SYNCHRONICITY
The Space Between Human and Horse
By: Fotini Chandrika, Canada
“It is Divine timing that we are together on this planet, here and now. Listen for the language of synchronicity and honor the Sacred in All That Is. It is in this way, we will never, ever be apart. This is the way of the Kindred Spirit. This is the way of the Soul”- Elder Horse Malachi
THE LANGUAGE OF SYNCHRONICITY
“Awareness of the Sacred in life is what holds our world together...” ~ Joan D. Chittister
I am standing amongst the Trees; there are Pine, Cedar, Maple, Poplar and Juniper friends all around. I say “good morning” to them as I breathe their medicine deep into my lungs. I let out a long exhale, offering my breathe in reciprocity and gratitude. In that moment, there is a steady breeze that moves one single branch of the Poplar Tree. I stop and smile as it appears that Poplar is waving at me.
I walk over to the paddock gate where wise elder Horse, Malachi, is standing with a soft gaze in my direction. It is time for an early morning graze out at pasture. I open the gate and each of the Horses slowly make their way through in a single file formation. Except Malachi. He still has his gaze fixed on me. I can feel, in my heart, the energy of his invitation. I walk over and, as I get closer, he strategically repositions his body to guide me to his withers where he loves a good scratching! My body experiences a cool shiver as goosebumps make their appearance on every inch of my skin. Despite my humanness pulling me to tend to the morning chores, I delightfully accept his invitation and dance with the joy of communion with this majestic creature. The chores can wait. They promise to be there when our enchanted experience is complete.
When I describe these types of experiences to other humans, they are often met with a subtle eye roll, as in “she’s crazy”, or a comment like “that is such a coincidence”, or they meet the “goose-bumps” response of someone who “gets it”. I like to call these the “truth bumps!” That moment when you know there is more to what we have been taught. There is a mystery behind what we have been told. Through our hearts is a portal to an all-encompassing community that meets in the space of the unspoken.
The language of synchronicity among Nature, Horse and Human, builds the bridge between species. As we venture across the bridge, we enter a space filled with possibility and opportunity, among which lives the interspecies cohesion that leads from the heart.
When we are drawn into this sacred space, we enter liminality. All transformation takes place here as we dance in the “threshold” (limen, in Latin) of what we once knew and what is being revealed in this “space between”.
“Awareness of the Sacred in life is what holds our world together...” ~ Joan D. Chittister
I am standing amongst the Trees; there are Pine, Cedar, Maple, Poplar and Juniper friends all around. I say “good morning” to them as I breathe their medicine deep into my lungs. I let out a long exhale, offering my breathe in reciprocity and gratitude. In that moment, there is a steady breeze that moves one single branch of the Poplar Tree. I stop and smile as it appears that Poplar is waving at me.
I walk over to the paddock gate where wise elder Horse, Malachi, is standing with a soft gaze in my direction. It is time for an early morning graze out at pasture. I open the gate and each of the Horses slowly make their way through in a single file formation. Except Malachi. He still has his gaze fixed on me. I can feel, in my heart, the energy of his invitation. I walk over and, as I get closer, he strategically repositions his body to guide me to his withers where he loves a good scratching! My body experiences a cool shiver as goosebumps make their appearance on every inch of my skin. Despite my humanness pulling me to tend to the morning chores, I delightfully accept his invitation and dance with the joy of communion with this majestic creature. The chores can wait. They promise to be there when our enchanted experience is complete.
When I describe these types of experiences to other humans, they are often met with a subtle eye roll, as in “she’s crazy”, or a comment like “that is such a coincidence”, or they meet the “goose-bumps” response of someone who “gets it”. I like to call these the “truth bumps!” That moment when you know there is more to what we have been taught. There is a mystery behind what we have been told. Through our hearts is a portal to an all-encompassing community that meets in the space of the unspoken.
The language of synchronicity among Nature, Horse and Human, builds the bridge between species. As we venture across the bridge, we enter a space filled with possibility and opportunity, among which lives the interspecies cohesion that leads from the heart.
