Ice Crystals

Feelings are much like waves, we can't stop them from coming but we can choose which one to surf. ~Jonatan Mårtensson

I noticed the couple with the baby as soon as I boarded the airplane.  It was hard to miss them, because the mother, who was holding the squirmy infant, was blocking the aisle and causing a massive backup of boarding passengers.  Once I settled in my seat, I realized the family was sitting two rows down.  I watched the mother try to settle down the baby, who appeared to be about eight months old.  But the little boy wasn’t going to have it.  Every time his mother sat down in her seat, he started crying.  So, the mother opted to wander up and down the aisle, despite the other passengers trying to get to their seats.

Soon everyone was sitting down, except the mother with her baby boy.  She continued walking up and down the aisle, talking to the child in a soothing voice, until the stewardess asked her to sit down for takeoff.  The mother sat down and instantly the infant started crying loudly.  He squirmed in his mother’s arms and despite the efforts of both his parents, he wouldn’t calm down.  Soon his scream escalated to a wait.  The plane was already moving, heading to the end of the runway, but the mother undid her seat belt and stood up, holding the flailing baby.  The moment she was standing, the boy quieted down, gurgling happily.  

The other passengers looked alarmed.  Surely the woman wasn’t going to stand during takeoff? 

 

“Excuse me,” a stewardess called from the back sternly.  “Please sit down immediately!”   

 The mother made an attempt to sit, but when her baby started screaming, she sprung up again, her face distraught.  Her husband touched her arm, but she ignored him. 

Suddenly another stewardess emerged from the front of the plane.  She was young, barely in her twenties.
 

“Please,” she said, “you must sit down or we can’t take off.”  

The mother looked at the young woman and clutched her child, who was quiet again. 

 

“But I can’t, he won’t settle,” she said. 

“I understand, but you must sit down or we have to stop the plane,” the young woman replied.  She put her hand on the mother’s shoulder and guided her towards her seat. The mother sat down and as soon as she was in her seat, her child protested with a loud wail.  The mother struggled to hold her kicking child.  I could see she wanted to stand up again.

The stewardess knelt by the woman’s seat. 

“Listen,” she said.  “I realize this is a very stressful situation for you.  You are worried about your child.  But it is much less dangerous for him to cry in your arms than for you to stand during takeoff.   Don’t worry about the other passengers; they can handle a little baby crying.”

I could see tears pouring down the mother’s cheeks; her husband wiped them away.  The stewardess put her hand on the mother’s knee and looked her earnestly in the eyes.  I strained to hear her words over the screaming baby. 

“I can see you are a good mother, trying to do the right thing.  Keeping your child safe is right thing.  Just take a deep breath.  Before you know it, you will be able to stand up again.”

The mother sighed and suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch in the child, the baby stopped crying.  The change was so abrupt that my husband reading a book next to me looked up and said:

“What happened, is the baby okay?” 

The baby was okay and so was his mother.  The young stewardess walked back to her seat and as the plane took off into the sky, it was completely silent in the cabin.  A few hours later, when we arrived at our destination, I saw the family leaving with a happy and calm baby.  I marveled over the wisdom of the young stewardess, but also the baby’s reactions to his mother’s emotions.  It was obvious that as soon as the mother calmed down, the baby, feeling his mother’s energy change, followed suit.   Children, just like horses, are masters at picking up emotional messages, even the ones we don’t know we are sending.  

I sometimes wonder how I was able to escape this lesson in horsemanship for so many years.  I was, of course, told that horses could “smell fear” a mile away.  But, on the same token, I was told to cover that fear up and act brave, even aggressive.  As if that would fool a horse?  I personally think that this particular piece of advice has caused hundreds if not thousands of horse-related accidents in the world.  Horses always know how we feel, no matter what we do.  It is when we ignore those emotions in ourselves that horses get suspicious and even defensive. 

 

Just this weekend I was reminded about the mastery of emotional intelligence horses possess.  A friend of mine wrote me an email after she had visited my horse with her eight year old daughter.  My friend and her daughter had brought a few carrots to give to Little Love, but, when the actual time came to feed the carrots to my mare, who was standing in her paddock close to the fence, my friend’s daughter became scared of the big horse.

"Go ahead, it's safe to give Lilo the carrot," my friend urged her little girl who was clutching the carrot in her hand.

