Focus On The Essence

www.spiritualhorsemanship.com
Lif Strand 12/08/10

When you want one thing and someone (including your horse) wants another... "if you will focus upon the essence of what you want and the other will focus upon the essence of what they want … and if either one of you doesn't get too involved in the details of how you think you want your desire to play out, then both of you can be satisfied. The Universe has the facility to orchestrate circumstances and events to accommodate everyone.”

- From Abraham Daily Quote - 12/08/2010

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The essence of a horse: A being with a soul, with preferences, with the intelligence to make choices, and with the grace to bless humans with a partnership when that partnership is offered with respect and sensitivity.

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SE Foxylation - SE Kokopelli Kid - Lif Strand
(photo copyright (c) 2010 spiritualhorsemanship.com)

We always intended that SE Kokopelli Kid, son of my beloved stallion Ben Nasrif, would be our next breeding stallion. Our breeding program considerations included not only conformation and athletic ability, but personality – all three being of equal importance. With a stallion his base personality can be overlaid by testosterone – nevertheless, we only wanted to use a stallion whose temperament was such that even with a mare right next to him, he would be able to still pay attention to a human.

That’s actually quite a big request of a stallion, but it is a reasonable one. Even in the wild, a stallion needs to be able to ignore the imperatives of hormones – otherwise predators could simply have dinner every time a stallion and mare were breeding.

Had we focused on details of how we wanted Koko to turn out rather than the essence of what we wanted him to be, we would have handled him in the traditional way. We would have introduced him to nose chains, to special breeding halters, we would have spent lots of time working on his approach to mares – likely in the process frustrating him and ending up somewhere other than we had in mind.

What we did instead was focus on the essence of who we hoped he would be and always acted on our intentions of having a deep and mutually respectful relationship with this young stallion, one in which he trusted that we would not needlessly interfere with his life so that when we did make a request, it was meaningful and worthy of response.

We focused on the essence of Koko as a gentle yet powerful horse, with dignity and intelligence, with the ability to make meaningful choices and – if we guided him correctly and with the right intentions, focusing on his essence rather than micromanaging his behavior - with the assumption that he would always make the right choice if we offered him the right options.

From day one we trusted Koko to always respond in the way we desired. From day one we gave him the option to choose – true choice, meaning he had the right to refuse. Because we very carefully only offered choices that would lead to the outcomes we had in mind, and because the choices were well within Koko’s ability and did not stir his Reptile Mind, step by step we led Koko – fully of his own volition – to a place where he became the breeding stallion we had in mind.

This meant that we did not offer choices that weren’t really choices, i.e. do the right thing or you will suffer. No, we offered only choices that were simple: follow the path we offer or walk way.

This meant that, like with our other youngsters, we worked with Koko without a halter, and in a large enough space that he could always get away when he didn’t want to do something. Horses truly do love to work in partnerships, and truly will do what you ask when you ask them the right way and trust them.  A measure of your ability to offer the right choices is how often your horse chooses to stay with you and try, rather than to walk away.

Sarai & Koko
(copyright (c) 2010 spiritualhorsemanship.com)

Trust is a big factor in handling a horse this way. You must work up to the big things – you don’t walk into a pen with a strange stallion and mare in heat and expect either to pay any attention to you. As you work up to those big things, every day in every way you must trust that your horse will work with you to achieve the desired end, and that the Universe will deliver what you want when you are focused on the essence of what it is. In other words, desired behavior in a horse has just as much to do with your own state of mind as it does the horse’s.

It is up to you to focus on the essence and leave the details to the Universe.  This is Spiritual Horsemanship - where the essence of the horse and the essence of the human join together to make something bigger than the sum of the parts:  A true partnership where each party has equal weight.  Giving your trust and true choices to your horse is what builds the partnership.  Recognizing the essence of what you want your horse to be like and focusing on that, letting the Universe take care of the details, is Spiritual Horsemanship.

Focusing on the essence of what we desired in a breeding stallion got us where we are today with Koko. He is a stallion and still subject to testosterone, of course, but he is also a partner who is gentle and willing. This is what I want in a horse – doesn’t everyone?