When we are drawn into this sacred space, we enter liminality. All transformation takes place here as we dance in the “threshold” (limen, in Latin) of what we once knew and what is being revealed in this “space between”.
PC: Heather Greaves Levy
THE CONCEPT OF COHESION
“We are only as strong as we are united.” J.K. Rowling
According to Lucy Rees in her book “Horses in Company”, Horses are creatures of “cohesion”. Cohesion can be defined as “the action or fact of forming a united whole.”
Could this concept go far beyond the physical? Perhaps this concept can lead us to unity in the spiritual form.
If it could be translated that Horses “seek to form a united whole”, then it is safe to say that as prey animals, they are seeking unity with those that can represent safety from their perspective. In the extensive research presented by those in the field of Healing with Horses, it has become evident that when it comes to humans, Horses seek out our “authenticity” as a means to their safety. When we stand in our truth, the Horses can find unity with us, and we receive the gift of experiencing cohesion in the rawest of forms.
From this place we are no longer separate as species. We become one in the same, taking turns to speak through our energy and intentions, while taking turns to listen. Not one more superior than the other. We meet in the same field of wisdom.
We meet in Unity.
“We are only as strong as we are united.” J.K. Rowling
According to Lucy Rees in her book “Horses in Company”, Horses are creatures of “cohesion”. Cohesion can be defined as “the action or fact of forming a united whole.”
Could this concept go far beyond the physical? Perhaps this concept can lead us to unity in the spiritual form.
If it could be translated that Horses “seek to form a united whole”, then it is safe to say that as prey animals, they are seeking unity with those that can represent safety from their perspective. In the extensive research presented by those in the field of Healing with Horses, it has become evident that when it comes to humans, Horses seek out our “authenticity” as a means to their safety. When we stand in our truth, the Horses can find unity with us, and we receive the gift of experiencing cohesion in the rawest of forms.
From this place we are no longer separate as species. We become one in the same, taking turns to speak through our energy and intentions, while taking turns to listen. Not one more superior than the other. We meet in the same field of wisdom.
We meet in Unity.
PC: Kristen Peereboom Photography
BUILDING THE BRIDGE
“Bridges are thresholds to other realities, archetypal, primal symbols of shifting consciousness. They are passageways, conduits, and connectors that connote transitioning, crossing borders, and changing perspectives. Bridges span liminal spaces between worlds…” - Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Artist
After an Equine Guided Wellness session with a 13-year-old client who had received several sensory-related diagnoses, his mother emailed me to share what he had expressed to her on their drive home. He said that it was like “a journal had opened up about his entire life and the Horses were the only ones that understood it.”
Living in a modern-day society that is largely based in institutionalization, it is no wonder that humans of any age, feel misunderstood in their day to day lives. If we are carrying the gift of our sensitivity, we are quickly shunned into believing there is something terribly “wrong” with us that needs to be “fixed”. The feelings of shame, inadequacy and unbelonging can easily begin to consume our psyche, leaving little space to experience the inherent beauty of our sensitivities.
Being a highly sensitive person myself, I have noticed a growing appreciation for our respective gifts. We are surrounded by an increasing number of supportive activities and communities to nurture the sensitive side in every one of us!
Nurturing this sensitive side of self is the key that opens the doors to higher awareness and deep communion with All That Is. Sensitivity is the special part of every living being with which the harmony between our instinct and intuition is composed.
We are in existence during a highly technological era. For some, it may require much effort to step into the liminal space that allows us to ride between the worlds of physicality and spirituality! Spending time in Nature and with the majestic way of the Horse, offers us the opportunity to exercise the side of our Self that yearns to become fluent in the language of the unspoken. The language of “truth-bumps”. The language of synchronicity.
