What is a Stable Pony?

A stable pony escorts a racehorse to the starting gate, providing limbic grounding, a steadying presence.

Yahoo Answers explains it this way, “The escort horses are generally there as a means of keeping the excitable youngsters calm and well mannered on their way to the starting gate, as well as to prevent them from wasting too much energy in the warmup period. Most lead or stable ponies are animals which are chosen for their calm dispositions.

Sometimes the stable pony is a goat:

Sometimes the stable pony is your dog. Or your friend on the other end of the phone. Whatever it is that helps you tolerate the uncertainty of starting something. What ever helps you have the heart to finish it.

A friend recently called me and asked me if I was planning to come to New York anytime soon because she had a week’s worth of projects she thought I could help her with. I said I didn’t have any imminent plans to be in NY, but maybe I could help her with some of it anyway. She started to list what was feeling overwhelming to her. In the process of doing this, what was first felt as requiring a week’s help came down to two difficult letters she had to write.

Even in naming the other tasks: organizing papers, mailing some journals, etc.–none of them objectively difficult, but in some way. each carried an extra charge–she suddenly felt capable of approaching them. But the letter, now just mainly one letter (the other one now felt manageable) remained looming. So we made a phone appointment and the plan was that she would tell me what she wanted in the letter. I would write a draft and then she would just refine it. This would at least be a start, I figured. So, the day for the call came, and that morning, just by knowing we were going to talk that afternoon, she had written and mailed the letter.

So it is this effect The Stable Pony wants to explore, providing a virtual stable pony, a grounding presence. A key point in that Yahoo explanation is the habit of “wasting too much energy in the warm-up period,” or what my dear friend, Carol Houck Smith, called “dithering.” When I heard the news of Carol’s recent death, this is what I thought of first, because I had been thinking so much of her that week, and had various amusements to send to her, but never actually crossed the threshold of writing her a note. So, I dedicate this blog to Carol, who for half a century helped so many people cross the threshold from intention to expression.

The Stable Pony is here to help you calmly enter the gate. What do you have to do?

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