Thriving is what is good for you

Wordle for "Thriving is what is good for you"

New Reality Transmission 11/11/10

"A growing body of scientific studies from around the world confirms that these spiritual ideas [that your consciousness changes reality] may have a theoretical ground in physics"

You might be interested in the November 11, 2010 New Reality Transmission to send a "pulse of belief into the Reality Matrix", in which you join a website at specific times and project your beliefs for 11 minutes.  There will be 11 days in a row of group reality transmissions.  The experiment is to see how group consciousness might change the world.

For more info and to sign up:  http://www.newrealitytransmission.com/   Note that the site is based on Flash - slower internet connections (like mine) may have trouble signing up, as I did - just be persistent!

Thriving is what is natural to you

This Abraham quote just can't be repeated enough:  "Thriving is what is natural to you."

Physical bodies are made to thrive.  They have systems hard-wired in to self-correct and keep the body in a state of thriving.  There are systems for protection, repair and replacement, and systems for growth, and when you think about it, it's all pretty miraculous.

Most of us live our days unconsciously, relying on our bodies to keep us going without even giving it a moment's thought.  If our bodies are lucky, we at least fuel them with good food and we keep them toned with exercise.  Even so, most of us enjoy bodies that work pretty well.  Is that the same as thriving, though?

Thriving is more than surviving.  Google "thrive" and you'll find the following:  make steady progress; to grow vigorously or luxuriantly, to flourish.

If our physical bodies are to do more than just survive, we have to look to more than just fueling and exercising them.  Our minds are the interface between the physical and the spiritual, the spiritual is Source - the place that the spark comes that is life.  If the interface between Source and the physical isn't clear, then the physical suffers.

It's kind of like having fingerprints on your glasses or dust on your monitor - the light just can't get through and the result is dulled or blurred.

Thriving is natural to you, but it takes a healthy mind to thrive, not just a healthy body.  The mind/body relationship is inseparable; change one and the other necessarily changes.  Most of the functions of the body are automatic and you have no control over them, but you can affect your body by taking more control over your mind.

It works the other direction, too:  the mind/spirit relationship is inseparable; change one and the other necessarily changes.  You have no direct control over Source but you can affect it and be affected by it – you can let in the light – by taking conscious control over your mind.

The mind is key to thriving, since it is the interface between the physical and spiritual, and each affects the other. 

If you have a horse, you have a tool that can help you in your quest to open up to Source.   

When you are feeling negative (angry, afraid, stressed) and you’re with your horse, he reacts.  If you are open to doing what it takes to thrive, you will see that reaction in your horse for what it is:  A response to your own negative state, not that the horse got up on the wrong side of the bed (horses never do!).  You can use that feedback to work on changing your state of mind from the negative to the positive, rather than simply reflect the horse’s reaction back and thereby amplify the negativity.  The end of the negativity feedback path is that the horse reaches an overwhelm point and acts out – too often the horse is blamed for that when it was all the time you.

When you are feeling positive (happy, joyous, silly) and you’re with your horse, he reacts to that, too.  You generally fail to even notice how well your horse reflects that – but he does, he reflects all the emotional states you bring to him.  The days you bring positive emotions to your horse are the days when he seems to be just perfect, when it’s magical.  On such days you can take the opportunity to pay attention, to open up to how that positive place feels and solidify that memory in your mind, so that you can use that to change your state of emotion when your horse reflects negativity to you.

Here’s a little exercise for you.  Read the next two paragraphs, then shut your eyes and imagine you and your horse in these scenes.  While you’re picturing the scenes in your mind (or recalling them – we’ve all been there!) try to feel the difference in how you feel inside as you experience the two scenes. 

1. You just had an argument with a fellow boarder at the stable.  You enter your horse’s stall with his halter but his ears go back and he looks away.  You try to halter him and he raises his head.  You slap him and he pulls back.  You finally wrestle the halter on him and lead him to the horse trailer and he balks. 
2. You just had an argument with a fellow boarder at the stable.  You enter your horse’s stall with his halter but his ears go back and he looks away.  You laugh at him and scratch him at the withers.  He brings his muzzle around to you and you pat him and tell him how wonderful a horse he is.  You halter him and lead him to the trailer to load him.

If you could find the “feel” in yourself that was different when you imagined yourself in each of the above two scenes, you can learn to use your horse as a way to check yourself for your emotions and change them in real life. 

Using Spiritual Horsemanship to deliberately live in a positive state of mind is a very natural way to thrive in your life – and your horse will love you for it. 

It's alway a good time...

