This is Melissa. I think I'm going to start to write in a different font, so that you can easily tell the difference between my posts and K's. If you cannot see this in italics for some reason or you have a better idea, please post a suggestion.
Well, it's going to start to be boring for you all to read about all my good days with Little Love, but today was another one. I was a bit nervous about what to do with her, because K had told me that she was a bit on edge yesterday due to all the rain we have been having. It was raining again this morning when I arrived at the barn, so I didn't know what to expect. But true to form, as soon as I was near Little Love, I was calm again. More on that later...
I decided to just behave as if it were not raining, so we set out on a walk. We walked to our usual grazing spot with no problems, but I decided to try to push us a bit. I told Little Love how much I love walking in the countryside and that I hope to be able to go on long walks with her someday. I also told her that I thought it would be good for our relationship to push ourselves in order to learn more about and hopefully increase our level of trust in each other. Then, as I have seen K do, I told her that I was going to ask her four times and that if she really insisted on not going with me, I would give up after those four tries. She followed me the second time I asked! :-) So we took a short walk up the road and came back to graze near the barn.
I've been trying to analyze the level of calmness I find when I am with Little Love. And the level of calmness we seem to find together. I have always loved animals, especially dogs and horses, but I've thought for some time that horses have some sort of magic in them that I have not found in other animals (although I suspect there might be something similar in giraffes?). I have especially found this to be true in Little Love and the way she brings calmness, relaxation, and awareness to me when I am in her presence. Today I started to analyze where this comes from. Does Little Love have some extra special horse magic in her, or is this the result of the way she has been handled and related to 100% of the time since K became her owner? Could all horses have this extra special magic if they were treated with such trust, cooperation, and respect and given the freedom to make choices whenever possible?
I also want to quickly relate an experience I had at the end of our time together today. In recent months, I have found that when I am with many horses and even some dogs, I have an almost palpable urge to touch them. This has also been the case with Little Love since she came to Finland. I know that she does not enjoy being touched very much, so I refrain. But my compulsion to do so was great today. So what I did, with her permission, was to run my hands over her back, sides, and hips while keeping a few centimeters between my hand and her skin. In other words, no contact. I'm not sure she was even 100% OK with this, but I sensed that she tolerated it as a gift to me. What I felt was an amazing sense of warmth coming into my hand and a flow of electricity into my body, energizing me. I imagine that this is something like what it would feel like to have a reiki treatment, and trying reiki is something that has been on my mind for the past several months. So today, I came home and booked myself a reiki treatment immediately. I'll know more about it next week!
-- Melissa
Do any of you have any experiences with reiki or other forms of energy work, especially with horses? If so, please share them with us!
Well, it's going to start to be boring for you all to read about all my good days with Little Love, but today was another one. I was a bit nervous about what to do with her, because K had told me that she was a bit on edge yesterday due to all the rain we have been having. It was raining again this morning when I arrived at the barn, so I didn't know what to expect. But true to form, as soon as I was near Little Love, I was calm again. More on that later...
I decided to just behave as if it were not raining, so we set out on a walk. We walked to our usual grazing spot with no problems, but I decided to try to push us a bit. I told Little Love how much I love walking in the countryside and that I hope to be able to go on long walks with her someday. I also told her that I thought it would be good for our relationship to push ourselves in order to learn more about and hopefully increase our level of trust in each other. Then, as I have seen K do, I told her that I was going to ask her four times and that if she really insisted on not going with me, I would give up after those four tries. She followed me the second time I asked! :-) So we took a short walk up the road and came back to graze near the barn.
I've been trying to analyze the level of calmness I find when I am with Little Love. And the level of calmness we seem to find together. I have always loved animals, especially dogs and horses, but I've thought for some time that horses have some sort of magic in them that I have not found in other animals (although I suspect there might be something similar in giraffes?). I have especially found this to be true in Little Love and the way she brings calmness, relaxation, and awareness to me when I am in her presence. Today I started to analyze where this comes from. Does Little Love have some extra special horse magic in her, or is this the result of the way she has been handled and related to 100% of the time since K became her owner? Could all horses have this extra special magic if they were treated with such trust, cooperation, and respect and given the freedom to make choices whenever possible?
I also want to quickly relate an experience I had at the end of our time together today. In recent months, I have found that when I am with many horses and even some dogs, I have an almost palpable urge to touch them. This has also been the case with Little Love since she came to Finland. I know that she does not enjoy being touched very much, so I refrain. But my compulsion to do so was great today. So what I did, with her permission, was to run my hands over her back, sides, and hips while keeping a few centimeters between my hand and her skin. In other words, no contact. I'm not sure she was even 100% OK with this, but I sensed that she tolerated it as a gift to me. What I felt was an amazing sense of warmth coming into my hand and a flow of electricity into my body, energizing me. I imagine that this is something like what it would feel like to have a reiki treatment, and trying reiki is something that has been on my mind for the past several months. So today, I came home and booked myself a reiki treatment immediately. I'll know more about it next week!
-- Melissa
Do any of you have any experiences with reiki or other forms of energy work, especially with horses? If so, please share them with us!