Carefully, her daughter pushed the carrot towards Little Love through the fence. Soon the carrot was only a foot from Little Love's nose, but instead of taking it, the horse stood stock still, looking at the child with her ears forward. Quickly my friend’s daughter pulled her hand back.

"Mom, I'm scared," she said.

My friend came to stand closer to her daughter, assuring her again that it was safe to give the carrot to Little Love. Again the little girl brought the carrot slowly towards the mare, until it was right in front of her face. But the mare merely looked at the child and didn’t make an attempt to reach for the treat. The girl pulled her hand away, telling her mom she was too scared to feed the horse. My friend took the carrot from her daughter and brought it toward Little Love in the exact same place the little girl had brought it.  My horse, as if seeing the carrot for the first time, immediately stretched her nose out and took it.

"I couldn't believe it," my friend wrote in her email. "It was obvious that Little Love could feel my daughter's fear and didn't want to scare her any further by taking the carrot. Now I know what you mean when you talk about emotional intelligence and how horses always know how we feel."

And don’t they do exactly that, know how we feel?  Sometimes they know even better than we do.  But we shouldn’t write off our own ability to feel the energy of others, because we all have that ability.  Don’t they say that 90% of our communication is non-verbal?  

I am sure all of us have been in the same room with someone who is in a bad mood.  Or worse, we know someone who is an eternal pessimist.  You feel their negative energy swarming around you, eating away at your good mood.  These are the energy thieves of our lives; people who suck away our positive emotions as if they were mere dust bunnies under our couch. 

I believe emotions can travel over time and space, that they have no boundaries when it comes to the material world.  I haven’t always thought this way, but the more emotional awareness I possess, the more I discover about the power of emotions.  To feel someone’s pain, you don’t necessarily need to be in the same space with them.  In fact, you could be miles away. 

Ten years ago, far before I had ever even heard of emotional communication, a friend of mine had a bad accident.  At the time I was thousands of miles away in a different time zone, sleeping.  At exactly the time of the accident, I jolted awake.  I looked at the clock; it was 1:15 in the morning.  I knew something bad had happened and I knew this without a doubt.  I dug out my cell phone and placed a call to the other side of the world where it was day time just to hear the bad news.  

This is an extreme example, as it does not always take an accident to “feel” someone from a distance.  I have often thought of an old friend or acquaintance, someone I haven’t talked to for a long time, even years, and just minutes later that person calls me or sends me an email.  We do it all the time, send our emotions and energy into the universe, without realizing that there are others out there receiving it.  That in mind, I ask you the question: what kind of energy do you want to send into the world today?  

This week I was teaching a new student.  She is a very technical rider, who wants to learn more about her seat and how she can be effective on a horse.  She was riding a high strung mare, who was trying her hardest to understand what the human on top of her wanted.  The mare wasn’t doing too badly.  My student, however, was highly frustrated.  She had only negative things to say about her mount, a horse that she rode on a once a week basis. 

“She is so crooked,” my student moaned for the umpteenth time.  “I’m trying to keep my thigh down, but it’s so hard when the horse is not cooperating.  It’s so frustrating.” 

Having listened to her complaints about the horse for quite a while, I finally decided to address the issue.

 “Let’s talk about your frustration for a moment,” I said.  “How do you think the horse feels when you feel frustrated?”  

My student was struggling to stay with the horse’s trot, but she still managed a quick look at me from under her brow.  It was a look of confusion.  This was only our third lesson together, so she had no idea what to expect.  I thought about the young mother on the airplane with her crying baby.  Just like her, my student was unaware of how much her emotions were affecting the situation.  

I asked my student to transition to walk.  I was fairly sure the proceeding conversation would take her out of her comfort zone and we could communicate better face to face.  I repeated my question.

“I don’t know,” my student answered.  I could see she was thinking.  I tried again. 

 

“Why do you think she runs away from you?”

My student gave me another glance.  She wrinkled her brow. I continued.

“Horses communicate with emotions; they know how we feel and they use that as information.  I know you want to have the perfect ride on this horse.  But I think your frustration and negative attitude towards her is going to prevent you from achieving this perfect ride.” 

 

My student looked at me quizzically.  

“It will never be perfect, because there are so many things that just don’t work,” she said. 

 

“But there are also so many that do,” I pointed out.  “I know you are frustrated that you can’t keep your thigh in the correct position, but you did it many times today.  Just as this horse was at times not crooked, but straight.” 