The elections are over and hopefully the antagonism and anger stirred up will also be over - but that will only happen if people decide to leave habitual negative behaviors behind, and purposefully live their lives in a positive manner.

There's never a better time than the current moment to decide to live a positive life.  In fact, there's never any other possible time to make that decision.  Every moment you experience is the perfect time to be positive.

Your horse will alway reflect who you are.  When your own life is vibrating positively you will find that you and your horse are really connecting, acting as one.  When you're having a good time, you know you are living positively in your moment.  Encourage those positive experiences with your horse by choosing the positive in the rest of your live.  Use how your horse reflects you as a measure of your success in raising your own vibrations throughout your life.  This is the essence of Spiritual Horsemanship:  The synergy between you and your horse is a living, organic and real-time guide to creating the life you want.

It's always a good time to have a good time!

The Black Stallion movie

I love the movie, The Black Stallion - I bet I've seen it 20 times. I loved Walter Farley's books, too, but the movie has some scenes in it that are really special, that provide great examples of what YOU can do within a human/horse partnership.



I love the scenes when Alec is on the beach playing with The Black. The kid runs, the horse runs. The kid stops, the horse stops. The Black mirrors Alec's every move, no halter required. What a dance - what beauty, what perfection! It's one of the things that inspired me and formed my idea of what a human/horse relationship was supposed to be like, when I was a kid. It still reflects what I believe about human/horse partnerships.



Yes, I know that there was a trainer off-screen in the movie, but so what - YOU can do these things with your horse, too, no trainer required! It's a lot of fun, it's great ground-work and an incredible tool for building a human/horse partnership relationship.

Allowance/resistance

Negative emotion is your indicator of resistance, while positive emotion is your indicator of allowance. And they are on the same meter: allowance; resistance. Allowance; resistance. --- Abraham; Excerpted from the workshop in Monterey, CA on Tuesday, March 20th, 2001

A goal of Spiritual Horsemanship is to learn how to be aware of your emotional choices, to be aware of where the needle is on your personal emotional meter. Horses (all animals) are very sensitive to the inner states of emotion of the humans they have relationships with. (There have been earlier blogs on this topic, but briefly the sensitivity is a result of horses' being herd animals; it is a survival ability).

Your horse's sensitivity to your emotional states can be a blessing and a gift - or a curse - depending on the choices you make. Your own anger is reflected back to you from your horse first in the form of resistance and then in the form of fear and anger. Your own joy is reflected back to you from your horse as acceptance and cooperation and then in the form of shared joy as you become as one.

Your horse is a full partner in your human/horse relationship, but as a human, you have the ability to make choices that your horse doesn't have. You set the tone, you choose the outcome - if you consciously choose positive emotions, your horse will reflect that back at you. Your horse offers you a chance to train yourself to choose your emotional state rather than be ruled by it. You can choose happiness in your life (making no choice at all is also a choice). Become sensitive to your horse's state and let your horse be your partner as you learn how to live on purpose.

What a beautiful living biofeedback system your horse offers you - use it well and don't forget to express the gratitude your horse deserves for providing this for you.

Easy Does It: The three states of being

Copyright © 2010 Lif C. Strand
www.spiritualhorsemanship.com

Three states of being in Spiritual Horsemanship

• Soft eyes
  
• Relaxed body
  
• Peaceful mind
  

Your point of view

Spiritual Horsemanship is about choice and partnership with horses, as opposed to the historical use of force and hierarchy/dominance. It is about softness, allowing and pleasure – for yourself and your horse – rather than hardness, pushing and unhappiness. Softness, relaxation and peacefulness are attractive, not just to horses but to other humans.

Spiritual Horsemanship involves both your inner and your outer life experience, as each affects the other. It is based on the idea that when you make positive changes in your inner experience, your outer experience will change. It is also based on a supporting idea that changing any one area of your life will affect all other areas of your life. Thus, improving your relationship with your horse will have broad results in other areas of your life.

When you experience pleasurable states you feel good, and when you feel good, you are vibrating at (in a state of harmony with) a level like that of Source energy, the energy of the Universe (or God, Goddess, Great Spirit, your choice of terms). Vibrating at this level is energizing, because Source energy is infinite. The stronger your positive emotions, the better you feel and the more energy you have, because the energy comes from outside you. In such a state you are open to the world, generating energy, able to receive information and process it on many levels. The highest levels of positive energy are experienced as transcendent bliss.

