26
Okay?
1:00:26
So
1:00:26
Rupert Isaacson: you were working for oil and gas companies-
1:00:28
Maryann Simmonds: I was â¦ and,
1:00:29
Rupert Isaacson: and advising them on the management of their rangelands?
1:00:32
Of
1:00:32
Maryann Simmonds: everything, yes.
1:00:33
Okay.
1:00:33
Got it.
1:00:33
And then I went to work as a reclamation specialist for a
1:00:36
global oil and gas company.
1:00:38
But I will tell you, I interviewed 82 some firms, and the ones that I
1:00:43
selected were about four, because they already had environmental
1:00:46
quality departments in-house.
1:00:47
They didn't need laws to tell them what to do.
1:00:49
They wanted to do the right thing.
1:00:51
Okay.
1:00:51
And I always felt like if you work with good people who wanna do the right thing,
1:00:55
they can shine, and ARCO was one of them.
1:00:58
They didn't know, like I said, I was a woman till they hired me.
1:01:01
I lived out in Gillette, Wyoming by myself- So
1:01:02
Rupert Isaacson: Mary Anne doesn't give it away at all, It was M.A-
1:01:05
I, I actually thought you were a bloke until just now.
1:01:07
Yeah.
1:01:07
Yeah.
1:01:08
Maryann Simmonds: It was M.A.
1:01:09
Okay.
1:01:09
They thought I was Mark Allen, because that happened at the University of
1:01:12
Wyoming because my advisory professor did not let me take the internship that
1:01:17
I wanted and shall I say, it would be considered sexual harassment, and he
1:01:22
would've been fired in today's world.
1:01:24
But back then, being the only female, I just sort of passed it on and I said, "You
1:01:29
better put my name in for the next job."
1:01:32
And he did, but he put M.A.
1:01:34
'cause he knew they wanted a guy up in Gillette, but they got me,
1:01:37
and so that was a little shocking.
1:01:39
They hired me off my resume, not my name.
1:01:41
But as it turned, it worked out because I came up with a proposal to reclaim after
1:01:47
the, the coal mine, they hadn't done anything, that was gonna cost them $2
1:01:50
million for just a revegetation test plot.
1:01:53
And they had budgeted, I don't know- So basically
1:01:55
Rupert Isaacson: you were the person who would show them how to- How to do
1:01:58
it â¦ once you've mined, put it back.
1:01:59
Yes,
1:01:59
Maryann Simmonds: put it all back, right.
1:02:00
Put,
1:02:00
Rupert Isaacson: put the ecology back.
1:02:01
That's a satisfying job to have.
1:02:03
Maryann Simmonds: It, it was because with ARCO they had, like, budgeted, I don't
1:02:07
know, 20,000 or 200,000, something minor.
1:02:11
They thought it was gonna be a little tiny vegetation test plant, and I
1:02:13
come in with this huge $2 million, you're gonna take the overburden here,
1:02:16
you're gonna put the plants here.
1:02:17
And they're likeâ¦
1:02:18
The vice president of coal had to fly up to meet with me, and then he found
1:02:22
out I was a woman, and he's like, "What do you think you're doing?"
1:02:25
And I said, "I'll tell you what I'm doing.
1:02:27
No one has written the Office of Surface Mining regulations because they don't
1:02:31
know what will grow, and if you do it this way, you will write the regulations
1:02:34
and you will get your permits."
1:02:36
And he said, "Let's do it."
1:02:38
And they did, and they did get the permits for the Black Thunder
1:02:40
Mine in Gillette, Wyoming.
1:02:42
So I love looking back at all of the places where I've interceded, from
1:02:47
Hanauma Bay in Hawaii, setting up a rest rotation system on the bay just
1:02:51
like we do in range management, to Black Thunder Mine, and working with
1:02:56
companies that went beyond what they had to do and did it right the first time.
1:03:00
And that's where people don't realize that they can.
1:03:02
That,
1:03:02
Rupert Isaacson: that is very encouraging to hear.
1:03:05
You know, one tends to naturally think of oil and gas, big business, e- extractâ¦
1:03:10
mineral extraction, et cetera, as always being- with the devil unless a gun is to
1:03:15
their head, and then to whatever degree.
1:03:18
But of course, what is true is that, yes a lot of mining activity,
1:03:23
they do put the ecology back.
1:03:25
It just isn't massively reported.
1:03:28
And it's wonderful that you got to be one of those people helping that happen.
1:03:33
How long did you do that for?
1:03:34
And also, we've drifted a little bit from horses in your
1:03:37
life, in your personal life.
1:03:39
W- did you then, as you were working then, just get horses back in your life?
1:03:43
Did you begin to ride again?
1:03:43
Did you- I never did not have horses.
1:03:45
Maryann Simmonds: Sorry?
1:03:45
I always had horses.
1:03:47
I never not had horses.
1:03:47
Okay.
1:03:47
I never did not.
1:03:49
I was out on the ranch on my horse.
1:03:51
Got it.
1:03:51
And that was actually where I proved, I wanna say proved my undergraduate
1:03:56
research back in the beginning, is when I would go riding out on the transect on
1:04:00
my horse, I would see all this wildlife, foxes and ground squirrels and badgers,
1:04:06
and then I'd go out walking to look at the same thing, and they weren't there.
1:04:11
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:04:11
Maryann Simmonds: And then I'd actually get on my horse again to go
1:04:13
out and look, but as long as I was looking for it, I didn't have the
1:04:16
same sighting index, and I thought, "I can't, I can't fudge the science.
1:04:20
I know it's there, but I'm not seeing it at this time."
1:04:22
So I changed it all up and I thought, "I'm gonna just pretend
1:04:26
I'm just going out for a ride today.
1:04:28
I'm not gonna look for anything.
1:04:30
But I'll stop at the transects and record."
1:04:31
Well, when I was just pretending I'm having fun and enjoying the day, I had
1:04:35
foxes and badgers and red-tailed hawks, and everything's crossing my path.
1:04:40
And I realized what's different, my brainwaves.
1:04:42
I was not looking at, I'm looking with.
1:04:44
I'm enjoying being part of nature.
1:04:46
So I took that to the next step and, you know, did a study where I kind
1:04:50
of became a rock, and I just sat there being a rock thinking, "I'm
1:04:53
a rock, I'm a rock, I'm a rock."
1:04:54
And a Richardson ground squirrel came up around me and was foraging and, you know,
1:05:00
and it sat up on my knee and I'm still, I'm just like, "I'm really into rock.
1:05:03
Like, I'm a granite rock.
1:05:04
I'm a granite rock on the range."
1:05:06
But when it got up on my head and stood up and went I, this, I mean,
1:05:11
it was not even a 10th of a second.
1:05:12
It was just a split second.
1:05:13
I thought, you know, "Where's a camera when you need it?"
1:05:15
And it went, "Ee," and went running back into its hole.
1:05:18
And I thought the only thing that was different was my thoughts.
1:05:23
Right.
1:05:23
And so I started training bi- other wildlife biologist friends and hunters
1:05:27
how to be a part of nature and how to work, and photographers that wouldâ¦
1:05:31
and hunter guides.
1:05:32
And so I had a lot of guys to test it with.
1:05:35
Rupert Isaacson: You, you, you said you started training them.
1:05:37
This is informally just friends of yours, or- It startedâ¦
1:05:39
Maryann Simmonds: Yeah, they were friends that- Or were
1:05:41
Rupert Isaacson: you hired by some organization to do this?
1:05:42
Maryann Simmonds: No, no, no, no.
1:05:42
It was friends.
1:05:43
I was still working on the data.
1:05:44
Mm-hmm.
1:05:45
And so I just had them, I said, "Okay, so can you just help me out here?"
1:05:48
Like, one was elk hunting, for instance.
1:05:50
I said, "Keep track of the elk you see when you're out fishing in August."
1:05:54
And bow season hadn't even opened, so it wasn't like they were
1:05:57
being hunted, and there wasâ¦
1:05:58
And bow season opens before, you know, gun season opens.
1:06:02
And all my friends who, hunter friends would tell me, "Gosh, you
1:06:05
know, when I was out fly fishing on the Wise, I'd, I'd saw the elk.
1:06:09
But I went out bow hunting and they're gone."
1:06:11
And I, I'm thinking, "Okay, is it migration patterns?
1:06:14
Is it this?"
1:06:14
So we, we ruled out variables, and come to find out when they were bow hunting
1:06:20
and thinking they were going fly fishing, the elk were still there So they,
1:06:26
they out-thought them in their energy.
1:06:28
And it's the same energy I talk about in the book, A Horse by Nature.
1:06:31
Shift your energy.
1:06:32
I have clients to this day that I've said, "It's your energy the horse doesn't like.
1:06:37
If you can't manage your energy, that horse isn't gonna go forward.
1:06:39
It will not go into the jumper ring with you."
1:06:41
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:06:42
It
1:06:42
Maryann Simmonds: does not like your energy, and yet I stick another person
1:06:44
on who I know their energy's soft and supportive, and the horse goes right in.
1:06:48
Rupert Isaacson: It's very interesting, this.
1:06:49
This is known in Africa when you go on safari, if you go on
1:06:54
horseback, the animals relate to your horse before they relate to you.
1:06:58
They will smell your horse before they smell you.
1:07:00
They willâ¦
1:07:01
Y- your silhouette is very different.
1:07:04
And also, as you say, you are involved in your horse, so you are
1:07:09
paying attention to your horse.
1:07:11
You're paying attention to the ground even more because you don't
1:07:14
want your horse to fall over.
1:07:15
You're paying attention to what's out there, because it might eat your horse.
1:07:18
And I, actually I read of, ofâ¦
1:07:20
That's a great quote from a North American nature writer too, said,
1:07:24
"The further you got towards the Canadian border, the more things
1:07:26
there are that will eat your horse."
1:07:28
I don't know if that's what it looked like.
1:07:29
But it's very true in Africa.
1:07:30
And, and what, what is true is that the wildlife tends to approach you.
1:07:33
Yeah.
1:07:34
And I think this is true wherever one goes.
1:07:36
And when horse training, you know, when I'm advising people for dressage
1:07:43
training particularly when it's the upper movements piaffe, passage, the
1:07:48
changes, the pirouettes, the, the stuff that, you know, is, is looked on as
1:07:52
being upper level for whatever reason.
1:07:56
I'll often say, "Pretend you don't want it.
1:07:59
Pretend you're just going to the bar to get a beer."
1:08:04
Say that in your head as you go around, and what will probably happen
1:08:09
is the horse will probably offer- Yeah â¦ because it's a natural
1:08:12
behavior of the horse, and you've actually set them up in the balance.
1:08:15
W- kind of why wouldn't they?
1:08:16
But if you, they feel that this is something that you are putting pressure
1:08:22
on yourself to put pressure on them for, like many things in life that we put
1:08:28
pressure on for they become elusive.
1:08:30
And why would it be any different here?
1:08:33
How do I know this?
1:08:34
Because I put a lot of pressure on and seen these things go away, and
1:08:37
the moment I pretended not toâ¦
1:08:38
You know.
1:08:39
And it's funny, your thing about being a stone.
1:08:41
It saved m- that, that exact thing saved my life one time.
1:08:44
I was in Botswana, and there was this big noise in the camp, lots of
1:08:48
banging of pots, lots of shouting.
1:08:49
I was like, "Oh, there's a snake.
1:08:50
There's a snake in the camp."
1:08:52
That's what they do, they bang the pots.