When my student didn’t respond, I continued: ““She is doing her best, just like you are.  In fact, you both deserve a bit of love and appreciation.  How about, instead of getting frustrated, you could try a bit of empathy,” I said.  “Thank the horse for trying so hard.  Send her some love.  Appreciate her effort.”  I smiled.  

My student looked away.  I could tell we were treading through an area in life she was not familiar with.  

“If you want to ride this horse well,” I pressed, “you have to get her on your side.  At the moment you are fighting each other.  Why not join forces and do it together?”  

Our conversation continued for over thirty minutes.  In the end, my student participated carefully, but I’m not sure she truly understood what I was after.  She seemed very uncomfortable talking about her emotions and even more uncomfortable talking about the horse’s emotions.  But, I strongly believe that once upon a time when she first started riding, these very emotions where the thing that drew her to horses.  Perhaps she has never been conscious of that before, but if she continues to ride with me, I will definitely keep asking her to face these important questions. 

 

A few weeks ago I found the work of Japanese Dr. Emoto by accident.  According to Dr. Emoto, an ice crystal of distilled water exhibits a basic hexagonal structure with no intricate branching. Emoto claims that positive changes to water crystals can be achieved through prayer, music or by attaching written words to a container of water.  In other words, human vibrational energy, thoughts, words and music affect the molecular structure of water.

Sounds pretty incredible, doesn’t it?  Especially when we remember that most of our body is made of what else, but water.  I looked at pictures of these ice crystals and marveled over the beauty of how positive words and intent had managed to change the consistency of water.  Words like “love” and “gratitude” produced the most beautiful ones when other words such as “murder” portrayed muddled, ugly formations.  

Dr. Emoto is criticized for going directly to the public with misleading claims that violate basic laws of physics and are based on methods that fail to properly investigate the truth of the claims.  I agree, perhaps Dr. Emoto’s experiments are not the most scientific kind.  But, on the other hand, how do you measure emotion or intent or prayer?  Sounds impossible.  We can only choose to believe in their power, even if it cannot be proven scientifically. 

  

There is an old Finnish saying: “Niin se metsä vastaa, kuin sinne huudetaan.”  The literal translation of this is: The forest will answer as you call into it.  In other words, what you hear is the “echo” of your own “voice”.  I believe this is the lesson horses try to teach us day after day.  They are the mirrors of our existence, they show us who we are and what we feel, not to judge us, but to help us find the correct way to be in this world. 

When I go to the barn to visit Little Love, I go there with the purpose of connecting with my horse emotionally.  In her presence I feel a stillness I cannot find elsewhere.  I believe this stillness reflects the understanding we have for each other; we have nothing to hide, but everything to reveal, vulnerabilities and all.  If I am distracted, the phone rings or my busy life interferes with my thoughts, she disconnects from me immediately and the Zen is gone.  So, to avoid this, I try to stay with her, in the moment, to feel the peace I can no longer live without.  In fact, every day I hope to take a part of Little Love’s peace with me and share it with the rest of the world.  But, compared to my horse I am still a minor league player in this game called emotional intelligence. I want to think, however, that if I froze the water in the plastic bottle sitting on my desk, it would freeze into magnificent and life altering ice crystals.  

Love, ~K

Ps. The above picture is of the frozen water from the Fujiwara dam after Buddhist monks had offered a prayer over the toxic water.  

Cookie

That which the dream shows is the shadow of such wisdom as exists in man, even if during his waking state he may know nothing about it.... We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourselves. ~Paracelsus, quoted in The Dream Game

It was about a year and a half ago when I had the first dream.  I was riding a brown and white paint bareback.  As often happens in my dreams, I wasn’t myself, but rather a young Native American girl with black hair down to the waist.  We were riding in the forest and I could hear the leaves rustling on the path we were taking. When a stick snapped in half under the weight of my mount, I bent over and whispered: “Ssshhhhh.  We are hiding.”

The next time I saw the pony, he appeared in a dream that had something to do with a big hotel.  I can’t recall the details, except that the same brown and white pony was there, hovering in the backdrop of my sub consciousness.  Who was this pony?  Why was I dreaming about it?  The pony disappeared for a while, but only to show up again months later.  Every time I woke up remembering nothing else about the dream except the soft look on the pony’s face. 

I believe dreams have something to tell us, important messages we are left ignored in our waking life.  Or, if you believe in past lives, dreams are a vessel that takes you back to the wisdom you learned long time ago, but forgot you ever had.  And sometimes, if you are lucky, dreams help you look into the future.  I have always been a vivid dreamer; sometimes I wake up in the morning feeling exhausted after what seems like hours of action.  Other times I lie in bed and marvel over the insanity of my imagination.  And then there are times when I open my eyes remembering nothing else but a small lingering detail, almost like remnants of a feeling or a thought. 

I didn’t know anyone who owned a brown and white paint, but I did know that this pony had something to say to me.  When I met horses with similar coloring, I felt drawn to them, as if inherently I was looking for something, or rather – someone.  I talked to my friend about my dreams, and together we wondered if this pony was someone I had known long time ago, in another life time, or perhaps someone I would once meet, years from now.  Whatever the answer, I knew that even if I never saw the brown and white pony in real life, it had made a permanent impression on me through my dreams.    

That all said, I would like to share an email I received from one of my readers a few weeks ago. 

------

I’m Carol, keeper of 3 beautiful horses who along with our 3 dogs, 2 cats and 3 chickens are my reason for getting up every morning – I do work too but am self-employed as both a travel agent (for the income) and as an equine herbalist (for the knowledge and pleasure).

My 3 horses are Kelso, our herd leader, a wonderful gentle gentleman, aged 22, ex-show cob (not in my lifetime) who has been with me for apx 5 years – Kelso is semi-retired, a bit arthritic, a nice gentle plod out when weather conditions permit for him (chronic sweet itch so can’t go out often in the summer as too hot/fly-ridden). Then we have Murphy, now aged 17, and my ‘special’ boy who came to me 10 years ago when I got back into horse ownership following injury which kept me out of the saddle for 8 years – he was my ‘green + green = let’s figure it out between us’ and he is totally under my skin. Finally there’s Cookie, now 11, our adorable native pony who came to us 6 years ago as our daughter’s third pony.

It is about Cookie that I am sending you this private message because discovering your blog by accident has, I think, given me the answer to my gnawing underlying concern I’ve been going through for the past few weeks.

Cookie is adorable. She’s kind, gentle, sensitive, loving, affectionate. She’s Kelso’s personal grooming slave which is interesting considering he’s almost 16hh and she’s 13.2hh. She stands her ground with her two ‘brothers’ but is devoted to them, as they are to her. Our herd seems very content and happy together.

My ‘human’ situation is this. Around 3 years ago it became very obvious that our daughter was losing interest in riding and her pony in general. Not because of anything Cookie had done. She was simply losing interest, as sometimes happens – either it’s in you (as it was for me as a pony mad child which has stayed with me all my life – I’m now 53), or it’s not. Husband and I were really upset as our daughter and Cookie had had the most wonderful time together – they’d done a bit of Pony Club, cross country, show jumping lessons, and wonderful family trail rides at weekends. We just couldn’t believe that almost overnight, she lost interest.

Nothing I could do would get my daughter interested. Bribery, punishment, you name it – nothing worked, and so I ended up with a reluctant, pouting, sulky child riding because I forced her too. Eventually I gave up as the whole riding experience made me miserable to the point where I finally realized I wasn’t enjoying it. I resolved to loan Cookie out to a family where she would be ridden and loved.

Cookie lasted 2 weeks with the first family. She was desperately unhappy, didn’t settle, and when the opportunity arose she would bolt across a field and dump the child in the hedge. So Cookie came back home – admittedly it was lovely to have her back because I adore this pony and hated to see her go.

I found a lovely petite adult to ride Cookie out with me for a short while, so for the time being we kept Cookie moving while I hoped that my daughter would change her mind.

We then found a wonderful private yard right behind our house so we moved the horses, which meant I lost my petite adult. I advertised for a ‘sharer’ and we found mum Sue with daughter Hollie who absolutely loved Cookie on site. We went out for a lovely hack and Hollie did very well so the deal was done – Hollie would become Cookie’s sharer. Until Cookie decided she didn’t want to leave the boys and go off on her own, and again she bolted across fields and dumped Hollie in the hedge, so that was the end of Hollie.

After a few months I had a brainwave. Ask the local trekking centre if they could use a 13.2 pony! After all, Cookie came to us from a trekking centre so it would be an ideal environment for her, plenty of pony company, and she’d be ridden! The proprietor said she’d give Cookie a go and picked her up. Two weeks later Cookie was back. Apparently she ‘didn’t settle well’ and despite putting one of her most fearless, competent riders on her, Cookie made her feel very nervous – not ideal for a trekking centre with novice children. I remember thinking at the time that the owner hadn’t given Cookie long enough to settle, but I wasn’t going to leave her there if she wasn’t happy. So Cookie came home again.

By now I was started to get the impression that Cookie didn’t want to leave us. We’d tried to find her other riders but each time, and very out of character with her (she’d never bolted or thrown my daughter in all the time she rode her), Cookie came home. I decided that Cookie had spoken, and finally I’d listened – Cookie wasn’t going anywhere.

Again we had a long gap where Cookie wasn’t being ridden. However, she never seemed bothered by it, and on the odd occasion when I plodded out on Kelso I would lead her off the big fella and we’d all get a leg-stretch. She never showed any adverse signs of not being ridden other than getting a bit porky but being a herbalist I manage their environment and supplement them all with appropriate blends to keep them healthy – they’re also all barefoot and we ride bitless.

Then around 4 months ago I found a wonderful sharer, again a petite adult, who adored Cookie, and together they’d go off for hours over the countryside and pop over jumps and have the best time ever. Cookie lost weight, fittened up, and looked and seemed very happy. Then unexpectedly, a month ago we lost our sharer as she suddenly had to move house. Us humans were all devastated, sharer included, and once again Cookie had no rider.

So this last week I’ve been battling with myself with my head saying ‘Cookie needs to be ridden’, ‘Cookie needs to be ridden’. I finally called a local riding school on Friday asking if she could be useful to them. They came, saw, loved her, and I’m meant to be taking her over tomorrow. It’s only a mile or so away so not far, and the arrangement is that I’ll go over every day to help her settle, and if she doesn’t, she comes home again.

Hurrah! I’ve found what seems like a great home for Cookie, with plenty for her to do, lots of kiddies to love, cuddle and groom her, she’ll get fit and be happy!

So here’s my human dilemma. Why, since Friday, when I should be riding on the crest of this ‘I’ve sorted something for Cookie’, have I had an underlying niggle saying ‘no’, and to keep Cookie with her boys and us in our lovely paddock. I seem to have this eternal ‘thing’ in my head that says that Cookie needs to be ridden – why? For her health, happiness, sanity? Isn’t it what ponies are meant to do? Won’t she just get stale and vice-y if she doesn’t ‘do’ anything?

So why have I now been worrying all weekend that Cookie won’t settle, she’s told me enough time in the last couple of years that she doesn’t want to leave us . . . and why am I so hell bent on thinking that she HAS to be ridden?

My two selves are fighting each other – the sensible Carol is saying, for god’s sake get a grip, it’s a fantastic life for Cookie, let her go there, settle her in, she’ll always be ours, and when she’s older and no longer rideable she comes home to retire. The sensitive, emotional, instinctive Carol is saying ‘no’, it’s another move for Cookie, a separation from her boys and from us, and that’s not healthy, not good for her happiness, not good for her sanity.

Sensible brain/emotional brain – neither one’s winning. Yet now I’m trying to find excuses in my head for not taking her over tomorrow, even though I know there’s no written agreement, no sale, no anything!

So, to bring this all together, I was reading a blog the other day – Thursday, I think, where the blogger mentioned she’d discovered your blog and had spent so much time reading it that her family didn’t get their dinner that night. I clicked on the link, and started reading it. Loved it. Say no more. My family barely got their dinner that night either.

I haven’t had a chance to read more of it since then until this morning. I’m an early riser (horses/dogs/cats/chooks) – husband isn’t, so my weekend mornings are a nice, quiet, me-moment to go back to bed with a coffee, laptop, plug in headphones with nice soothing music and play blog catch-up. I uploaded yours and read your entire first page from top to bottom.

When I got to the post ‘To Live Life Backwards’, something stirred in me. Not that your situation was the same as one of mine, but it was the calling of Little Love’s name. I do that with Cookie from a distance. She lifts her head, no matter how far away, and starts walking towards me. Murf does too. It’s special, and makes me feel good and warm and fuzzy. I don’t kid myself that it’s not pure cupboard love, but still makes me feel nice. Fact is, she knows me, knows her name, recognizes my call.

