NEW LEADERSHIP
In the years of practising as an Equine Assisted Learning coach, I learned about a new way of leadership.
Horses are sovereign beings, complete within themselves yet one with the herd, their greater environment, the earth and Spirit.
While it may look to us like there is a leader of the herd and a pecking order, maybe these are just our own mental constructs as a way to describe and understand the horses’ social system from within our own reality.
The integrity of the herd is a close-knit tapestry with no herd member being more and another being less important or valuable. They are all equal because each one is a sovereign being. When you are a sovereign being there is no need to establish dominance, hierarchy, ‘top dog’ or who’s in charge. The need for competition doesn’t arise. You simply know who you are and through this inner knowing also feel the interconnectedness with everyone and everything.
With such a degree of sensitivity to Self and Other it is now possible to recognize and accept when it is a moment to step back and when it is time to step forward, when to act and when to be still and wait… because we are all connected to ourselves, each other and the Greater Good.
In fact, I have noticed with my own herd of horses that different horses step forward to lead in different situations. For example, the mare who appears to be the second lowest in the pecking order at feed time, is the one who will go first in a scary situation on a trail ride. She goes before the gelding who has the stallion position in my herd and who looks like the undisputed leader of his herd. He leads with kindness, fairness, calmness and clarity and the other herd members respect him. The mare who comes across as the most dominant, certainly at feed time, is not the lead mare of the herd. She is often seen on her own, just a little distanced from the rest of the horses. She is not as predictable in her emotions and actions as the lead mare who is a mare in the middle of the pecking order but when the herd is called from the big pasture they all come as soon as she makes the first move.
When horses play and test their strength and speed and if there is an outcome with a ‘winner’ and a ‘looser’ (human terms), even the ‘looser’ comes back for another round. Winning a play fight seems to mean nothing beyond that. No conclusions are drawn from the outcome. No judgements are passed. As humans we observe a pecking order in a herd of horses with one horse being over another yet the higher-ranking horse is not any more important in the tapestry of the whole herd and greater whole. Humans find that hard to understand. Horses understand their own and each other’s uniqueness.
< We all have a unique vibration.
Our life duty is to recover this unique vibration,
this living image of The Holy One.
We can help each other recover this vibration. >
(from the Aramaic Beatitudes by Neil Donald Klotz)
The horses know who they are and through this inner knowing also feel the interconnectedness with their herd (family), their greater environment (friends, work, community, nature, world) and with Spirit (God). They have a glue which holds them together. A lot of humans had this ‘holding together’ weakened through a lack of it in childhood. We have not had the warm embrace and the support to bring all the inner parts together to One Whole.
This is how we can learn and become whole with the horses.
beate_sommer@bigpond.com
mob. 0408247965
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