The Invitation - Voice for the Horse Blog

The Invitation by the horses is a great gift that is still in the process of revealing itself. It seems that almost every day there is a new vibration, a new idea, a new miracle to absorb. I feel such appreciation for this creative process with the horses.

The Leverage

The most recent time I sat on Honey in the field we had a strange experience. She was carrying me a few steps while I was tuning myself into a receptive a state of being. Then we just ground to a halt. Physically and energetically. It was a real ‘what now’ moment. Not only in thought, but in our bodies too. We could not feel how to continue.

When I used to ride we would gently develop our postural engagement together and there was a leverage inherent within the biomechanical union of our two bodies. In bringing my posture into engagement with itself, a reciprocal engagement was summoned in the horse. This needed to be sensitively mediated. The more carefully it was introduced, the more deeply it would generate through our bodies.

Postural Engagement

The closest analogy I can think of is the way you take up the leverage of the pedals on a bicycle. They will then activate the mechanism and move you both forward.

The equine version requires a whole body alignment to generate the leverage. It is mutually physiological, as the ‘bicycle’ is alive. To not engage would be similar to free wheeling on a bike; the legs of the horse move, but their postural ring is not engaged in the movement.

In this moment with Honey, without any of the postural element, purely in energetic vibration, we were sensing this leverage. It was so powerful and neither of us could feel how to move. There was a feeling of magnetism, we were so stuck together that there was no way to move within it. So we absorbed the fullness, the held-ness it for a while, and then I got off her. The next time I visited the herd, Aimée made it clear that the interaction would be with her.

Sitting on Aimée

I’m here with Aimée in the field and she’s telling me or I’m understanding that it’s about how it feels to be asked. For her to wish to carry me. Initially I presented myself and I felt good and she came close. I did get on, but I could feel she was uncomfortable, she didn’t feel right about it. So I got off straight away.

Just tuning into this, maybe for her, maybe for the whole herd, Why her resistance? I am hearing “I wish to carry you, I choose to carry you, I would enjoy to carry you.” It feels like this is the key to that full feeling when I was last on Honey and we were so locked together. There was so much leverage we had to make a new path.

Birth of the Invitation

The herd are up at the top, strung out and they feel very grounded and peaceful. Aimée is very much here with me and we feel like we’re opening a new gateway of understanding. Going into this deeply and now the herd are suddenly coming towards the summer barn very purposefully. And that’s okay, just allowing things to unfold. The decision has been made to go into the summer barn field. Yet they’re waiting at the entrance, not going through. Tuning into this feeling, this beautiful feeling of how it would feel to be asked to ride. Something is being born right now, being created, this vibration.

Yes, this vibration is like an egg, an egg that comes from my willingness to be asked and the asking. Like a bed, a meadow full of water with soft grass. It feels like gentleness, like taking a child’s hand. It feels like Love, allowance, making acceptance into a tapestry and stretching it out so it’s softer and longer and deeper.

How It Feels in Energy

The Invitation feels like allowing acceptance to be the platform, and Aimée has come closer to me. I’m standing here on the steps, her head is parallel with mine. She’s come very close, touching me with her ears asking me to touch her and to feel. I feel a pathway, a channel, like ball bearings, allowing ball bearings to come down a pathway. Now half of the herd have turned around and come back. Totti is standing at the gateway over there not going in. It’s almost like the herd can’t do anything without Aimée.

A New Passage Begins

It feels like something has shifted. Aimée is coughing and releasing her jaw, and she’s started to graze now. I feel something is being created and that my place in it is to listen and respond but not instigate. Aimée is now drawing, pulling, accepting in her way my energy. It is a sense of her considering and almost learning this feeling, exploring this feeling of offering, of Inviting.

Now everybody’s made their way towards the winter barn but they’re not going in. Aimée is giving kisses, she feels very young and free and now she’s standing over me. There is a sense of resting now, of being able to rest and relax, and we’re just resting here.
The 10th of February 2022

The Two Dimensions

For a few days it felt good to let the invitation vibration settle in. The process of energy manifesting into the physical realm is mysterious. Maybe because we don’t give it a lot of attention as humans. That has to be because most of us don’t realise things work like that. Maybe it is also mysterious because it is the magic of creation. It is a flow that becomes us and flows us and expresses us. Maybe we cannot be spectators. One idea, perhaps related to this has been forming itself in my mind for a while. There are two dimensions in our relationship with horses. They seem to reflect the dichotomy between the solid and the energy, the surface and the deep.

The Surface

It could equally be described as the manifested realm. What is there physically in front of us, touchable and visible. With horses it constitutes their behaviour, their body and everything that exists to our senses. This part of our relationship is very simple and direct, although we are able to ignore it.

