THE COLOURS OF STILLNESS
Exploring the palette of horse-human embodiment
By: Eleni Argy, Australia
When the student is ready, the teacher appears.’ There she stood. A lone horse in a field.
This messenger from the divine arrived to birth me into my highest consciousness, granting me self-acknowledgement in its purest and most inspired form. Through her sheer presence, she gazed into my soul with a truth that was both invisible and tangible all at once. In that single moment, an embodied presence and ethereal spirit intertwined into the very essence that was me.
For 27 years I had been living outside my body due to complex childhood and adolescent trauma. Dissociation is that magical place where the lost things go. But that day in the field, I was found.
I was seen. I was acknowledged. I was felt. And I could feel. Suddenly, I felt all the sensations I had been suppressing in my body for decades. I laughed and I cried from the surge of emotions of coming out of a hidden darkness and into awareness.
Her name was Anui Nui, or “Rainbow” and my emergent relationship with her on the Big Island of Hawaii changed the colours of my life forever.
For 27 years I had been living outside my body due to complex childhood and adolescent trauma. Dissociation is that magical place where the lost things go. But that day in the field, I was found.
I was seen. I was acknowledged. I was felt. And I could feel. Suddenly, I felt all the sensations I had been suppressing in my body for decades. I laughed and I cried from the surge of emotions of coming out of a hidden darkness and into awareness.
Her name was Anui Nui, or “Rainbow” and my emergent relationship with her on the Big Island of Hawaii changed the colours of my life forever.
The Canvas of Awareness
For the year following my graduation from university, I chose a year-long volunteer placement at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, on a cultural resource management project. My time there also involved cross-disciplinary training and intensive fieldwork related to animal preservation, vegetation management and volcanology. The intensity and drastic contrasts of the stunning natural beauty of the Big Island, counter-balanced with the volcanic destruction of the land, held powerful energetic mysteries that I longed to explore. Because I had some previous experience with horses, I was matched with a beautiful bay mare, Anui Nui, to trek on horseback over the harsh lava fields for several overnight projects. “She needs someone experienced,’ I was told. On our first encounter, she bolted and off I came, nearly ramming my leg into a fence. She turned and looked at me square in the eye, saying her first ‘hello’ with a smile. In that moment, looking up at her from the ground where I fell, I realised this was the beginning of big journey, although I could not fathom the extent of the divine teachings that were about to unfold.
I noticed she lived alone in the field without any other horses and asked if I could visit her there. Over the next year, with the owner’s permission, I showed up daily, carrots in hand, and simply sat with her in the field. I felt she needed company. Or was that me? I never had a relationship with one particular horse, only the school horses who would be saddled and ready to go; but was that really a relationship, or a one-sided affair? This one was clearly different. I sat with her for hours upon hours, into the sunset and into the night, and sometimes into the sunrise. In those moments, time and space faded into one timeless eternity.
What was to emerge between the two of us from that place of utter stillness and silent communication was completely unexpected. The tremendous surge of emotions and sensations that arose from within the depths of my darkness was both overwhelming and awe-inspiring. Through an ongoing eruption of emotions, I laughed like a playful child, and I wailed in a vast ocean of sorrow that resonated through the rainforest to the depths of the volcano’s core. What I shared with this beautiful mare in those secret, sacred moments will remain a mystery. I truly wish that I could remember the details of the stories we told each other that were held so religiously in the medicinal treasure chamber of nature, only to be witnessed by the trees, birds, insects and our lonely hearts.
Through the greyness of nearly three decades of trauma, and in the sanctity of shared space with my Rainbow Horse, a light began to appear among the shadows of numbness. My mind slowly began to still from the rumination over the multiple narratives, meaning-makings and judgements it had been attached to for so long, and a newness of sensations and colours began to paint my inner and outer worlds. Anui Nui gently acknowledged and validated my pain, with her sweet accepting eyes and gentle nudges. She guided me into presence with her deep healing breaths allowing me the space to show up for myself and inhabit my body, mind and heart in a new way. For the first time in my 27 years, I felt utterly and completely safe.
My world became a blank canvas of new insights. I was seeing through the eyes of an innocent child suddenly coming into existence with curiosity and wonderment over the simplicity of life. Everything now appeared vibrantly colourful; the grass was greener, the sky was bluer, the smells of the forest were sweeter, and the sounds of nature were like a harmonic symphony. At the time, I did not understand or care to know about why I was suddenly awakened into a new way of being. I simply relished in the experience of genuine presence, with Anui Nui by my side, connecting me to my true heart through her calm and authentic presence. I could not fool her. I could not pretend. With each passing moment, she looked into my soul, inviting me to emerge as my true self, without fear. And so, I did; day after day, sunset after sunset, sunrise after sunrise.
