Square Peg is so proud to present to you the most precious gift we have to offer – the gift a life changing moment provided by the horses.
Emma Bond tells the story with grace and kindness.
We hope this fills your heart with the peace and the joy of the season.
Content Creator Mike has information that Square Peg’s horse Freddy may be leading a double life……
Giving Tuesday sparks the beginning of the year end fundraising season. Now more than ever, Square Peg needs and appreciates your help as we grow to address the growing need for services. We promise to make you proud to be a Square Peg Supporter!
Davis Finch Shares His Story of Watching How This Amazing Horse Changed Over Time
Once I got to know him better, I learned that while he was a handful, he was also
quite friendly and was eager to please, given the right circumstances. Still, I never
dreamed that someday I would ride him.
During our almost ten years at Kastl Rock ranch, Stan aged and probably
mellowed out a little, but still had his antics. He had a penchant for jumping, was a
presence in the arena and if he got loose, let’s just say it would be an exciting
afternoon. However, he also grew more trustworthy under saddle, so much so that
Joell started letting teenage volunteers ride him. Eventually she even started using
him in lessons. He was reliable on the lunge line and developed a nice trot. By the
time Square Peg left for Ocean View, he was the “old man” of the off-track
thoroughbreds but still had plenty left.
Since coming to Ocean View and living in a pasture full time, Stan has
become a schoolmaster. He is now nicknamed “grandpa” and his quirks have
become more endearing than dangerous. He loves the supplements I feed him and
greets me at the gate each time I arrive. I have started riding him and have
discovered his trot to be wonderful. While trail rides are not his thing, he is one of
Square Peg’s best horses in the arena with a good walk/trot/canter and often a calm
and happy demeanor. As the patriarch of the herd, he will show younger, more
recently arrived horses who is boss in the pasture, especially when there is food
involved. With people he is usually gentle and loves attention, snuggles and treats.
Author Davis Finch riding Irresponsible King aka: Stan
Even though he is calmer than he once was, he is still a sensitive
horse. The good side of this temperament is he is highly responsive under saddle
and reciprocates emotionally when I ride him. He is also very intelligent and
will be waiting at the gate closest to me, even if he has to cross the pasture to be
there. There are still moments when the fire that got him dubbed “the terror of Bay
Meadows” in his racing days shows through, but it is rare enough that it seems
almost quaint. Due to an old palate injury from the racetrack, he has always
roared, but now it more of a sweet purr. He is Square Peg’s beautiful and quirky
grandpa.
Coastside Gives is right around the corner! Please donate and/or share! https://www.coastsidegives.org/organization/SquarePeg
Content Creator Mike engaged his mom to be the interviewer of the Square Peg horses. Let’s see what Moso has to say….
Don’t forget that Coastside Gives is underway. Your support means the world to us!
Square Peg Foundation is in its (ahem!) 20th year…. The stories we’ve amassed over the years are rich and sweet and even when it’s a story about loss, we’ve looked for the lessons and celebrated the joys.
Our commitment as we look to the next 20 years is to bring in new voices that bring fresh perspectives while upholding the value we place on playfulness, joy, and curiosity.
Mike walked into our lives about a month ago. Mike has a sense of timing and fun. Mike looks at a horse and feels their personality and his quick mind begins spinning stories, songs, and ultimately, movies.
Needless to say, Mike and I hit it off immediately and the horses adore him.
Mike is going to be producing content for Square Peg and I can’t wait to let you see what he’s going to serve up for us.
I hope you love his first musical video half as much as we do. Stay tuned for a series of interviews Mike will conduct with the Square Peg herd.
Coastside Gives is well underway with a local day of giving culminating on May 2, 2024.
You can support us by clicking the graphic below to donate and/or sharing this post on your socials.
Stay Quirky and stay tuned for more of Mike’s interviews with the horses!
We’ve just returned from a memorial for a mother, artist, musician, wife, autism advocate, photographer – a woman whose warmth and smile lit up any room she stepped into.
Her autistic son opened the memorial by singing “Chasing Angels” a perfect song about loss. He sang and played from his heart and his talent showed through.
As friends and families approached the stage to memorialize our friend, we all had a chance to get to know her better and better through our stories.
Suddenly, I watched as a friend, a man with autism including severe social anxiety stood up and headed from the back of the room to the microphone. He had something to say.
He introduced himself as autistic and a friend of the deceased and of her family. He recounted a conversation he’d had with her about an autism charity that was developing a reputation from autistic people as disrespectful to people with autism. He was asking our friend why she would support the charity. He related that our friend admitted that to this charity, her musician son was “a dancing bear” but that funds for research and support were important and that her son would prove himself a successful musician irrespective of his autism diagnosis.
I can’t stop thinking about this entire exchange.
I’m so grateful my friend voiced the story – that the burning need to showcase this woman’s wisdom and love overrode his anxiety about speaking to a crowd.
And I can’t get this notion of “a dancing bear” out of my head.
There’s a saying of Maya Angelo
And when put in the context of “a dancing bear” it’s time for charities and non profits to do so much better. To trade the dignity of another for any amount of funds or advantage is a deal with the devil and we all know how that story ends.
We must instead focus on letting those with less of a voice be able to tell their own stories.
Gone are the days when freak shows were opportunities for the masses to see difference and laugh and rejoice because the other’s freakishness confirmed our normalcy. The cruelty of this seems obvious and yet how many times each day are we guilty of some measure of the same?
I was backstage with a group of speakers for a conference and one of the speakers is a retired infantry soldier with severe PTSD who found tremendous relief of his symptoms in an equine assisted program. He was nervous and I smiled and told him he was going to “do great.” He peered at me and said “I’m going out there to be a chicken dancing on a hot plate for these folks to make them feel better.”
I had no reply.
If the opposite of love is not hate but indifference, the opposite of compassion is pity.
A friend wrote a book and a film about his family’s oddysey journey of autism though horses and shamanic healers. He naturally started a program and invited others to experience what he and his son found through horses and neuroscience and traditional healing. People flocked from all over the world in search of a miracle. It was exciting to be sure.
But it soon became apparent that people wanted to see his son and hold him up as a “miracle child.” The son, young but wise, made it clear that he didn’t want to live in a fishbowl to be watched and studied. He wanted to be a kid who learned and made mistakes and played in rivers and thought deeply about maps and dinosaurs and birds.
Watching the family navigate how to allow their son to tell his own story while helping other families find their own path is a lesson in dignity I’ll not forget.
I’m reminding myself today that my liberation is tied up with yours and together we all have the chance to dance and be seen for our unique contributions.
Rest in Peace Christinna Guzman 7.09.60 – 1.30.24