When you experience negative emotions such as anger or fear - when you generate such emotions through pushing, dominating, forcing - you don’t feel good. Your Reptile Mind puts you in a self-protective state of being: Hormones are released into your system, your heart rate increases, your muscles tense as your body prepares itself for action on both the physical and emotional levels. A sort of shell of imperviousness protects you – you don’t feel much pain, you have a surge of energy. But the cost is high – you are closed off to the world. You can’t receive much information, you can’t think – your ability to process information is limited to what the Reptile Mind can deal with, and you become a hard shell of self-protection.

In such a state you are vibrating at the level of physical matter. Vibrating at this level is tiring because the energy comes from your own body and physical energy is finite. The stronger your negative emotions, the more quickly you use up your own personal energy. The lowest levels of negative energy are experienced as depression and despair.


Your horse’s point of view

Horses, like all prey animals, are of necessity masters of reading body language – not only that of their own species but of other species as well. This is what allows zebras to assess the risk from a nearby pride of lions – accurate reading of the body language of a hungry lion versus a lazy, satiated one is the difference between living to another day and becoming lion dinner.

Horses can immediately tell the difference in your emotional states and react to them. Your negative states of being can elicit fear in a horse - anger is interpreted by a horse as aggressive, predatory behavior. Predatory body language raises flight or fight behavior reaction and can lead to unwanted responses when a horse is not allowed escape from your negative states.

On the other hand, your positive states of being reassure your horse and are attractive to him. Like with a good lead mare in a wild herd, it is in the nature of your horse to want to do what you want if you exhibit the positive body language of positive emotion such as contentment, relaxation or happiness. Being able to get yourself in a state of positive emotion will bring you positive results with your horse.

Your relationship with your horse reflects who you are as a human being in general as well as your relationship with everything in your life. As you achieve success with the lessons of Spiritual Horsemanship, you will find your whole life responding. Learning to change your level of vibration with horses is the foundation for Spiritual Horsemanship.

The three states of being

The three states of being in Spiritual Horsemanship are soft eyes, relaxed body and peaceful mind. Being able to on-purpose generate any of them will lead to success with all three, and will allow you to become an open, non-threatening, spiritual partner with your horse. Practice with achieving the three states will make it easier to create them in yourself at any time – when working with your horse, when dealing with your family or your work or any circumstance in your life. Achieving the three states of soft eyes, relaxed body and peaceful mind is not only calming to yourself, but it attracts more of that same calm, higher, pleasurable vibration into your life and into the world around you. When working with your horse, you become non-threatening and attractive (in the sense of being an entity that your horse wants to pay attention to and be near). In such a state your desires for your horse’s response to you are more easily communicated, and you become open and sensitive to your horse’s physical and non-physical communication.

When you change yourself so that achieving the three states becomes natural and habitual behavior for you, then your relationships with other humans and your whole physical environment similarly change. Spiritual Horsemanship can become a way to resolve issues throughout your life, not simply with your horse.

Using “soft eyes” is the first step in creating a higher vibrational state of being. Soft eyes enable you to see a whole picture rather than just the details, to look at nothing specifically but see everything. This is right-brain functioning. Using the right brain can put you in a timeless place where you can dream of goals and end results yet you can get there working on many things simultaneously (rather than focused and sequentially). On-purpose use of soft eyes is a way to achieve a relaxed body and peaceful mind.

A relaxed body drains tension from the mind, which allows the shell of self-protection to dissolve. Having a relaxed body signals to a horse a lack of aggressive purpose. A relaxed body also feels more pleasurable than a tense body. It is more balanced, and allows for faster and greater sensitivity in response to your horse.

A peaceful mind is a mind connected to Source energy and is the result of soft eyes and a relaxed body. When connected to Source energy, you are most attractive to your horse and most open to communication from him.

When the three states of being are all positive, it puts you fully in the world, allows you to become a holistic part of everything, and allows what you are inside to manifest outside. In such a state, your horse can become part of you and together you become more than two beings working together, more than the sum of the parts. You become the Centaur, one being with one goal, joyfully achieved together.


Next: Practice makes perfect – soft eyes.

