Acknowledging the horses without choice did not come into my thoughts as an idea. It appeared energetically as a sense of something dividing me from the herd. We had been through a week of interruptions that were the perfect buffer for us to process all of the growth we had been making the week before.

The Process of Processing

I was exhausted after the last session, where we planted ourselves into each others terrain. I even felt physical issues I hadn’t experienced for twenty years, and resting was the only answer.

The horses had fun with their willow tree, and were in high spirits in general. However the day of acknowledgment was touched with sadness. When I was ready to go out and connect with the herd again, they were not physically present, and this time they did not feel energetically present either. 

The Graveyard of Personalities

As soon as I began to sense into our relationship, I felt something blocking, it was like dead wood, and tinged with sadness. The horses felt far, far away… as far away as they could be. It came to me eventually that the wood was what was left of all of the horses who have gone. Not leaving their bodies, but their personality – the physical expression of their soul.

Horses will often dissociate from a situation where they feel without choice. At this point in the meditation I became aware of myself as a baby, perhaps more of a toddler… this was not on the level of intellect, and I did not attempt to understand it. What had started as a single pattern of ‘dead wood’ between us began to develop itself, unfolding out into what seemed like an entire graveyard … a graveyard of horse personalities? or perhaps it was horses who have lost their personality.

It was deeply rooted in the physical, and even my interpretations felt physical more than metaphorical. It was a dead forest, and the sadness was washing through gently. Then I became aware of the foals. At each tree trunk, at each grave, there was a foal left behind, just like deer mothers leave their babies. It felt natural to join them, in my toddler self. There was mutual baby-ness understanding. Gradually my consciousness began to rise out and I felt it becoming the mother energy. Watching all of the babies together with wisdom and benevolence. The sense of peace and love was very strong then. 

Friday the 15th of May

Acknowledging The Horses Without Choice

Throughout this healing connection the sense of love was embracing. There was sadness, yet no judgment, no dirty smear of blame or suffocating guilt.

I could feel the personalities of those horses, they were all there, watching with me, and their love was profound. Perhaps you can also feel it now through the words.

The word acknowledgment came into my mind, and it felt right. We were embracing the situation, both past and present, and even future, of the horses without choice. Horse who have taken refuge from circumstances where they are separated from their herd, forced to perform and ignored on any level in their relations with people. Acknowledgment is another word for healing. It is a process of reforming, rebuilding and reestablishing connections. Bringing back the focus to where blank spaces were not filled and questions were unanswered. 

The next day, although I felt a bit tight in my head, my sense of our connection was perfect peace. There was space, and yet no space was needed. Like water we mixed as one. Everyone came to visit arena, all at once as a herd, they surrounded me, consolidating the energetic unity, and then they all left.

Since then the word ‘ready’ keeps popping into my head.. and then I question this human energy. It often feels so relentless. Yet water and wind are relentless also. The secret is always in the dialogue, so ready or not, that is where we will always begin.