Fortuna and the Weight of Presence
One day I woke up with a feeling like I had finally returned to myself. That’s odd, I thought. I didn’t know I had gone missing. For a long time, I didn’t realize I was living most of my life "outside" of my body—jumping up and out, running off ahead to scout the territory, worrying, planning, and anticipating. I thought that flighty, upward-and-outward sense of always heading out to scout the territory of the future was just who I was. I thought it was normal. Until I realized it wasn’t.
But when I woke up, I felt a weightiness to my being. It wasn’t the heavy pull of grief or sadness that anchors you to the earth; it was the heft of a paperweight rather than the drift of a feather. It was a core-deep gravity that feels centered and solid. It doesn’t hold me back, but it doesn’t run ahead, either. It is simply here. Present.
I realize now that this is an invitation I first received from my horse, Fortuna.
Brené Brown often uses a phrase that I have repeated many times: “Don’t shrink. Don’t puff up. Stand your sacred ground.” I understood it intellectually—it made sense—but I’m not sure I ever understood how it felt in my body until I stood with Fortuna a few days ago.
She was saddled and tied outside the ranch. I went out for what I thought was a casual hello. But horses have a way of communicating without words, and Fortuna invited me into something deeper. She invited me to stop. To be. To let the full weight of her body meet the full weight of mine. To take up space.
To an outside observer, it was likely just a woman petting a horse. In reality, a profound training was taking place—not from me to Fortuna, but from her to me. Was this the "Place of Peace" that horsewoman Tania Kindersley talks about?
I began to reflect on why that state of feeling centered, grounded, and present can be so elusive for us. In her book Beyond Anxiety, Martha Beck explores the idea that creativity is the ultimate antidote to anxiety. She notes that the brain cannot be in a state of anxiety and a state of creativity at the same time; one effectively pushes out the other.
Twenty years ago, during a fellowship in Scotland, I explored the theme of "Creativity as a way of Encountering Creator." The premise was simple: if we think of God as Creator, then the act of creativity is our most direct connection to the divine. But back then, I didn’t see the practical, grounding power of that connection.
Standing with Fortuna, I realized that what I often call "planning" or "anticipating" is actually just a form of anxiety. It is the "puffing up"—the energy going up and out, like a Zamboni trying to smooth over the bumps in the road before I even arrive at them. Or, it is the "shrinking"—the effort to remain invisible, to not rock the boat or take up space.
When Fortuna gets agitated, as she did not long ago on the way back from our ride, her energy becomes like a buzzing bee in a hive—lots of movement, but not a lot of forward motion. I realized that this is mirroring that flighty, jumpy energy we all carry when we are "up in our heads," top-heavy and off-balance.
The answer to that spinning energy is not to suppress it. With a horse that doesn’t work—nor does it work in life. That energy has to go somewhere. Instead, in a St. Francis-like way, we must step to the side and do something more beautiful. We must engage in the act of creativity—the act of being present—to push out the anxiety.
Fortuna’s invitation the other day was actually a training in gravitas. She taught me that standing your sacred ground doesn’t mean being immobile; it means being so centered that your movement comes from your core, from your center, rather than your head. It is the transition from the buzzing bee to the mighty ox—or the steady horse.
This weightiness is the fuel for moving forward. It is the feeling of finally being "all here." And perhaps that is the greatest creative act we can offer the world: the simple, heavy, beautiful courage to occupy the space where we actually are, and move from there.