Then I got to ‘Never Forget Me’. Now I started to become aware that this was getting a bit spooky. Blimey, I thought. I was meant to read this. What ifs. What if I sent her to this riding school and in the months to come we passed her on the trails – what if she recognised us, or Murf or Kelso (depending on who I was on) recognised her – what if they started calling to each other, as they do now when I’m leaving/returning to the yard and they’re all calling out to each other? What if Cookie will really, really miss us. Which she’s demonstrated several times in the past that she does.

Then we got to ‘Unmapped Country’. By now I was aware of the spookiness of the coincidence that your blog posts were here especially for me to read. Why does Cookie ‘have’ to be ridden? I can only put this down to some ingrained training or ‘expectation’ that comes with years of riding and horse ownership. This post put everything in perspective to me. She doesn’t ‘need’ to be ridden. No matter what the circumstances, in your blog’s case a scared rider (haven’t we all been there!) which is NOT the case for Cookie, but more my expectation that it’s the RIGHT thing for Cookie. But isn’t her being happy, content, safe, secure, loved and settled in her existing regime with her boys all she wants and needs?

I’m so glad I read your blog. Part of me still thinks the riding school is the better option for her as of COURSE she’ll settle – eventually. But the other part of me, having read your blog, now has the majority vote. I’m going to call the riding school today and thank them enormously for their consideration but decline their lovely offer. Cookie stays put, happy in her 4 acres with her boys, and I’ll just keep plodding out with her on occasion with the big boy to give her an occasional change of scenery.

To conclude, the Carol insecurity is tightening in my chest and is saying that if after all this, you think I’m terribly terribly wrong, I’d love to hear it! However, in some spooky, ethereal other-universe way, I think I was meant to read your blog, right now, at this time, day and age. I could have been about to do the worst possible thing for our gorgeous, sensitive, loving girl. Or the best. Either way though, she’ll be perfectly happy staying put until I eventually, possibly, maybe, find someone else to come and ride her.

------

I don’t know about you, but when I first read Carol’s email, I was rooting for Cookie.  I could see this opinionated little mare before me as if she was really there.  Cookie obviously deserved to be heard.  I wrote Carol back immediately, supporting her decision to keep Cookie at home with the boys.  When Carol wrote back, relieved I had taken the time to answer, she said: “Cookie must have sensed that I was calmer and back to my 'normal' self after reading your reply - we all went to the yard as a family (a rare thing - usually it's just me), and husband Richard and I were cuddling the girl with Rich by her withers and her head in my tummy. The sun was shining, the air was still and warm. Cookie then turned her head round to Rich and nudged him. The next second Richard jumped up over her back, no prompting from me, and just lay across her. Bear in mind he's a good 13stone-plus, and hasn't ridden for years, let alone lain across a bareback, untacked pony! Very out of character! Cookie remained stock still, very chilled. Next thing Rich scrabbled his legs up and over and sat on Cookie. She stayed looking really happy and calm. Then Rich leaned forward up her neck and wrapped his arms around her, giving her a big cuddle. He stayed there for ages, just cuddling our girl. 'Are you comfy?' I asked. 'Yes, really comfy,' he said, and grinned the biggest grin at me. 'I've never sat on Cookie before.' 'I know!' I replied. It was a lovely moment. Then he slid off and we were all back to normal.”

Carol also attached a picture of Cookie.  When I opened the file, I cried out loud; Cookie looked exactly like the pony from my dreams!  The strange thing was that I had somehow known this all along.  From the moment I started reading Carol’s first email, I had imagined Cookie to be a brown and white paint. I had never met Carol, nor did I know if she would think I was completely crazy, but I felt a need to tell her about my dreams.  I wasn’t sure how she would react, but it ddn't matter, I just had to share my experience.  She said: "...here's my freaky back to you. Don't know why but I somehow felt that you'd connect with Cookie - I felt a real need to email her photo over to you…it's quirky how life pans out, but this great big universe of ours is a whole lot more powerful than we can even begin to understand!” 

Carol was certainly right about the universe part.  I can’t tell you for sure if Cookie is the pony I had seen so many times in my dreams, but I do know that I haven’t seen her since.  Did Cookie and I connect months before I connected with her owner?  I will never know, but I have a strong feeling that something out of the ordinary happened here. Or, on second thought, is this something that occurs all the time, but we just happen to miss it? I do believe we are all connected over the vast universe by the energy between us. In my case this connection used to be something I was not aware of, but slowly, as I have connected more and more with horses, I have also discovered an uncanny ability within myself to “know” things.  There are so many things I cannot even begin to understand about the aptitude we posses, but I do know I want to understand it further.  Why does heeling by prayer/manifesting seem to work?  How can I sometimes feel other people’s emotions, even if they aren’t with me at the time?   How does my energy affect others; people, animals, plants?  Can we balance the bad energy in the world by adding more good energy?  If I think of someone I haven’t seen for a while, can they feel it?  Do things happen for a reason?

