As beings of different species this life of Horse and Human is comprised of joys, triumphs, disappointments, insight, humility, astonishment, struggle and elation. There is no end to our learning, our adventure and our experience in this amazing journey. But it is not always as we hope or dream… or plan.
Being a person that is consumed with understanding the Divine Source I sometimes find myself in tremendous conflict with what I believe, verses what is an obvious witness to what is happening in my life. Recently I had an experience that harshly challenged all that I say I believe about any Divine Being. I felt like I was being accountable, pro-active and applying honest effort towards a much-needed change in my life. And the only reward was struggle after struggle and survival, nothing seemed to appease the gods, no matter how much I consciously applied what I believed to be the right answer.
During this time I had to board my Horses, I do not like being separated from them, and, they were in a much smaller space than normal. Chant, my bay Mare, is very interactive and is always looking to communicate and I felt like she was confused as to why we were in this situation, so I deliberately made extra time to spend together to diminish the effects of this circumstance.
While grooming her I had the thought; this is what Horses feel when we are trying to communicate, yet we fail. The Horse feels like they are responding to our request, as they understand it, yet all they get in return is; try harder and guess harder as to what it is that we want from them. And, while we look for clearer ways to educate them so that we can progress in our calling together; sometimes it seems all we get back is more challenge from them.
This analogy caused me to take a step back, from both the search for Divine, and the quest for connection with my Horse. Perhaps the answer is not in the effort to understand or to communicate, perhaps it is in the ‘being’ itself. If effort has failed or brought more questions, then maybe it is in the stillness that we continue. Perhaps it’s in the absence of motion that we progress. Maybe it is the ‘looking for answers’ that keeps us looking rather than seeing.
If seeing is the solution, then how do we ‘see’ if we are not looking? It came to me, that we stop looking with our thoughts and our intentions, with our experience and education. Instead we allow the eyes of innocence and pristine stillness to make themselves known.
As Humans, this can be our demise because we tend to push with our thoughts and agenda, urgent to overcome this situation and be on to the next. Horses help us to create through stillness.
As I stood silent and thoughtless with Enchantress, I felt the swirling within me start to settle and the space between us fused, and I saw the intangible. Seeing with the eyes of stillness is like seeing in the dark. When we enter the darkness, we do not run blindly, pushing to get the job done. In the dark we settle, we wait, find our bearings and become acutely aware of all things in our environment. Here is where we experience the true quest because we cannot grasp wildly for tangible effects easily within sight. Perhaps by detaching from all that we have previously relied on, we make way for new possibilities that transcend our prior beliefs.
The Invitation
If a situation arises and it seems unanswerable, that all applied knowledge is amiss, step back. Stop thinking, analyzing, stop applying all that you have learned and allow yourself to enter the intangible. Your Horse is a great instrument for this practice; allow your Horse to help you explore new frontiers that can only be created through stillness.
Delaya Diana © 2020