How to make the choice between love and fear seems to be my favourite theme! Pursuing it is like digging out a tunnel, deeper and wider, yet always in the same direction. This is my first blog post for a while now, I stopped writing because I was going through an inner cleansing process. It is part of the mind training that A Course In Miracles teaches. To use the terminology of the Course, you give up the idols of the ego and learn how to ask the Holy Spirit for guidance in all things.
At first this felt like a universal clearing out of all desires in my life, and the inspiration for the things I was doing before was gone. That included teaching, healing, writing and even the work I was doing with the horses. Ultimately the shift has been more in the way I live my life rather than in the nature of what I do. I have understood that as I began to pick things up again. Overall it could be described as an attunement to intention perhaps. Genuine asking for guidance will profoundly influence a relationship with horses. One way to explain it is in terms of perception, and the choice we make in how we see the world.
Am I forgiving what I perceive right now? Or am I judging it?
To be in forgiveness is to be who we are in truth, a being of love. To be in judgment is to see the world through the ego’s eyes, as lacking or to be changed in some way. Whichever choice we make is justified by our mind, it will seek the evidence. The outside world is an effect of our thinking, not a cause, so the choice has to be made before perception, not as a result of it.
How The Choice Relates To Horses
It has become clearer to me that all of those concerns about what is right and what we should and shouldn’t do become infused with gentle comprehension when our eyes are softened with love. The question is no longer about the actions of our bodies, but whether we are accepting the perfection inherent in one other. Within that acceptance, the guidance appears like steps rising out of the mist.
In my quest to understand the horses as fully as I can, I have come to the conclusion that all and any of the answers we seek will be there in the state of grace. In a sense there is no need for questions at all, because in this state we realise our completeness. When you feel whole, you are then inspired to act in loving ways rather than feeling incomplete and constantly searching for a better experience or a clearer cause.
Since I last wrote, our herd has been infused with youthful spirit!
Taillou, Jelasia and Dixie have come to stay. They needed a holistic free living established herd to be a part of, and we were delighted to welcome them. The herd opened up and invited them in with typical horse-ness, and now we can’t imagine them not being here!
Separation or Solidarity
Perception of the world through ego is that everyone is separate from us, and therefore threatening to us. It feels as if our safety can only come from looking after our own interests in a physical way. Making our life more comfortable and having more things that make us feel good. In this state of mind, the idea that other people are equal to us, and cannot hurt us seems crazy. To overlook the transgressions of others feels scary, as if we will become vulnerable to more hurt. So instead of doing that, we separate ourselves even further in our own mind, and even less light can come in.
This cycle is such a powerful illusion it seems to be insurmountable, and yet it has no real power without our belief in it. I have found that as I begin to soften and make some attempt to understand and let go of grievances, the true nature of those around me becomes apparent. It is then easier to open my heart and let myself feel the solidarity which is so soothing and so healing! Instead of hurting me, true forgiveness, allows the most miraculous light into my mind.
Understanding the Horses
For a while I was focusing quite heavily on certain aspects of our physical life with horses.
Is it okay to ride them?
What do the horses want?
Is training wrong?
Yet when I began to be able to respond to the horses from the perspective of forgiveness as opposed to holding grievances, the parallels with my spiritual realisations began to become clear:
The Perspective of Fear
The interaction between humans and horses is not about what we do, but whether we are distorting our true loving nature or not. This distortion is caused by fear. The size and power of a horse triggers a desire in us to control them so that we feel safer. Even putting a head-collar on a horse can be a great relief if this fear has remained unacknowledged. Other related traits such as pride and ambition, which are another expression of fear, can layer on top.
For example, you may be a trainer or a rider with much life experience with horses, yet if you haven’t yet resolved that initial fear, which led to the desire to control, the idea that you are scared of horses may seem less and less reasonable. The fear will now be rationalised in your mind as a drive to fix problems you see in the horses or their guardians, or maybe a need for your abilities to be seen or appreciated by others. Any form of discontent always leads back to fear, just as unconditional love always leads to peace.
Horses encourage us to let go of personal feelings from our ego. Maybe this is because their ego is different. It comes out in them when there is competition over food or some other source of fear, but it is simpler, more tribal, more communal.
Our ego seems to have become so complex and individuated, it is harder for us to acknowledge. Ultimately it doesn’t matter how different the form is, the content is still just fear.
Horses can lead us gently back to our true nature…how to be without distortion.
The Threat-Based Dynamic
A fear-based interaction with a horse relies on a foundation of threat. If the fear of threat can be instilled in a horse, they will always move away from us – either on the ground or under saddle. Moving away is therefore the foundation of control over them. It can appear to be very sophisticated as the threat itself becomes more deeply concealed. This dynamic is a conditioning that horses are very susceptible to, and is why they are often so easy to manipulate. Assessing your relationship:
In Your Horse: Feel for a sense of reciprocation in your relationship, a spontaneity. If your horse seems to act by rote, in similar ways during every interaction you have, they may be stuck in a threat-based dynamic.
