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?