It's Not I Who Seek the Horse, the Horse Seeks Me: My Path to an Understanding of Equine Body Language
344
It's Not I Who Seek the Horse, the Horse Seeks Me: My Path to an Understanding of Equine Body Language
344eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780857886804 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Cadmos Publishing |
| Publication date: | 09/14/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 344 |
| File size: | 47 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Horse Seeks Me
It is Not I Who Seek the Horse
By Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling, Malene Lütken, Helen McKinnon
Cadmos Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2010 Cadmos Publishing Ltd., LondonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-3-86127-975-4
CHAPTER 1
We are concerned with the horse
But the horse is concerned with the world and what goes on in it
Make a change?
A few days ago a man from Austria sent me an email in which he wrote 'not losing optimism in the face of the realities of this world and all of the enormous global threats seems to me to be virtually impossible'. His letter continued, 'You obviously seem to manage it, but if people no longer know who they really are, how can they possibly be in a position to change anything?'
When I talk about horses, I cannot ignore the world and the life that goes on in it. It is related to the actual behaviour of the horses, and at the same time, to their significance as an ancient symbol. To get a better understanding and to grasp the immediate and general world around me, I turned to horses, on the trail of myths and mythology, traditions and those dreams that once drew me as a child to the legends of our fathers and their heroes.
Today I know that really positive, authentic togetherness with a horse is always based on a positive, authentic approach to life. A horse can see through any mask. He can recognise sadness, despondency, fear and despair, but also inner strength, calmness and happiness, and he reacts accordingly.
If I am faced with a personal problem, I start by trying to find a structure, a kind of order. That is also of fundamental importance when dealing with horses. Working with horses really forces us to achieve the greatest possible clarity, otherwise things rapidly become problematic, annoying and frustrating, not to mention dangerous. The magic is lost. Working with horses forces us to look very closely. Every illusion, every deceptive facade and every falsification of reality has direct consequences that are reflected to us ad hoc. That is what is unique about working with horses, that you cannot hide anything from them. The precision with which they can reflect what is hidden in us, through their behaviour, in their own unique way, is unsurpassed. With horses, there is a very distinct line between illusion and reality.
Does it make sense to transfer these authentic qualities required by horses to life in general? Does it help us to separate things, which only reveal their true essence when they are separated and distinguished from each other, so that we can finally make them manageable? I am convinced that it does. To me, it seems that learning to differentiate personal states from historical and societal ones is particularly helpful. This is so important to me for the basic understanding of my work that I would like to go into it at least briefly in these first pages. That still leaves lots of space for purely practical experiences.
As a rule, a problem or a challenge represents a kind of overlap. Relating to existence itself, the overlap usually comes when personal perception, experience, hope and desire meet our communal, social, historical and political reality. However, how do you differentiate them today? Or, in the words of my correspondent, 'Not losing optimism in the face of the realities of this world and all of the enormous global threats seems to me to be virtually impossible.'
Without basic trust in life, without optimism and without great joy in life, I could not go to the horses that I am called to. In order to achieve these things I first have to make some very precise differentiations. What is the world of horses or animals anyway? What is the modern world? What is the world of myths? What is my world? Using simple structures, I would like to illustrate how looking at conditions in an organising and relativising way opens up new approaches and new opportunities, however hopeless the endeavour may seem at first. If horses have taught me one thing, it is that there is always a way, always a solution – always. For as long as I live, there will also be an authentic place for me. That much is certain. The challenge is finding it.
About how we deal with animals, plants and the environment
A statement for the beginning
This is my opinion. It is based entirely on practical experiences with horses, on life in general and on concurrent traditions from a wide variety of cultures and their eras.
For the description, I am taking the concept of the so-called modern, 'Western' world. This Western world, in particular, forms a simple structure (diagram 1 here).
Humans are on the first level, and everything else – animals, plants and our environment as a whole – is on the level below. This model appears only too natural, if you simply take as its basis all of the skills that humans appear to possess and master, in contrast to animals or plants. However, if I follow this model myself, I cannot come up with a result that satisfies me, or horses.
Ancient cultures give a completely different picture (diagram 2 here).
Here, there are also two levels. However, the relationships are now the other way around. Here, humans are subordinate to everything else. At first glance it does seem quite strange, but our culture also contains references to this kind of view, for example in the Bible's Creation story, when God says to the animals:, 'Let us make man.'
