What If You Are a Horse in Human Form (2 page)

Her reaction was the opposite of what I wanted. Instead of speeding up, she abruptly stopped and turned around to glare at me with her left eye. The leather of the cinch and saddle creaked as her muscles tightened in anger, and I felt as if I had angered a benevolent witch. Her piercing gaze said, “You didn’t have to do
that!
” I apologized to her and patted her neck, and after a moment she calmed down and faced forward again.

We were now far behind the wagons and the other riders. When we started off again I used leg, seat, and voice cues along with a new one—rapidly flicking my wrist so that the loose ends of the reins slapped lightly against her neck—and she enthusiastically leaped into a ground-swallowing gallop that quickly enabled us to catch up with the others.

When the group stopped to make camp for the night Lucy and I enjoyed eating together, often leaning against each other as we did so. I had previously discovered that she had quite human-like tastes. She enjoyed my Vienna sausages, pepperoni slices, cheese, crackers, and scrambled eggs as much as the apples I had brought along for her. I did not offer these foods to her; she pestered me for them and then wanted seconds!

I rode Lucy in another wagon train early the next summer. Later that same year (1980) she had a foal, and soon afterwards her owner sold her. In 1985 my father died, and my mother and I moved back down to Miami. I attended Miami-Dade Community College and graduated in 1989 with a two-year degree in Engineering Science, and I worked at the Miami Space Transit Planetarium.

After my mother died in 1997, I moved to Alaska late that year. I had long wanted to live in Alaska, and I was determined to not squander the opportunity. Also, I had been corresponding with some of the personnel at the Poker Flat Research Range (a sounding rocket launch facility owned by the University of Alaska), and they said I would be welcome to serve as the volunteer range historian. I found a paying job at the parking authority of the local airport and bought a small, old cabin-type log house with owner financing.

One afternoon in the summer of 2003, I suddenly awoke from a sound sleep with a “jolt in the chest” feeling and an image of Lucy in my mind, and I knew that she had died. Lucy was not the only horse with whom I have had mental communication.

I know when other horses can read my thoughts and viceversa. I'll look a horse in the eye, picture myself in my natural Shire draft horse form, and silently (in my mind) utter the whicker of welcome. I know the horse is reading my thoughts when his or her eyes suddenly widen so that the whites show, he or she pulls his or her head back (often with mouth agape in astonishment), warily looks me up and down, and then sniffs me one or more times (after having already sniffed me once). At that point the horse either happily welcomes me as a fellow horse and (often) wants to do mutual grooming with me, or (less often) the horse starts trembling and retreats, looking at me fearfully as if he or she has seen a ghost.

I can see their thoughts in my mind as fleeting images (for example, once when a mare backed up to me to have her rump scratched, I saw a flicker of an image in my mind of her backing toward me before she did it). I also feel strong emotions from horses (particularly negative ones) that create "sympathetic" responses in my muscles. In my contacts with horses, I have been recognized and treated as a fellow horse by about 20% of those I've met. This includes having been challenged by stallions and "propositioned" by mares. I have also occasionally "heard" horses' thoughts (we horses don't think in words, but in pictures and feelings).

The most dramatic of several such incidents occurred in 1990, when a group of Belgian draft horses excitedly welcomed me into their herd. They were in a stable at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort, a tourist campground near Walt Disney World in Florida. The horses were very placid and were used to seeing large numbers of people, since they were used for hayrides on the Disney property.

It was late in the afternoon when my brother Bob, his second wife Carol and I got there. The horses were calm and were quietly munching their hay, and we were the only ones there. Bob and Carol petted the horses, and they responded as horses do to friendly humans. When I walked up to the first horse, I got quite a different reaction.

He extended his head toward me and blew air out of his nose (not a snort, but a strong exhalation). In horse language, this means "Who are you?" I sniffed his breath and gently blew air out of my mouth and into his nose, which means "I am a friend." He sniffed me, then drew his head back and looked me up and down, with eyes wide and mouth open. He sniffed me several more times (a horse only needs to sniff you once to get your scent, and I wasn't wearing any "confusing" fragrances such as cologne). Then he got the attention of the horse in the adjacent stall (by gesturing with movements of his head and eyes), and this horse blew air out of his nose at me, too. I gently blew air into his nose, and he pulled back his head and whinnied in astonishment.

