Why Horses?
"Why horses?" I'm asked often enough...
Horses are innately social creatures. They know themselves in relationship to one another. The herd, even though its members can shift and change, provides a sense of safety generated through mutual awareness and communication. Everyone in the herd operates from a common principle - harmony among themselves and in nature.
As a species, horses intend harm to nothing. Of course there are fights, disharmonies, communications of displeasure, fear, anxiety and distrust. If someone is harmed in these interactions, it's from explosive expression, not premeditation of harm. In other words, horses in social structures live in awareness of the world for what will help everyone succeed rather than looking for what one individual can get at the expense of another.
Humanity is moving through an awakening, a potential for awareness that has never been experienced before. Depending on how each individual wants to see it, this time can be the end of life as we know it, the beginning...or both.
For eons the masses have been controlled through fear, through the suggestion that someone is trying to get something for themselves at your expense. It is a societal model that requires individual humans to entertain the notion of being harmed or harming others just to survive.
Nature has a different way.
Although there are individuals and sometimes entire groups of individuals who die through the workings of nature, death proves itself to be in service to the life of others in the bigger picture. In natural systems, harmony for all is the organizing principle.
Just being in the presence of horses who have the freedom to be themselves offers a human the experience of a harmonic social connection without conflict. Horses don’t need you to be something you are not. They don’t need you to prove your worth. They may ask you to really show up and claim your space, claim your presence, to not give your power away to them or anyone else, but that is not a space of having to prove yourself. It is a space of love, inviting you to share the gift of your own true connection.
Horses nourish and inform the aspect of humanity that is willing to be in service to others. Their beauty of connection and fluidity in relationship show the way just by being fully present. In a society of individuals of any species who are willing and courageous enough to be present, together every member collaborates to generate harmony among them, even in an environment of conflict.
Every human must feel this harmony for themselves. Being with horses, writing, meditations and exercises can point you in that direction, but the experience is yours to have uniquely.
With the horses’ help, we may guide each other right to that watering hole for a drink of awareness, but it is you who must choose to rehydrate yourself with presence and connection, or walk away. This is freedom, and the horses are a living example of freedom in their individual uniqueness and their collective harmony.