Horse guardians often ignore horses clear emotional signals about what is happening right now in the moment. “I don’t like that feeling”, “the saddle hurts me” etc. Yet this manifested reality exists and is important. Like scratching the horses ears when they ask, providing their hay, trimming their feet as appropriate. It exists yet it represents our past. It is the result of previous vibrational patterns which have already manifested themselves. Thus representing reality in the same way as a light bulb represents electrical light.

The Deep

The vibrational dimension is pure potential. Anything we can experience vibrationally will manifest itself given enough momentum. This is a world that horses truly understand. They understand the holistic nature of the two dimensions, that one does not negate the other. One feeds the other in an eternal flow. Attending to the surface doesn’t mean you can’t visit the deep.

The vibrational realm is where all the discoveries are to be made. The realisations, the guidance, the germinations and the answers. The vibrational realm is our own Source. All of our dreams and desires start there, forming and expanding and Becoming at the Surface in perfect alignment with who we are.

Connecting Dust

How Will I Recognise The Invitation?

I am here in the winter barn with Totti. She came in to check out the hay and I just got this feeling. I don’t know how the Invitation might look. Not so much that I don’t know, but that I can be open to it showing itself in any way.

It doesn’t need to be a way that I recognise from the past, or what I think is an expression of invitation. It can be something entirely new that we haven’t experienced before.

The whole herd has come in now, there’s another shower outside. I’m just feeling into the energy of this storm, feeling it quite agitated in me. So I’m just opening up a bit to the herd energy and how they are. Now I am presenting this idea about the Invitation, this miraculous feeling, it feels like a big bright bubble. But like one of those bubbles of soap, its existence is quite ethereal. It feels like the space for the invitation to arrive in, the space of comprehension. Marie’s just coming over.

The space of knowledge, the space of manifestation, how it will appear… even a space where it can grow and build and construct itself, like a womb. It feels like an interface between the horses’ understanding or intention and my understanding, my ability to receive, it feels like a space where we can meet, like a translator. So I can grow, adapt my ability to hear them and they can grown and adapt their ability to be heard.

Opening the Space

I think this is new for them just as it’s new for us to listen. And we’re feeling the newness and the brightness and the energy of this. Like a diffusing lemon light, sunlight but not as strong, not daylight. Early morning. And it feels very joyful, joyous and the sun’s coming out now to mirror that. There’s a sense of rising of hearts expanding and opening.

We’re feeling that quite physically, of opening and expanding, widening out. Breathing it in. There’s a sense of the excitement of how it feels to run with the herd. How it feels to abandon that individuality and just be One. Now we are hearing the cranes coming back for the summer, and we’re inviting this in. We’re inviting the Invitation. It feels very anticipatory. Very exciting.

Experiencing the Dust

It feels like something landing, something ergonomic, perfected for this Now, physical moment. It feels like dust, a shiny dust that’s landing and we’re breathing it in and it’s surrounding us. And Honey is coming here to stand with me close. We’re feeling it together, how it is a connector because it’s landing on us and we’re breathing it in.

There are millions of trillions of particles and they’re all alive with electricity, with knowledge, with wisdom. And now we are feeling how they connect us. This is the precursor to the Invitation itself. It is our preparatory medium, we need to absorb this in. Totti and Honey are absorbing this in together with me, and everyone else is eating it in. And we’re feeling how good and warm it feels. Something that warms your veins and your heart and you’re Being because it is Oneness.

Bringing Source Out Into Body

The dust is carrying the knowledge that we’re all one Source even if we manifest in different ways here. In different bodies, languages and expressions of behaviour. We are all one Source and that feels really good. To be coming back into that one Source but also bringing that one Source out into the bodies. Into the behaviours, into the branches and the twigs, and the ends of the branches and the buds. Out into the manifestations of who we are so that on that fully embodied level we can understand. We can understand each other because of seeing the differences. The way the differences evolved themselves because they were seen as differences. And now they are finding new expression through the Source connection. Through the knowledge that there’s no separation, no true separation at the root of us in our energy.

The Ceiling Is Melting

There’s a sense of hardness, the hardness of how it’s been in the tradition. The way things have been seen and understood, like a low ceiling. And we’re feeling that ceiling melting and becoming so thin and fragile, and that space opening up. It’s still falling, the connecting shiny dust of Source and we’re still breathing it in. And there’s a peace now of knowing that everything is well. That everything is perfect, that spiral, that everything has always been perfect. A perfect unfolding, unfurling, blossoming.

And there is a sense of our surface area opening up wider and wider and covering every surface with the dust. The dust is food. It’s like food for this time. Fertiliser, it’s fertilising the earth at this time. We’re feeling how the changes are happening easily, so easily. Just gently and easily everywhere on all levels and that feels good.
14th of February 2022

Reflections on the Invitation

How Horse Feels

It seems a big deal this Invitation. Something beyond my physical control, I can’t make the horses invite me to work with them, and to be carried by them. It can no longer be called riding, that doesn’t sound right. Why would a horse invite me to ride them, to train them, to school them? Yet it seems they might very well invite me to be carried, to become One. To Join them and see what it feels like to run with the herd.

It is always fun to imagine oneself as the horse might feel. How would she feel, standing in her herd, knowing her own power, aligned with her freedom. Does she want to be caught, to submit, to give in… or might she choose to meet up, to be close, to share space. The value in willingness is inestimable, the power of free will. This vibrational gold can be ours when we tap into it.

How We Feel

How does it feel to be invited? Imagine that! When you are walking on human feet, and are called. Maybe it is a feeling in your heart, seen in your third eye, or through your physical eyes. Perhaps the softness in the light of the day when they call you. Waiting as a group, a family you are already part of.

Their softness, their eagerness catches something inside you, your softness, your eagerness, your joy. And somehow it happens, your enfolding, enclosing, closeness, inside the heart of that herd. No strain, no dashed hopes, no disappointment because you have been asked. You have been seen, you are loved and cherished and part of.

It doesn’t matter that we were not ready to listen to the horses before. That we constructed ways to protect our control over them. Protections for our minds, so we would not question, and protections for our body, so we would feel safe. It’s not important that we didn’t ask, that we overrode who they are. That because we didn’t even ask they couldn’t answer. They couldn’t invite us if they were never asked. Now is what matters, that the horses are re-establishing their identity, taking responsibility.

Listening to Herd

Remembering Being One

So I’m here ready, readier than ever to listen, to absorb what comes from the herd. Allowing myself to gentle, to soften to dissolve almost. To become the air, become the atmosphere, become acceptance, allowing, downstream flow. I am following now. I feel the herd in front of me galloping and I’m lost behind, left behind.

They are flowing in one like a shoal of fish, all the manes connecting. There is a sense of peace, of lying down and becoming the earth. Allowing the earth to receive my self my separate self, my self that sees itself apart from the herd. And now I’m remembering what it is to be the herd, how it feels to run as one.

Remembering to let go of the struggle, the try, not to hold on to anything. To become the wind, become the rain, become the Herd. To feel this becoming. This becoming is not something you do as an individual. You are lifted by the wind and taken, you are carried. Carried by the herd and it feels new and different and expanded and magical. I’m searching for the right words. It feels like tropical rainforests, floating as a seed and flying at the same time. It feels like diving into water and becoming light.

Herd are the Guardians

And in the carrying is the transformation. The carrying is the wind if you are the wings. It is the answer somehow, the willingness, the joy in carrying. Being wings for the herd. And now we feel like we’ve returned even though we don’t really want to. We’ve returned and some kind of path must unfold itself and be seen between. Between the separate beings and the horse with wings. And the herd own that. The herd will discover that path. Through this invitation, through letting go and giving back to them their voice.
16th of February 2022

The Influence of Willingness

I remember getting a glimpse of how willingness might matter a couple of times over the years with the horses. Just a hint, not quite long enough to grasp, to understand the ramifications. Now I can ask, what if the willingness a horse feels for what is going on between us has a much greater influence than we know? If that fairly consistent feeling of resistance is not so much about crookedness or weakness, but about lack of willingness, of defensiveness? Riders go to great lengths to resolve that feeling. Yet the vast majority of measures are still force-based, conditioning the horse to escape pressure. The effect of this sooner or later is a physical and behavioural meltdown in the horse.

Instead of meltdowns there was a different kind of resolution with the comfort based approach to training. It was almost as if the resistance became distilled into something less physical. Less held in the body, less accessible to the physical senses and yet more palpable in the atmosphere between us. Perhaps it was simply being followed back into its source which was the unwillingness itself. Certainly that is what we have been rooting back to with the herd. Right at the very heart of the horse human relationship. When all of the layers have been removed the horses have spoken in energetic words. We do not wish to be forced, or even to be invited. We wish to be given the opportunity to invite you. And to experience the responsibility, the choice and the freedom this entails.

Receiving the Flow

Into the Energetic Dimension

The horses were all in the alfalfa field and there was a definite message of not today when I had the steps earlier. So I cleaned out the barn. Then when I was going up the concrete ramp everyone came up all happy and joyful. It seemed that they were smelling the newly arrived hay, it’s very nice hay and they were interested. In the other dimension we really felt this welcoming, this purpose, this Invitation… the arrival of it.

Then we all went into the summer barn for minerals and now I’m sitting here listening for any more. There’s a sense of who they are and who we are. There’s a real sense of their personality. Their horseness, their sense of humour and easygoingness. The flow-ness they have, flowing from one thing to the next. From one place to the next without any drama about it, without any intellectualisation about it. Just being, flowing, moving on. Always moving, moving through.

Totti’s come over now, she took Honey’s place, and there’s a feeling of being imbued with that essence. It feels like a liquid, a beautiful river of rich water, of flow. This is bathing, soaking in it, letting that come through me and become me. The wind is picking up as we’re saying these words and Totti feels so solid here. So solid as my guide, and Honey is waiting at the door saying yes. Just let this come through you because it’s the only way. Not that it’s the only way but it’s The Way, the way to merge with us. The way to understand us and to join us and to co Operate with us. To blend your self and ourselves… just breathe it. Soak it in.

Being Lived by Life

This feeling of not catching on to anything with thoughts or mind. Not catching on with mind. Just consciousness to filter, not even to filter, just to flow life through, allow Life to run through. Maybe we capture on to it because we feel frightened of what might happen. We want to control it and also because we want to enjoy it and hold it precious. And really there’s something about understanding that, it is the feeling of not catching on. Not holding.

That is the true pleasure of life. It’s the feeling of unfolding happening for us, not by us. Because we think we’re holding on and doing things ourselves. Being the film on which the photo appears without any effort. The receiver that channels the experience. It is the changing of the experience, the changing of the world is so blissful. It is in that flow.
17th of February 2022

The Energetic Journey

Wouldn’t it be fascinating to see what is happening energetically to us and between us like an animation. If we were made of coloured light and the way it weaves and transforms and merges. This is how it feels. A process of vibration, or receiving and creating and focusing and becoming. Infusing in the herd until we can know each other because we are each other.

And over time we receive more and more of each other. Which allows us to know each other and experience the connection more. And eventually we will be able to embody this fully. When I reflect on the journey, the thought that feels best is that I am more and more able to sense where things are between us. To accept what is happening. It feels good to know that is the true journey, trusting this inner knowing and appreciating it.

The Vibration of Invitation

Just in the winter barn here with the Beloveds (Marie and Gorrion). I was in the process of really attuning to the feeling of being invited on to a horse. The first thing I felt was the physical connection, skin to skin, that’s very real, very immediate. It felt like it was important for it to be consistent, for it to be supported. The energetic vibration of it feels very held together like a magnet. Feeling into that feeling, and in that physical merging there is an energetic combining. I don’t know if in that we’ve lost some of the sense of being invited. I think invitation is the space, it’s the gateway. And once we’ve gone through the gateway the dynamic evolves.

The Platform

Tuning back into invitation itself and there’s a sense of being swooshed in. Of being connected to the surface area of the horse somehow, like they make their surface area accessible. It’s a feeling as if they make themselves into a platform, a runway. It feels like an embrace, a hug, a welcoming. A swoosh, that you’re swooshed in, swooshed on to this platform. That’s how I’m feeling it right now in the energy. And the action of it has not yet unfolded, that we’re still feeling the energy.

The vibration of it is very clear. Opening a door, letting down a ramp, unfolding a carpet. There’s that feeling of receiving. And I can feel this very clearly, an invitation that I can respond to. I can be swooshed in, and I can arrive on this platform. I’m feeling how to do that in myself. How I can accept the invitation – what that requires of me, in me. It is really the desire to connect. The desire to merge to be one, to join the herd, that is the purest intention, that is the truest intention.
21st of February 2022

Permission to Receive

This has been such a revelation that is still underway. To accept that my desires are valuable and that I have come here to follow them and create. There are so many limiting beliefs in our human society about this. That desire is of the ego. That following what feels good is selfish. That allowing ourselves to listen within is lazy. Web upon web of disconnected, fear-based thoughts which have a lot of momentum in most of us. For them to invite me is not only giving the horses their power, it is giving myself the power to receive their invitation. To give myself permission to receive my desire.

This feeling of giving responsibility is so magical. Imagining that we’re all out in the wild together and the herd are my protection. That brings the force of their personalities so strongly into my field of awareness. And also the sense of being a child again. How the days would stretch and be endless. Infinite. There was only this moment, this moment of potential where everything is possible. The closeness to Source is so palpable, like the sun, right there in my consciousness.

This precious feeling that everything’s happening and we don’t need to do anything. We’re being who we are and life is living us. There’s a physical feeling in my solar plexus, anticipation, looking forward, eagerness. Honey’s come over to see, I was feeling all this while I was in Quaramba’s close field. Staying in this place of being guarded. Being held by the herd, being precious and valuable.
1st of March 2022

Deep In the Journey

The Herd Invitation process is a major paradigm shift and we are deep in the energetic changes it requires. Those moments when I was sitting on Honey and feeling how we were magnetically stuck together and we literally couldn’t move were already demanding. That demand was already creating, a new reality. A reality in which we can move together, in mutual willingness. I embrace every step and celebrate it for its beauty in bringing us closer.

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