Why I Chose To Listen

Vibrational Creation is a phrase that has been coming into my mind recently to describe the journey with my herd. About six years ago we decided to put a more conventional training approach aside, and focus on our energetic communication alone. One of the most important intentions I started out with was to respect the horses wishes at every stage. I didn’t want our dialogue to be only for special occasions, or forgotten about when something else became more important. This is why we were able to attract a situation where we had the freedom to do that.

The listen in every moment approach feels so important because there were so many times previously I felt that I had to push over boundaries to achieve a connection. For example, ignoring when a horse didn’t want to come in the field to be ridden, or when I was about to mount and they were saying no. The same moments came when trimming feet or tending to a wound. There were always times when I would smooth over or jolly past that no. 

Despite enjoying the freedom of deciding to both listen and respond to what I hear, I am not saying that it is right, or the only way. In certain circumstances now I still do that. For example with our boarder who is being ridden more conventionally. If he feels a little uninspired, I help him to feel curious, and he enjoys our session. There is definitely a place for being the guiding light and a leader. Especially if your intention is still in the horse’s and their guardians best interests.

A New Way

I didn’t choose to listen to my horse’s opinions because I think it is always wrong not to.

I chose it because I know there is something to learn from horses. Something big and powerful and transformative. Something I can’t see the edges of yet. And yet I knew that if I listened deeply enough, and allowed the dialogue to flow enough, and expanded my horizons enough, we would go there together.

I also know that these particular horses have chosen this role. It is why they insist on certain things. They are creating a new pathway for all horses to choose to follow or not, but clearly it isn’t the right or the only way.

The Physical Platform

Every winter season the horses changed their base from the summer to the winter barn. In summer, the summer barn stays cooler and has a nice breeze for resting out of the heat and flies. In winter we put the hay bales in the winter barn so the horses prefer to move there as they are eating more hay. This meant that our familiar process initiated by Quaramba, when she would line herself up to the high gates and I would get on her, was no longer possible.

So we had a few discussions about it. At first Quaramba suggested the big bales. She looked so shy and proud of herself at the same time, to be able to put this idea in my mind from hers. It was a good idea, but somehow it never came about. Mostly because when the horses are eating isn’t the right time for our collaboration. 

There is a little  concrete slip road that goes up to the barns out of the field, and sometimes the horses gather close to it for their morning sunbathing and rest session. One day I was standing on it and Quaramba saw the opportunity. She came alongside in her receptive state and I got on. I am not always intellectually sure if she is inviting me or not, but energetically it is always very clear.

There is a way she holds her body, an openness, a sureness in her energy that clearly says yes. If ever I feel a sense of her hanging back, or sliding away, whether she is physically doing that or not, I know it isn’t the right time for her. And there are many other times she just doesn’t come near.

Photo: Quaramba at the edge of the slip road

Alive Horse 

It has never entered my mind to ask her to allow me to sit on her. The emphasis is always on whether she wants to or not. Again this is not because it is a better way, it is just the way that feels right for us. I know this because in order for me to assist in the vibrational creation, she has to have the guiding role. She is making the decisions with her own body, and I am adapting myself to that. If anything she is training me, although I feel it is more of a collaborative effort, that we are making one whole from two parts. My part is the receiving, allowing, accepting, absorbing, and her part is the active expression and initiation. 

And interestingly, the most important role she has is to protect me. It has been dawning on me gradually what this means. If anyone engages in anything against their will, they are naturally in a defensive state. The energy of the defensive state is insular and flat.

How Alive-ness Is Security

It is the opposite of receptive, open and magnetic. Defensive energy is difficult to connect with and to merge with. There is something very powerful in the willingness of a horse to carry us. The willingness itself, the choice to do so, entrains a protective, embracing energy.

A responsibility to protect which is fundamental to the security of a rider. I am realising that the root of our partnership is this willingness, this active alive-ness of the one who wishes to share her power, her experience and her athleticism. 

Photo: Quaramba waiting for me to come down to the slip road.

I think there are different levels of ‘alive’ in all ridden horses. In some there is none at all, they are hardly in their body anymore and have become a one-dimensional machine. Some ponies are bursting with alive-ness energy, and their child riders are also their best friends. With Quaramba and the herd, we are cultivating this energy for its own sake. Amplifying and encouraging it is our purpose and our focus, because it will hold us together and open a world that we can only experience through it. 

Vibrational Creation

I would say our collaboration is 90% vibrational creation, and 10% inspired action. This percentage will change over time as the vibrational creation begins to manifest more and more into physical reality. What does it mean to create vibrationally? I am always looking for ways to explain it, for words that capture it. It is partly summoning the feelings of what we desire. We want to feel safe together, to become One Being, to experience the world through our partnership. 

And in the process of exploring what that feels like, we are weaving energy. In creating something new, at the beginning it feels weak, hardly really there. There are more emotions and physical memories than the vibrational pattern itself. Over time spent in it, as it, vibrating it, it grows.

Over time it begins to take on a shape and a character of its own. There is a process as each element, each layer, asserts and inserts itself into the weave. The emotions and the memories are like the food that feeds it. Any form of energy that can feed the focus, initiate and spark it, encourage and invite it, is absorbed.

The Pattern Itself

I haven’t thought of a name yet, for our vibrational creation, our energy dance. Maybe that is because it is still forming itself. It began as a sense of magnetism between us, a leverage, a force that was holding us together. And that adhesive root has been growing. At first there was a sense of the magnetic hold getting stronger, becoming more of a voltage, heavier in a way, then a sense of the pathway really opening up.