1:08:53
They prob- it's probably in the kitchen.
1:08:55
I wondered what snake it was.
1:08:57
Probably a cobra, probably a mamba.
1:08:58
You know, I'm just walking back towards the camp, curious.
1:09:01
As I'm walking back towards the camp, this huge black mamba, about 10 feet long,
1:09:05
comes shooting up the trail towards me.
1:09:09
This is the only of the big poisonous snakes in Africa that's actually
1:09:14
aggressive, and he's pissed off.
1:09:16
He's being, you knowâ¦
1:09:18
And I'm like, it's coming right at me.
1:09:20
And I'm like, "I'm a tree.
1:09:23
I'm a tree.
1:09:24
I'm a tree.
1:09:25
I'm a tree.
1:09:26
I'm a tree."
1:09:28
It went over my foot.
1:09:31
Maryann Simmonds: Wow.
1:09:32
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:09:32
I managed not to cack my pants in that particular moment- â¦ 'cause
1:09:36
I so did not want to be a, you know, a living warm-blooded organism.
1:09:40
No.
1:09:41
Maryann Simmonds: I am a really warm tree.
1:09:43
I have leaves.
1:09:44
I have branches.
1:09:44
A
1:09:44
Rupert Isaacson: lot of sap.
1:09:45
Yeah.
1:09:46
Maryann Simmonds: Yeah.
1:09:46
Yeah.
1:09:46
That took a lot of self, self-containment.
1:09:50
Boy, that- But it's
1:09:51
Rupert Isaacson: interesting.
1:09:51
No, everything you're saying there is absolutely true, and, and i- itâ¦
1:09:55
I'm always surprised with hunters particularly b- because when they
1:09:58
don't know this, because good hunters know this absolutely.
1:10:00
All good hunters from any culture know that to be in any way successful, you
1:10:05
have to effectively become your prey.
1:10:07
You have to love them.
1:10:08
You have to have this, this really intimate and respectful relationship.
1:10:13
But you actually have to have a sort of empat- e- empathetic relationship,
1:10:17
which goes over into shape-shifting.
1:10:19
And having spent, been fortunate enough to spend a lot of time with San
1:10:23
Bushmen hunter-gatherers in, in the Kalahari, I've seen that shape-shifting
1:10:27
process happen in so many ways.
1:10:29
And of course, without that, there is no survival.
1:10:32
But it's also, it's not just survival, it's thriving.
1:10:35
It's quality of life because it's, as you say, it's a spiritual process.
1:10:39
I'm always surprised when people are surprised by that.
1:10:42
And- particularly within the horse world because we have these really
1:10:47
intimate relationships with our horses.
1:10:49
We live with them.
1:10:50
They're family to us, even if we aren't lucky enough to keep them
1:10:54
on our property and we have to keep them at a boarding barn because
1:10:57
we live in a city or something.
1:10:59
We, we, we have so much love for this animal.
1:11:02
It, it surprises me sometimes that the empathetic crossover,
1:11:08
intra-species crossover thing doesn't come more naturally despite, we
1:11:14
want to say, "Oh, yeah, okay, I understand it's the Judeo-Christian,
1:11:17
you know, break with theâ¦"
1:11:18
Blah.
1:11:18
Yes, yes, yes, and we burned all the wise women and called them witch.
1:11:21
Yes, yes, yes, and we went through all that history.
1:11:23
Yes, yes.
1:11:23
However, when you've got a horse in your life or a dog in your life or a cat in
1:11:27
your life or whatever that's really in your life, that whole process just takes
1:11:31
care of itself because that's nature, and yet we, we go into barns and we
1:11:36
see people struggling and separated and suffering from separation from their
1:11:41
horses, and the horse is suffering.
1:11:42
Very similar to that story you told a little while back of the
1:11:46
trainer who hit the horse between the ears, and you said as a child
1:11:49
instinctively, "Why would you hit a horse in the head that had a headache?"
1:11:53
And the guy didn't know, but also wasn't curious enough to ask and then
1:11:57
was shocked and actually probably quite shamed and probably asked himself- Yeah
1:12:02
"Actually, why didn't I?"
1:12:03
So let's talk about this process of consciousness and intra-species
1:12:09
interaction and relationship.
1:12:11
Y- you- Way more fun â¦ you've spent a lifetime even though you're
1:12:16
only 28 looking at how species and land relate to each other.
1:12:23
Where do you think the separation comes from, even when people actually are in
1:12:28
deep relationship with other species?
1:12:34
Maryann Simmonds: Well, I'd love to blame Descartes, but I don't think we can.
1:12:37
I think it is a, it is a puzzling curiosity in my head, and continues
1:12:42
to be, how other species can learn collaboration and empathetic connection
1:12:48
and communication, and humans just have such a hard time doing it.
1:12:52
Rupert Isaacson: And yet, the, the original blueprint,
1:12:54
we are absolutely like that.
1:12:55
We're wired for it.
1:12:55
We're gatherers.
1:12:55
Absolutely wired for it.
1:12:57
We are absolutely like that.
1:12:58
Maryann Simmonds: We are, and when you look at even why we have
1:13:02
horses in our lives, okay theâ¦
1:13:04
Again, you write it down aloft enough times, people believe it, and that's
1:13:08
what's happened with horse training.
1:13:09
You've probably seen it.
1:13:10
If enough people say you must do this to get the horse to be engaged,
1:13:13
let's go back to piaffe and passage.
1:13:15
You must do it this way, and this is how you do it.
1:13:17
I don't know.
1:13:18
I'm not a dressage rider per se, but I can get a horse that's a dressage
1:13:23
horse to do piaffe and passage, but it's because it's a joyful movement.
1:13:26
Mm.
1:13:26
It's joyful energy.
1:13:27
It's yellow coming up through the bottoms of your feet.
1:13:30
It's getting- Sure, it's
1:13:31
Rupert Isaacson: what they do when they play.
1:13:32
Yeah.
1:13:32
It's what
1:13:32
Maryann Simmonds: they do when they play, yes, so it should be fun.
1:13:35
And, you know, in teaching and training horses, the best time to
1:13:38
get it is when they wanna come home from a long trail ride and, you know,
1:13:42
their friends are ahead of them.
1:13:43
It's like, "Go ahead, get a friend."
1:13:44
And now you've got all this energy underneath you, and it's like, "Now let's
1:13:47
do piaffe and passage all the way home."
1:13:49
So it's finding those moments where they would naturally use
1:13:52
it and then putting it together.
1:13:53
And so w- I think there is a, a check valve on our human emotions, and
1:13:59
I think part of it is for safety.
1:14:00
We don't wanna get hurt, so we don't wanna open up too much to other
1:14:04
life because it is- Ah â¦ you can get compassion- The fear of loss.
1:14:08
Yeah, the compassion fatigue.
1:14:09
When you love things and they're going to die and they're gonna be destroyed,
1:14:12
and you can't do anything about it.
1:14:13
Mm.
1:14:13
That compassion fatigue.
1:14:14
I think that's part of it.
1:14:16
But I can say that just, you know, looking and working within the sport horse
1:14:20
industry, we can't, we don't h- If we keep sport horses, and I'm asking that as
1:14:25
a question because the public is judging whether horses should be raced, whether
1:14:29
they should be doing these things I happen to know horses that enjoy it and like it.
1:14:33
Does every horse enjoy it and like it?
1:14:35
No, just like every kid doesn't like to go to school or be told-
1:14:39
Mm â¦ they have to do it a certain way.
1:14:40
But those that do, simple ways to enhance the whole barn, and the trainers even
1:14:45
had trouble re- you know, doing this.
1:14:48
But the ones that have have gone, "Why didn't I remember that?"
1:14:52
I take them back, you know, we do a kind of a guided visualization, when you
1:14:55
were a little kid and you loved horses, and you could hardly wait to get to the
1:14:59
barn to go in the stall and say hi to the horses, and they were all over you.
1:15:04
What's changed, and why are you not doing that every morning?
1:15:07
And when they have done that, it doesn't take long.
1:15:09
Go in for 15 seconds, give a buddy scratch, say, "How are you doing?
1:15:13
How was last night?"
1:15:13
Go to the next horse, do the same thing.
1:15:15
When you walk into your barn and you visit every horse in their
1:15:18
stall, give them a nice scratch, reconnect, say, "How was your night?"
1:15:22
Suddenly you have every horse sticking their head out going, "Where's my friend?
1:15:25
Where's my friend?"
1:15:27
And it's because of that empathy.
1:15:29
They're emotionally intelligent creatures.
1:15:31
They're not intellectually intelligent.
1:15:33
And we too are emotionals, and this is where I get so annoyed at, you know,
1:15:38
the models out there of prey, predator, and they need to be told what to do,
1:15:42
and they need this, and they need that.
1:15:43
Certainly they need some guidance, and you need to understand their
1:15:46
behavior and what they're saying.
1:15:47
But even within that context, horses communicate differently
1:15:51
'cause of what they've learned.
1:15:53
But they need the emotional context, and those that are the most, quote,
1:15:57
"aggressive," are typically the ones that have no ideas how to
1:15:59
make friends with horses or humans.
1:16:02
Rupert Isaacson: No, absolutely.
1:16:02
And when you show
1:16:03
Maryann Simmonds: them that, they soften.
1:16:05
Rupert Isaacson: S- something that you, I think, the the word that came up as you
1:16:08
were talking just there is bitterness.
1:16:10
This is something which is interesting within the horse world.
1:16:13
It's a bitter world.
1:16:14
It's, it's it's contentious, it's fractious.
1:16:18
You know, for example, you know, I said I'm gonna get jumped all over for saying
1:16:21
I'm on team probably horses weren't in the Americas before Columbus, you know,
1:16:27
e- outside of the 40,000 years ago thing.
1:16:29
You know, and I know there's gonna be people who go like, "Ah,"
1:16:32
like, it's gonna spark anger.
1:16:33
Mm-hmm.
1:16:34
And it's like, why?
1:16:36
It doesn't matter what I think.
1:16:37
It doesn't matter.
1:16:39
Or you know, we know, we know.
1:16:42
Look at social media in the horse world.
1:16:44
And yet, as you say, what motivated everybody to get
1:16:50
involved with horses was love.
1:16:52
Mm-hmm.
1:16:53
Sometimes a desire for healing, may perhaps they were hurt.
1:16:56
Many of us came to horses that way, but it, but the purity of our love
1:17:00
for horses was also its own thing.
1:17:02
And where did that go bitter, to the point where we then have to
1:17:09
begin to attack our fellow humans?
1:17:12
One of the things which-
1:17:16
worries me sometimes when I'm clinicking or teaching is I'll sometimes hear s-
1:17:21
you know, y- y- it's, it's a cliche statement I hate people, but I love
1:17:27
horses, or I hate people, but I love dogs.
1:17:29
I'm like, "Well, then why are we here?"
1:17:31
Because this is people interacting with horses, and that involves people.
1:17:39
And horses have always been domesticated by tribes of people on the, on the
1:17:46
steppes whether they're the North American steppes or the Eurasian steppes.
1:17:49
Yeah.
1:17:50
Yeah.
1:17:50
And these are groups of people and horses interacting, and horses
1:17:55
want to interact with people.
1:17:57
Do you think that they want to interact with a bitter person who's
1:18:01
bitter towards their fellow species?
1:18:03
Would we want to interact with a horse that's bitter towards other horses?
1:18:07
That's problematic.
1:18:09
Do we think that a horse doesn't notice?
