It was Winston Churchill who said ‘There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man’. Horses, writes Beate Sommer, from Awakening Aurora, can be leaders, followers and sometimes both.
I’ve found over the years that interacting with horses can show us a new way of leadership. But at the same time, leadership begins with leadership of yourself. The difference between horses and humans is that horses are complete within themselves yet at one with the herd, with their greater environment, with the earth and with Spirit. There is no separation. To me they are sovereign beings.
While it may look to us like there is a leader of the herd – and just by the way who is this leader, is it the stallion or is it the lead mare? – and a hierarchy, a pecking order, maybe these are just our own mental constructs as a way to describe and understand the horses social system from within our own reality.
The integrity of the herd is a close-knit tapestry with no herd member being more and another being less important or valuable. They are all equal because each one is a sovereign being.
When you are a sovereign being there is no need to establish a hierarchy or prove dominance. The need for competition doesn’t arise. You simply know who you are and through this inner knowing also feel the interconnectedness with everyone and everything. The good old “We are all One”!
With such a degree of sensitivity to Self and Other it is now possible to recognize and accept when it is a moment to step back and when it is time to step forward, when to act and when to be still and wait… because we are all connected, to ourselves, each other and the Greater Good.
‘We all have a unique vibration. Our life duty is to recover this unique vibration, this living image of The Holy One. We can help each other recover this vibration.’
from the Aramaic Beatitudes by Neil Donald Klotz
In fact, I have noticed with my own herd of horses that different horses step forward to lead in different situations. For example, the mare who appears to be the second lowest in the pecking order at feed time, is the one who will go first in a scary situation on a trail ride. She goes before the gelding who has the stallion position in my herd and who looks like the undisputed leader of his herd. He is like the stallion in a herd of wild horses with his mares. He leads with kindness, fairness, calmness and clarity and the other herd members respect him. The mare who comes across as the most dominant, certainly at feed time, is not the lead mare of the herd. She is often seen on her own, just a little distanced from the rest of the horses though these days I see her more frequently side by side with one of the other mares or with the little Shetland gelding who she mothered when he was new to the herd. The lead mare is a mare in the middle of the pecking order but when the herd is called from the big pasture they all come as soon as she makes the first move.
The horses know who they are and through this inner knowing also feel the interconnectedness with their herd (family), their greater environment (friends, work, community, nature, world) and with Spirit (God). They have the glue that binds. A lot of us have had this ‘holding together’ weakened through a lack of it in childhood. We may not have had the warm embrace and the support to bring all the inner parts together to One Whole. For me becoming whole with the horses is how we can learn to remember.
Awakening Aurora: Soul collage workshop on Saturday November 15, 2014.
Awakening Aurora is running a soul collage workshop on Saturday November 15
Enter the sacred silence of our peaceful herd of horses at dawn
Energize your auric field in the rays of the rising sun
Welcome a new day together
Share a yummy breakfast (please bring a plate)
Awaken dormant parts of yourself through a creative and empowering arts activity
based on Soul Collage (bring glue stick and scissors, also old magazines if you have any, otherwise magazines and other art materials are provided)
When: Saturday, 15th of November from 5.05 – 11.00am
Where: AURORA VALLEY, Lot 5 Pacific Highway, Bangalow
www.taketime2smellthehorses.com
Investment: $40/ $35
Please wear closed shoes to go out with the horses.
Bookings: [email protected]
Mob. 0408247965
