The Power of the Herd (30 page)

Nakia, a dark bay Thoroughbred ex-racehorse, was nervous, pushy, and obstinate under saddle. We'd occasionally have nice rides, when it suited
her,
and while she never tried to buck me off, she scared the crap out of me in all kinds of heart-stopping ways on the ground, sometimes rearing and spinning around, other times jerking back when tied to the hitching post, breaking the lead rope and running wild around the barnyard. Luckily I didn't wait too long to get some help. But
good help,
as it turned out, was hard to find.

My earliest trainers told me ad nauseum that I had to “be the alpha of my two-member herd” while demonstrating all kinds of special bits, whips, and restraints. They also promoted a surprisingly uniform series of stern looks, well-timed smacks, and gruff, shaming phrases I was supposed to mimic — in a mild southern drawl, no less. Amazingly, whether my teachers and fellow boarders grew up in Ohio, Indiana, New York, or California, they all sounded like they hailed from Texas or Alabama when they used the word
Quit!
to correct some form of undesirable behavior. And they didn't take too kindly to questions about how humane their methods were. “Horses aren't too bright,” they insisted. “Downright dangerous if you don't teach them who's boss.” (These phrases too were underlined with “the drawl,” apparently communicating a kind of cowboy logic that silly, sentimental women like me shouldn't argue with.) So, while I had bought a horse to relax, to escape the pressures of work, I was engaged in all kinds of power plays at the barn that I had no idea how to handle.

By that time, I had been a leader or manager in a variety of situations. People, for the most part, responded well to my enthusiastic, supportive, nondominant style. But I had been promoted or nominated into positions that already
existed. My title as “director” or “chairman” of whatever professional organization or nonprofit committee I was working on preceded me, enhanced immeasurably by my notoriety as a music critic and journalist. I was only vaguely conscious of the fact that people respected me, in part, because they wanted something from me — press, connections, airplay, funding, a lucrative gig at the next jazz festival — and so it didn't take much for me to motivate them. What power I did have was related to reputation, position, words, and inspiring ideas. But Nakia didn't want any of these things from me. I could also see that she didn't respond well to intimidation and punishment, and that efforts to shame her into compliance had absolutely no effect whatsoever. Nakia, like many horses, was confused, and even a bit crazy, because the methods trainers past and present employed were at best sorely lacking and, at times, downright abusive.

To succeed in a human-equine subculture, this spirited mare craved
real
direction, connection, respect, and leadership: a powerful, centered, trustworthy presence that could calm and focus her, helping her to face her fears, modulate her energy, and over time, develop her talents. But that kind of power, that kind of presence, was a lot like the Tao, a force beyond words and concepts that drew its greatest strength from the invisible dimensions of existence, combining yin and yang to
lead
by
following
the horse's own natural instincts, channeling them in a more productive, more masterful direction.

It literally took me
years
to understand this, let alone write about it. But when I published my first book,
The Tao of Equus,
in 2001, I wasn't chronicling my conversion to an oriental philosophy. I was emphasizing that people needed to consider the nonverbal and unseen forces of power, feeling, mind, and relationship if they hoped to excel in life. And I was unabashedly promoting horses as the most efficient teachers of nonpredatory wisdom, exercising those elusive yet profound intelligence centers in the heart and the gut that are so crucial to developing leadership presence and emotional and social intelligence. Twelve years ago, however, I didn't have the vocabulary to sum this up succinctly, mostly because the research necessary to say what I just said didn't exist. As a result, my first book had an air of mystery to it that was somewhat accurate — and somewhat misleading, causing some readers to believe that my horses and I had developed supernatural powers; there were, however, elements to our journey that I still can't explain. Artists, innovators, and horse trainers have been dealing with this same challenge for centuries.

In an article on Ray Hunt, one of the fathers of “natural horsemanship,” the interviewer marveled at his techniques, outlined the basic concepts he could summarize in words, and then quoted Hunt as saying that there was
an indescribable
“one other thing
that makes it all work
. And I don't know what that is.” The writer said she was “glad” this “one thing couldn't be packaged and put on a menu and ordered up like some brand of beer. It was real though; and it could be known, but only in the moment.”

I've since learned that this
one other thing
is actually a combination of several, wholly nonverbal skills involving the effective use of timing, focus, assertiveness, intersubjective awareness, and somatic cues, including changes in blood pressure, muscle tension, and breathing (yes, breathing is a language to horses). It also entails the even more impressive ability to fluidly adjust to those cues from moment to moment — all while keeping the original riding or training goal in mind.

A great trainer sees what others ignore, and responds to subtle feelings even he isn't fully conscious of, which is why it's so difficult for him to teach what he knows. The resulting aura of charisma, wisdom, and mystery such a person generates can be awe inspiring, which is why some people speak of equestrian innovators with the same deference and admiration they normally reserve for religious leaders.

The territory is similar in many ways. Nineteenth-century horse whisperers seemed to harness magical forces, embodying both saint and sorcerer. Some trainers played this up for notoriety and profit, perhaps even believing their own press. (Before the late twentieth century, similarly gifted women, on the other hand, would have kept their talents quiet, as their social standing, in some cases their very survival, depended upon
avoiding
rumors of unearthly powers.) Mastery of that “other 90 percent,” however, did not mean these people were channeling supernatural forces. Even so, it took a special person to wrangle the unseen, unspoken elements of existence into a reliable set of skills that could tame unruly horses.