1:18:12
Do we think a horse doesn't feel some distress if we go
1:18:16
around with this bitterness?
1:18:17
And yet even I have felt it in myself, you know, in previous iterations
1:18:22
of myself, I have to admit that I've been a little bit that person.
1:18:25
Why was I that person?
1:18:27
Because I heard other people being that person, and I wanted a sense of
1:18:31
belonging, so I joined that negative dysfunctional tribe for a while.
1:18:38
Didn't like it, so I didn't want to stick around very long.
1:18:41
But I do empathize with why, you know, people get there and the sense
1:18:46
of loss, but, you know, I might lose this, the hor- you know, I
1:18:50
will outlive my horse or whatever.
1:18:53
But yet it is an weird paradox, isn't it, Mary Ann, that this thing that
1:19:00
should be the biggest source of happiness in our lives, we are the top 1.1%
1:19:06
of the population if we get to hang out with ponies in our lives, and yet
1:19:11
here we are going around being bitter.
1:19:13
Maryann Simmonds: Well-
1:19:13
Rupert Isaacson: What's going on?
1:19:14
Yeah.
1:19:14
Maryann Simmonds: I, I think, again, it, it gets down to trusting your
1:19:20
intuition and developing it, and most people, one, either don't know
1:19:24
they have it or they don't trust it, and they've been taught against it.
1:19:26
I guess I was one of those kids that try as my parents might to
1:19:30
say it one way, I went, "Mm, no.
1:19:31
I'm right."
1:19:33
And so rather than going along with the system, I just figured
1:19:36
everybody else was wrong and I'm right because my world worked for me.
1:19:39
I was happy in my world.
1:19:41
And it took a long time to get enough science and degrees behind
1:19:46
me that I could take the criticism, giving lectures and papers.
1:19:50
I mean, I did citation work.
1:19:52
And I remember being accused by the academic world saying, "Well, Ms.
1:19:57
Simons, that's really anthropomorphic of you to say that."
1:20:00
And I said, "No, it's very arrogantly zooanthropomorphic of us to think
1:20:04
we had emotions before animals."
1:20:06
And I'm like, "Where did that come from?"
1:20:08
And now I see the word zooanthropomorphic in quotes, but I used it back in the
1:20:11
early '80s at a conference thinking that it is our human arrogance that
1:20:16
says animals are beneath us- And they're not, nothing's beneath us.
1:20:22
The plant that's, this, this is going along with what you said.
1:20:25
If you hate, love dogs and hate fleas, that doesn't work.
1:20:28
You have to love life, and that's how we're gonna learn to work with it.
1:20:31
We're gonna continue having hurricanes and weather events because we're so
1:20:35
separate, and the minute we start realizing we can be water, we can
1:20:38
be air, we can be horses, we can be snakes, we'll start to soften and open
1:20:42
up our awareness and our intuition.
1:20:44
And that's for a whole nother talk.
1:20:45
But going back to just horses, I think that people have been wired to think
1:20:52
that horses are a certain way, and they have to behave a certain way.
1:20:56
And I run into a lot of people that have been through various forms
1:20:59
of, you know, natural horsemanship, and doing this and doing that, and
1:21:02
I'm like, "Why are you doing that?
1:21:03
Your horse obviously says don't."
1:21:05
You know, you put the carrot stick and it just like stomps its leg, "Stop that.
1:21:08
Don't do that to me."
1:21:09
Why are you doing something that your horse says no to?
1:21:11
Listen to your horse.
1:21:13
And you know, when I do a clinic too, and you're probably like this, I tell
1:21:16
people, "Take what works for you, but don't do everything I tell you.
1:21:19
I'm trying to give you tools to use with your own personal
1:21:22
Rupert Isaacson: horse."
1:21:22
Yeah, exactly.
1:21:22
Yeah.
1:21:23
Maryann Simmonds: And when you get back to loving, one of the gals who
1:21:26
I, years ago, again lecturing at UC Davis in the vet school, and I asked,
1:21:30
"How many of you want to be vets?"
1:21:31
And it was kind of the time when women were starting to
1:21:33
be more dominant than men.
1:21:34
And I'd say about half raised their hands, and I said, "How many of youâ¦"
1:21:38
Or you know, they all wanted to be vets, sorry.
1:21:40
And I said, "How many of you love animals, love horses?"
1:21:43
And only about half raised their hands.
1:21:45
And I said, "Why aren't all of you loving horses and want to be healers?
1:21:48
What's wrong here?"
1:21:49
And you could see them, like, get very uncomfortable.
1:21:52
And after the lecture, one gal came up to me.
1:21:55
She was so angry, and she was about ready to burst into tears and angry, and she
1:22:00
yells at me and she said, "I tried twice.
1:22:02
This is my second, you know, two or three times to get into vet school.
1:22:04
I finally get into vet school, and you just tried to tear it down."
1:22:08
I said, "What do you mean?"
1:22:09
And she said, "We're not supposed to love animals.
1:22:11
We can't get through these classes if we love animals."
1:22:15
And I said yes you can, and if you don't love animals, you
1:22:18
shouldn't be in this school.
1:22:19
You are the students paying to go here.
1:22:21
You tell them what you want, and if you're doing something that
1:22:24
makes you feel wrong about the animal, then you communicate that."
1:22:28
Obviously, I didn't have tenure, so it wasn't an issue.
1:22:30
But it was like this feeling that you can't love an animal and
1:22:33
also heal it and be in science.
1:22:36
How can you not love nature if you're studying it?
1:22:38
How can you not love it?
1:22:39
Well, that's a question, and you get into the animal-assisted therapy
1:22:43
field, and that has become a topic of discussion of compassion fatigue.
1:22:50
If you're working with animals and you love them, and here's a question
1:22:53
that was asked years ago at the Institute of Animal-Assisted Therapy
1:22:57
that gets along with your thinking.
1:22:58
If you love animals, and you're working in animal research, is it better to have
1:23:04
someone who loves those animals be taking care of them, or better to have someone
1:23:08
who doesn't care taking care of them?
1:23:10
Because they're all gonna be euthanized
1:23:14
It's a tough one.
1:23:15
We all came up with we're all gonna have compassion fatigue, and we're
1:23:19
gonna be the ones taking care of them and euthanizing them in peace and love.
1:23:22
Because having someone who does not care about an animal in animal research,
1:23:27
that's why, you know, not to get off to- subject too much, but chicken farms
1:23:31
and anything we use the word slaughter why are we still using that word?
1:23:35
That implies torture.
1:23:36
Why not euthanasia, happy euthanasia?
1:23:39
You know, why are we not shifting our language to make death a more enjoyable
1:23:45
process or at least not a fearful process?
1:23:48
And we don't wanna get humanly vulnerable in our emotions.
1:23:51
Rupert Isaacson: Well, yeah, we, we, weâ¦
1:23:53
In our culture, death is de facto negative.
1:23:56
So we have trouble envisaging it any other way.
1:24:01
Lots of things came up from what you just said there.
1:24:05
The first one was y- you know, to say that to the, to the vet getting
1:24:09
in there, is to say, "Well then, frankly, why aren't you at law school?"
1:24:13
I mean- Yeah â¦ why, why are you here doing this vocation
1:24:18
that is passion-driven?
1:24:19
Because, okay, you might make a living as a vet, but you're not in it for the money.
1:24:25
So why bother if you don't love it, and why not just do something else?
1:24:31
That's interesting.
1:24:32
The, the second thing that comes up there for me is, The thing of euthanasia,
1:24:37
this is the dirty, not secret, it's in plain view, but it's not something
1:24:45
any of us really want to address.
1:24:48
We are all gonna euthanize- Yeah
1:24:51
our animals.
1:24:53
Yeah.
1:24:53
If we are lucky, weâ¦
1:24:58
I'm just talk- talking from the human experience, the horse owner experience
1:25:01
or the dog owner experience, lucky, you don't have to make that decision.
1:25:05
You go out one day and hopefully your horse is very old and very happy
1:25:10
and he's just been standing there dreaming for a while, and you come
1:25:15
out one day and they're just lying down and they're not there anymore.
1:25:21
That's happened to me with all the horses that I've owned, I think maybe
1:25:24
three times or four times, and each time I'm like, "This is a blessing."
1:25:28
Yeah.
1:25:30
But all the other times I've had to make the decision, and sometimes
1:25:32
I've made the decision right, and sometimes I made the decision wrong.
1:25:36
Betsy, the horse that you know, was my son be- became verbal on, when she
1:25:40
became so old she couldn't digest her food anymore, I couldn't bring myself- Oh
1:25:45
to, it was a human thing.
1:25:46
It wasn't a horse welfare thing, it was a human thing.
1:25:48
I could not bring myself to pull the trigger.
1:25:53
And so she ended up suffering, I think a bit whereas I should have, in
1:26:00
retrospect, made that wolf decision within the ecosystem earlier.
1:26:06
But I still made it.
1:26:08
Then I had another horse, I, I think I made it right where I made it early.
1:26:12
He was one of the most crazy swaybacked horses I've ever seen.
1:26:15
We got him as a, as a donation horse.
1:26:17
Nobody wanted him obviously.
1:26:19
Turned out to actually to have a relatively strong back, but
1:26:21
we, we knew that, that a day would come when it failed him.
1:26:26
And so he was also this in hand school master.
1:26:29
He did all the airs above the ground.
1:26:30
Wow.
1:26:30
And he loved it, loved it, loved it, and every time I tried to retire
1:26:34
him, he'd just be like at the gate going, "What am I, chopped liver?
1:26:36
Come on, I wanna do stuff."
1:26:37
Wow.
1:26:37
And then one day he was rolling and he couldn't get up.
1:26:42
Aw.
1:26:42
And I was like, "Oh, this is happening."
1:26:44
And he struggled and he struggled and he struggled, and we sat
1:26:46
with him, we sat with him.
1:26:47
He eventually got up And we're like, "Should we?
1:26:51
Shouldn't we?"
1:26:51
I'm like, "You know, I'm gonna go traveling.
1:26:53
He's gonna go down.
1:26:55
No one will be here.
1:26:57
We're lucky we saw this this time."
1:26:59
Mm.
1:27:00
Des- he doesn't deserve that.
1:27:01
Let's end it now.
1:27:03
But was it the right decision?
1:27:05
And then a- another time, this is way back, this is like 25,
1:27:08
30 years ago, probably more now it was a woman- I used toâ¦
1:27:13
I was eventing, riding for a woman outside of London.
1:27:17
And she had this horse who was one of these archangel horses, you know, that
1:27:23
can- wins everything when it goes in, but is also, like, the total family horse.
1:27:28
Yeah.
1:27:28
Went international in its competition.
1:27:30
But you could put, like, someone who couldn't ride at all, and he'd
1:27:33
just take them around the farm, like, total gentleman all the time.
1:27:37
Amazing horse, amazing horse, amazing.
1:27:39
Got a sudden weird kidney failure.
1:27:41
Oh.
1:27:42
And anyway, a decision was made to put the horse down, and the vet
1:27:46
said, "There's nothing more I can do.
1:27:49
I can't get to the bottom of this.
1:27:51
I suggest you look for a faith healer."
1:27:55
And this was before my whole journey into shamanism and- Mm
1:28:00
time with indigenous cultures and so on had started.
1:28:04
So I was like, "Gosh, well, what's that?
1:28:07
And how would one even find that?"
1:28:09
So we asked around- The vet said that?
1:28:12
Sorry?