Ancient cultures differentiate the picture in another very interesting way (diagram 3 here).
According to this view, people are on the first level, along with animals and plants, at the moment of their birth and during their childhood. Is that why children generally get along so well with animals and seem to enjoy a more direct and intuitive approach to horses? This view pushes humans down to the lower levels almost automatically during their socialisation and maturation. They then lose their original, authentic connection with the natural world.
We can now complete the first level with the concept of authenticity (diagram 4 here).
Here, another concept is allocated to the second level: unconsciousness. We can now clearly illustrate what happens if human beings, or rather, archetypal, Western human beings, interact with animals, plants and the environment generally and fundamentally as the result of this view (diagram 5 here).
The 'modern human' as an archetype does indeed experience and feel himself consciously and unconsciously on the 'first level'. Dealing with animals, plants and the environment means to him that he raises those structures to his level that, in his perception, are situated 'below' him, Consciously and subconsciously, he creates and 'shapes' a 'new', 'higher', 'better' order according to his own understanding. He imposes 'order' on the (original) world, 'regulates' the behavior and 'sorts' those natural structures that he perceives as little more than chaotic. We can still marvel at some of the excesses of the human mania for organisation and control, for example at the Palace of Versailles, residence of the Sun King, Louis XIV, where no blade of grass or tree branch would dare to grow out of place. Even ancient forms of human life were and are still this regimented today.
If we continue to follow the traditional archetypes, the exact opposite happens in reality. Man, having outgrown his childhood and thus been robbed of his authentic life form, believes that he is reorganising on a higher level, whereas in reality he is forcing the natural elements of his environment down to his own 'lower level'. In the consequent belief that he is organising, refining and perfecting, he destroys the natural structures of order that he simply cannot comprehend and that, indeed, frighten him. The result is always and inevitably destruction, disorder and reduction of energy. Applied on a global scale, it will inevitably lead to global catastrophe. It is only a matter of time.
At least two different things happen on an individual level:
People feel greater or lesser degrees of alienation from all environments. They long for authenticity, for closeness to themselves and to their environment. However, the more effort people make, by using purely cognitive, human and uninspired principles as a basis, i.e. 'organising' in their limited sense, the more despairing they become, until resignation takes over. Even if this human principle of organisation is used 'successfully', the inner void, the inner loneliness, will come ever closer as a result. A vicious circle is created, socially, politically and individually.
If we believe these traditions, and all of my experiences confirm them to be correct, then there is a kind of order on the second level, i.e. on the level of the (unconscious) human, which is supported in two ways. On the one hand, the understanding of use and benefit, i.e. one thing is done so that the other results from it. These benefits are shaped by a kind of cognitive/logical sequence. As a result, the available elements and natural resources are also consistently subject to this principle of use and benefits. Now everything has a purpose, a benefit, and will also be used.
On the other hand, this thinking always follows a timeline. This person's experience is orientated towards a benefit in terms of time, i.e. I do something today so that I can benefit from it tomorrow or next year.
Children do the exact opposite. They do not live and experience on a timeline, but in the present, and they do not see the benefit of things, but their holistic synergy, their interaction and the power and the magic, the mystic and the fairytale that are hidden inside – precisely the superordinate natural order that, in reality, connects everything. That is why they innately move in the natural world of animals and horses.
Now we have the opportunity to complete our 'original diagram' (diagram 6).
Now a meaning can be recognised in the long journey through life of any person, because they have the opportunity 'to be like a child again'. If they become conscious of their true state and condition, they stop their 'ordering' activities and instead orientate themselves to their inner authentic roots. They can then become aware of another, much larger order structure and experience it directly. They experience inner growth, develop their very own meaning and, as a result, enter the level of the beings with which they now feel directly connected, instead of fighting and destroying them.
This has been the way of humans since time immemorial. They then become an authentic part of the whole. Meaning is no longer a question of benefit and logic, but of immediate experience. In our Western culture, this way was embodied and symbolised by the process of consciousness and nobility. The fusion of the spiritual in humans with the bestial in animals formed the image of St George on his horse, conqueror of the 'dragon as a symbol of chaos', patron saint of all knights and still a potent symbol and emblem in many parts of Europe today. The fact that the noble concepts of knight and knighthood were lost with the passage of time changes nothing about their origins in terms of history and content.
