Well with all the snow & ice over Christmas I haven’t really been able to do much with the horses so thought I’d catch up on some reading. A little while ago I spoke to an animal communicator & she recommended that I read some of Linda Kohanov’s books, so I got her book Riding between the worlds, and I have just finished it.
Wow, a little difficult to know where to start to describe it, it was such a fascinating book, completely thought provoking. There were moments while I was reading that memories of my own experiences over the years were triggered & a sort of eureka moment occurred. It offers up a sort of collection of case studies or short stories, from Linda’s own experiences with what she terms Equine experiential learning or equine facilitated therapy, from her own Epona centre in the USA. I’d never heard of this before & found her whole book a revelation, I literally couldn’t put it down & I am inspired to go out & learn more.
Riding Between the worlds is the follow up to her first book “The tao of Equus” which I have still to read, Linda describes Riding Between the worlds as “an opportunity to delve more deeply into the equine mind & spirit to discover more of what these amazing creatures have to teach us about the untapped potential of our own species.”
At her Epona centre, Linda harnesses her horses highly refined ability to sense the feelings of herd members & predators even at a distance, even our suppressed feeling particularly of fear, anger & sadness will be detected by the horses. To survive in the wild horses had to be sensitive to emotional energy & the intention behind it. The horses act like a huge receiver & applifyier for our emotional viberations, so no matter how good you are at hiding & suppressing your emotions even from yourself the horses will pick up on your true feelings. At the epona centre Linda & her herd have helped a wide range of people from abuse survivors, addicts, individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress & depression, even children with attention deficit disorder, and many of these examples are covered through the various short stories in the book.
Equine experiential learning first & foremost expands nonverbal awareness, interacting with horses encourages a fluidity of human thought, emotion & behaviour that sedentary 21st century life makes almost impossible. Horses favour cooperation over competition, responsiveness over strategy, emotion & intuition over logic & the creative approach to life that these qualities engender. We as people have become dependent on language to express our emotions, despite the fact that studies have shown that as little as 10% of communication is dependent on language. Horses enable us to tap back into the 90% that is lost, offering us better understanding of not just ourselves but the world around us.
A truely great read, I would definitely recommend having a read, if for no other reason then to open your mind to other possibilities.
Until next time
With Love
Fiona & Jasper