1:28:12
The vet said that.
1:28:12
The vet said, wow.
1:28:13
The vet.
1:28:13
Progressive vet.
1:28:13
Outside London said that in the early '90s.
1:28:16
And so we tried.
1:28:18
We looked around, couldn't find anyone.
1:28:19
Anyway, I had to, I was the one who had to bring the horse down to be
1:28:21
put down, and he was just a skeleton.
1:28:24
And- Oh â¦ and this hap- he went from, like, top condition
1:28:27
to a skeleton really quick.
1:28:29
And you know how when horses are really sick or animals are really
1:28:32
sick or people are really sick and they wanna go, they wanna go.
1:28:36
He did not wanna go.
1:28:37
Oh.
1:28:37
He did not wanna go.
1:28:40
Well, we shot him.
1:28:43
Two weeks later, I'm in a, in a party, drinks party in London, media types.
1:28:50
I'm talking to this woman, she's a producer, TV.
1:28:53
I said, "Oh, what have you been doing?"
1:28:54
"Oh, we did this sto- this series on animal faith healers."
1:28:59
Oh, no.
1:28:59
I'm like, "Where were you two weeks ago?"
1:29:01
Oh, yeah.
1:29:03
So I said, "Did you meet anyone that you thought was the real deal?"
1:29:07
And she said, "Actually, there was one person.
1:29:08
The rest we thought were actually sort of attention seekers.
1:29:11
But there was this one guy, funny little guy who lived in a trailer outside of
1:29:16
London, and vets refer people to him."
1:29:20
Oh.
1:29:21
"And he did one of the queen's horses who had a lymphoma, a broodmare."
1:29:24
And then she went on and da, da, da, da, da.
1:29:26
And I said, "Put me in touch with this man."
1:29:29
So I followed him as a journalist for two years and- Oh, my â¦ recorded
1:29:34
all these miraculous things he did.
1:29:38
And all he would do was go and spend a bit of time with the horse and then come
1:29:42
out and give some instructions, and the instructions were always really banal.
1:29:45
Like, "Change the water at 3:00 tomorrow.
1:29:47
Put the rug on at 5:00.
1:29:50
And then tomorrow, the day after that, change the water at 2:00 and put the ro-
1:29:54
rug on at 4:" It was like that banal.
1:29:57
Wow.
1:29:58
And I was like, "Charles," his name was Charles.
1:30:00
I said, "Well, what's going on?"
1:30:01
And he said, "If I tell you, you'll think I'm crazy."
1:30:04
So I said, "Well, it's pretty crazy anyway, so go on."
1:30:08
So he said, "I used to have a f- a, a friend who was a vet called Buster
1:30:13
Lloyd-Jones, who was in a wheelchair.
1:30:15
And he and I used to show dogs together and sometimes we'd co-own a part of
1:30:19
a racehorse together, and he died.
1:30:23
18 years after his death, 18 years after his death, I was in a stable
1:30:28
with a horse that had had an injury.
1:30:31
It was aâ¦
1:30:32
I was part of a syndicate that owned this racehorse, and everyoneâ¦
1:30:38
We're th- talking about putting it down.
1:30:39
Everyone went out of the stable.
1:30:40
I'm standing there alone.
1:30:41
Buster Lloyd-Jones appears to me in his wheelchair 18 years randomly-
1:30:46
Yeah â¦ after dying and says, 'You're gonna be my, my hands.'"
1:30:50
Maryann Simmonds: Yeah.
1:30:51
Rupert Isaacson: "What do you think about that, Rupert?"
1:30:52
And I said, "Well, I think that's completely nuts."
1:30:54
And he said, "Well, you did ask."
1:30:56
Yeah.
1:30:58
So but this is getting to fields of consciousness, right?
1:31:03
So- Yeah.
1:31:04
And that's- The w- Yeah
1:31:07
â¦ As you may know, if you've been following my work, we are also horsey folk here.
1:31:12
And we have been training horses for many, many years in the manner of
1:31:17
the old classical dressage masters.
1:31:20
This is something which is often very confusing for people.
1:31:24
We shine a light on that murky, difficult stuff and make it crystal clear.
1:31:29
If you'd like to learn to train your horse in the manner of the old masters and
1:31:34
really have fun and joy for you and your equine, go to our website, heliosharmony.
1:31:40
com Sign up as a premium member.
1:31:42
and begin to take the Helios Harmony course, which will take you from zero
1:31:47
to the Piaf, where the horse is dancing on the spot in hand on the ground.
1:31:52
And then from there, you can develop out to anywhere you want to.
1:31:57
Heliosharmony.
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com to unlock the secrets of the old masters.
1:32:03
Maryann Simmonds: I was gonna just pick up on that.
1:32:04
I mean, going back to when I was 11 and my passion, I mean, yes, I was a scientist.
1:32:10
I- on the outside it looked like I was a good scientist doing all this data,
1:32:13
but on the inside I was cheating in a way because I could communicate with
1:32:18
nature and animals, and so I knew the outcome before I designed the study.
1:32:22
So I was â¦ And I think a lot of scientists might- You thought of
1:32:24
Rupert Isaacson: it
1:32:25
. Maryann Simmonds: Yeah.
1:32:25
It was designing the study with the hypothesis I already knew the answer to
1:32:29
And so it just became so much easier, and this actually played out many
1:32:35
times through my years of saying, "Oh, well the plants are uptaking water."
1:32:38
And they're like, "How do you know that?"
1:32:39
And I'm like, "Well, you do."
1:32:40
And then the lab has to develop a transpirometer to see if it is uptaking
1:32:44
water for oil shale, and yes it was.
1:32:47
And then having them all come back and go, "How did you know that?"
1:32:50
So teaching how we know what we know and how to communicate.
1:32:53
Now we're moving into quantum fields and, you know, entanglement
1:32:56
theory and other things.
1:32:57
But it's not as difficult as you think when you have a quiet mind.
1:33:02
And I think, you know, if you meditate and if you trust your intuition, you
1:33:06
trust when those little voices come in.
1:33:08
And so having taught interspecies communication for, you know, 40 years,
1:33:13
and looking at other people that have done it, like, you know, I've told this story
1:33:17
in the book too about the cowboy who, you know, his horse was all sweaty and he
1:33:22
asked me to go out on the range with him and count dry cows when I got to school.
1:33:26
And, and I said, "Okay."
1:33:28
And he shows up with a pickup truck and no horse trailer, and I'm like,
1:33:31
"Hmm, where's your horse trailer?"
1:33:33
And he's like, "Oh, I thought you told me you had a jumping horse,"
1:33:36
because I had a jumper from California.
1:33:38
And then he whistles and his horse comes in out of pasture,
1:33:41
and it's all sweaty and messed up.
1:33:42
And, and I said, "Don't you wash your horses after you're done?"
1:33:46
You know, I'm from California, I'm 18, we clean our horses.
1:33:49
And he looked at me and he was so puzzled again, and he's like Well,
1:33:53
if you just worked 16 hours and were all sweaty and hot, would you want to
1:33:57
be messed with or go out and roll in the dirt and eat with your friends?
1:33:59
I'm like, "Good point number two."
1:34:01
Anyway, he kept this up, then he finally cleaned him off, put him in, whistled.
1:34:05
The horse jumps in the back of the pickup truck with his dog, and I
1:34:07
go, "How'd you teach him that?"
1:34:09
And he is looking at me so puzzled, like he's as puzzled by me as I
1:34:12
am by him, and he goes, "I didn't.
1:34:14
He just wants to go to work with me."
1:34:16
In that moment, I knew he had what I had.
1:34:19
He didn't know he had it.
1:34:20
I'm going to study what he has, and I'm going to start to see what are the
1:34:24
similarities, and that's when I developed like the techniques which I've put in the
1:34:27
book, like OFFER techniques, being open, friendly, focused, empathetic, respectful.
1:34:32
How to evaluate the sight, the, the, the energy exchange,
1:34:35
slowing your brain waves down.
1:34:36
You know, multiple channels to get yourself into the channel of
1:34:41
communication where you can hear and send thoughts, feelings, smell, you know.
1:34:46
Because it's, it is a brain exercise, and with all of the distractions we have, it's
1:34:52
hard for people to hear things because we have so much chatter everywhere.
1:34:57
And so teaching communication, I think that's one of the
1:35:01
things the horses can do.
1:35:02
And, you know, having, you know, talked, worked with autistic folks,
1:35:07
early on I realized autistic children knew how to focus like the horse does.
1:35:14
They knew how to sense all the sensory experiences that a horse
1:35:18
has, the loud noises, the smells, and the horse has to filter all
1:35:22
that through for us to be with us.
1:35:25
And so I actually used studies from autism on what's called shared awareness,
1:35:31
where you're not sure how you're communicating, but you are communicating.
1:35:35
In the early work back in the '70s was all, that was the
1:35:39
term we used, shared awareness.
1:35:40
You, you knew you were communicating, and that model of working in the '70s and
1:35:46
'80s with how communi- psychologists were working in trying to understand autism,
1:35:53
and you probably have more input on this too, the model worked very well in trying
1:35:58
to teach people how to relate to horses.
1:35:59
And to this day, I can teach all the techniques, but the simplest one
1:36:04
I say that gets people into their emotional part is pretend that horse
1:36:10
is a four-year-old little autistic brother, and you treat him like that.
1:36:15
And then their energy shifts, they're kind, they're soft, they're supportive,
1:36:20
they're aware of what that horse is going through, and suddenly the
1:36:23
horse walks in the ring with them.
1:36:25
So- It's, it's getting us into the part of the brain where we can slow
1:36:32
down, process all this stimulus, filter out what's the information we need.
1:36:39
And oftentimes when we ask a question, I think the biggest thing is people
1:36:42
don't believe they can do it.
1:36:44
But when you have, you know, I, I used to have groups, and I'd
1:36:46
have them all ask the same horse the same question independently,
1:36:49
and then I'd bring them back.
1:36:51
And oftentimes there were some people that didn't get anything,
1:36:54
'cause they didn't trust, but people would be in the same ballpark.
1:36:57
Like they say, "Well, the horse is lonely."
1:36:59
And then the next person would say, "The horse is lonely 'cause
1:37:00
its friends went to a horse show."
1:37:02
Next person says, "Well, the horse is upset because his friends are all
1:37:06
gone and his waterer doesn't work."
1:37:08
So they were getting way more information, some people, without even knowing they
1:37:13
were getting that kind of information.
1:37:14
So studying how people process that information, how do they get the knowledge
1:37:19
that I can get, and then teaching it.
1:37:21
So I've taught, you know, for a number of years at the Nippon Animal Science
1:37:25
University, the vets, the graduate vet students, on how to do interspecies
1:37:28
communication, and then the vets were teaching it to their students.
1:37:32
Rupert Isaacson: Which animal science university?
1:37:34
Maryann Simmonds: Nippon Animal Science.
1:37:35
Where's that?
1:37:36
In Tokyo.
1:37:37
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:37:37
That's what I was going to assume.
1:37:38
Yes,
1:37:39
Maryann Simmonds: Tokyo.
1:37:39
And- How'd you
1:37:40
Rupert Isaacson: end up working there?
1:37:42
Maryann Simmonds: I was doing a flower essence conference in Scotland
1:37:45
at Findhorn on a- flower essences for animals, and met a cardiologist
1:37:50
that was head of the vet school m- amazing man, Mac at that conference.