I wanted to share Cookie’s story because it awakened so many question in me.  I hope it does the same for you.  We may not know the answers – yet, but what I do know without a doubt is that our souls are more powerful than we can ever imagine.   

~K

Thank you Carol for allowing me to post a picture of Cookie and share your eloquently written story about this amazing pony!

PS. I have been writing this blog for two and a half years and one of my favorite things to do is to read the comments people leave.  Occasionally I receive emails from people who have felt a need to comment personally on what I have written.  Many of these letters have moved me to tears; the heartfelt stories of the authors and their horses are often powerful and charged with emotion.  When I started writing this blog, I never imagined it would offer me this sort of a connection with people I have never physically met.  It proves to me that even if sometimes we may feel lonely in our thoughts and beliefs, we are never completely alone.  There is always someone else in the world, experiencing something similar.  Thank you for reading (and writing)!

 “Black horse wisdom is felt more deeply than it can ever be explained…It champions knowledge rejected by the mainstream: instinct, emotion, intuition, sensory and extrasensory awareness and the human-animal partnership often associated with tribal cultures…It is an innately pure, nonjaded, spirited, yet immature, source of knowledge.  It has been neglected for so long that it initially lacks the ability to interface directly with the modern human mind.”            - Linda Kohanov

Adjusting the Scales

You live with your thoughts – so be careful what they are. – Eva Arrington

In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul. – Mary Renault

A few weeks ago I met a woman who is a professional western trainer and a big believer in certain natural horsemanship methods. When she realized I was into horses, she immediately wanted to know my approach to riding and horses in general. I chose my words carefully, as it is sometimes hard to explain what I “do” with my horse in comparison to what others do.

After listening to my account, she said: “Ah, that’s good, at least you are not one of those crazy people who push their horse beyond its limits. I’m into the John Lyons method, he’s amazing. So kind to horses and never uses too much pressure; never demands too much.”

I nodded. I’m not that familiar with John Lyons, apart from knowing that he is a natural horsemanship trainer and applies similar methods than other such trainers; training a horse using operant conditioning through pressure and release i.e. negative reinforcement. I used to pursue these methods myself, but have since started exploring something I would describe as conscious horse – human interaction. However, I acknowledge the value any method that aims to be kind can have in encouraging people to think about animal welfare. In any case, I have decided to keep an open mind to what people have to say about their way of doing things – whatever that is.

The woman talked highly about the gentle ways of this method and the patience it required. I liked the words the woman was using: kind, gentle, patient so I asked her questions, to find out exactly what she was all about. When she realized I was interested, she plunged deeper into her analysis of horsemanship in general. She was obviously looking for validation for her way of being with horses. It didn’t take too long for her to start talking about what other people did.

“Oh, there is this woman at our barn, she is so stupid. The things she does to her horse in the name of training. I hate her.”

I hate her. I cringed at the strong statement. Hate is a powerful emotion. The more I listened to the woman, the more anger poured over me, but it wasn’t mine, it was hers. She couldn’t stand this or that person; she hated this trainer or that trainer. So and so was abusive and therefore stupid. What happened to kind, gentle and patient? I have witnesses a lot of abuse towards horses in the past six years I have lived in Switzerland, but I can’t say I have ever hated anyone for it. After about 40 minutes of talking to the woman, I simply had to get away. I felt drained, tired. Was this what horses felt around her, too? The amount of negative energy this woman projected on me, was wearing me down.

I thought about my New Year’s Resolution: to try to observe, rather than evaluate. This woman was definitely making evaluations rather than observations, but I can’t say I was doing any better. What had started as an attempt to learn more about the woman’s beliefs, ended up in me judging her judging others.

What is it with negative energy? I don’t know if you have noticed, but it is everywhere, circulating our planet faster than any known weather pattern, pushing itself into every nook and cranny it possibly can. And I’m not just talking about the horse world, but the world in general.

Humans are negative by nature. We seem to produce negative energy like it is a life source. We take pleasure in wallowing in misery, ours or other peoples. We make it our business to judge others for what they do, without really knowing why they do it. It is so easy to look at others and ridicule them, bad mouth them. It makes us feel better, more worthy. Because isn’t that was this is all about: feeling worthy, feeling superior?

