It seems a bit of a cheat to be using someone else’s words to begin this blog spot, but I cannot better them and they express the message perfectly so thankyou to Steven D Farmer for this.
From the voice of the horse…
“When we joined in partnership and friendship with humans, distances became shorter, the land that seemed so vast began to shrink and the horizon that appeared to be unobtainable was only a day’s ride away. We’re good together. Really good! And we want to continue that relationship in it’s many forms, but please let our relationship be based in love. Many of us have been willing to compromise our deep-rooted need for the freedom to roam the Great Plains and hills of the land to be at your side as your companions and helpers. All we ask is that you treat us kindly and let us run free now and again, like our brothers and sisters who haven’t been willing to compromise.”
These are simple and basic needs of the horse that I feel have been largely overlooked by large numbers of horse people over many years. As in everything, there are huge differences of opinion in the horse world over how things should be done and most of them are very willingly voiced, whether invited or not!
What concerns me is whether we are truly ‘listening’ to the actual opinions of the horses, or whether we are just expecting them to do our bidding no matter how they are feeling or what issues they may be carrying.
All too often we have horses labelled as naughty, bad, dangerous or whatever derisory adjective springs to mind. They must do what we want, when we want, they have to learn to follow our training plans and perform when we expect them to and to be subjected to a life that is controlled by our whims.
What if we take the view that they are intelligent, sensitive and exceedingly wise creatures who could actually teach us a thing or two?
What if we allowed ourselves to consider their feelings in what we expect of them and allow them the right to make some choices?
What if we actually moved to a position of seeing their behaviour and body language as a means of communication and that if we become aware enough to observe, feel and listen to them, we can take our relationship with them to a higher and a far more harmonious level?
As I have had the privilege to travel around and communicate with and listen to peoples’ animals, particularly horses, over the past few years, a common theme has emerged from them. It has come as a feeling and a knowing and hasn’t necessarily been easy to translate directly, but I am gradually finding a place where I am, hopefully, able to share this message that is so deeply felt by the animals and which they wish to be shared. The understanding that those of us fortunate enough to be able to act as go betweens for people and their animals have a responsibility to create an awareness in people, an awareness of a different way of being with them that offers the possibility of greater harmony and less resistance and allows the animals to guide us to a place of peace that we all crave deep inside us.
I am in no way criticising how many people care for and understand their charges, there are many many who have a natural instinct and understanding of how they feel and what their needs are. Neither do I profess to be the perfect horse owner, we are all learning continually and I look back on how I was trained and conditioned to be with them and have to accept that, at that time, I knew nothing else, although I would like to think that kindness was always to the fore in how I handled them and I know that I always thought of them as friends who I could hold a conversation with. It is, however, easy in these days of materialism and excess to become confused or influenced as to what is truly essential and needed to enhance and move our relationships with them to another level.
I will endeavour to pass on guidance and wisdom from the horse’s point of view, in stories and communications through this blog that I hope will spark some interest and generate a desire to search deeper into the realms of co-existing rather than owning and dominating our beloved four legged friends.