enlightened horsemanship through touch

She’s done it again. Sage By Nature has challenged the limited concept that horses merely mirror our inner selves and in the process revealed something important about human beings’ inner battles.

She says,

I have long been enthralled by the concept of animals being our mirrors. However, what if there is more to that than reflects the eye? What if I called my horse an extension of me? What if the things I respect and admire about her have been inside of me all along? I might find them if I look closely.

Perhaps, then, I don’t need her to be resistance-free, push-button, or dominated by me. In fact, if I see her for who she is and who I might be, then I cannot rejoice in crushing her spirit or completely molding her to my will whether through my hands, my voice, or my tools because that would be, in essence, an annihilation of pieces of me. And ladies, haven’t we all had enough of our pieces strewn across the floors of homes, schools, places of work, and even barns?

(embedded links mine)

Her brilliant extension of the concept of horses as mirrors is this: eliminating every single expression of free will and individuality on the part of the horse is in fact to extinguish their potential in ourselves. By extension, to quash their potential expression as a a unit: horse and human together. This reminds me of some of the things I have been reading in Gallop To Freedom, and the way Frederic Pignon trains his horses. He allows, even encourages, expressions of personality and will in his stallions, incorporating them as they occur into their performances. It takes serious guts to allow this, and letting go of the urge to control. The result is, however, a real union of experience and expression. Sometimes the audience doesn’t know exactly what they are seeing, but it gives them goosebumps nonetheless.

On some level, we all get it, we all want this. It’s the letting go of the need for control and the willingness to share in the process that holds us back.

See the entire post, entitled Respecting Your Horse And Your Own Goddess Force in its original form by clicking here