This 'cycle' has always been a firmly anchored part of human meaning. The path of man has been described in this way in all cultures. However, what differentiates us as modern people from our ancestors is a very simple fact. Nowadays, human life and experience on the 'second level' is desired, encouraged and the universally accepted norm. Our daily existence is based on this now socially legitimate fallacy. This has never happened before in the history of humanity. The outsider is not the person on the 'second level', who believes themselves to be enduring it. Instead, it's the person who wants to develop inside. The person who destroys the rainforest does not have to justify himself, while the people who want to protect it arouse suspicion. People who torture scores of animals for breeding and slaughter do not have to justify themselves, but those who denounce these practices do. The person who tortures horses with bridle, spurs and whip is not the one who is chased through the village streets like a rabid dog, but it is the one who is able and willing to do without these things.
I have invested a great deal of time in examining the question of how our social structure and image of humanity could have developed historically in this way. The answers I found were surprising, but to describe and formulate them would require another book.
Nearly 20 years after the publication of my first book, the world looks different. It is in danger of breaking down. Nobody can ignore it any longer, not even the very ignorant. That may sound profane, but what happens on a small scale often happens on a large scale too. As long as somebody tries to dominate a horse on the 'second level', progressive alienation will keep happening. Now humans really are the problem itself. It is the same with the world as a whole. We try to meddle everywhere, whole or half-heartedly, but the more we try to fiddle on this 'low' level, the more of a mess we get into globally. On the whole, recognition of the modern world's fundamental misconception would be the only way out. But that is not what we are concerned with at the moment.
Regarding our subject, we could say the following – when should we open up as individuals, in order to finally accept the gift of life, i.e. authenticity and closeness, if not when together with the horse, that ancient symbol of human, inner elevation and growth? In an authentic way of life, where feeling, thinking, acting and dreaming merge into a related experience, we do not need to worry about not being able to solve the problems that arise, because most of them will not occur at all.
Of skippers and knights
The early human communities had surprisingly consistent structures and comparatively similar forms, despite existing in different times and regions. As an individual, each person experienced themselves firstly through the social structures in which they lived. The different coloured circles in diagram 1 represent people in this way of life, with varying skills, qualities and opportunities.
In this way of life, skills, talents and characteristics were exchanged and combined together. Depending on their personal situation, a person occupied either a prominent or a more background position. The bottom line was that the individual qualities were not judged, but merely noted. Threats from outside the community, disturbances or even attacks of any kind were faced by the community as a collective of individuals that manifested the true nature of their life's reality only through their togetherness.
The reality of life in our modern world shows a picture that has mutated over the centuries, from extended family to nuclear family, and finally to singledom. As a pure fact we can establish that the development away from community has led to its endpoint today – the phenomenon of more and more people living alone. Now it is almost exclusively our own skin alone that forms the boundary against the outside, against external threats, disorder or attacks. To continue to survive successfully as a 'closed organism', many skills, indicated by the coloured circles, must more or less be combined in one single person (diagram 2). How's that for a challenge?
The associations above allow us to transfer this second component to the previous diagram showing the two levels (diagram 3).
For this diagram, I have selected terms relatively non-specifically and arranged them to show that, by way of an example, a fulfilled and happy farmer or craftsman 'in an authentically harmonised way of life' does not essentially require the awareness of a samurai or a medicine man or a knight, or the human reliability of a ship's captain or a skipper etc. (which, of course, does not mean that he cannot develop them, and which is not supposed to mean that countless farmers, craftsmen and traders have not done so). All in all, however, the samurai would happily enjoy the farmer's products, and by the same token, the farmer would be happy to live under the protection of the samurai, and both would be thankful to hear the advice of the elders, the medicine men and the shamans. In brief, people have never been required to follow this steep and laborious path to consciousness to its greatest heights alone. It was only important that one knew the significance and the meaning contained, as an individual. Within an intact, authentic community and culture, each individual could add the energies and strengths particular to themselves, and automatically parti-cipate in the rewards. The group as a whole, and therefore to a certain extent each individual in it, was also connected on traditional spiritual levels and integrated into a natural cycle, through the sum of its members and their varied experiences.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Horse Seeks Me by Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling, Malene Lütken, Helen McKinnon. Copyright © 2010 Cadmos Publishing Ltd., London. Excerpted by permission of Cadmos Publishing Limited.
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