the tao of horses

Napoleon and Lorenzo at Parsons Field. Photo by Daniele DeBellis

I was so excited when my friend Alexa wrote this for be U:

I have loved horses for as long as I can remember and was recently intrigued to find so many parallels between the premise of the horse psychology books I have been reading and the direction of my inspirational friend Leslie's writings at the University of Be.

Horses offer us the possibility to interact with a live, breathing, challenging mirror that will highlight our true feelings in any given situation. Just as we may choose avatars in the virtual world with characteristics that we feel represent us, horses that we interact with in the 3D world draw our attention to our strengths and weaknesses both in and out of the saddle. By asking us to be present and emotionally congruent from moment to moment we find that we have to be true to ourselves and to what we are feeling at any given time.

At present I'm reading Linda Kohanov's books (www.taoofequus.com) but before going to Arizona for one of her workshops, I decided to try one a little closer to home. I found one in Pennsylvania that offered the chance to work with horses on the ground and with a group. The prospectus said that the pairing of horses and humans results in discoveries about unconscious aspects of one's true self. It also claimed that working with horses can help develop a spiritual awareness as to how we are all inter-related in the universe.

While in Pennsylvania I experienced something I had only previously read about. My room mate was a lovely woman who immediately made an impression upon me as warm, sensitive and funny. Her sense of humor really drew me to her. Underneath that however I felt a sadness in her and she shared with me that her mother had recently passed away. That night, asleep in an unfamiliar dormitory room I dreamt that there was a small bed at the foot of her bed with a tiny, frail, elderly woman asleep in it. When I told my room mate about my dream the next morning she felt that it was her mother, wanting to be close to her.

The next morning we were asked to stand in a circle while three horses moved in and around us. For some, like my room mate, who were not used to horses this was a somewhat intimidating experience. Combined with her feelings of grief about her mother and her feelings of vulnerability around the horses she became upset and withdrew from the circle. The oldest horse moved over towards her and in a protective gesture, stood right in front of her, shielding her from the rest of us and allowed her to grieve privately, while providing a safe and accepting place for her to do so. Her anxiety about the horse disappeared and they stood there for about half an hour silently communicating.

That horse allowed my friend to 'be'. His quiet, steady, non judgemental presence allowed her to drop her defences and just be with her feelings of sadness. He singled her out from a group of fifteen people as someone who needed an accepting mirror and he allowed her to experience herself in a non judgemental way. He let her be true to herself.