“Bridges are thresholds to other realities, archetypal, primal symbols of shifting consciousness. They are passageways, conduits, and connectors that connote transitioning, crossing borders, and changing perspectives. Bridges span liminal spaces between worlds…” - Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Artist
After an Equine Guided Wellness session with a 13-year-old client who had received several sensory-related diagnoses, his mother emailed me to share what he had expressed to her on their drive home. He said that it was like “a journal had opened up about his entire life and the Horses were the only ones that understood it.”
Living in a modern-day society that is largely based in institutionalization, it is no wonder that humans of any age, feel misunderstood in their day to day lives. If we are carrying the gift of our sensitivity, we are quickly shunned into believing there is something terribly “wrong” with us that needs to be “fixed”. The feelings of shame, inadequacy and unbelonging can easily begin to consume our psyche, leaving little space to experience the inherent beauty of our sensitivities.
Being a highly sensitive person myself, I have noticed a growing appreciation for our respective gifts. We are surrounded by an increasing number of supportive activities and communities to nurture the sensitive side in every one of us!
Nurturing this sensitive side of self is the key that opens the doors to higher awareness and deep communion with All That Is. Sensitivity is the special part of every living being with which the harmony between our instinct and intuition is composed.
We are in existence during a highly technological era. For some, it may require much effort to step into the liminal space that allows us to ride between the worlds of physicality and spirituality! Spending time in Nature and with the majestic way of the Horse, offers us the opportunity to exercise the side of our Self that yearns to become fluent in the language of the unspoken. The language of “truth-bumps”. The language of synchronicity.
COMING HOME
Terre Blanche quotes in her 2014 dissertation, ”Liminal Spaces: Therapeutic Encounters Between Horses and Adolescents”: “We have lost the third, middle position which earlier in our tradition, and in others too, was the place of the soul: a world of imagination, passion, fantasy, reflection, that is neither physical and material on one hand, nor spiritual and abstract on the other, yet bound to them both.”
I find it so interesting, the multi-conceptual description of the mysterious “space between”. It is profoundly synchronistic that the middle ground within our own bodies can be found in the space of the heart.
With the large size of the Horse’s heart, they are leading the way for us to embody this language of Nature. They are helping us to understand what we may not have been taught in modern-day society. They are uncovering the mysteries of our ancestor’s wisdom. They are helping us dissolve barriers of communication by teaching us the language of unspoken synchronicities. They are guiding us to experience the space between. They are offering us the magic of “truth-bumps!”
When we embrace the interspecies relationship between us as symbiotic in nature, the Horse helps us to remember who we are in the sensitive parts of self. In this space of sensitivity lies the innate wisdom which becomes the bridge of understanding and true cohesion between Horse and Human.
At the end of the day, it is the Horses who guide us Home.
Home is where the heart is.
Home sweet home.
Together with Horses.~*~
Terre Blanche quotes in her 2014 dissertation, ”Liminal Spaces: Therapeutic Encounters Between Horses and Adolescents”: “We have lost the third, middle position which earlier in our tradition, and in others too, was the place of the soul: a world of imagination, passion, fantasy, reflection, that is neither physical and material on one hand, nor spiritual and abstract on the other, yet bound to them both.”
I find it so interesting, the multi-conceptual description of the mysterious “space between”. It is profoundly synchronistic that the middle ground within our own bodies can be found in the space of the heart.
With the large size of the Horse’s heart, they are leading the way for us to embody this language of Nature. They are helping us to understand what we may not have been taught in modern-day society. They are uncovering the mysteries of our ancestor’s wisdom. They are helping us dissolve barriers of communication by teaching us the language of unspoken synchronicities. They are guiding us to experience the space between. They are offering us the magic of “truth-bumps!”
When we embrace the interspecies relationship between us as symbiotic in nature, the Horse helps us to remember who we are in the sensitive parts of self. In this space of sensitivity lies the innate wisdom which becomes the bridge of understanding and true cohesion between Horse and Human.
At the end of the day, it is the Horses who guide us Home.
Home is where the heart is.
Home sweet home.
Together with Horses.~*~