And what are the direct and indirect effects of this negativity we seem to spread around without a second thought? - Massive.

Exactly a year ago in January my small Jack Russell was attacked by a runaway dog much larger than herself. She was nearly killed, ripped to pieces by this male dog which had absolutely no reason to attack my tiny female dog with such ferociousness. And yet it did. Two hours prior this attack, the dog and his female companion had run away from their owner and had since roamed the woods, moving further and further away from home. When my dog and I had the unfortunate luck to run across the pair, they were both acting strangely hostile.

Later, while my vet was patching up my dog, we discussed the incident. He was appalled. Just the day before he had witnessed another small dog die from injuries sustained in a similar situation. The man was very sad to tell me that this was his daily bread, patching up dogs injured in senseless fights. He had been a vet for almost twenty years, and he said that the situation was getting worse; more and more dogs out of control, more and more aggressiveness and hostility in animals formerly known as man’s best friend.

I went home stunned. What was going on? Something the vet had said rung in my ears as I nursed my dog back to life: “Unhappy humans create unhappy animals.”

I knew this was true, hadn’t I see the same equation over and over again in the horse world, wasn’t that once part of my daily bread, patching up the relationships gone bad between horse and human? “Show me your horse and I’ll tell you who you are” is something I like to say to people when explaining the way animals reflect not only our behavior, but our most inner being. Horses show us who we are. But if horses (and other domestic animals) are direct reflections of who we are, what does the current emotional and psychological state of animals around us tell us about our society as a whole?

As I made an attempt to escape the woman who was infatuated with John Lyons and who seemed to hate pretty much everyone who had anything to do with horses and didn’t do it her way, I stopped myself. Who was I kidding? Running away from her negative energy was no solution. In fact, I would probably drag part of it with me and project it onto some other unsuspecting bystander like myself as soon as I was out of the woman’s sight. Instead, I should do what horses do; project it back in a clear way, to demonstrate that this was not alright. Maybe something positive could come out of all this negative?

The world may be filled with negative energy, but on the same token, there is a growing movement for all things positive. It may have started as a new age idea, but soon, to balance out the chemistry of the universe, it took on a life of its own. This is why for example Eckhart Tolle has sold millions of copies of his books. There is a collective initiative for change, hence the reason I write this blog, for starters!

Eckhart Tolle’s message is simple; to transcend our ego-based state of consciousness. Sounds great, but in real life is everything but easy. Our ego is quite strong and it can have a death grip on our psyche. It takes a lot to change who you are and become the person you want to be. Especially when it means letting go of the competitive and critical being we have become.

I know, I’m starting to sound like a psychologist, to say the least. But as I am trying to understand my own tendencies to judge and criticize, I am discovering the source of the negative energy within. It truly lies in the heart of feeling unworthy; it is being bred in a place where I am certain I am not enough, yet I know better. This dichotomy boggles the mind. We think we know it all (compared to others, who are not as enlightened as we are), but at the same time we are insecure about what we know and do.

Again, I look to horses for the answers. My horse, Little Love, is by no stretch of imagination a sociable horse when it comes to people, after all, her experiences of people have not always been very pleasant. She doesn’t, however, hold this against anyone. When she meets a new person, she quietly and politely observes the human. Her demeanor is neutral; until the person proves his intentions. And even when there is negative energy projected on her, she holds her stoic neutrality, unless her personal space is grossly evaded. In that case, she demonstrates her opinion clearly, only to return to the neutral equilibrium. I believe she can do this, because her life is centered the right way, she knows what is important (which would be this very moment) and not many things can rock that balance.

Perhaps that is what it is about; balance. Maybe we all need to adjust the scales in our lives or discover the real center; maybe we have just focused too much on the things that are not so important and wasted energy on things that belong on the fringes, like worrying too much about being perfect or about what others do and say. We like to scrutinize everything under a microscope instead of looking out into the horizon with soft eyes, taking in the big picture, seeing not only the what is going wrong, but all the things that are going right at the same time.

Why not let go of trying to be perfect, even if just for a second? Why not stop the inner critic before he talks?  Why not travel in the dark for a while and feel your way around, instead of always having to know where you are going (and where others should be going)?

What is the worst thing that could happen?

~K

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit. - Helen Keller