Going forward now, in this present moment, is embracing everything about horses. It acknowledges how they express themselves and what they choose. And within that, discovering my own own ability to perceive and engage and join in. This last swing of the spiral has dug deeper than ever into the stubborn conditioning that limits my mind. What an unwinding this is! 

Quaramba and I have been visiting the arena and remembering the magical pathways of engagement through the physical dimension. We have been enjoying the space of calm and curiosity that was germinated through all of our hours of energetic connection together. As well as unravelling the associations which had grown around agenda and purpose and labels. I realised at some point that I needed a different way to record some of our work to share it effectively, so I found the perfect solution. One of the sessions we had was a burst of inspiration because we found a genuine pathway into going forward entirely connected into our engagement and mutual dialogue.

How to Support Going Forward

How to support going forward in a horse has been an issue for me for some time. Driving the horse forward, getting behind them, making their feet move. That energy, that vibration, is entirely in opposition to the inviting, embracing, One Heart still point we have been exploring.

I had not even remembered about this issue until the solution began to crystallise itself within the present moment of our partnership.

This is another lesson I am learning and re-learning over and over again. I need know nothing, in fact anything I do know, or think I know, will only filter the wisdom that flows through from the Universe in each present moment. There really is no need to remember or figure anything out. How magical is that? The Source of everything is right there, already waiting to be seen and felt and heard in our mind. 

The Forwardness Question

The forwardness question is at the deepest root of horsemanship: the great divide. Nothing in the doing realm with horses can be accomplished without forwardness. Not riding out, nor schooling, jumping, groundwork, performances nor racing. And horses are creatures of movement, movement is their essence in many ways. It is also their means of escaping threat and danger. Running in itself is often a turbulent mix of excitement and fear. It is exactly this self liberating instinct that has been so deeply exploited in horses in so many ways.

Control achieved through horses running from danger is the deepest root of the equestrian tradition. Whether it is called a whip or a wand. On the other side of this coin is the exploitation of another equine instinct, the perpetual desire to seek food. Although this seems to exchange a wrong with a right, it is just as turbulent an energy because it emphasises the separation between horse and human in the same way. I control you, I am separate from you, I am using your desire and I can start and stop my influence over you when I choose . 

The Middle Ground

Is there a middle ground which transcends separation and creates ‘us’? Going forward genuinely as one being in each moment? There is, of course there is, although perhaps it has not yet been fully manifested. Imagine that fully manifesting it could change reality as we have understood it, and transcend the horse and the human separation in a way that could become visible. I feel that it is time for us to begin to let go of our concept of life and how it works. It is becoming outdated, and the faith in the shift comes first. 

When you ride a horse, there is a certain relationship between your verticality and the horse’s horizontality.. it is an edge, like a boundary, a portal, where things happen. When you can engage with it in a certain way that balances the forces, then the horse and you become harnessed together into a new way of moving.

Tension is the enemy, so in order to germinate this dynamic, there are many stages of opening, vulnerability and release. The aids are massaging, relaxing, therapeutic, channelers. They both open the space and maintain it, they feed and encourage the dynamic until its own momentum is enough.

The Sacred Connection

This is a blissful connection, and recently with Quaramba, I remembered in a new way that this same dynamic exists on the ground too. Again it is the verticality of the human and the horizontality of the horse, and is initiated, inspired, by the particular positioning of human to horse which also happens when you ride. You have to sit at the midline, and on the ground you have to find the midline. This is a powerful place, it feels in some way sacred, like geometry, and it can only be accessed through the gateway of presence, and energetic connection.

When you find your way into it, there is a direct stretching, a leverage, which engages the horse physically into you, and you into the horse, and you become locked together as one. It is not pulling forward, nor is it pushing, it is entering a state of unity where the horse becomes you, and you become the horse.

When we began to explore this place, Quaramba knew it straight away, her antennae were instantly alerted, not in alarm, but in awareness, and I could sense that there was a great potential here.

That day we didn’t go much further than touching into the power of it to give ourselves enough time to process it.

The Weight of Expectation

At this point my mind and my thoughts and essentially my ego kicked in. Although it was originally an excitement to share and expand and create, it soon moulded itself into an agenda… an expectation. Instead of the acceptance we had been fostering with each other every day, following the flow as it came and focusing on what is, now there was a goal. I couldn’t wait to  explore the new dynamic, to share it… maybe even to prove it. And as soon as I became this energy, the horses became elusive, wild creatures who were living their own lives and our paths rarely seemed to cross!

If you see it only as the physical facts, of course the horses were still there in their terrain, the arena was still there, there were days when the weather was perfect, and this perspective seems a bit ridiculous.

But life is energy, and energy dictates everything, and as soon as my expectations were causing an attachment to the outcome, everything changed. The safe space that we created for our interaction, which is woven from trust and faith and love, and not forced out of conditioned hopelessness and relentlessness was simply gone

The Mistake of Pushing Through

I could feel that the herd were avoiding me, yet I still went and brought Quaramba in one day. She did indicate that she would prefer to stay and graze, and my small-self voice said of course she will always make that choice, which is not in fact true, because the other times she has come in full willingness. We had just reached the arena and Gorrion spotted strange horses on the bridlepath and the whole herd became wild.. and I knew that trying to insist with Quaramba would only have damaged our mutual trust, as she was not capable of staying calm in those moments…

And finally this day I woke up again and realised that it truly is possible for me not to mind what happens.To let go of an outcome. To accept and allow and celebrate that the horses can always be horses, expressing their freedom and their natural responses.

Why would I want to change their freedom for some kind of personal gain? If that happened, and the horses were conditioned to be switched off and ignore each other, then they would also be ignoring me in the true sense of our relationship. Then the second part of this particular remembrance/awakening process happened.

The next day, the herd were all calmly waiting at the gate. They are not horses who wait at the gate for food because they don’t receive concentrate feed other than their self service minerals, and it was quite clear they were waiting for me, for us, so we could explore without agenda.

The Joy of Service

And yet I couldn’t go to them because I was visiting Gabrielle that day, and I felt the other side of the expectation dynamic. Instead of trying to impose my agenda, I felt that another agenda was imposed upon me. I decided to go into this feeling, this desperate energy of hanging on to something and refusing to let go, there was fear and deep resistance there.

As I acknowledged it fully and it began to fade and relax, I could feel myself re-entering the present moment, and becoming aware of the richness of life… feelings and perceptions from all around, like happy memories and yet they were happening right then, and I realised again that what we are doing in each moment is not important.

That each moment is an opportunity to offer the best of ourselves, to be of service to the universe, and that this feels so good because it is the only way to fully experience life itself as it unfolds. It is authentically going forward. And if I want to be with the horses, all I have to do is know them in that instant, summon their horse-ness into my mind, into my energetic field, and they are there in all of their joy and uncompromising alive-ness.