In Your Self: Test your role in the dynamic by imagining how you would feel if you asked your horse to move away, and they did not respond. Do you feel anxious or frustrated, impatient, annoyed or angry? Or do you feel unperturbed, patient, gentle and peaceful?
Avoiding Distortion
Of course this is not a judgment on who you are, but only how you chose to be in that moment. Your imagination is likely to offer you your most habitual choice. It is essential not to feel bad and judge yourself or equally to feel better than others and judge them for their choices. We are all the same magnificent shining sun with our unique dark clouds to dissolve. Seeing the shine in each other, and for each other is the key to staying in love.
So how is it possible to avoid this distortion of our own innocence when we are in the company of a horse?
The real answer is to not change anything in the moment, because you are already a loving, divine being. But that idea may not be particularly helpful if the distortion that is happening is so unconscious that there is no clear choice between being present and becoming fearful. Sometimes fear has become such a familiar state that we don’t even recognise it at all. It can only be seen in our behaviour, such as using defensive tools like a whip to create distance, or only being comfortable around a horse who is secured.
The Remembering Process
Remembering our true nature is a process of gentle unwinding. Just like taking a large knot which starts out stiff and unwieldy with many turns in the rope, and loosening it slowly over time with intention not desperation. The root of all fear is guilt. Every time love is chosen over fear, we cleanse ourselves of the guilt that arose when we believed that we were ever separated from each other.
If you send forth only the messengers the Holy Spirit gave you, wanting no messages but theirs, you will see fear no more. ²The world will be transformed before your sight, cleansed of all guilt and softly brushed with beauty. ³The world contains no fear that you laid not upon it, and none you cannot ask love’s messengers to remove from it and see it still.
The Cleansing Power of Horses
Horses are great healers in their ability to resonate with our innate loving state. Because they can connect so naturally with that part of us, literally just standing with them, in their gentle presence, is enough to begin our unwinding. Breathe their being-ness in and breathe out any tension that may arise within, and eventually a sense of gratitude and joy will arrive in your heart.
Love creates its own path. Following its guidance is the most beautiful way to be with horses. The need to threaten will naturally become the inspiration to assist and what was a selfish act becomes therapeutic for everyone involved.
The Choice in Training
In many cases it is likely not the training itself which is contrary to a horses wish, although all horses are individuals just as we are. What matters to them is whether or not we are distorting our true nature and imposing the distortion on them. When we are authentic love, which is unconditional by nature, every aspect of training becomes a reflection of that love. This is a moment by moment dynamic which requires only a willingness to receive it to begin to move towards it.
The diagram shows that training motivated by fear is based on threat. This results in greater tension in the horse and further separation in the relationship. Training that is inspired from love, however, is founded on assistance. This will result in transformation, physiological and psychological, in the horse and greater intimacy in the relationship. The active element expresses the difference quite clearly, fear being about chasing the horse away, and love being to invite the horse closer in.
The Miracle of Assisting
The diagram above illustrates the choice between fear and love based training. When I was making it, I looked up antonyms for the word ‘Threaten’ and when I saw ‘Assist’ I was delighted, because this is exactly how it feels to approach training in love. It is not about training an exercise or a result, but to express the intimacy of the relationship with a horse in terms of physiological transformation. In other words it is therapy under the guidance of divine wisdom. Offering the horse an empowerment through relaxation, softening, fluidity, strengthening, straightening and balance.
In practice it is the difference between trying to force a result and simply having a charge-free dialogue. This can also be described as feeling what is instead of fixating on what could be or what is not yet. If the session is focused on making the horse do something, all attention is taken out of the present moment and what can be sensed in the horse, in ourself, and in the dialogue between us. When our attention goes into something that does not exist and cannot be sensed, it is an idea fashioned by the ego, based on what our ego would like to see.
Where Is The Focus?
When our attention is rooted in this moment with a horse, we can feel and understand a whole stream of information. This allows our guidance to kick in and cultivate the transformation that will assist both of us.
The result will then come about naturally, and it will be a result that is perfect for everyone involved. It will be calibrated to the horse’s current capacity physically and emotionally, as well as for the conditions of the day and future growth. The ego knows none of this information, and is only concerned with maintaining the search for the result and therefore the lack of it.
The Ultimate Dialogue
The dialogue begins with a seemingly separate voice for you and from your horse. You must become aware of each of them. Perhaps the horse feels nervous, maybe you feel tired. The process of asking and acknowledging may start out awkward and slow, but as mutual opinions are shared, a fusion of being-ness begins to happen. It is essential to take as long with this as you need to establish the habit.
This individual dialogue will take you both beyond your separate perspectives. The key is to listen without judgment or the need to solve anything. It is a gentle envisioning of the softening between you, the shared state of being, the togetherness. It is a solidarity which is born of the acceptance of mutual innocence. The forgetting of ego, of judgment and of guilt. It is one being responding to the perfect love in another and knowing that love in themselves.