In recent years, equestrian clinicians like Linda Tellington-Jones, Mary Wanless, Sally Swift, Pat Parelli, and Pat's equally accomplished wife, Linda, have spent significant time researching how people learn somatically as well as cognitively, developing sequences of riding and training techniques broken down into easily digestible chunks. And even then, it's hit or miss, especially with horse owners looking for a quick fix. Some students go through a predictable stage of talking, walking, and dressing like the innovator as they buy the special equipment, read the books, and study the videos. Yet people often experience significant frustration when these same rituals don't immediately work
with intensely discerning horses. Efforts to mimic the leader are not at all silly, however — as long as people eventually realize that the example they're following goes deeper than clothes, quips, tack, and gestures. What students really need to emulate is something indescribable: a whole constellation of nonverbal insights, feelings, and responses that the clinician can only dimly approximate with the most sophisticated words and methods.

As the Buddha once said to an eager disciple, teachings of real significance are
“similar to a person pointing his finger at the moon
to show it to someone else. Guided by the finger, that person should see the moon. If he looks at the finger instead and mistakes it for the moon, he loses not only the moon but the finger also.” In other words, anyone who fixates on the methods, metaphors, mannerisms, and equipment the teacher uses to draw attention to invisible or nonverbal forces or insights misses the entire point.

True visionaries don't just notice what was previously hidden or ignored by the culture at large; they help others to see it and use it. Communicating the unspeakable becomes an essential part of the innovator's job, as does handling the frustration of being misunderstood and struggling, constantly, to create more clarity. We're not just talking art and religion here. The classic “finger pointing at the moon” dilemma most certainly applies to countless other disciplines, especially those related to leadership presence and social intelligence. In this respect, horses are emerging as reliable catalysts for expanded vision, empowerment, and the recognition of other, currently unnameable skills necessary for people to excel.

Ulrike Dietmann — a talented writer who established her own Epona-based equine-facilitated learning practice in Germany — teaches creativity, leadership, and personal-development skills that help others sense and follow their own unique callings. Her translated book
On the Wings of Horses: A Hero's Journey into the Heart of the Creature
says it best:
“Animals reflect our internal states
. Their behavior follows an invisible energy. This is something that astonishes me again and again. They make the invisible visible.” As strong, intensely mindful, nonpredatory, social beings, horses are the ultimate guides on our quest to discover a more balanced form of power while cultivating freedom-through-relationship, a pastoral innovation related to what English-speaking Buddhists call “dependent co-arising.”

So at this point, would it really surprise anyone to learn that, before he became enlightened, the Buddha was revered as an exceptional horseman?

G
aining the trust of an angry stallion
is an ancient power story, one that predicts greatness. But what does it mean? What skills and intrinsic personal qualities does this archetype promote?

Alexander the Great outshone his father's officers in gentling the unruly Bucephalus, a spirited horse who subsequently carried his one and only master through numerous conquests, helping him subdue the known world all the way to India. There Alexander named a city after his loyal companion, who was reportedly killed at age thirty during the Battle of the Hydaspes (in what is now known as Pakistan) in 326
BCE
.

Similar horse-taming tales are told about a young prince who lived in northeast India over two hundred years earlier, though his brand of power turned out to be much different from Alexander's. Siddhartha Gautama too was raised to become an emperor-warrior. And indeed, shortly before his birth in 563
BCE
, oracles told his father, King Suddhodana, that Siddhartha would become a great leader. But there was one nagging hitch. A sage named Asita sensed a crossroad in the prince's path, one that shook Suddhodana to the core. If the young prince contemplated the nature of suffering, Asita predicted, Siddhartha would renounce his kingdom and instead become a saint, one capable of leading others to peace.

As the story goes, Suddhodana tried to combat this possibility by shielding his son from witnessing death, disease, and old age. But life, being what it is, made that impossible when Siddhartha came of age and wanted to explore his kingdom. Learning of realities outside the palace walls, Siddhartha could
no longer enjoy his insulated, privileged existence and sneaked out of the castle one night, fulfilling Asita's prophecy. For six years, he wandered the countryside studying with a variety of hermits, mendicants, and holy men and experimenting with all kinds of spiritual practices, becoming the Buddha, “the awakened one,” at age thirty-five.

It's hard to separate myth from history, as there are literally thousands of legends that rose up around the Buddha in the centuries following his peaceful death at age eighty. One feature of his biography that persists in the more reliable, as well as the more fanciful, sources involves reports of outstanding horse-training abilities.

As the firstborn son of a wealthy monarch, Siddhartha received the finest education available in all disciplines, becoming a bit of a renaissance man before his sixteenth birthday. Accounts describe him as a perceptive philosophical student, talented musician, skillful chariot driver, and cool and daring horseman who was nonetheless known for his unusual kindness to animals, preferring to lose a race rather than whip his mount toward the finish line. He exercised his princely authority to discourage cruel behavior in others as well. Popular tales chronicle his successful efforts to stop one boy from beating a snake. He also rescued a swan wounded by a cousin's arrow, going before a council of elders to win the right to heal the bird and set him free, over the hunter's right to claim his quarry, an episode that clearly illustrates the Buddha's innate nonpredatory orientation.

Another telling anecdote suggests that Siddhartha's sympathy was further awakened by observing beasts of burden, human and animal alike. One afternoon, when he was nine years old, his parents took him to the ritual first plowing of the fields. While most people were entranced by colorful parades, tempting food displays, immaculately dressed dignitaries, and holy men chanting Vedic scriptures and wearing flowing robes and stunning headdresses, Siddhartha sat down at the edge of the fields to watch another, more perplexing spectacle unfold. As the Buddhist monk and author Thich Nhat Hanh describes in
Old Path White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha,
Suddhodana subsequently became so distressed by his son's behavior that the king left the celebration early — not because Siddhartha was acting up but because his interest in the interconnected struggles of all species he encountered that day foreshadowed the fulfillment of Asita's prophecy: