Following the energetic connection has gradually become my vocation over the last five years. Before this purpose became so clear, I had been exploring how to tune into other animals energy, and people, for a long time. I had limited this to the category of ‘healing’ in my mind and in my life. Then one day it occurred to me to see if I could feel it while I was actually riding a horse.
Studying riding itself has been a beautiful journey. Becoming more aware of energy in therapeutic practice, however, has meant that certain blind spots have surfaced. The gap between that harmonising and inspiring feeling of engagement, and asking a horse to leave the herd. The sense of resistance when getting on that is deeper than the physiological releases can reach. The engagement itself is no longer enough to answer all of the questions. We need to go deeper into energetic dialogue to understand.
Becoming Aware of Integration
Part of understanding energy is the process of dissolving limitations. One such limitation is thinking that the energetic connection can only be felt in one part of my life. All wisdom reminds us that everything is One. There is only ever one state of being present, in any one moment, from one heart, the source of all energy.
Instead of thinking of energetic connection as being part of a therapeutic approach in healing, it has become clear that all connections with horses can be healing. That they are all guided by energy, and in fact energetic communication is the horses’ true language.
Tuning Into The Energetic Connection When Riding
Sitting in the saddle allowing my weight to sink down gently into the horse until I feel calm and centred in my own body. Gradually I let my mind open up to my horse’s energy, calmly looking for place of no-pressure non-trying which allows me to be present and aware. I feel happy to be listening like this and curious to know what might be there. I am picking up a sense of heaviness in the horse’s spine underneath me, this softens into a kind of fragility.
Acknowledging that fragility seems to allow it to strengthen into a more confident weight-carrying energy. It feels right to let my legs connect and embrace the horse’s sides like a sensitive, but familiar hug. I remember to balance my own body and the horse is encouraged to move forward. As we go I am absorbing the sensations of the movement, the parts of the stride that are easy and soft and the parts that jar. I pick up a feeling of holding in the horse’s neck around C3 and follow it down into the ligaments and muscles connecting into the horse’s shoulders.
Following The Dialogue
I have loose rein but I want to give the reins out further. Actively liberating the horse’s neck. I feel a loosening gradually unwinding through the horse’s shoulders and sense how that begins to lengthen the stride and for the first time I become aware of the energy of the hind-legs pushing off under me. I feel deeper into that and become aware of some hardness in the haunch area which seems to connect to a wooly feeling in the left hind-leg. It feels as if the right hind-leg takes more weight to support the other leg’s weakness.
As I am tuning in it feels right to bring my weight deeper into the inside of my body, holding the inside of my pelvis still to help the horse bend around my leg, and my leg then naturally feels deeper under myself and is sucked deeper into the horse’s side. The horse stretches their neck and softens in their mouth in a way that encourages me to gather up some slack in the rein and generally gather ourselves into a more engaged walk. I am on the right rein and I feel I want to creep my outside leg back as much as I can to reach that woolly left hind-leg and help support it into a stronger activity….
Leaping Into A New Life
After I began to experience this dialogue with the horse, I realised that finding a way to share it would be very important. What followed for me has been a journey, a sabbatical, where I left all of my cherished routines and moved to a different home, a different life, where I could focus purely on this energetic connection. Riding went on hold while I dived deeper and deeper into the new connection.
First I reconnected with my horses, without head-collars or agendas, and began to learn how to join them in their energetic space, in their lives and with their language. Then my online course Awakening Your Energetic Connection was channeled through Esmée my beloved spiritual guide.
As people were joining and developing their own abilities, it became clear that this is not some kind of gift reserved for some people, it is waiting in everyone to be heard. I also wrote an introductory book, a series of synchronous exercises in energy for those who wish to discover more, yet not commit too deeply.
What Is Next?
Following the energetic connection has brought me to another threshold. It is time to invite the horses into my energetic space. To ask them if there is more between us physically… can we ride again? Can we share those magical feelings which were my greatest inspiration? Is it possible to do these things in the light of choice and genuine liberty?
The head-collar ceremony seems to mark the beginning of this exciting return to old practices with new comprehension. Now the only thing to remember is the Beginners Mind. Approaching every meeting with the horses with perfect potential and engaging fully with how the new path unfolds.