1:37:55
And we started sending flower essences through the internet, and then he had me
1:38:00
come over and start doing training, and then I trained his wife, and then they
1:38:03
started sending students over to my ranch.
1:38:06
And so I started getting a whole lot of students I could train to be teaching it.
1:38:10
So they actually went on to teach at international vet conferences, the
1:38:13
model, because they needed to validate.
1:38:17
And Japanese are so connected, like all the exercises I would give them,
1:38:22
they would just like all be finished.
1:38:23
I'm like, "How did you do that so fast?"
1:38:25
They'd think a thought, they all knew what it was.
1:38:26
I go, "Okay, think of an animal, we're going to act it out."
1:38:28
And they're like, "No, we're done."
1:38:29
I'm like, "How can you be done?"
1:38:31
Well, and they'd go through, and they all got â¦ As soon as one person would
1:38:34
think a deer, and when another person would think a rabbit, they'd go rabbit.
1:38:37
They like reading each other's thoughts all the time, because they
1:38:40
were in that quieter inner space.
1:38:42
Even though there's a lot, they've learned how to filter what's out here
1:38:46
away so they can stay in their own little space, and I found that very interesting.
1:38:51
So I, I've made it my life I mean, that's why, you know, I put together
1:38:55
Horse By Nature and gave so much on communication, is that there's no one
1:38:58
way to do it, but pick a channel, pick a model, pick something and start practicing
1:39:03
it so that you can trust yourself.
1:39:05
When someone says, "You need to take that whip and hit that horse, and, you know,
1:39:09
take that crop and make him go in," and your voice quickly goes, "No, don't hit
1:39:12
me," you know where that comes from.
1:39:14
It's not projection, and that means you need to be clear.
1:39:17
Or a horse says, "Don't touch me right now.
1:39:20
I'm gonna bite you."
1:39:21
You know that, and you know that the horse is talking to you.
1:39:24
Yeah.
1:39:24
And then you can ask questions.
1:39:26
And so, yeah, the whole communication and consciousness, and that's where,
1:39:30
you know, sending at no distance, moving your energy into the horse, feeling it,
1:39:35
moving it out so you can sense what the horse is feeling, all kinds of things.
1:39:38
This would, that would be a whole nother talk.
1:39:40
Rupert Isaacson: Devil's advocate question, because obviously you're
1:39:42
preaching to the converted, and obviously I'm the sort of bloke who
1:39:45
rides across Mongolia from shaman to shaman with my autistic kid, so
1:39:49
let's assume I'm a friend of the woo.
1:39:52
However, one of the â¦ Th- there are extremes.
1:39:57
We talked about bitterness, but the Western mind tends to work in extremes.
1:40:02
So either the problem is force coercion, whether with a horse, whether
1:40:10
an autistic kid, whatever, or the absolute opposite to the point where
1:40:16
there's a vacuum and no leadership.
1:40:18
So one of the difficulties for me is I sort of tread the line between
1:40:24
let's get things done here and let's absolutely also communicate cr- inter-
1:40:31
cross-species, cross, more than a cross-species, cross-plant, cross-
1:40:37
stone, cross-jellyfish, cross, you know.
1:40:39
Yes, yes, yes, and at the same time, let's work together to do a job.
1:40:47
So this sometimes can lead to an, an uncomfortable paradoxical position where
1:40:54
people from the best of motives, from very, very good reasons, then become
1:40:59
so scared they won't even touch their horse or, you know, offer leadership of,
1:41:03
of any kind, and feel that they don't have the right to or that they can't.
1:41:07
And then the horse is like, "Well, why are we here?
1:41:11
What am I doing with you?"
1:41:13
And I was a, I was, I was giving a demo last year at a, a thing in Montana,
1:41:18
and, It came up that somebody said, "Well, I feel, Rupert, that when you
1:41:23
were demonstrating these patterns on the ground, which are the basis of the
1:41:29
class- Old Masters classical system, you didn't really ask the horse, you
1:41:32
just kind of went in and did them."
1:41:34
And I said, "Oh, well, that's because you had your eye on that other exhibitor
1:41:39
over there who was doing their thing, so obviously you were looking at that person.
1:41:43
What you didn't see was the 20 minutes that I was spending with this horse that
1:41:48
I've just gotten to know, getting to know, and that involved just being together.
1:41:53
That involved standing together.
1:41:55
That involved finding the scratchy spot.
1:41:58
That involved chatting.
1:41:59
That involvedâ¦"
1:42:00
But I said, "You know what it also involves is a lot of prayer, and it's
1:42:04
just that the prayers, I'm, I'm doing them silently because if I was to
1:42:07
do them out loud, they'd take a long time, and they would get in the way of
1:42:14
that other person's thing over there.
1:42:16
But believe me, that's going on.
1:42:19
Why are you assuming that that's not going on?"
1:42:22
And then they said, "Well, she swished her tail while you were asking."
1:42:26
I said, "Well, don't you ever swish your tail a bit?
1:42:29
I mean, are youâ¦
1:42:31
A, there were flies around, but B, are you not sometimes a little annoyed,
1:42:35
or are you not sometimes a little effortful, and you kind of stick
1:42:39
your tongue out or frown or something or while you figure something out?
1:42:42
Or is, is that stress, or is that effort, and is all stress bad?
1:42:47
I mean, when I'm figuring out how to start my Zoom call because I'm a Cro-Magnon, I'm
1:42:54
finding I'm going through a little bit of stress, but the dopamine payoff is huge
1:42:58
because I get to talk to Mary Ann Simons.
1:43:00
You know?
1:43:00
So- I, y- y- y- you don't think that the horse is enjoying this process of
1:43:05
discovery that involves some effort.
1:43:08
What about when they have to go and find water and it's an effort?
1:43:12
Or what about when they get grumpy with each other?
1:43:15
Or what about when you get grumpy with a, your fellow human?
1:43:19
Is that the end of the world?
1:43:20
Or, you know, why, why are we thinking in these extremes?
1:43:25
And then the following day I thought, "Well, gosh, if that's what
1:43:27
people wanna hear, I'm gonna tell them the exact prayers I'm doing."
1:43:30
So before I did my demo I said, "Look, yesterday somebody said this, so here's
1:43:35
actually what's going on internally."
1:43:36
And I invoked all my ancestors and I prayed to all the different gods and
1:43:40
goddesses of the horse, and to Jesus, and to the Buddha, and to D- â¦ and
1:43:44
to, you know, the planet, and toâ¦
1:43:45
You know, I said, "This is what's going on," but it's an internal process.
1:43:49
Yeah.
1:43:49
And yeah, I'm asking the horse for permission, but the horse can't sort of
1:43:53
send me an email, three-page triplicate document signed by their lawyer, you know?
1:43:57
So we do have to take some things on intuition and trust.
1:44:01
So y- you know what, the horse world is swinging between these two
1:44:06
extremes of force and coercion as one might see in the worst of, say,
1:44:11
sport riding, 'cause there's also a lot of good stuff in sport riding.
1:44:14
It, it's getting a very bad rap right now.
1:44:17
It's not all the devil, but there is some devil in it, yeah.
1:44:20
To this kind of absolute extremist, almost sort of fundamentalist approach
1:44:25
out on the other side, and I'm not sure horses want to be involved
1:44:29
with that kind of extreme monkeydom.
1:44:33
Do they?
1:44:34
I mean, do they not just- Well-
1:44:35
buddy up and hop in the pickup truck with your rancher friend and go to work
1:44:40
Maryann Simmonds: I, again, w- it's very easy to categorize all horses, all humans.
1:44:45
Mm-hmm.
1:44:45
And I can tell you every horse is different.
1:44:47
There are basic innate behaviors that are within every horse, but how they
1:44:52
utilize and their communication skills, so much of their behavior is learned.
1:44:56
It has astonished me that when people buy a horse, they don't even not
1:44:59
wanna know where it came from, its history, how was it raised, was it
1:45:02
raised with its mother, other foals.
1:45:04
Th- none of this.
1:45:05
And all that history, that's when the horse, zero to two is when a
1:45:08
horse learns what the world is like.
1:45:10
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
1:45:10
And
1:45:11
Maryann Simmonds: the feeling of the welfare that's finally getting into
1:45:14
the sport horse world, but d- I had wild horses and I've had domestic
1:45:19
horses, and I had wild horses.
1:45:20
My wild horses were specifically picked to do a study on, and I can tell you one
1:45:26
of the, the two of the wild horses would prefer to stay in their stalls rather
1:45:29
than their paddocks or their pasture, and they would make my poor Thoroughbred
1:45:32
have to go outside and stand guard so they could be all cozy and comfy.
1:45:36
I would play music for them.
1:45:38
One mare loved it.
1:45:39
She'd come in with the music.
1:45:40
The other one left.
1:45:41
She didn't like it at all.
1:45:42
So, you know, watching the individualism from the same herd of two mares,
1:45:46
same age, different mothers but the differences that they had, the choices
1:45:50
that they make, and I think that's the key is giving a horse some choice.
1:45:54
And y- well, to say that a horse does not have fun, there are horses
1:45:59
that will race each other out there.
1:46:01
And I mean, I, I remember being years ago at a sports conference it's the
1:46:06
Association of Equine Sports Medicine, which is no longer, but the science and
1:46:10
Tufts was going through all the stuff they do to look whether a horse can run
1:46:13
and how they're gonna be and their heart.
1:46:15
And some old breeder stood up and he goes, "I just thought you'd watch the
1:46:19
foals out there racing each other, matching each other up the hill.
1:46:22
You could tell who's gonna wanna run because they would pace each
1:46:25
other and one would just take off."
1:46:27
And, you know, it was a mental thing.
1:46:29
So some horses love to run, but others don't.
1:46:33
It's like saying they all need outside time of at least three hours.
1:46:36
Yeah, tell the mare in the barn that kicks the fence down and flipped
1:46:39
over trying to get out of her paddock to come back to her stall that.
1:46:42
You're supposed to stay out for three hours now, and she's
1:46:44
like, "I don't wanna stay out.
1:46:45
I don't like the bugs out here."
1:46:47
Yeah.
1:46:47
And so y- we have to be mindful that every horse is different and have
1:46:52
sort of our open checklist to feel.
1:46:54
Stress is not a bad thing.
1:46:56
We don't evolve without some stress.
1:46:58
Rupert Isaacson: No, absolutely.
1:46:59
We're meant for- You need variability.
1:47:00
Maryann Simmonds: Yes, yes.
1:47:01
So horses do like to work.
1:47:03
Some of them are workers and in the book I go through personalities of horses.
1:47:08
So if you're a worker, get a horse that has a work ethic personality.
1:47:12
If you're a I wanna ride two, three times a week, I'm kinda lazy, I don't
1:47:16
want a horse that's gonna get too wild, get the beach boy mentality horse, you
1:47:20
know, that just kinda hangs out and is happy socializing or going on trail.
1:47:24
Horses have different personalities, and they don't all fit into
1:47:26
their friends group either.
1:47:28
So there are horses that would rather be with their human friends because
1:47:31
they're better and more adapted than their horse friends, which beat them up.
1:47:34
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:47:36
It's interesting though, isn't it, how frequently people choose the exact
1:47:41
opposite of themselves in horses?
1:47:43
The, the person who only wants to ride once or twice a
1:47:46
week picks the most fire-iest Thoroughbred Anglo Arab they can.
1:47:52
Or, you know, it, it's, it's just, we, we see this all the time.
1:47:55
But of course, I guess we see this in human relationships as well, to some
1:47:58
degree we often pick our opposites.
