alderlore – The Horses at Alderlore Present

~ To Know the Horse is to Recognize the Self ~

Posted on January 29, 2010January 29, 2010 by bonnittaroy

Horses are magnificent beings.

We hope to understand their energy.

We hope to connect with their spirit

But how do we do this?

There is a “test” that we must pass

before the horse will reveal himself.

First we must be willing to approach
the horse in an honest and open way.

Then we must be able to dissolve
our “defense shield” – the layers
of our emotions that come between us.

We must be able to offer a balanced
and coherent presence for the horse to meet.

We must allow the encounter to unfold
on its own terms, in its own timeframe.

The horse already “sees” you on a deeper level.

The horse senses your bio-electric field
the system of all your emotions.

The horse feels your subtle energy field
the system through which energy moves
within you and radiates outward to the world.

The horse already “knows” you on this deeper level.

If you don’t know this yourself
you present a puzzle to the horse.

On the outside you may have a smile and some kind words.
On the deeper level, you may be a bundle of nerves.

On the outside you might be dressed like the commander
shouting commands with all your training gear.
On the deeper level you may be spinning
in a whirlpool of ambition and frustration.

On the outside you ask the horse
for trust , companionship and love.
On the deeper level you yourself
are distrustful and hollow and
have nothing to offer in return.

This is a state of incongruence, that the horse rejects.

The Horse will remain a mystery to us
as long as we are not aware of our
Self at this deeper level.

~ To know the Horse is to recognize the Self ~

How to Catch a Horse

Posted on October 12, 2009October 12, 2009 by bonnittaroy

There are a lot of good techniques and sound advice on the topic of How to Catch a Horse. My approach helps contextualize or explain why some are more or less true, while others are more or less “wives tales.” My approach is based on observing herd behavior in horses, and interacting with a small herd of horses in an 80 acre open field for over 20 years. The foundation of this approach is the same as the body language that establishes a bond between you and your horse — or even between you and a horse you’ve never met before.

I do not recommend “pretending” that you do not want to catch your horse. Why would you want to establish that kind of duplicitous relationship with your horse? There is a kind of disconnect in this thinking that produces incoherence. You can feel the incoherence in your own mind as it tries to think what it isn’t thinking, mean what it doesn’t mean, and feign something that is not truly going on. This kind of incoherence the horse rejects.

The second kind of disconnect the horse rejects is incoherent body language. Few people understand how much we communicate to the horse with our body language. The horse is very keyed into the angle of our approach, the tilt of our shoulder, the expression/ angle of our hips, the cadence of our step.

Third, how we present ourselves to the horse, vis-a-vis the halter, rope and/or tack must also be coherent with what we are asking.

And finally, there is follow-through– what we do in the first 30 seconds (not to mention the next 30 years!) after we catch the horse is very important.

I would like to address each of these points individually. In practice they come all as a whole, but in this format, we need to dissect them one by one. Out goal will be to take all these individual skillsets and combine them seamlessly into one coherent whole — which will naturally attract the horse to us.

Lets start by watching a video of a mare and her filly. What do you see?

Conscious Evolution

Posted on September 15, 2009September 16, 2009 by bonnittaroy

On Saturday the Horses at Alderlore presented a workshop for the cohorts of the Graduate Insititute’s Master’s Program in Conscious Evolution. We had begun the day by reflecting on the notion of “consciousness going all the way down” — and what that means not only intellectually, but experientially. The class created some really interesting energy field drawings that demonstrated deep intuitive awareness between them and the horses. In the afternoon, we sat down together with Remington in the horse classroom (aka the barn) where Remington stole the show, and wove himself into the hearts and imaginations of the students, as we watched a wearied old thoroughbred tell us about happiness, silliness, the limitless joys of life and relationship with others.

I will never tire of learning from my horses– at the wonder of seeing them delight others in a way that seems so extraordinarily generous, but comes so naturally from them.

Special thanks to Amy Mielke for sharing the photos.

The Color Field of A Horse

Posted on March 9, 2009May 9, 2009 by bonnittaroy

When I am feeling intimate with my horses, one of the meditative exercises I like to do is to color their energy field at that moment. This exercise is a way to practice feeling into the energy and working intuitively with the Spirit of the Horse as it moves in vibrant and oftentimes brilliant fields of energy. We talk alot in our workshops about energy having a certain shape– more precisely, it is the movement and flow of the fields that together combine to give us a sense of shape, just like the movement of the electron in the atoms are responsible for giving us the impression that a table is a solid object, albeit physics tells us that it is made of atoms that are themselves mostly “empty” space.

Here is a coloring I did of ‘Jhana recently

colorjhana It helped remind me of what a remarkable being she is, the strength of her intention, her HUGE heart, the way she inhabits space through a loyal and dependable presence, the lightness of her back end, the power through her loins, and her rootedness in the earth, especially true to green of germination, renewal and spring.