Now there is a living, flowing sculpture made of both of our energies entwined. It has an energy of up-ness, like a cloud, or a wave that surges up from underneath and supports and embraces and raises us up. It seems like this pattern is the progeny of the horse’s choice to collaborate. That desire in them swirls upwards from their heart and encloses me in wreaths of protection, stabilising and carrying me safely. 

When I am not attuned and experiencing this upward spiralling whirlpool of collaborative energy, there is a very different downward directed sense of emptiness. More of a nothing that a something. As if I was to sit on a machine without any sense of dialogue between us, and gravity is the principle force. The whirlpool vibration feels like it would be impossible to fall off into, or to become separated from the horse. So far I feel it much more strongly from beside the horse, presumably because it needs to grow and strengthen within us until it is all that we feel.

Dusk And The Dialogue

I discovered at one point during the short winter days, the incredible power of the energy at dusk. It felt that the veil between the manifested world and the energy was thinner and more porous. That we could retrace our awareness and be more engaged with the root of energetic vibration.

One time I was out in the far field and Rafi, Honey and Aimee all hugged round me. They seemed to weave a tornado of energy and I was so aware of God, the Universe, Consciousness itself channeling through me. That our creation together was truly merged with everyone without separation, and the horses are here for this. It was an incredibly uplifting experience.

Maybe these strange shapes in the photograph were the energetic traces of our connection, as it was a clear night..

Creating this new vibration has its own rhythm, and the horses often take time for themselves. Especially on the colder days, to graze and replenish themselves deeply into horse-ness. It is as if they need to return to the power of their separate being in order to expand. And as always it is the dialogue that informs our progress. One day Quaramba asked me to help her anchor back into peace after the hunting had caused her some anxiety. To feel invited to help was empowering in itself, and I was able to go deeply into peace with her. It was another reminder of the power in offering my presence without an agenda. Even to bring peace can be an agenda until you are asked for it! The key is the dialogue itself. 

Dream of The Wild Dance

One night I dreamed that I was being carried by Jasmine, my mother’s beautiful, loving mare. She was plunging and bucking and twirling and galloping so wildly in the dream. It was exhilarating because I felt utterly held and safe in this still point of love between us.

When I woke up I realised this was another important message from the horses. That this uninhibited wildness is what they want for us, to have with us. To show us the wild dance of Horse. The joy and vibrancy and the expression of it. To be free. To revel in the freedom, and throw our hearts into the wind together without fear or hesitancy or limitation! 

Photo: Lulu, Jasmine and Flicka

I was aware of how distant this idea is in our societal belief structure. How we cling to material safety rather than training ourselves energetically. I felt a sense of overwhelm at the size of it all then. The sense of it was a large cushion of air keeping me apart from the horses energetically. I reminded myself not to fight it, and now as I write this I can’t even remember that feeling. Only the utter joy of the dream and the certainty that we will experience this wild dance together. 

The Harmlessness

Soon after the dream I began to feel a new harmlessness in the horses. It was a layer of energetic awareness which was expressed physically as a kind of neutrality, a lack of charge and oversensitivity. Their bodies seemed so relaxed and solid, and easy. There was no sense of ‘don’t touch’ or ‘don’t approach’. There were no barriers between us. I was aware of trying to understand it in myself: what makes the difference in me between them being harmless or not? And I couldn’t really feel it. Is it something to do with trust? The main thing to understand was the connection between the aliveness of choice and the safety. As long as there was this depth of listening, our collaboration would be safe. The harmlessness I was perceiving was showing me that. 

One day when I thought about tuning to the alive-ness in Quaramba, I became aware of being blanketed in horse. Of being embraced physically. And again that feeling of horse was lifting up and around me, balancing me, mixing and melting with me. This was transforming the out of control energy I am aware of when I am sitting on Quaramba without any means of control. This is what will allow the wild dance, like in my dream. There was an ability to open up to receive, a sense of the limitlessness and a feeling of my physical surface area expanding.

The Horses’ Gift

One morning I was walking with the dogs in the woods and when I felt into my energetic field it was so much larger than before. It felt like I could sense and receive within for miles. I thought it was something to do with the woods, but when I got back and I was sharing it with the horses, I realised it was from them.

It was their gift, so I could become one with them. What an amazing feeling.. and when I was touching Honey and we were experiencing the new limitless feeling together, a glorious rainbow appeared across the whole farm! In these moments I wonder who these majestic beings really are, appearing here in their horse skins.

They explained to me that the gift of perceptive inner space is a tool for them. I thought that maybe it is related to their prey animal status here? Maybe they have this already and became prey animals here because it resonates. It feels blissful to skate through that sense of endlessness, and it seems to be a permanent shift. 

Inspired Action

The last few times Quaramba has asked me to sit on her have been lovely and peaceful. One time I made a breakthrough into trust and felt the in-rushing of joy. Trust was the container for joy. And we stood and enjoyed that together. Another time we had a lovely dialogue when I could sense a certain hesitation in her, although she stood close by. I asked her to make it clear and she pushed closer, so I got on. As we were standing together she turned round and put her whole mouth around the end of my boot and squeezed gently. She does this with people quite often. Gently takes their skin or their clothes and squeezes with her teeth very slowly. Usually it is her way to say go within, listen.

So I slid off and got anchored right inside my consciousness, and it came to me that she wanted some hands on healing. We had a lovely craniosacral session, and she had some aching in her ovary and around her right sacroiliac. At one point it went deeper than the physical pattern when Rafael came over and he infused the energetic space with his masculine energy. Then Quaramba summoned her feminine energy… it was fascinating to feel the vibrational roots of these energies. They were merging and balancing and it seemed like his energy was integrating her feminine energy in a way that would help her hormonal pain.

A Clip Of Our Session

This whole interaction was such a beautiful process of listening and responding which was both delicate and deeply held in certainty, and I was aware that this truly is fulfillment.