Sonetta report - 11 weeks

At almost three months, Sonetta is not as well "trained" as many other foals of her age, but I don't care. When she's out running on 70 acres, if she can see me she will come to me if I give her the signal. She doesn't freak out at anything new, but rather is merely cautious as she approaches something she's never encountered before. She is calm but having fun, examining everything, charging at dogs and chickens, galloping in big circles at top speed farther and farther away until her mother, Su, whinnies in distress.

This is one mentally and physically healthy little horse, and I know she's going to be something special when she grows up. As for her "training", she'll catch up in the next few months. Much more important to me to lay a solid foundation now for her future partnership with humans than for her to meet up to the expectations of the world.

Real Choice Part 2

Copyright © 2010 Lif C. Strand
www.spiritualhorsemanship.com

At this stage of working with the filly, I’m mostly introducing the different kinds of touch she might expect from me, by rubbing her or scratching her with my hands, brushing her, sliding a rope over her body. I don’t believe in “imprinting” – horses are not ducklings or chicks, so they don’t have the physiological ability to actually imprint – and besides, I don’t feel my mares appreciate my messing with their newborns. Additionally, imprinting removes any possibility of choice with a newborn foal. Offering real choice is what Spritirual Horsemanship is about. This means that I wait till the new mother is ready to share her baby with me. SE Redhill Sonetta’s mother, Suletta HCC, has always taken a few days till she’s not protecting her baby when I approach, and even though she’s had quite a few foals by now (she’s 27!) she’s still a protective mother with her newborns.

With Sonetta, Su was okay with me focusing on her filly after about five days. Of course I was in and out of the pen with them both during that time, but I didn’t attempt to approach the filly other than absolutely necessary during that time. I watched carefully to make sure Su was relaxed with me working with her foal before ever beginning to work with the filly.

Of course, five days is a long time in the life of a newborn horse, so when Su finally was okay with me messing with her baby, the baby was not okay with my messing with her. This wasn’t a problem for me as I have found that taking it very, very slowly in the beginning makes it end up faster in the end (less mistakes made along the way!), so I don’t worry about having a halter broke baby in a day.

I have set up my life with my horses so that I can work with them on their time, not mine. When I was more “in the business” than I am now, things were different – I was more impatient, less likely to give horses real choices. While it never caused serious, permanent damage to them – after all, horses have been subject to human force and whim for millennia and survived it – the feedback these days is that as nice as the horses were before, the horses that leave my property now are much calmer and easier to teach.

The big reward is how eager Sonetta is to learn. I’ve reached the point with where she so enjoys what we are doing that if I give her my hand signal to come to me, she comes at an enthusiastic run. She is open, she is ready, and she has never had her Reptile Mind engaged, so she holds nothing back.


Starting out with Sonetta

Because I’ve rearranged fencing panels recently, Su and Sonetta live in a crescent-shaped pen. It's big enough to allow the filly to get into a gallop (she’s funny when she does it, because she often whinnies while running – I’ve never had one of my horses do that). At its thickest in the middle, the pen is about 60 feet across. If the filly runs along the outer fence line, she can cover something like 150 feet before she has to change direction. The crescent shape means that a horse could get cornered if I wanted to do so, but I never approach the corners – I always stand in the middle and let the filly come to me.

On the first day with the filly, once Su decided it was ok to share her, my intent was to get the baby to notice me. I do this by a) not doing anything that creates fear and thereby engages her Reptile Mind, b) using the filly’s natural curiosity to get her to make the contact, and c) trusting in herd learning, which is that if all the other herd members say something is okay, then it’s okay for all (and I’m going to become a senior member of this filly’s herd).

I avoid creating fear by resisting the normal human tendency to walk or even reach towards what I want. My goal is to get the filly to want me. My actions are gentle yet clear and simple: I just walk into the middle of the pen – not looking at the filly – not fast, not slow, but with a very relaxed body and soft eyes. I then just stand there, thinking nothing, listening to the sounds of the horses nearby, the birds in the trees, the chickens clucking and chatting with each other; I feel the breeze on my cheek and the sun warming my body. I’m being and breathing and no more – my mind is blank. It’s my favorite sort of meditation: Putting out nothing, mind passively receiving and absorbing the world around me.

I allow myself to include the filly in my unfocused gaze, but never look at her directly. After a while, she looks in my direction. The moment she does so, I casually move my center of gravity back just a little – just a small movement, maybe not even noticeable to a human who wasn’t looking for it. This is an invitation for the filly to approach. It is a statement that I am not a danger. Slight as it is, the filly registers that movement. She takes a hesitant step towards me.

