Energetic engagement is both the whole and the purest essence of the horse and human relationship. It is the same apparent paradox as stretching wider out in your perception, to travel deeper inside.
Engagement
The word engagement is popular in the world of horse guardians. I remember when engagement referred specifically to the dynamic that can be achieved during the interaction between horse and rider. It happens when the rider becomes straight enough and is able to bring the horse into that straightness, and channel the movement through that framework. Authentically done, it has a transformative effect and the horses movement becomes a dance. It is subtle and gentle however, a world away from the sporting dressage of today which is an egoic copy.
This physical engagement requires heightened sensitivity, awareness and vulnerability. It cannot be forced or even consistently reproduced as it is a work of art every time.
It is the seeking and finding and intertwining of many threads to make a new expression of togetherness.
This expression can only be derived from what is available and accessible in those moments, for that day. It is not a recording that can be played and replayed endlessly.
The Energetic Dynamic
In opening my awareness to the energetic perpective, I began to see, to feel, that engagement is much vaster than I realised. The physical expression, when riding, is only one dimension, one specialism perhaps. In expanding out it becomes clear that engagement exists as an energetic dynamic. Just as in the physical dimension, engagement is an accomplishment, a self completing, cyclical, autonomous balance, so it can be defined as such energetically.
The word engagement can be used for any interaction, but I wish to define it here as the particular dynamic that happens when a human tunes their awareness into this moment right now, in the presence of a horse, who naturally is aware of this moment right now. This creates a phenomenon, as one wheel turning in alignment with another wheel creates a leverage which delivers a connection. Just as the rider aligning themselves straight with the horse creates a leverage which delivers the combination into a new expression of themselves.
Standing with Marie in the barn. She was the only one not eating hay. Becoming present.. aware of her energy, like a smooth sphere, as if she was the moon. Sensing the smooth edge becoming cloudy.. like rain on the ocean or a sky that is heavy with rain.. is it the integration of her and me? Our edges merging. Then the sense picture memory arising of engaging with her, as in riding engagement, feeling the way my wheel and her wheel begin to link together and turn.. the wheel pauses and I can feel a band of stress/fizzy/tension.. mine or hers.. no distinction.. not important.. seeing it, feeling it, letting it go..the wheel begins to turn again, smoother and easier… sense of creating/creation..
Saturday the 12th of December
Standing with Marie in the barn. She was the only one not eating hay. Becoming present.. aware of her energy, like a smooth sphere, as if she was the moon. Sensing the smooth edge becoming cloudy.. like rain on the ocean or a sky that is heavy with rain.. is it the integration of her and me? Our edges merging. Then the sense picture memory arising of engaging with her, as in riding engagement, feeling the way my wheel and her wheel begin to link together and turn.. the wheel pauses and I can feel a band of stress/fizzy/tension.. mine or hers.. no distinction.. not important.. seeing it, feeling it, letting it go..the wheel begins to turn again, smoother and easier… sense of creating/creation..
Saturday the 12th of December
Unwinding Separation
This energetic phenomenon is invisible to the physical senses, unless it results in a visible behavioural gesture, which may or may not happen. Energetic engagement will ultimately change the physical world, because it acts at the source of consciousness. Gears are being engaged at the root of existence itself. This is forming the New Earth.
This energetic engagement is challenging the very core of the egoic assumption that we are separate beings. It is un-writing… re-writing, the separation itself! If one being and another being can interlock their awareness, and channel their energy as one, how can there not be a re-patterning of what we see around us? We are not only believing that we are one, and perceiving our deepest connection with the whole source, we are actively engaging our togetherness. Purposefully unwinding separation.
Mutual healing with Cheyenne
This day the most incredible experience with Cheyenne. I was sitting on the big bale of hay, becoming present, and when I opened my eyes she was right there! I had not felt her approach at all. She started to eat and she had her ears back, yet I felt no motivation to move…in fact a powerful inertia.
I began to feel the strangest sensation in my muscles.. it was like having a powerful massage, without the touch. This sensation was connected to being vulnerable in her presence, and her feeling protective of her food… she was still eating very close and not upset, just having her ears back. I became aware that she…us… our engagement was affecting my body like this..
Friday the 4th of December
Could it be that this was a mutual healing of the hostility and aggression Cheyenne feels, and the threat and potential physical damage I felt in response?
Engaging with each other energetically, opening our mutual portal, allowed these old patterns to be unwound and freed, like a machine re-sculpting a new shape, or simply the clearing out and release of an old dynamic. This trauma prevented us from becoming One and so it was discharged. Not only did it happen energetically, it was deeply physical.. I felt it in my muscles. Perhaps she felt a similar shift in her body.
Revealing the Truth of Engagement
This path began to open for me as my awareness developed. An all consuming passion to reveal the truth of engagement. And although we experienced many blissful times as rider and horse, it was no longer acceptable to push through everything else just to reach that, in the hope that it could heal all the other disconnection. Pushing past a horse who felt heavy and reluctant to be approached. Ignoring the subtle no in the turn of the head. Powering past the agitation arising when the herd was calling. Blanking entirely the gentle, or not so gentle recoil at the sight of the saddle, or the arena itself.
The commitment to listening to all of these communications led to a temporary acceptance. The relief of the existence of the dialogue itself encouraged the horses to relax deeply and their tolerant nature surfaced again. They didn’t mind what happened. When this became clear, it became important to understand what would inspire them. The focus was turning on to who I am, what do I bring when I enter their space.
The idea of making demands that bore no relation to my own energy, and what they were feeling seemed insane now. Completely displaced from the present moment. That was when it began to become clear that we are both in service to the Universe itself, to consciousness itself. The horses know this, the birds know it and the trees. When we are still, together, and become engaged, the Universe speaks through us all.
The Universe Speaks Through Us
Remembering with the whole herd that we are listening to the Universe, letting the Universe speak through us.. not attaching to each other. Sharing this place. Gradual sense of wholeness and magic rising.. true magic..slow, powerful, inexorable burning of the open heart..
Saturday the 5th of December
Of course the Universe speaks through every single being, every portal for consciousness. Yet just as physical engagement aligns and levers and transforms two beings into one, so does energetic engagement amplify and harmonise a mutual portal. And in this, is amplifying and accelerating the formation of the New Earth.
