Part of the journey with my holistic herd seems to be learning about the horse rhythm. The learning is a process of infiltration. First, letting go of my own desires to be able to perceive what is happening in the horses lives, and then allowing what I perceive to enter my consciousness and align with my own rhythm. The further this process goes, the more I realise that the horse rhythm is actually the same as my own rhythm, when I am beyond intellect. Which means beyond culture, conditioning and egoic desire.
How Does The Rhythm Express Itself?
Recently I have been inviting the horses to come into the arena. The purpose of this was to reach a place in which we could be together by mutual choice. Over the last years I have been developing the ability to listen to their opinions about my presence among them. As well as this I have been developing an understanding of asking the horses if we can do certain things. Horses are so generous, so willing to absorb and support our human desires that quite often they ‘go along’ with us. It felt inspiring to me to seek a genuinely mutual interaction. Not just about what the horses will put up with, but what can we share together.
This has required much inner journeying. Unwinding many layers of conditioning which were concealing the present moment. Whenever I can authentically access the present moment, the horses’ voice is quite clear! Horses talk with energy , and they have an ability to be both loud and uncompromising. Not in a rude way at all, in a very agreeable, and lovable ‘horse’ way. Perhaps this is why we hesitate to prepare ourselves to listen and act on what we hear, because it can feel like a tidal wave crashing in. Even when the sea is calm, it is so powerful. Humans can only control horses by containing them within a receptacle of conditioning, like putting some of the sea in a little pool. The horse-ness is hidden then.
Where we are as a Herd
Part of the journey with myself has been understanding that my own human vulnerability can be the receptacle for this horse energy. The horses are delighted to flow into my presence when I can be defenceless, without controlling them. When I reached this place in relation to the arena, they swooshed into the arena and investigated every corner, happily and joyfully, their horse-ness overflowing. Naturally I have been wondering what comes next, and this was when it became clear, as it has many times in the past, that the horse rhythm is on its own timeline.
After the arena ceremony I could feel the herd retreating again into a period of rest and recuperation. It makes me question sometimes how big a step it is for them to have taken. Are they evolving the equine communal mind itself? I have to remember that although they know themselves and their own mind, they are also on a journey. They are also going within and developing their own consciousness. They can grow just as we can, and there is potential for horse-human interactions which have not yet manifested in our current reality. In opening this space, new kinds of chemistry can take place.
In alignment with the horse rhythm, the weather changed and we had storms and days of rain. The only part of me that questions this is the chattering intellectual voice that thinks in schedules and plans. It wants to fill every day with doing. Making lists and ticking boxes. Engaging with this pattern takes me into a chaotic vibration of noise.
Relentless noise which pervades every tiny space. I can feel how the noise creates tension. Allowing myself to listen to it, to feel the tension, there is a gradual slowing down. A gentle exhaling of the turbulence. The peace which is waiting, undisturbed, like a vast body of water, slowly fills everything. The thoughts of ‘what next’ ‘how and when’ and ‘what if’ fade into the distance.
What Is the Noise?
I can see now that the noise is another veil which masks the present moment. All of the answers are in the present. How good does it feel to let that wisdom sink down into every cell. There is no need to plan, to schedule, to push or to worry. Each moment will reveal the path. This is the rhythm of the horses. It is the rhythm of Nature itself. The chattering intellectual voice has built a shaky structure which can separate us from the powerful sea of the present. Whispering that we can control our situation if we live up there, and impose our rules on ourselves. This is the illusion, that anything actually exists outside of the present. The chaotic noise is still in the present, it simply obscures awareness of the whole living system we are part of.
Although right now I feel somewhat lost, on this path with the herd, I can see that it is when you are lost that you find new paths. Dropping back down into the present is the Way. Embracing the way things unfold and understanding that if I try to precipitate the process, I will not be aware that it is actually happening, and what it looks like. This period that seems like waiting and pausing is in fact the fabrication of our new alliance itself.
