"The horse, the horse! The symbol of surging potency and power of movement of action in man."
~ D. H. Lawrence
My love for horses and the equestrian art runs deep in my blood. To me their spirits have allowed me to find peace and face my fears, for a rider must have not fear nor anger. Horses have this enormous capacity to love, to trust, to make you laugh, cry, and to find deep truth that lies within yourself. The relationships between horse and rider, equine and human are unique, beautiful, and cannot be truly put into words; however, J. Edward Chamberlin discribes the relationship eloquently in his book Horse.
"Great trainers become famous not because their horses win this or that race, nor because they gentle this or that giant - though they often do both - but because they cross the line between the human and the non-human. This is no more mysterious than a foreign language when we first see it or hear it. But it can transform us; and as we learn the new language we find ourselves thinking and feeling differently without even realizing it."
"A good trainer can hear a horse speak to him.
A great trainer can hear him whisper. "
~ Monty Roberts
"Anybody who has spent much time around horses including those who talk about how horses heal us has stories like this. Horses give us a lot of bruises and broken bones, and nobody who has worked with horses underestimates their capacity to cripple us. So their power to heal us sometimes seems only fair... they do seem to save us from ourselves, not by offering us New Age medicine but by demanding a kind of old-fashioned concentration, similar to that practiced by meditative regimes throughout the world, and with the same stages: composing ourselves in the place we find ourselves in, surrendering our ego, and seeking a moment - no more - of sudden rightness. This takes us into a company of the first person to watch a horse and to wonder at its power and its presence. Its holy ground. It is also dangerous territory.
John Jennings talks about how the moment of suspension is the moment that matters on horseback, the moment between gathering in and moving out, between the rhythms of the horse's movement and your own, between the earth and the air. The great rodeo cowboys say the same thing.
This is the language of meditation... Whatever language we use, it's there in the movement of horse and rider, both concentrated and cavalier (symbolized by the mandatory one hand waiving in a rodeo ride), bringing together the clarity of a flying change of leads with the mystery of how it happened, and hovering between surrender and control."
~ Horse J. Edward Chamberlin
" To practice the Equestrian art is to establish a conversation on a higher level with the horse; a dialogue of courtesy and finesse."
~ Nano Oliveria
~ D. H. Lawrence
My love for horses and the equestrian art runs deep in my blood. To me their spirits have allowed me to find peace and face my fears, for a rider must have not fear nor anger. Horses have this enormous capacity to love, to trust, to make you laugh, cry, and to find deep truth that lies within yourself. The relationships between horse and rider, equine and human are unique, beautiful, and cannot be truly put into words; however, J. Edward Chamberlin discribes the relationship eloquently in his book Horse.
"Great trainers become famous not because their horses win this or that race, nor because they gentle this or that giant - though they often do both - but because they cross the line between the human and the non-human. This is no more mysterious than a foreign language when we first see it or hear it. But it can transform us; and as we learn the new language we find ourselves thinking and feeling differently without even realizing it."
"A good trainer can hear a horse speak to him.
A great trainer can hear him whisper. "
~ Monty Roberts
"Anybody who has spent much time around horses including those who talk about how horses heal us has stories like this. Horses give us a lot of bruises and broken bones, and nobody who has worked with horses underestimates their capacity to cripple us. So their power to heal us sometimes seems only fair... they do seem to save us from ourselves, not by offering us New Age medicine but by demanding a kind of old-fashioned concentration, similar to that practiced by meditative regimes throughout the world, and with the same stages: composing ourselves in the place we find ourselves in, surrendering our ego, and seeking a moment - no more - of sudden rightness. This takes us into a company of the first person to watch a horse and to wonder at its power and its presence. Its holy ground. It is also dangerous territory.
John Jennings talks about how the moment of suspension is the moment that matters on horseback, the moment between gathering in and moving out, between the rhythms of the horse's movement and your own, between the earth and the air. The great rodeo cowboys say the same thing.
This is the language of meditation... Whatever language we use, it's there in the movement of horse and rider, both concentrated and cavalier (symbolized by the mandatory one hand waiving in a rodeo ride), bringing together the clarity of a flying change of leads with the mystery of how it happened, and hovering between surrender and control."
~ Horse J. Edward Chamberlin
" To practice the Equestrian art is to establish a conversation on a higher level with the horse; a dialogue of courtesy and finesse."
~ Nano Oliveria