My deeply connected relationship with Anui Nui evolved beyond the field into many magnificent adventures, trekking across treacherous lava fields, and exploring lush fern forests. But we mostly communed in times of rest, quietly attuning to each other in moments of silence and in sync with nature. It was an unconditional love like no other.
For the year following my graduation from university, I chose a year-long volunteer placement at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, on a cultural resource management project. My time there also involved cross-disciplinary training and intensive fieldwork related to animal preservation, vegetation management and volcanology. The intensity and drastic contrasts of the stunning natural beauty of the Big Island, counter-balanced with the volcanic destruction of the land, held powerful energetic mysteries that I longed to explore. Because I had some previous experience with horses, I was matched with a beautiful bay mare, Anui Nui, to trek on horseback over the harsh lava fields for several overnight projects. “She needs someone experienced,’ I was told. On our first encounter, she bolted and off I came, nearly ramming my leg into a fence. She turned and looked at me square in the eye, saying her first ‘hello’ with a smile. In that moment, looking up at her from the ground where I fell, I realised this was the beginning of big journey, although I could not fathom the extent of the divine teachings that were about to unfold.
I noticed she lived alone in the field without any other horses and asked if I could visit her there. Over the next year, with the owner’s permission, I showed up daily, carrots in hand, and simply sat with her in the field. I felt she needed company. Or was that me? I never had a relationship with one particular horse, only the school horses who would be saddled and ready to go; but was that really a relationship, or a one-sided affair? This one was clearly different. I sat with her for hours upon hours, into the sunset and into the night, and sometimes into the sunrise. In those moments, time and space faded into one timeless eternity.
What was to emerge between the two of us from that place of utter stillness and silent communication was completely unexpected. The tremendous surge of emotions and sensations that arose from within the depths of my darkness was both overwhelming and awe-inspiring. Through an ongoing eruption of emotions, I laughed like a playful child, and I wailed in a vast ocean of sorrow that resonated through the rainforest to the depths of the volcano’s core. What I shared with this beautiful mare in those secret, sacred moments will remain a mystery. I truly wish that I could remember the details of the stories we told each other that were held so religiously in the medicinal treasure chamber of nature, only to be witnessed by the trees, birds, insects and our lonely hearts.
Through the greyness of nearly three decades of trauma, and in the sanctity of shared space with my Rainbow Horse, a light began to appear among the shadows of numbness. My mind slowly began to still from the rumination over the multiple narratives, meaning-makings and judgements it had been attached to for so long, and a newness of sensations and colours began to paint my inner and outer worlds. Anui Nui gently acknowledged and validated my pain, with her sweet accepting eyes and gentle nudges. She guided me into presence with her deep healing breaths allowing me the space to show up for myself and inhabit my body, mind and heart in a new way. For the first time in my 27 years, I felt utterly and completely safe.
My world became a blank canvas of new insights. I was seeing through the eyes of an innocent child suddenly coming into existence with curiosity and wonderment over the simplicity of life. Everything now appeared vibrantly colourful; the grass was greener, the sky was bluer, the smells of the forest were sweeter, and the sounds of nature were like a harmonic symphony. At the time, I did not understand or care to know about why I was suddenly awakened into a new way of being. I simply relished in the experience of genuine presence, with Anui Nui by my side, connecting me to my true heart through her calm and authentic presence. I could not fool her. I could not pretend. With each passing moment, she looked into my soul, inviting me to emerge as my true self, without fear. And so, I did; day after day, sunset after sunset, sunrise after sunrise.
My deeply connected relationship with Anui Nui evolved beyond the field into many magnificent adventures, trekking across treacherous lava fields, and exploring lush fern forests. But we mostly communed in times of rest, quietly attuning to each other in moments of silence and in sync with nature. It was an unconditional love like no other.
The Great Wisdom
Over the coming years and decades, I developed deep relationships with many beautiful horses, always remembering the great wisdom that my special Rainbow Horse had gifted to me. Among the many lessons my great teacher revealed in our shared moments of stillness, was the deep knowing that I am worthy of love, just as I am, trauma and all.
