Sunday, July 19, 2009

Clay Heals Horse On the Razor

We are a complex society. We love this game, this idea of layers of intricate systems. Our education system is built on layers of knowledge and (we hope) a deep understanding of that knowledge, which is built on our predecessors knowledge.

There are other things at work that we do not understand and does not equate to complexity and cannot be understood with education. Our ideas of things being understood with a detailed and many faceted body of knowledge is projected onto our bodies and how they function. It is not just our bodies, but our idea of healing as well. We think it is so complex we need an interpreter, a doctor, to tell us what our bodies are doing, what healing looks like. What we fail to understand is that healing can be simple.

We have forgotten the principle of Occam's Razor which is that "entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily" when ever possible. So, when it comes to physical healing this principle can be applied to avoid the tangle of our current medical mentality.

With that said, I was asked to take photos of a colt who was not quite a year. This young horse got hung up in barbed wire and was left to "heal" on his own. A week went by and the infection set in when the Luv Shack heard about him. (Simple healing does not mean neglect.) The Luv Shack encouraged the "keepers" to allow him to be relocated and placed him at Los Cedros Stables. This little horse was just beginning his lucky streak.

His name is Captain, for now. He had two gaping wounds on his underside and between his front legs on his chest. The wound was very deep and gruesome.

He is a friendly little guy, was only a little skittish when I saw him in his first week, and stood quietly while having his dressing changed. Standing quiet for a yearling is virtually impossible.

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[1 week injury untreated]

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[Depth of Untreated Injury]

Lisa Schram and Kim Versage are changing his dressings twice a day. Through the horse channel (you all know this channel, similar to the grape vine and faster than a can and a string) Walter became known who does French clay treatments. He offered to help Captain.

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[Wound Preparation]

I went to photograph Captain and the process of his wound cleaning and dressing Saturday (7/19/09), which was about 3 weeks since the initial injury.

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[Approximately 1 week of treatment]

After having photographed the clay process, and met Walter, I went to his site. I have been reading and looking at the photos of the wounds he's treated with this simple process of clay poultice all morning. I'm moved by horses emotionally anyway, however, this had a much larger impact on me. Not just the amazing resilient ability of horses to heal, but the willingness of the keepers to try something so simple, so unusual to our western medical treatments, had me in tears. My faith in human compassion was restored.

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[French Clay application]

And the results of the healing, the natural healing aided by humans, is astonishing.

See the stories here:

frenchclayforall.com

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