Hi Melissa! Thank you for a lovely post! I am an equine bodyworker. I use the general term "bodyworker" because there is a lot that goes under this heading... and energy work or exchange is the first piece that comes before all the other modalities. What a wonderful experience you had with Little Love, that "hovering" touch is very powerful, I've used it on a traumatized thoroughbred that couldn't be touched. I perform acupressure with horses, and touching this scared and angry gelding was not going to work! I was able to use this hovering technique very effectively, gently "touching" the necessary points to give him relief. Reiki is a wonderful component to energy work with horses ( I think they are natural Reiki masters... really! :) ) The most amazing part of this kind of exchange with horses is they are so giving, often offering the energy healing before you ask for it. I'm so glad you have touched upon this magical and life changing aspect of horse and human connection, keep doing it! Little Love will offer you amazing experiences from here on out!
ReplyDeleteI think Melissa and Little Love will be really "good" for each other in many ways. I have always had a very strong sense of those two "belonging" together, even more so than Little Love and me. I can't really explain it, but perhaps it will all be clear some day, when I can have hindsight!
ReplyDelete~K
Hi Melissa,
ReplyDeleteMy mare Minnie is not fond of being touched either, in fact I never even enter her space without being invited in first. I often "stroke" Minnie exactly the way you describe it, with a few centimeters in between my hand and Minnie's skin, but not the same distance everywhere. Minnie is a very nervous mare and she finds it very relaxing, she often yawns while I "massage" her that way.
So - question for tmdunphy - in your experience, horses offer healing to people? Cos one of our horses did that the other day.
ReplyDeleteHi June, tmdunphy here... Yes, horses quite often offer healing to people just as they ( the horse) are receptive to the offering of healing from the human. It's a wonderful feeling to have a horse offer this up, and you can be sure if you think you "felt" this from your horse, you most likely needed it and you can trust that feeling.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who is a Kinesiologist and she does a lot of work with horses. She is actually the one who made me wake up to myself and realise that animals have insight, feelings, fears.....
ReplyDeleteI think I mentioned her in K's other blog. She came to see my TB gelding when he was having problems with his back. He told her he had been hiding the pain for a long time because if I couldn't ride him, he thought I would get rid of him and he would be left hungry and alone like before. She was spot on. When he finished racing he was left to starve until I bought him. I cried that day. What he must have seen in his racing days. The friends who were disposed of. His fear I may do the same. It still makes me sad to think he went through that.
tmdunphy - oh yes, no doubt about it - he told me to sit down, and then he stuck his head in a narrow space next to my feet, which is the part of me that needed healing, and it was instantaneous. It was a healing of awareness of tension and habit, rather than any sort of miraculous "cure" - but totally efficacious nonetheless. And it happened because the day before I had worked with the vet on how to respect his "no", which resulted in no shots being given that day but was a hugely positive experience for the horse. He is a very vulnerable horse. Do you think vulnerability and a healing gift go together?
ReplyDeleteYes, to both your question and Kamila's story about her thoroughbred gelding. I think that it's not so much that the horse is vulnerable ( at least to our way of thinking) but simply open and trusting. As K has experienced, if the human is open and trusting, the horse knows this and will offer its trust and then the healing begins. Beautiful to experience this with these horses, the healing... I think the power of the healing is such because there is that connection, that trust. It cannot be without it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your reply, tmdunphy!
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant by vulnerable was that this horse was very, very defensive when I first knew him, and very mistrustful. I wonder if his openness and trustingness had been abused in his earlier life before I knew him. I've known horses who have like a huge warm bubble surrounding them, making a welcoming space for humans and other horses alike. This horse of ours was the opposite, he seemed to have no bubble at all, but to be, as it were, raw and naked to the world - hence his irritability at anyone coming close to him. He wanted to keep everyone in front of him where he could see them at all times. I have a daughter with a healing gift who has this same quality of nakedness to the world, which in her case is not synonymous with trustingness, although they can coincide.
Unfortunately, research shows that most training methods in the conventional horse industry are using the horse's nature against it, meaning either by persistent pressure or pain ( physical and emotional), humans get the desired behavior from the horse. The flight response is most often used ( chasing in a round pen, etc.) and this creates huge psychological symptoms. This poor horse you speak of was vulnerable, I see that... doesn't have to be a placid (learned helplessness kind of vulnerable) demeanor. Something or a lot of somethings were done to this horse you speak of, yes?
ReplyDeleteProbably, but I don't know anything about his early life.
ReplyDeleteI asked this healer I know, who does healing work in a variety of modalities, and she said that those with a healing gift tend to be especially vulnerable.
ReplyDeleteI think that's a true statement. The sensitivity needed to heal, or to "tap" into someone or something's ( a horse for example) energy field is often just the nature of the person doing the healing. It's a sensitivity that's hard to "turn off", or protect from un-wanted things or emotions. As we go along in life, we sort of learn to gauge the energetic situation and apply protection as needed. :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, and our horse used to use his teeth to "apply protection as needed"!
ReplyDeleteIsn't that the truth! Whatever it takes, huh? :)
ReplyDelete