I commenced a long-standing professional career of working with vulnerable young people, committed to offering support and guidance to children, teens and families in my community in any way possible. Somehow, the most traumatized kids seemed to find me. Perhaps I could see into their hearts the way Rainbow Horse looked into mine, and I would now have the chance to return the offer of solace, in the fields with my horses, as often as I could, to the most wandering of the lost young souls. The transformation I witnessed before my eyes when hurt humans connected with horses, was astounding. I watched the unfolding of the tiny and enormous miracles that can be possible, that I myself had experienced through the deep horse-human connection. A shy young child stopped my biggest horse in her very tracks, just by looking at her in the eyes and holding up one small hand in silence. A traumatized teen boy with aggressive behaviours, simply melted into the shoulder of my pony, silently relishing in the calmness of his own body against the soft horse who had fallen asleep with the boy’s gentle caress. A mother of four children, two with special needs, would come weekly just to drink a cup of tea among the horses, softly sobbing in an unspoken ritual of release.
We now have a better understanding, a veritable ‘great wisdom’, of the co-regulating effect that horses have on human physiology. Horses have an innate capability to maintain a state of coherence within their own bodies and extend this through energetic frequencies into the space around them, permeating the human energy field. In the presence of horses, humans can increase the optimum capacity within our bodies for physical and emotional healing, essentially allowing us to metabolize the stuck energy from our past traumas, so that dissonance and tension can begin to move through the body and dissolve. Newer findings in the areas of somatics, energetics and quantum physics, as well as understanding the dual impacts and benefits of symbiotic inter-species relationships, have provided insight into the ‘syncing’ of biological and emotional states between animals and humans. The clear bio-feedback and sense of embodiment that horses offer in a moment of connection with people is very apparent, and a powerful agent for positive physical, emotional and spiritual shifts and personal growth.
For me, the evidence was crystal clear through each beautiful moment of silent connection with the lone horse in a field, my magical Rainbow Horse. In my world of darkness, suddenly I could see an infinite, luminous, cosmic palette of colours.
The colours of stillness, the colours of self, the colours of healing, the colours of love, the colours of life.~*~
Over the coming years and decades, I developed deep relationships with many beautiful horses, always remembering the great wisdom that my special Rainbow Horse had gifted to me. Among the many lessons my great teacher revealed in our shared moments of stillness, was the deep knowing that I am worthy of love, just as I am, trauma and all.
I commenced a long-standing professional career of working with vulnerable young people, committed to offering support and guidance to children, teens and families in my community in any way possible. Somehow, the most traumatized kids seemed to find me. Perhaps I could see into their hearts the way Rainbow Horse looked into mine, and I would now have the chance to return the offer of solace, in the fields with my horses, as often as I could, to the most wandering of the lost young souls. The transformation I witnessed before my eyes when hurt humans connected with horses, was astounding. I watched the unfolding of the tiny and enormous miracles that can be possible, that I myself had experienced through the deep horse-human connection. A shy young child stopped my biggest horse in her very tracks, just by looking at her in the eyes and holding up one small hand in silence. A traumatized teen boy with aggressive behaviours, simply melted into the shoulder of my pony, silently relishing in the calmness of his own body against the soft horse who had fallen asleep with the boy’s gentle caress. A mother of four children, two with special needs, would come weekly just to drink a cup of tea among the horses, softly sobbing in an unspoken ritual of release.
We now have a better understanding, a veritable ‘great wisdom’, of the co-regulating effect that horses have on human physiology. Horses have an innate capability to maintain a state of coherence within their own bodies and extend this through energetic frequencies into the space around them, permeating the human energy field. In the presence of horses, humans can increase the optimum capacity within our bodies for physical and emotional healing, essentially allowing us to metabolize the stuck energy from our past traumas, so that dissonance and tension can begin to move through the body and dissolve. Newer findings in the areas of somatics, energetics and quantum physics, as well as understanding the dual impacts and benefits of symbiotic inter-species relationships, have provided insight into the ‘syncing’ of biological and emotional states between animals and humans. The clear bio-feedback and sense of embodiment that horses offer in a moment of connection with people is very apparent, and a powerful agent for positive physical, emotional and spiritual shifts and personal growth.
For me, the evidence was crystal clear through each beautiful moment of silent connection with the lone horse in a field, my magical Rainbow Horse. In my world of darkness, suddenly I could see an infinite, luminous, cosmic palette of colours.
The colours of stillness, the colours of self, the colours of healing, the colours of love, the colours of life.~*~