I’m still breathing deeply and effortlessly; I’m still relaxed; I’m still enjoying the sounds around me, the smells of fresh air, juniper, horse. I’m not attempting to hold my body still, but neither am I doing more than standing relaxed in a moment of time with no expectation, no desire. I am simply being an invitation. What happens here today, no matter what it is, is the perfect, most wonderful and joyful thing that could happen. Whatever the filly does is wonderful. I am willing to accept whatever she is willing to give to me - or withhold

Without focusing my eyes on any part of the filly above her knees, I use my peripheral vision to watch her body and head very closely. If she even as much as shifts her center of gravity away from me or looks away from me, I sway back away from her. If she moves a foot in preparation to turn away, I turn away first, unhurriedly, casually, and I leave the pen. That’s it for today.

It’s a subtle dance, but very, very powerful.


Pressure is force, and force is no choice at all

In the olden days, horses were given no choices – they did what humans wanted and that was it. Pain was the usual method to get horses to respond as humans required. Even today, although natural horsemanship talks about making requests of horses, most of the time by ‘request’ we actually mean that if a horse doesn’t do what we say we will find a way to make the horse do it anyway, generally through increasing the pressure. Haven’t you heard the phrase “make the right choice easy, the wrong choice hard”? There can be no true choice offered when the options do not include “no”.

A horse doesn’t refuse to do something because he is being willful or contrary; he refuses because he is afraid or just doesn’t know any better. He really wants to do what you want him to; as a herd animal, he’s hardwired to do so. However, when a horse is afraid, he is subject to that Reptile Mind and he can’t think. When his Reptile Mind engages, his conscious mind is inoperative and he can’t remember things like training, or even that he knows and likes you. All he can do is follow the imperatives of “fight or flight” – and too often we humans cut off the flight option, leaving fight as the only ugly possible response.


Flight or fight.

Believe me, it’s not that your horse wants to fight you; it’s that you’re not giving your horse any choice. We all do it – we are predators by nature and can’t help it. We stalk, we have hard eyes, we have tense bodies – we just naturally look like we want to eat our horses, not work with them as partners. And if we have the least bit of fear or anger in us, then that message is only magnified.

Horses (all animals) are masters at body language. We humans aren’t so hot at it, although we can be good at it if we work on it. Meanwhile, even if we do, even if we become less predator and more with the herd/partner concept, even if we stroll instead of stalk, use soft eyes instead of hard, have relaxed bodies instead of tense, we still have a big failing in that we are still unconsciously end up trapping our horses. We push them into their Reptile Minds and we lose them. Oh, we end up teaching, but we are doing it through fear and force – and we may not be teaching what we had in mind.

Being trapped is not a good feeling for a horse. No matter how good a trainer you are, or how good a partner you are with your horse, if your horse feels trapped the pressure will tip him over into fear and thus Reptile Mind. You just never are going to be able to overcome millions of years of equine evolution. Horses do not run to when they’re afraid, they run from. They are not like puppies that can be held in your arms and comforted, because to a horse confinement and restriction feels too much like the prelude to the claws and fangs of a predator.

The big mistake most of us make when we are working with our horses is that we push our horses over the limits of what they can tolerate (that limit is very low when confronted with something new or fearful) without providing sufficient space for them to get away. Pushing and pressure, forward motion and entrapment are all moves a predator makes; they are aggressive movements. These are all natural movements for a human and they can easily evoke fear in a horse. When a horse feels fear, the Reptile Mind engages, the thinking mind disengages, and Reptile Mind only offers a horse the choices of flight and fight. However, if the pressure can be reduced by flight - once a horse feels it has moved to a point where he is safe - his Reptile Mind can disengage and his conscious mind reengages: Your horse can think again.


Going away and coming to: The horse’s choice

The Spiritual Horsemanship approach to working horses is twofold:

First: big space, no restraint. Allow horses enough space to get far enough away so if they feel pressured, they have the room to move off until they are comfortable (that is, far enough that they can move till they want to stop moving on their own, rather than being forced to stop by restraint of a rope or a fence). With horses that are not particularly fearful and a human who is sensitive, that space can be inches (just swaying the body away like I did with Sonetta). With more fearful horses, with less sensitive humans, it might take acres of space. If you use no restraint – no halter, no lead rope - a horse has less reason to feel trapped.