1:48:00
I guess that's the universe at work and God's sense of humor.
1:48:06
In your book then, given that, yes, of course, all horses are individuals,
1:48:11
all humans are individuals, and all horse-human combos are individual-
1:48:18
Your book, Horse by Nature, you're offering people a set of tools for
1:48:23
how to best communicate based on all this knowledge you have with wild
1:48:31
horses and with domestic horses.
1:48:33
Give us the skinny.
1:48:35
Give us the 101, the basic toolkit with the, with the cavi- caveat that
1:48:41
yes, yes, yes, this can be adapted.
1:48:43
Yes, yes, yes, this isn't dogma.
1:48:46
But nonetheless, what's the basic toolkit?
1:48:50
Maryann Simmonds: Well, the book I think just the, the way to give a 360 view is
1:48:54
I didn't wanna write another book, and I surveyed the industry and surveyed
1:48:58
people, and what I got was people wanted a tip book, simple little tip book.
1:49:01
So I told Trafalgar that, "Okay, I'll just do a little simple tip book."
1:49:04
Well, the simple tip book turned out to be one of the largest
1:49:07
books they've ever published.
1:49:08
It's like 450 pages.
1:49:10
But I did it in a way you can just pick it up and open it.
1:49:12
So the first section's all wild horses and functional social behavior, how
1:49:16
they communicate, how they function out there, so that you understand,
1:49:19
like the National Geographic version of the horse without humans.
1:49:23
It's horses without humans.
1:49:24
The second section is horses with humans, how we can help your horse be
1:49:29
more functional as a horse, because we assume the horse knows it's a horse and
1:49:32
it knows how to act, and they don't.
1:49:35
Some of these horses have no self-identity.
1:49:36
They don't know what they are.
1:49:37
They haven't been around enough functional horses to know they're a horse or
1:49:40
how to act, so we have to teach them.
1:49:42
And if you teach a horse how to greet, how to make eye contact, how to do a
1:49:46
nose bump, how to do a buddy scratch, they suddenly are your best friend
1:49:49
because they're like, "Oh my gosh, now I know why I've been so nervous."
1:49:53
They don't self-analyze, but they like start to relax because now
1:49:56
they know how to make friends.
1:49:56
But they didn't know they were supposed to do that.
1:49:58
They learned not to look at people, not to touch people.
1:50:01
So helping a horse learn how to be a horse is first, and be functional as
1:50:05
a horse, and learn how to communicate.
1:50:07
And then the last section is on welfare ethics and, and where do we go from
1:50:11
here, because I think the horse's role in society is changing, and it has to evolve.
1:50:15
Part of it's the social pressure of, you know, social licensing.
1:50:18
Are we gonna be able to compete?
1:50:20
You know, ideally, hopefully we'll compete only with horses that are
1:50:23
enjoying it and having fun, but we're a long way away from determining that yet.
1:50:26
We can't agree on how, what welfare standards are.
1:50:30
And so I think our best tools are learning to develop yourself as a, a clear to-
1:50:37
assessment of who am I and what do I want, and am I pure in my thinking and
1:50:42
my thoughts and, and without judgment, so that I can get to know another
1:50:46
species and ask the right questions of who are you, and I'll help teach
1:50:50
you how to be a functional horse, and I'll be a functional human, and we'll
1:50:54
open up the communication channels, and you'll be able to talk to me.
1:50:57
And horses are so readily eager to talk when, when you do that for them.
1:51:03
And people so misunderstand them, that the book has red tips, blue tips, green tips.
1:51:10
And the red tips are you really need to know these.
1:51:12
If you don't wanna do anything but go through and just read the red tips,
1:51:14
it, you'll know a lot about horses.
1:51:17
I want safety, I want comfort.
1:51:18
That's what a horse thinks about.
1:51:19
And where do I get safety and comfort?
1:51:21
Not from food and water as much.
1:51:23
I get it from my friends.
1:51:24
But if I don't have friends, then I go back to the space, because
1:51:27
that's what my association, 'cause they're associative learners.
1:51:30
So if the space is f- is safety and comfort, then I'll bond to a space.
1:51:34
If you're safety and comfort, think about it.
1:51:37
If you, the human, are the safety and comfort, you're the safe space, horse runs
1:51:41
to you And people are always surprised when they get to that relationship and
1:51:45
they're like, "I never thought my horse would do that, but my horse didn't
1:51:48
want to run off with the other horses.
1:51:49
It stayed with me," because they built what you were talking about.
1:51:53
You spent time preparing, getting to know the horse, doing prayers, connecting.
1:51:57
And when you spend that time connecting emotionally with the horse, helping
1:52:01
the horse be a better horse, as a horse, just spending time doing
1:52:05
horse time, that horse wants you.
1:52:08
And that's where people have lost that ability to spend
1:52:12
horse time, that we love horses.
1:52:15
Instead, they always have to be doing something for us.
1:52:18
And if we can learn how to develop the relationship and communicate first,
1:52:23
and I've done it in the book, there's pictures, so if you don't like to read,
1:52:27
there's plenty of pictures with subtitles.
1:52:29
There's research, so you can scan QR codes and get the research if you don't
1:52:32
believe me, because we are evolving a lot of tools to assess horses.
1:52:37
But in a nutshell, the best tool we have is be the best human you can be.
1:52:42
You don't have to know everything.
1:52:44
You just have to be clear on yourself and be, be pure and be silent, and then help
1:52:50
your horse be the best horse it can be.
1:52:52
And you talk about stress.
1:52:53
It's really having boundaries and clarity so the horse knows how to relate to you.
1:52:57
And if you don't know my space, your space, how to stay out of
1:53:00
my space, and the horse keeps pushing you, it's not a bad horse.
1:53:04
It's a horse that has no boundaries, but it's asking you, put a boundary.
1:53:07
If it were in a natural herd, there's a boundary, and so many of the problem
1:53:12
horses I work with that rear and buck and kick, and they've had, they've
1:53:16
learned how to catch the whip or catch the rope or attack, because
1:53:20
they don't like that interference.
1:53:22
Mostly, and, you know, I'll use a squirt gun or something
1:53:25
to get the message across.
1:53:26
It's funny, but it's, it's my emotional voice, and people used to
1:53:30
say, "Oh, she's the horse whisperer."
1:53:32
No, I'm the horse yeller.
1:53:34
I have no problem saying, "You get out of my space, and you stay.
1:53:37
Your mother did not teach you manners," and that- â¦ that anger energy makes
1:53:41
the horses, especially stallions, they're like, "Oh, oh, oh, I think she's
1:53:45
upset with me," and, and they back off.
1:53:47
But you go in with a tough attitude, like a male energy, put a chain
1:53:51
over their nose and start jerking, you've just elicited anger in them.
1:53:55
So when you can do things, start your communication with humor, with compassion,
1:54:00
with empathy, and open up those channels, it's a natural progression of being able
1:54:05
to feel and sense what your horse needs.
1:54:07
Rupert Isaacson: Now, humor's a really big one.
1:54:09
Obviously, humor is perspective.
1:54:12
Humor, you crack a, a joke at the right moment, and all the tension goes
1:54:16
out of a situation because suddenly everyone can see the situation from the
1:54:20
outside and the absurdity and the common humanity and the â¦ However, you can
1:54:24
only Be humorous when you feel safe.
1:54:28
Maryann Simmonds: Yes, absolutely.
1:54:30
Rupert Isaacson: And this is tough for people who, for whatever reason,
1:54:35
don't feel safe around horses.
1:54:37
Yeah.
1:54:37
And one cannot feel safe until a certain amount of familiarity
1:54:46
has happened, until a certain amount of mentorship has happened.
1:54:51
You know, people like you or people like me who grew up with horses, what's
1:54:55
missing from the I grew up with horses is I was mentored by other horse,
1:54:59
older horse people when I was young about how to be with horses safely.
1:55:04
If that hasn't happened to you, how can you possibly feel safe around an
1:55:08
animal that weighs what a truck weighs and solves its problems by running away
1:55:12
violently and has a sense of humor, and you are always the butt of the joke.
1:55:15
Because h- horses are humorous, but they have â¦ There's a
1:55:19
reason why we call it horseplay.
1:55:20
So how do you help people to find that ease when they are coming from a
1:55:27
state of unfamiliarity, and therefore- Yeah â¦ actually they are not safe?
1:55:33
Maryann Simmonds: I u- I mean, not everybody can be around horses safely if
1:55:36
they can't manage their own energy, and having worked with various populations,
1:55:39
for instance, women that have gone through abuse of relationships, if the horse
1:55:45
continually walks in front of them and they're used to leading a horse in, in, in
1:55:50
nature, whatever horse, and they're under any sort of stress, whatever, whoever's
1:55:55
eye is in front is the decision maker.
1:55:57
So you'll watch horses being chased, and horses will drop back to let a, a horse
1:56:01
that's stronger get in front, 'cause they don't wanna make the decisions.
1:56:04
So it's very important to have eye contact, and that's
1:56:07
true with most social mammals.
1:56:08
Eye contact's the first level.
1:56:09
You have to maintain eye contact, because you're reading behavior.
1:56:13
You're reading what's the feelings.
1:56:15
But when you let a horse's eye get in front of you and it starts to be
1:56:19
fearful, it's gonna run right over you.
1:56:20
Mm.
1:56:21
Because that's horse, that's just normal horse play.
1:56:23
I mean, not play.
1:56:24
That's just how the rules go.
1:56:25
Yeah.
1:56:26
But if that horse never learned that, you need to work on my space, your space.
1:56:30
Stand still or move, and you don't learn that in a round pen.
1:56:33
That makes no sense to a horse.
1:56:34
There's an appropriate use of a round pen, but it's not just set
1:56:37
establishing spatial respect.
1:56:38
So the first thing a foal learns when it's, when it's born is
1:56:42
spatial respect, spatial awareness.
1:56:45
It has to stay at its mother's side, and the other mares will push it back
1:56:48
to its mother's flank, because if they have to take off, like now galloping,
1:56:52
if that foal's not where it's supposed to be, some horse is gonna trip over it.
1:56:55
Mm.
1:56:56
And the whole, everybody gets injured.
1:56:57
So that foal learns very early where to stay.
1:57:00
They all do.
1:57:01
Then it's my space, your space, and this is what interested me
1:57:05
studying so many different herds.
1:57:06
While the cultures could vary, the horse etiquette was almost uniformly taught
1:57:11
among everyone, and that was eye contact, nose bump, and then if you're a friend
1:57:17
and I need a scratch, a buddy scratch.
1:57:18
So you're reinforcing forebrain, hindbrain.
1:57:21
You're reinforcing social bonds, and a lot of time when they had time
1:57:25
was spent reinforcing social bonds.
1:57:27
But the eye contact, so much of it was done with a look.
1:57:31
You, and yeah, you could see the ears, you could see the tail, but
1:57:33
that wasn't what was being read.
1:57:35
It was eye, and it started with greetings.
1:57:37
You know, two strange stallions might come, and they might posture and do their,
1:57:41
you know, digging and all that, but then they look at each other, and if they see
1:57:44
an invite, they'll come and they'll smell, and oftentimes they'll say hi nose to
1:57:49
nose, and then they'll do a buddy scratch, no fighting, and then they take off Other
1:57:55
times they see a stallion come in or with an eye and they would see it as a threat.
1:58:01
And Robert Vavra did a beautiful movie, Such Is The Nature of
1:58:04
Horses, with beautiful photography on the Camargue horses.
