A letting go, pop, release, unwind, crescendo. These are just some of the words to describe the effect or outcome when I was guided, these last few days, to place my fingers on specific spots on a horse and meld, feel, invite, or offer my energy. The results were undeniable. They could be seen by everyone in the arena. As we often say in the equestrian world, “Horses don’t lie.”
The challenge for me was not in the action, the placement of a touch or the opening of awareness, it was in processing the language so that I could share in an understanding of what just happened and how.
I am participating in an Integrated Equine Therapies training this weekend with Grace McCoskey Keeton of Nova Equine Renovations and Bonnie Bemboom. As I participated in lectures and discussion, I was reminded once again of another powerful saying, “The map is not the territory.” I realized as I struggled to “read the map” they were offering, to understand the words they were using to describe and explain, that the words were just that… words.
It is natural for all of us to make meaning of our experience. It is also natural for all of us to want to predict the world and comfort ourselves by convincing ourselves that we “know.” The unfortunate thing is that we can easily fall into protecting our “knowing” by either dismissing the other “maps” or worse, persecuting anyone that suggests that our “map” is incomplete or inaccurate. Our history is filled with atrocities that were justified by defending the “truth” or what was “known.”
We live in a world that does this all the time. Think about our worship of science and the results of research. It has gone from a powerful method for expanding our understanding of the world to a kind of religion or demagoguery. The funniest, or perhaps saddest, part of it is that we take the results of a study or two that maps a tiny, tiny, tiny area and then use it as if it is a map of the world. Then, as if that isn’t enough, we disparage or dismiss anyone that tries to make meaning of our world and experience in a different way.
It is natural for us to want to connect and participate in shared meaning. I now realize that this is my goal throughout this training. Can I open myself up. Open myself up to the experience and explore the ways I interact with the world and horses beyond the 5 senses I have been indoctrinates to focus on. And… open myself to other maps of our world, our experience, and our healing without demanding they mirror my own. ~ Paul
A letting go, pop, release, unwind, crescendo. These are just some of the words to describe the effect or outcome when I was guided, these last few days, to place my fingers on specific spots on a horse and meld, feel, invite, or offer my energy. The results were undeniable. They could be seen by everyone in the arena. As we often say in the equestrian world, “Horses don’t lie.”
The challenge for me was not in the action, the placement of a touch or the opening of awareness, it was in processing the language so that I could share in an understanding of what just happened and how.
I am participating in an Integrated Equine Therapies training this weekend with Grace McCoskey Keeton of Nova Equine Renovations and Bonnie Bemboom. As I participated in lectures and discussion, I was reminded once again of another powerful saying, “The map is not the territory.” I realized as I struggled to “read the map” they were offering, to understand the words they were using to describe and explain, that the words were just that… words.
It is natural for all of us to make meaning of our experience. It is also natural for all of us to want to predict the world and comfort ourselves by convincing ourselves that we “know.” The unfortunate thing is that we can easily fall into protecting our “knowing” by either dismissing the other “maps” or worse, persecuting anyone that suggests that our “map” is incomplete or inaccurate. Our history is filled with atrocities that were justified by defending the “truth” or what was “known.”
We live in a world that does this all the time. Think about our worship of science and the results of research. It has gone from a powerful method for expanding our understanding of the world to a kind of religion or demagoguery. The funniest, or perhaps saddest, part of it is that we take the results of a study or two that maps a tiny, tiny, tiny area and then use it as if it is a map of the world. Then, as if that isn’t enough, we disparage or dismiss anyone that tries to make meaning of our world and experience in a different way.
It is natural for us to want to connect and participate in shared meaning. I now realize that this is my goal throughout this training. Can I open myself up. Open myself up to the experience and explore the ways I interact with the world and horses beyond the 5 senses I have been indoctrinates to focus on. And… open myself to other maps of our world, our experience, and our healing without demanding they mirror my own. ~ Paul
