Oh man… you are so gonna’ love this next part of the story. If you haven’t read the first part of this blog yet click here for “The Beauty of a Horse’s Soul”
After Hannah won the GoldStar Scholarship, she joined us on our monthly student Live Seminar. I often do a “live lesson” with someone as part of the seminar and that month it turned out that Hannah was it.
It’s a long time ago now, so my memory may not be exact, but in that way that I always seem to work best, we cleared away what was BEHIND Hannah not being able to connect as deeply with Maia as she wanted to, with the yearning that she expressed so eloquently in that last blog. Fast Track people get priority in my free live seminars.
At the time Hannah was away from Maia, working on the other side of the country for three months. After the live session, she connected with Maia by distance – vividly and regularly. There’s a missing bit of the story – I’d love to know exactly what happened in their first meeting together again. Here it is in her own words…
“The Voice of The Divine in a Bareback Ride”
Off to the west, thunder and lightning, but try as it might, the clouds could not fill up the sky with gray. In South Dakota, there is always more sky.
Today was the third afternoon of my bridleless experiment, riding without cordeo, sticks, whips, or anything but myself and my horse; I’d committed to ten rides in a row of this to see if bridleless long term is possible or should stay closed in the realm of the dreamers.
Maybe I’d keep the bridle off for a month. Maybe the summer. Maybe forever. I wouldn’t put any limits on what the Lord wanted me to do.
We face the west, watch the lightning, and Maia snorts into rain-wet wind. Why am I here, Lord? Why do I ride? What am I missing that is beyond just reins and saddles, trot and canter, oat hay and brome grass? There is more—I know there is—there is a reason we long to ride, to be united with the power and the beauty and the sound of hoofbeats in summer grass.
There is more than one reason, actually, but today, there is a specific one: I want you to hear My voice, He says.
So Maia and I set off again, and suddenly, thoughts flood through my mind—sit up taller, look ahead now, yes! and breathe and breathe and breathe. Maia loosens, breathes, and in just a few minutes, we had our breakthrough: long and low at the walk, stretching, forward, softly bent, and utterly, completely bridleless. I haven’t been able to reach that state of beauty on my own. Ever.
In itself, this is not new—to walk with God, to converse about my day and yesterday’s breakfast and the e-mail I’m supposed to send by 3 p.m.—but this is different, now, a God-guided horse training. I haven’t read about that in my books or heard that in my church.
But do you know what this is?
This is hope.
“She was, for the first few moments, fearful of her own lack of skill [to ride Tsornin bridleless], and of the strength of the big horse, but she found they understood each other… She felt almost uneasy that it was too simple, that she understood too readily. But she was too caught up in the beauty of it to wish to doubt it long.”
~The Blue Sword
Jenny:
Hmmm… I have to get this book!
I am almost reluctant to bring Hannah’s beautiful writings back to the practicalities of how she arrived there on that day, with the thoughts and ideas flowing that brought her breakthrough. I say “almost reluctant” only because everybody who wishes to, should be able to experience “The voice of the divine” with their horse should they wish it – and to do that, we need to bring things back to the practicalities and THAT folks is my talent – the practicalities… the “how to do it”. 🙂
What you are reading Hannah describe, is the flow of feel that happens when you are absolutely authentic with your horse, when you are Present, when you listen to your inner wisdom in whatever way it flows uniquely for you and take action on whatever that wisdom is bringing up for you like it did with Hannah in this story. It starts way back when you first connect with them, when you make a commitment to listen to your horse and systematically take action to help them to feel safe.
This is an important point, because you cannot hear that inner voice through either your own or your horse’s fear or anxiety or nerves or frustration or any other yucky feelings that we are resisting. There are levels of authenticity – I am still finding new and more glorious levels of authentic connection with my inner guidance and enjoying the journey with that.
You can call it the Voice of God, you can call it Inner Wisdom, you can call it the Voice of your horse – I believe that no matter what we call it, like Hannah said – we are connecting to the divine…
What Hannah has expressed so beautifully is what I think all of us are really looking for from our horse. It’s certainly that indefinable, magical “it” that I was looking for. The emails that hit my in-box – from people nowhere near as eloquent as Hannah – it’s ROUTINE for me to hear beautiful stories about that magical feeling happening between horse and person during our programs.
There’s another article after this one that talks about after her bridle-less experiment.
oooh, that is so beautiful – it has made my day! there was nothing new Hannah needed to learn, or training techniques she needed to improve – she unblocked to allow the natural flow and to hear the divine through her mare – gorgeous, and may all her good work continue.
You nailed it Joanna. She unblocked her FEEL – that unique talent that WE ALL HAVE – that ability to know in the moment what we have to do to succeed in whatever it is that we are looking for from our horse. There is no technique that substitutes for feel. In fact, very often techniques will actually take you out of the feeling place and create more resistance and problems than they solve. That’s why here we have such a big focus on the practical step by step “how to” develop feel. 🙂