1:58:07
Mares, when I did my early research on social behaviors, it
1:58:11
was all about the male horses.
1:58:12
It was all about aggressiveness and fighting and stallions.
1:58:15
No one looked at how many mare glances were being given.
1:58:18
I could tell you who the social facilitator was by how many glances
1:58:21
were given and how many glances of other horses to that horse.
1:58:25
It wasn't obvious unless you were watching them look at each other.
1:58:29
And that, that connection was stabilizing the connection.
1:58:33
So I teach, I don't care what method you use, but start with horse method.
1:58:37
It's the easiest.
1:58:38
Teach your horse manners.
1:58:39
My space, your space.
1:58:40
Stand still or move.
1:58:41
People are always laughing at my horse.
1:58:43
She's 17.3.
1:58:45
She's probably the best trained horse in Palm Beach County these days because
1:58:49
I find it amusing she's so smart, and she is a very functional horse, that
1:58:53
I can open her stall door and walk away, go have lunch and come back.
1:58:56
She won't leave, because she knows she was told to stay in that space,
1:59:00
and that's without food in her stall, because she's told to stay in that space.
1:59:05
And people get surprised when a horse learns my space, your
1:59:09
space, and they get rewarded.
1:59:11
And this is where you have to reward them, not with food.
1:59:13
You reward them with social contacts and a buddy scratch for staying in the
1:59:17
space and listening, because whoever gets the biggest space is the one
1:59:21
that gets to make all the decisions.
1:59:23
So if a horse is walking on top of you, yeah, I would be afraid of a horse like
1:59:26
that, because if they don't honor my space, I have been known to turn around
1:59:30
and yell at stallions or put duct tape on their lips to say, "Knock it off."
1:59:34
You know, nothing hitting, just so they can't bite when they try to
1:59:37
bite you, because they, if they don't have a chain over their nose and
1:59:40
they've learned to pull on a chain and they've had grooms that have
1:59:43
jerked on them, a lot of stallions will try to bite you in the shoulders.
1:59:46
Mm-hmm.
1:59:46
So I'm not gonna put a chain on a horse's nose.
1:59:49
I want you out of my space.
1:59:50
Well, if, if young horses, they'll strike at you.
1:59:52
That's not safe.
1:59:53
So I put a little electrician's tape on their little whiskers, and
1:59:56
then they can't open their mouths.
1:59:58
And so it completely occupies their brain where they can't think.
2:00:00
And I'll say, "You know, I'll take it off, but you keep your lips to yourself."
2:00:04
So they have to learn as if they were in a horse herd.
2:00:06
I'm not gonna go bite and chase them.
2:00:08
I don't, I can't, don't have that capability.
2:00:10
But I use a paddock a lot to say, "You stay in that corner.
2:00:13
You may not come into my space," or I'll put food in.
2:00:16
And so there's different ways to teach it depending on the skill level.
2:00:19
But if you don't have a horse that respects you on the ground,
2:00:22
how do you expect them to respect you when you're on their backs?
2:00:25
If you're not safe to them on the ground and save their little behinds
2:00:29
a few times, then you can simulate that by having scary things come and
2:00:33
move away that you can control, and the horse is like, "How'd you do that?
2:00:36
How'd you make that go away?"
2:00:37
They don't know that you can control objects around.
2:00:41
And so you can really elevate your relationship on saving your horse's life
2:00:45
a few times, which is why oftentimes herds would be thrown in together,
2:00:49
wild herds that didn't get along, that were kicking each other to pieces.
2:00:52
You put them on a 12-hour van ride together and take them off the
2:00:55
trailer, oh, they're all best friends now, because they went through a
2:00:58
heightened stressful event together.
2:01:01
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
2:01:01
Maryann Simmonds: And that bonds them.
2:01:02
So there's different ways to do that, and I don't recommend.
2:01:05
If people do not feel safe in themselves, you can't.
2:01:09
But with different populations, you have to be able to be matched up with a horse
2:01:14
that's going to help draw that out of you.
2:01:16
And so some horses are just very defiant horses, and they are not safe to be around
2:01:22
kids that are, don't feel confident.
2:01:24
I just had to send one away the, today.
2:01:27
He's fascinating to me.
2:01:29
I love the fact, he loves working, he loves my space, your space.
2:01:32
Did everything right, and I have a little video of him.
2:01:35
I gave him a flag, and rather than move away, he's gotten so brave, he was gonna
2:01:40
hold his ground, and rather than move, he did like a kickboxing up in the air
2:01:45
a few times, and then kicked it and ran.
2:01:46
And then I got really strong with my energy and chased him,
2:01:49
and he ran off with his tail in the air going, "Aren't I brave?"
2:01:52
But if you saw that, you'd go, "He's a dangerous horse."
2:01:56
He is dangerous to someone who doesn't understand his behavior,
2:02:00
and he's the same horse that wants to not be behind you when you lead.
2:02:04
He wants to be in front until you, I have to yell at him and
2:02:06
say, "You get out of my space.
2:02:08
You are a bad horse.
2:02:09
You are a naughty horse."
2:02:10
And he's like, "Okay."
2:02:11
But he, that doesn't mean he's not gonna try it again.
2:02:13
That kind of horse, not safe for a beginner.
2:02:16
No.
2:02:16
But for someone who understands horses, that sees the talent, very entertaining,
2:02:21
'cause he acts like a functional horse, which people don't like that sometimes.
2:02:26
Right,
2:02:26
Rupert Isaacson: and well, that's where the brilliance comes, isn't it?
2:02:28
You know, that, yeah.
2:02:28
Yeah.
2:02:29
I, I, I want my horses to be challenging me, because I want that brilliance.
2:02:37
And at the same time, there are times when I need to say to them, "Dude,
2:02:41
in this hour, I really need you.
2:02:45
I've got this vulnerable kid here.
2:02:47
I really need you to be my partner here."
2:02:52
And so much of it's on fairness, you know?
2:02:54
It's a, it's like- Mm â¦ I will let them treat me as fair game in other
2:02:59
situations, within reason, you know?
2:03:01
Yeah.
2:03:01
So that I can kind of go to, almost telepathically say to them, You
2:03:06
know and I know that I've been fair.
2:03:10
Maryann Simmonds: Yeah.
2:03:10
Rupert Isaacson: You know?
2:03:10
You got to get away with kind of all that stuff.
2:03:14
Yeah, you know.
2:03:15
So now I'm setting the boundary.
2:03:19
Yeah.
2:03:19
For this hour, be cool.
2:03:22
Yeah.
2:03:22
And then they're like, "I'm cool," because that's fair.
2:03:26
And then I can go out a bit later, "No, you can be not so cool if you wanna be."
2:03:29
You know, it's, it's so interesting this inter- but as you say, it's, it, so much
2:03:33
of that comes from sort of confidence and, and, and familiarity, you know.
2:03:37
It's, it's, it's also interesting what you said about-
2:03:43
People often don't know the, the real story of, of the horse.
2:03:48
And so generally when I'm going out to clinic or trying, you know, everyone
2:03:54
says, "My horse was traumatized," and everyone says, "My horse is sensitive."
2:03:58
It's like, well, go figure, every mammal is sensitive.
2:04:01
Some are more stoic about how they show it or not show it or hide it, but you can be
2:04:05
damn sure that every horse is sensitive, every human is sensitive, every rat is
2:04:10
sensitive, and every cat is sensitive.
2:04:12
But their style of expression may vary.
2:04:14
And then the other one is they've all been traumatized.
2:04:16
It's like, well, that's interesting that that's become so ubiquitous now that if
2:04:22
I go into a barn of tw- 20 people in a clinic and they're all saying their horse
2:04:26
was traumatized, while it's entirely possible that because time on planet Earth
2:04:31
does lead to unpleasant situations these do not look like horses to me that are
2:04:39
cowering in a corner.
2:04:40
They, if, if they've gone through something, they seem pretty resilient.
2:04:44
So shall we not talk about their resilience?
2:04:47
Because if we only talk about their trauma, are we o- are we maybe
2:04:50
writing a script to keep them there?
2:04:52
I don't know.
2:04:53
That, that's interesting.
2:04:54
But, but what you, you haven't told me is e- exactly what you just said.
2:04:59
What were the horse's first two years?
2:05:01
Did they live wild on the mountain and then they were brought in?
2:05:06
Were they raised on a stud farm and actually, or were they bottle
2:05:09
raised, or how were they socialized?
2:05:12
Were they not socialized?
2:05:13
Now, of course, you may not know, because you bought the horse when he was nine,
2:05:16
and the history's in a, in a murky past.
2:05:19
But then tell me about the horse's behavior at home, and then maybe
2:05:22
we can get to the bottom of it, because this might give us some
2:05:25
clues about how to proceed.
2:05:28
Are there some holes that need to be filled?
2:05:29
Did the horse learn, as you say, the, the nose bump, the scratch,
2:05:34
and forebrain, hindbrain, and if
2:05:37
Should we try that?
2:05:38
Should we try that and see if that hole is filled?
2:05:40
And if not, sh- should we try other things?
2:05:42
So that's why I think your work is really important, because it
2:05:45
does bring things down to some really usefully clear bottom lines.
2:05:50
You talked about your red tips.
2:05:53
Mm-hmm.
2:05:53
The other ones are blue and- Green
2:05:56
green?
2:05:57
Yeah.
2:05:57
Yeah.
2:05:58
So
2:05:58
Maryann Simmonds: red are-
2:05:59
Rupert Isaacson: What's, what are the
2:05:59
Maryann Simmonds: blue ones?
2:06:00
The red ones are must know.
2:06:01
Read that.
2:06:02
Right.
2:06:02
Rupert Isaacson: The blue is- Give, give, give us some blues.
2:06:04
Maryann Simmonds: Okay.
2:06:05
The blues are, for instance young siblings in nature will often babysit
2:06:11
their sibling brothers and sisters.
2:06:13
In other words, even stallions must babysit their offspring,
2:06:16
and the mares go off to eat.
2:06:17
And while that doesn't seem important in a domestic world, it
2:06:21
is, because every horse has a job.
2:06:25
And so they aren't just standing around doing nothing.
2:06:28
Mm-hmm.
2:06:28
They are directed to do things, and they are very- That's exactly
2:06:32
â¦ responsible to doing those things.
2:06:34
But we don't ever tell a horse, "Keep track of this horse,"
2:06:37
or, "Do this," or, "Do that."
2:06:39
You know, I, again, my mare is fun because I can put her with any
2:06:44
horse, and she will give it manners, because she learned them somewhere.
2:06:47
She's French.
2:06:48
I don't know who raised her, but they did a good job, because she
2:06:52
naturally knows how to be a horse.
2:06:55
But when she came in, she was shut down, turned into the
2:06:59
corner, didn't wanna meet humans.
2:07:00
Because she was a jumper, she'd been put to work.
2:07:03
She didn't like where life was going, tried to bite people that came in.
2:07:07
I went in and said, "Wait, you don't even know me.
2:07:09
You don't even know me.
2:07:10
You should at least give me a chance to meet," you know?
2:07:13
And started scratching her.
2:07:14
She didn't like that, 'cause she was pretty armored and tight.
2:07:17
But with a few scents, and that's where using aromatherapy to tie
2:07:21
up the brain, she was like, "Oh, that's really interesting smells."