Becoming Us
Dialogue between your horse and yourself is supported by you being the centre of guidance. This is a guidance that is received from your divine source. It is the most natural thing you can do, and not to be seen as advanced or complicated or weird. The nature of this guidance is conviction, patience, awareness and faith in the wisdom of the whole.
In radiating this frequency to your horse, the horse will further amplify it and extend it back to you. This happens in an ever deepening circle of love and transformation. You will know if this is the general direction of your work if you and your horse are experiencing deeper peace, more fluid movement and a growing sense of connection. It is as if you begin to move with one mind which extends to your bodies and brings them into harmony together. Ultimately it becomes so synchronised that the moment you think of a movement it manifests between you simultaneously as one.
Staying on Track
This fusion cannot be forced, it happens as a flower blooms, as a result of the deepening of your divine relationship. All those moments of realising you are losing your awareness of yourself and your horse, and guiding your mind back into that authentic focus.
It comes about when you are willing to acknowledge there is fear there, and redirect into love. Every time you insist on your innocence, and you see only that in your horse, another strong link forms between you.
Resistance To Intimacy
There is clearly resistance in all of us to this transformation, or we would not be here perceiving ourselves as separate. It is such an intimacy of sharing experience that in order to transcend the fear of the ego itself dying, a strengthening of faith is required. I have understood this with Quaramba, as she has a particularly intense fear of this sharing. She knows herself as independent and strong. She leads her herd and looks after herself.
Recently she had quite a deep cut on her forearm, and her whole leg swelled up. I wanted to put a poultice of plantain herbs on her leg, but she wouldn’t allow it. I realised again how developed her sense of herself is! She is aware of her boundaries in the way a wild animal is. She did allow me to do some energetic healing work, and the infection was resolved and her leg went back to its normal size.
A few days later I approached her with some of the same herbs and showed them to her. She wanted to smell them and she even tasted them and approved. When I asked her if I could put some into the mouth of the wound she acquiesced. That moment of intimacy between us was so powerful. Quaramba allowed herself to be defenceless, and I was open and flexible. The next day the wound itself was looking great, and although it seemed to be the herbs that had cleaned it so beautifully, the true healing was in that moment of sharing.
Quaramba’s Independence
Recently my Mum told me of an experience she had with Quaramba that had only just crystallised in her mind. I feel like this part of the puzzle is slipping into place at the right time. When we are both ready to continue our mutual transformation.
Quaramba was born in a large commercial stud where sport horses of all disciplines are bred. Because she was bred via an ovarian transplant, the mare who gave birth to her was not her genetic dam. This particular mare rejected Quaramba after she was born, and she was subsequently accepted by another mare who already had her own daughter. At the time she was up for sale my parents were crossing France and nearby to the stud.
When they were viewing Quaramba and her foster Dam with her own baby, my Mum noticed how independently Quaramba held herself. She was already behaving as a separate adult horse would.
When we talked about it I suddenly realised that this early lack of mothering in her life may be the reason she finds the intimate connection of training so challenging. Perhaps it seems impossible for her to allow herself to be infused with another being in such a way. Because even in her most vulnerable times she felt alone.
Banishing the Fear
For many years it felt right to listen to her choice not to continue with training. A great panic would arise in her and she wished for her freedom. I could have insisted she stayed in the situation to familiarise her with it. But it felt more constructive for her not to do that. Even the connections we made without any physical constraints when she would invite me to sit on her back out in the herd, began to feel out of alignment. That may have been more to do with my own fears, but ultimately it came to the same thing: neither of us was ready not to listen to fear.
I have learned that there is no need to do anything about fear because it doesn’t exist. Fear is like darkness in an unlit room. As soon as the light is turned on, it is gone. As there is no scientific measurement of darkness, only levels of light, darkness itself cannot be known. Yet for a long time the stronger part of me wanted to learn all about the darkness. To acknowledge it and understand it. It has its own attraction, which is really just a part of the delusion it creates. The only way to banish fear is to see it as the nothingness it is… to illuminate the room.
Illuminating The Room
A Definition of Love
²The will to wake is the will to love, since all healing involves replacing fear with love. [CE T-8.VIII.6:2]
Love cannot judge. ²As it is one itself, it looks on all as one. ³Its meaning lies in oneness. ⁴And it must elude the mind that thinks of it as partial or in part. ⁵There is no love but God’s, and all of love is His. ⁶There is no other principle which rules where love is not. ⁷Love is a law without an opposite. ⁸
In terms of who we are with horses, love is the peace we can offer them in our company. Unconditional love is the security in which they can flourish. Love is the acceptance they offer us, and the guidance back out of distortion when we receive their gifts. So much more than offering affection, love is the light of our existence itself. And the greater our capacity to forgive, the more our love can be felt. Love is the source of all understanding and the guidance in all that we do. Moving forward in love is to have faith in your own wholeness. To practice how it feels to be utterly fulfilled and to see that in everyone else.
