The Most-Needed Journey

This is a follow-up post on the recovery Dorian and I have been working through. We had a series of freaky, weird, and--to Dorian--very frightening things happen recently in quick succession. We had to back up, sort out some leadership and confidence issues and then we were good to go again.

We went from doing extensive groundwork to riding, focusing our outings to those places where the scary things had occurred, approaching them one at a time. For instance, we spent several days on the large outdoor arena where the saddle had slipped to his underside sending him charging mindlessly around the arena with stirrups clanging.

He likes to pose :)

We went, initially, on a lead. Then under saddle, I rode him around the arena on the outside, heaping praise on him as he moved from completely balking to tentatively giving it a try, to just waltzing around as if all that stuff had never happened.

What a good boy! :)

Then we walked into the arena on a lead, and the next day tried it under saddle

The outdoor arena is BIG!

That's where things got interesting.

Morphogenetic fields allow us to shape, communicate with, and respond to other beings.

During 1994 and 1995, biologist Rupert Sheldrake performed an experiment with Pamela Smart and her dog, Jaytee. Pam left the house 100 times, each time going different distances and being away for different periods of time. Eighty-five percent of the time--85 out of 100 outings--when Pam turned and headed home, Jaytee got up and went to the French windows to await her arrival. He generally did this about 10 minutes before she got home.

Rupert Sheldrake--you can watch YouTube videos of his lectures and the experiment with P.S. and Jaytee.

Amazing, right? In a statistically significant number of times, the dog knew when Pam was heading home, and even the general time frame for her arrival, though she wasn't departing from the same spot.

I don't think this is surprising at all. When my phone alerts me that I have a text I often know who is texting me. More often than not, I know when my daughter's airplane lands if she's traveling and when she's going to call me, she sometimes comes to thought before the phone rings. I have innumerable occurrences of this type and I know I'm not alone.

It's certainly true in my relationship with Dorian, as I've chronicled in my blog posts.

This type of "knowing" is especially true when we're communicating with our animals. I caught Dorian napping the other day though he was at the barn and I was home--he was dreaming he was a little colt romping around the pasture. SUCH a cutie. :)

Morphogenetic fields are within us and surround us and we can learn to open to them as well as use them in really joyful and practical ways.

Curious once he calmed down.

Back to Dorian. Once under saddle, I gave our mental communication--connecting via the "morphogenetic field"-- a serious try. As we approached the arena, I pictured us going through the gate, turning to the right, then turning around and leaving, silently letting him know that if he did that our session would be over. Sure enough, as we approached, he went right through the gate, turned to the right and stopped. He got a bunch of pats and out the gate we went.

Many, many trainers tell their riding students to look up, look ahead, and expect that your horse will do exactly as you instruct him. I think that's a version of what I'm talking about here.

And it has enormous implications for how we can handle our own "instructions"--ask yourself what your expectation is about a new endeavor. Do you have your head up, are you looking ahead, do you have a clear picture of your intention, do you expect to achieve exactly what you're setting out to do?

Good questions, I think. Just as with our animals, we can connect with ourselves in exactly the same way and with the same buoyant expectations.

This is the goal--a calm, curious, alert horse ready to go forward.

Ok, returning to our story . . . Next time we headed for the arena under saddle, the picture was this: through the gate, once around the arena at a walk, then out. And you can guess what happened. Dorian unhesitatingly did exactly as I'd pictured. The whole thing was effortless.

The most-needed Journey is always into ourselves.

So what is the take-away? I know I've been doing a lot of soul searching lately, a lot of research, and digging even more deeply into myself to find answers to some questions I have about identity, purpose, and direction. Questions about what I really want to do and how to actually get there . . . Questions about the nature of reality (ha ha, you know, those easy, simple questions :) . . . and the more deeply I've taken this journey--a journey really into myself--the more centered, calm, and present I've become.

As I've continued this process, Dorian has responded, becoming increasingly easier to work with, easier to communicate with, and much more present himself. It's an interchange, a relationship, we can have with others and with ourselves I think.

Dorian is really "hooked on" --standing square to me, ears forward. Ready to listen!

Morphogenetic fields fascinate me, as does Quantum physics, which I've touch on earlier. We are literally all in this together. I think it's up to each of us to ask ourselves where, exactly that is. And then, how do we want to shape that all-important journey . . . into ourselves and equally as important, the one we're all taking together?