Secondly, allow horses to choose to engage with you; to freely accept what you’re offering - and trust that they will accept if given true choice. A horse’s curiosity is a wonderful thing, yet so often we fail to use that curiosity as a proactive tool. I always allow my horses – even the adults I’ve had all their lives – to smell me over thoroughly before we do anything new, and every so often let them do so just so they are reminded who I am. I give them the opportunity to learn about new equipment by leaving it for them to sniff, touch, nibble and lick on their own time, at their own pace, with no pressure. I’d rather have a tooth mark on leather than a fearful horse.

The whole point is to not create pressure on a horse, but if it occurs anyway, to immediately reduce the pressure before it can build to fear. Giving a horse the true freedom of choice – to say no by leaving, to participate voluntarily - is how true partnership with a horse is born. This is Spiritual Horsemanship.

Real Choice Part 1

Copyright © 2010 Lif C. Strand
www.spiritualhorsemanship.com

Part 1: Life, The Universe and Everything

Today my filly, SE Redhill Sonetta, is two months old. I am spending a little time with her every day, just a few minutes or so – never long enough for her to get bored. What Sonetta and I do each time is really a microcosm of the big picture of Spiritual Horsemanship, which is in itself a microcosm of the way the Universe works. Big concepts can come in little, furry packages!

As above, so below; as below, so above. The concepts of micro- and macrocosm are pretty old – they’re from the Greek neo-Platonic system, which says that the patterns of life are the same everywhere; life’s patterns are reproduced in all levels of the cosmos from the tiniest to the largest scale.

The modern concept of “holographic universe” originated with the work of British physicist David Bohm and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, who each independently developed a theory of the holographic nature of the universe. This concept is explained in the book The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, in which Talbot examines the work of Bohm and Pribram and explores the metaphysic implications underlining quantum mechanics supersymmetry.

A hologram is a three-dimensional image created using a laser. If a hologram of is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the original. No matter how often divided, each piece of the hologram will always produce the original image. This is possible because of the behavior of subatomic particles (see Zero Point Field).

A holographic universe is a universe in which everything, from the tiniest to the largest, is of the same pattern, just like the Greeks said. You can find examples everywhere: Images of brain cells that look just like galaxies , images of atoms that look like solar systems that look like galaxies.



In the Greek macro-microcosm system the mid-point is Man, who summarizes the cosmos. And why not? The human body is composed of the same matter as anything else in the universe, the only difference being that the matter is in different magnitude than, say, a star. A difference of quantity, not quality: At the smallest level of matter that a human body is made of, the same electromagnetic energy fills the void between the body’s smallest particles as fills the void between the rest of matter in the universe. Living beings like humans are pretty much in the middle of this scale of the subatomic to the universe. The only thing the Greeks had wrong is that it isn’t Man alone at the mid-point, but all living beings. In the Big Picture scheme of things, my filly Sonetta is more like me than a single atom or a galaxy is.

A little science. All living tissues have an electric charge and are capable of transmitting such charges. Signals to and from our brains, our very thoughts, produce electric signals which travel along nerves as waves of electrically charged ions. The electromagnetic energy of our brains is measurable, and according to quantum physics, at the subatomic particle level, the electromagnetic energy of our very thoughts will affect all subatomic particles nearby.

If everything is responsive to and influenced by everything on the subatomic level, creating a holographic universe, then in essence, everything is not only made of everything else, everything in some sense is everything else.

This means that that difference between me and Sonetta I mentioned above is truly insignificant in any scheme of things, big or small.

Choice matters when working with horses. Remember the good old Golden Rule, “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you”? In a holographic universe, the Golden Rule is not so much good advice as a statement of how it all works. In a holographic universe, what you do unto others actually is doing unto yourself. And this brings us to the issue of choice – real choice.

Next: Real Choice Part 2


Real choice, for a horse, is often different than what a human thinks it is. With Natural Horsemanship, we talk about making requests or our horse, however most of the time, by ‘request,’ we actually mean that if a horse doesn’t do what we say we will find a way to make the horse wish it had. Haven’t you heard the phrase “make the right choice easy, the wrong choice hard”?

That’s not real choice, it is force in disguise...