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, 15^th 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

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Photograph: Henri Thon, https://www.redbubble.com/people/hton/works/4526406-wild-horses-3

Awakening Aurora’s Beate Sommer writes about how clearly horses will communicate with us – if only we’ll listen.

The very first time I heard a horse speak to me she said: “You know, I like being groomed really gently, especially my mane!” In a moment of stillness I heard my Quarterhorse mare Ginger gently yet clearly. One might say I had been listening with my heart and this is true, however I actually heard her say these exact words, in plain English.

My youngest daughter has taken to saying; “Yes mum, we know! You can talk to the animals!” with THAT tone in her voice and look on her face. These days I simply reply: “Yes darling, I can” and leave it at that. I am neither embarrassed any longer nor do I need to convince anyone. It is a quiet affair between the animals and me and it involves a lot of listening on my part.

I have also had messages from the animals visually. Once I saw a brightly lit neon sign in front of my mind’s eye with a sentence on it. This is a beautiful story and I’d like to tell it:

I had brought on a young Anglo-Arabian gelding named Pablo. Originally for my daughter, he had come to us at the age of one and a half but by the time he was four my daughter had done her HSC, given up riding and moved away to study.

Pablo was an endearing horse but he suffered the most heartbreaking case of separation anxiety I had ever come across. It took all my patience, skill, love and the Herd’s expertise to settle him and bring out his brave and adventurous nature. He had become a solid, although a bit cheeky member of The Herd, had no more issues being separated from the other horses and made his way into everyone’s heart.

Yet I found I could not give him the time he needed under saddle as a Youngster and also felt he was the type of horse who wanted that one human who fussed over him and had him as her/his only horse. With a heavy heart I advertised him and prayed for a kind and knowledgeable new owner. She turned up eventually, fell in love with Pablo and bought him. They are doing very well together!

In the week after Pablo had left I noticed that my gelding Buffalo’s behavior was a bit odd. I even called him grumpy. He would put his ears flat back, make threatening gestures with his hind legs and harass the other horses. He looked generally out of sorts.

One day during this week, while I was giving a Reiki session to a woman lying on the massage table in the yard – with the horses present who frequently step up to the table and work on clients as well and/or gather around to hold space- I had my eyes closed and her head was gently resting in my hands, when suddenly I had a vision of a Golden Palomino stepping towards me and this neon sign popped up above his head with bright red letters flashing “We are still grieving the loss of Pablo.” I had startled, opened my eyes and there was Buffalo, my golden Palomino gelding, directly looking at me from across the yard with a focused intensity which left no room for second-guessing.

He wasn’t grumpy! He was sad and needed to grieve!

That afternoon I got the horses a Bush Flower Essence for letting go and grieving, rang Pablo’s new owner to assure myself they were doing well and then went out into the paddock to converse with The Herd. I put drops of the Bush Flower Essence on the palm of my hand and offered them to each horse. They all lapped them up eagerly.

The following day, Buffalo was much calmer and I got the distinct impression that all the horses had been through an energetic shift.

We all do miss our little Mr. Pablo though! Here is a picture of him during a different type of interspecies communication…but that’s a story for another day…

Mr. Pablo and Co meet – and greet a koala.

You can find out more about Beate Sommer on taketime2smellthehorses

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