2:07:25
And she started to relax, and then she started to realize she could
2:07:28
talk, and I wasn't gonna get mad at her, and if she was biting
2:07:32
'cause she hurt, I'm gonna fix it.
2:07:34
And so, you know, those are the kind of tips in there that when your
2:07:38
horse is, is rarely wrong they're gonna communicate things to you.
2:07:43
So I'll, I'll take a random one.
2:07:45
You know, there's, there's a lot â¦ The book's actually gonna
2:07:47
come out this year in German with the F- F- the FS over there.
2:07:52
So here's a tip that when weaning foals, for instance, as a group, place an adult
2:07:59
teacher horse with them so that they learn the experience of horsedom without
2:08:04
just putting them all into, you know, kindergarten and juvenile delinquents.
2:08:07
And these breeding farms that throw all the foals out when
2:08:10
they're weaned, not good.
2:08:12
You just basically threw a bunch of preschoolers out with no teacher And
2:08:17
even an old gelding or an old mare or a school mom, older horses teach them.
2:08:21
So why are we not using horses to teach?
2:08:23
I mean-
2:08:24
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
2:08:25
â¦ Maryann Simmonds: early on, it, it, people don't realize how much
2:08:27
behavior is learned from horses.
2:08:30
And, you know, as a behaviorist, I remember a stallion that was an
2:08:33
Arab stallion that was attacking people, and of course the horse
2:08:36
had learned to jump up on people's backs and do all these cute things.
2:08:39
Well, it had been, quote, "trained" to, it was attacking everything.
2:08:43
You'd try to put it in a round pen, it'd come after the whip.
2:08:45
And not mean, just all games.
2:08:48
So I realized all the cues that people had given this horse, this horse was smart
2:08:52
enough to learn how to override them.
2:08:54
So that's not, it, there was no helpful way to help this one, so I put him
2:08:58
out with a bunch of brood mares, and at about, by the end of the week, he
2:09:01
was standing at the gate very humbled.
2:09:03
And it was interesting watching, these are domestic mares, Thoroughbreds,
2:09:06
and the old mare snaked her head.
2:09:08
I mean, this is very consistent horse behavior.
2:09:10
She pinned her ears and snaked her head when they were
2:09:12
eating gra- eating their hay.
2:09:14
He didn't know what that meant.
2:09:15
No one taught him.
2:09:17
He didn't grow up with horses.
2:09:18
He grew up with humans that taught him how to jump on their backs.
2:09:21
And it just seemed unfair to try to use a human to try to teach him how to be
2:09:25
a horse when I got horse teachers here.
2:09:26
Yeah.
2:09:27
So, you know, that's another one.
2:09:28
Horses are often better teachers than humans, but find a good horse.
2:09:32
Mm.
2:09:32
If the mare is letting her six-month-old colt mount her, she is not a good mom.
2:09:39
Mm.
2:09:39
She needs to be a better mom, so put that guy with a better mom.
2:09:43
So there, there's a whole lot that if you understand early childhood
2:09:47
development of your horse and what it should know, even if you get a rescue,
2:09:51
you get a, let's see what you know.
2:09:52
Do you know spatial awareness?
2:09:53
Do you know eye contact?
2:09:54
Do you know how to communicate?
2:09:56
Do you know how to do these things?
2:09:57
Because a horse that doesn't, do you know how to greet friends?
2:09:59
Do you know how to do a buddy scratch?
2:10:00
There's nothing more fun to watch a horse that meets another horse for the first
2:10:05
time and have no idea how to do a buddy scratch, and I have videos of that where a
2:10:09
pony's trying to get the horse to scratch, and the horse is pulling back going, "I
2:10:13
have no idea what you're doing to me.
2:10:14
Why are you biting me?"
2:10:16
And finally, it's something clicked in the brain.
2:10:18
It's like, "Oh, am I supposed to do that to you?"
2:10:21
And it's taking bites out of the mane.
2:10:22
It had no idea, and now that horse learned it.
2:10:26
He was a little too in every horse's space.
2:10:29
He'd walk up to a complete strange horse and try to scratch on them.
2:10:31
It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
2:10:33
Take it back a little bit because they learn behavior.
2:10:36
So you have to know first how horses act with each other and what they should
2:10:41
know, and I think that's important.
2:10:43
And, you know, you get to the green tips, it's nice to know.
2:10:46
It's not gonna make or break anything, but it's still very helpful to know.
2:10:50
For instance, how many neurons are in the horse's nose versus the hind end.
2:10:55
You know, it's not- Yeah â¦ critical, but there's probably, you know, or
2:10:59
there's, sorry, one neuron in the brain, proprioceptors in the, in the
2:11:02
nose, about 20, so it's very specific.
2:11:04
You get to the hind end, it's one neuron in the brain to
2:11:07
about 20,000 proprioceptors.
2:11:09
So why does your horse pick up the opposite leg?
2:11:11
Because it has no idea where it is.
2:11:13
It can't, doesn't know.
2:11:14
You have to feel it.
2:11:15
So there's little things to open up the channels, and all of a sudden
2:11:19
the horse picks up the correct leg.
2:11:20
So while those are not critical, it really helps you in horse management
2:11:24
to understand the biomechanics and the neurophysiology of the horse.
2:11:28
So I don't go into great depth because there's other people like Dr.
2:11:31
Peters' book on neurophysiology- Mm-hmm â¦ and horse brain, human brain
2:11:35
Rupert Isaacson: that- Yeah.
2:11:36
Steven Peters.
2:11:36
Yeah.
2:11:36
Anyone watching and listening, check out Dr.
2:11:38
Steven Peters.
2:11:39
Yeah.
2:11:39
Yeah.
2:11:39
Maryann Simmonds: There's some great stuff.
2:11:40
So I tried to give an overview with tips that are gonna help people
2:11:44
that this is really critical.
2:11:45
Learn it.
2:11:46
These are important, and then these are nice to know, and that way people feelâ¦
2:11:52
What I hear most and, and interesting from people that n- don't know much about
2:11:56
horses, and then old, old cowboys from Texas, you know, that have called or
2:12:00
written me and said, "I just described what they do and been doing for 50 years."
2:12:06
And he said, "You know, you just described it to a T," because they
2:12:09
don't know how to talk about this.
2:12:10
Yeah.
2:12:11
They don't know how to talk about that intuition of feeling what the horse is
2:12:14
saying and then knowing how to connect to it, and so that's what I try to do is
2:12:19
not only the way I did it, but understand the way other people that were doing
2:12:22
it, how do they do it, put it together in different tools to give people so
2:12:26
that they can see what works for them.
2:12:27
But understand the horse first.
2:12:30
Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant.
2:12:31
Well, look, I feel that this was just part one of a greater conversation.
2:12:37
Maryann Simmonds: I know.
2:12:37
We- We didn't even get into the consciousness part.
2:12:38
That's the fun part We didn't get to the
2:12:39
Rupert Isaacson: consciousness part and we didn't go into the horse welfare part.
2:12:41
No.
2:12:41
And, and so listeners and viewers, when Mary Anne and I we were sitting together
2:12:45
in Florida a couple of months ago, and the, we were talking at some length
2:12:50
about horse welfare in the sport world, and the fact that the aftercare for
2:12:56
Thoroughbreds is now becoming a thing, and the racing industry is aware that
2:13:01
its social license is, you know, not something it can take for granted anymore.
2:13:06
However, the jumper world, the dressage world, is still working
2:13:12
somewhat complacently in this regard.
2:13:14
And you know, those of you who know my work obviously know that I deal with a
2:13:18
lot of rehab and a lot of second career.
2:13:21
And Mary Anne has been really active in this and working behind the scenes on
2:13:30
this, particularly within the sport world.
2:13:32
So we wantâ¦
2:13:32
I, I want to, if possible, so we're approaching the two-hour mark, and I
2:13:36
wanted to talk about A Horse by Nature.
2:13:38
I wanted to plug your book.
2:13:40
I wanted people to know who you were.
2:13:42
I wanted to turn on, you know, my crowd to you.
2:13:47
And by the way, it's Linda Tellington-Jones who said,
2:13:48
"You've got to do it."
2:13:49
And finally, I was like, "Yeah, yes, Linda, yes, of course."
2:13:53
'Cause if Linda tells me to do something, of course I jump.
2:13:55
Even if it takes me a little while.
2:13:57
And by the way, I won't be leaving this chair until Mary Anne
2:14:00
Simmons tells me I'm allowed to.
2:14:02
â¦ Because even if she leaves the door open, I will stay here,
2:14:06
even though there's no food.
2:14:08
Until she allows me to.
2:14:09
But all joking aside I think there's a lot further to go in this conversation.
2:14:13
So with your permission, Mary Anne, could we call this a, a, an au revoir,
2:14:20
as we- Yep â¦ come to the two-hour mark.
2:14:23
And we will reconvene in a few weeks and go to the next level
2:14:28
of the conversation, I think.
2:14:29
Because as you say, consciousness, horse welfare.
2:14:31
I'd like toâ¦
2:14:32
There's a ton of stuff I want to ask you about, observations that
2:14:35
you made with your wild horses.
2:14:37
Sh- you know, so-
2:14:40
Maryann Simmonds: Absolutely.
2:14:41
And we did Absolutely.
2:14:41
And there are things progressing in the sport horse welfare world and
2:14:46
things that we started to discuss.
2:14:49
There, there's a lot of things in play right now, so it'll be interesting.
2:14:52
Yeah.
2:14:52
Every few weeks things are changing, so yeah.
2:14:55
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
2:14:55
Good, 'cause that's c- you know, sort of, I think we have reason to
2:14:57
be cautiously optimistic, which is-
2:15:01
Maryann Simmonds: Yeah â¦ which is good.
2:15:01
Exactly it.
2:15:01
Cautiously optimistic is it.
2:15:01
So yeah, no, this is great.
2:15:03
And you and I know we could talk for six hours, but that's not needed right now.
2:15:06
We could do- Well,
2:15:06
Rupert Isaacson: we will talk for six hours.
2:15:08
We'll just break it up into two hours.
2:15:09
Do it in little
2:15:09
Maryann Simmonds: bites, yeah.
2:15:10
Okay.
2:15:10
Very good.
2:15:11
Well, I enjoyed it very much, Rupert.
2:15:13
Thank you.
2:15:13
Rupert Isaacson: Likewise.
2:15:14
Thank you so much.
2:15:15
So yeah, let's just make a date for the next one.
2:15:19
Okay.
2:15:19
And yeah, we'll see you then.
2:15:20
All right.
2:15:21
Thanks.
2:15:21
Thank you again.
2:15:22
Bye-bye.
2:15:22
I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did.
2:15:27
If you did, please help us to make more.
2:15:30
Please like, subscribe, tell a friend, give us a thumbs up.
2:15:35
If you'd like to support us on Patreon, please go to my website, rupertisakson.
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com.
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And if you'd like to find out about our certification courses with.
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autism, education, horsemanship, everyday shamanism.
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There's a whole range of cool stuff.
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Putting a show together like this is not an easy task.
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If you'd like to support us, please consider going to our Patreon page
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and showing us some love there.
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Even the smallest donation, it really helps us to keep the good content coming.
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So go to rupertisakson.
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com and click on the Patreon link.
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Not to mention our excellent merch.
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Please go to our shop and check out some of our really cool
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rock and roll themed merch.
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T shirts, hoodies, all that sort of thing.
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rupertisatson.
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com, it's all there.
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I can't wait for our next guest and also to meet you there.
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In the meantime, remember, live free.
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Ride free.