What If You Are a Horse in Human Form Read Online Free Page B

non-striving produces better results than stressful striving. (This is not to be confused with doing nothing. Rather, it is a way of approaching goals in a measured, selfpaced way that avoids creating frustration and stress.) Some humans, such as Quakers and Taoists, already think and live this way, and Linda Kohanov has observed that horses are natural Taoists. Her first book, The Tao of Equus (literally, “The Way of the Horse”) goes into all of this in much more detail. Since horses are largely no longer needed as working animals (although this may change in the future, as I’ll explain later in the book), the Horse Ancestors want our two peoples to have a closer, more mutually beneficial relationship that will make this world a better place for horses and humans.
    My back injury had a purpose, as was revealed to me later in the session. I received it in the late summer of 1980 when I fell off Copper, a buckskin gelding. The saddle’s girth had become loose and the saddle slid (rotated, that is) around his belly. My left foot remained stuck in its stirrup, and he dragged me. When he refused to stop, I became angry and yanked his neck around hard using the reins, injuring it. (I had not told Linda about this yet, but more on it in a moment).
    I lay on my bed to make myself comfortable, and Linda Kohanov described to me how to contact the Horse Ancestors (one of several ways). She suggested that I close my eyes and breathe deeply into my solar plexus while visualizing light coming from the universe above, entering my head, and flowing down to my solar plexus. She then asked me to imagine standing on the Earth and drawing energy up from the Earth, and sending the energy back down into the Earth with each exhalation. Next, she asked me to visualize a ball of golden light in my solar plexus (the light being the timeless and wise part of my higher self), and then she asked me to connect via a verbal request with the creative force (God, or whatever one chooses to call it [I think God is a being with thoughts and a personality, not an impersonal force]). She asked me to visualize the golden light spreading throughout my body.
    Having done this, she then instructed me to ask to connect with the Horse Ancestors. With my eyes still closed, I asked to connect with them. I saw a pink streak across my field of vision, but nothing else at this point. I began to slide into the equine form of consciousness that I remember having in my natural equine form and when I was a child in this human form (and even now, whenever I let the human-conditioned patterns of thought slip away). Instead of concentrating all of my attention on one thing at a time as humans do, I became acutely aware of all of my senses and even my internal organs. I felt my consciousness spreading throughout my body. I had a “wrap-around” awareness of every pressure point on my body, every scent, every sound, and every air current in the room that flowed over my skin.
    This is how horses perceive the world, since we are prey animals who must always be on the watch for predators. We must also remain alert for signals from our herdmates to flee. A predator who fails to catch a prey animal today will live to hunt again tomorrow, but a prey animal’s first mistake while trying to avoid or run away from a predator is often his or her last. Thankfully, most of us horses are now domesticated and no longer have to live in fear of predators, but we still have the instincts and reactions of the prey animals that we are.
    Moments later, I had to get up to relieve my bladder. When I returned, I had some difficulty getting comfortable again due to my back pain. I remarked to Linda about “How our bodies betray us.” She instantly countered that our bodies NEVER betray us, but that pains have deeper messages for us. She said that this was a human conclusion based on the mistaken belief that the mind rules the body (or should). I also mentioned to her at this juncture that my