Within seconds all of the horses started neighing at the top of their lungs, and Bob and Carol became quite anxious. I could "hear" a thought being excitedly shared between them, which in English would be translated as: "He is one of us!" Then they all quieted down and stood at their stall doors, looking at me expectantly. I walked up to each horse and was greeted warmly. When I reached the herd leader (an older black Percheron), he shoved his head into my space and forcefully blew air out of his nose at me, saying "Who the hell are you?!" I gently blew air into his nose (saying "I am a friend") and then I backed up and turned my head aside, to acknowledge his authority as the herd leader. After a series of de-escalating "breath blows" from both of us, he allowed me to walk into his space and he put out his head to nuzzle me. I was so happy to have been recognized and accepted into the herd that I could barely keep myself from weeping with joy. Bob exclaimed, "Jesus Christ—they think you're one of them!" All I dared to say at the time was "yeah."

Many years later (in 2004), I "came out of the stall" to Bob and Carol. Bob said of the draft horse incident, "Carol and I were amazed at what we saw that day, and we've talked about it several times. We were both watching you, and it was as if a curtain had been lifted. We could see that you were talking with your people, and we always said afterward, 'Jason must have been a horse before!'"

Like any horse, I have equine instincts and reactions, including the “spook” response. Spooking is not the same thing as being startled. Any creature can be startled when suddenly confronted by, for example, an unexpected loud noise. To spook is to flee in a blind panic when confronted by an object or situation that is not frightening in and of itself (it can be totally innocuous), but which triggers the instinct to flee because I cannot immediately understand it. Put in human terms, this instinct says: “If you don’t know what it is, get away from it! It might be a predator!” Being a “cold blood” draft horse with a more placid temperament than “hot blood” and “warmblood” equines I don’t spook very often, but it has happened a few times.

I once spooked at Miami-Dade Community College in 1987. It happened while I was standing in line outside one of the buildings, waiting to register for the next term’s classes. A balding man in his forties, wearing a gray business suit, approached me. He looked completely non-threatening, but what he did triggered a totally different reaction than what he expected. He suddenly pulled out one of those “cow can” noisemakers that make a mooing sound when turned upside down, smiled at me, and said, “I’ll bet I can make you smile!” Then he activated the “cow can.”

My mind was unable to make sense of what he was doing, and I had an instantaneous involuntary reaction: My eyes widened, I backed away from him, and then I ran away in a blind panic. When I saw him again about an hour later and he introduced himself (ironically, he was a psychology professor), he said, “I’m sorry that I scared you before. I’ve never had anybody react to my little gimmick like that before—you spooked almost like a horse would!” I just said, “Yeah.”

Another spooking incident occurred in the summer of 2004, when I was driving home from my late-shift airport parking authority job here in Alaska. The Sun had just risen behind me, and as I was driving along the highway near the airport the sunlight was suddenly reflected off the shiny, bare metal back side of a road sign ahead of me on the other side of the highway. The anti-corrosion coating on the bare metal reflected the sunlight in brilliant pink and yellow hues that flickered as I drove toward the sign. The blinding mass of flickering, multi-colored light spooked me so intensely that I tried to back away from it inside the cab of my pickup truck! I pushed back hard against the steering wheel and scooted my feet trying to back up as my heartbeat and breathing rates jumped. I was a panicked horse trying desperately to back through the rear wall of his stall.

The latest one took place at the airport during the summer of 2008. I was walking up a short flight of stairs from the parking lot to the airport terminal driveway, which is about four feet higher than the level of the parking lot. As I took the first step up the stairs, I was suddenly seized by the fleeing instinct to run up and beyond the stairs as fast as I could. Fortunately, there were no vehicles coming down the terminal driveway at that moment. When I could think again, I walked back to the stairs to see what had triggered my instinct to flee, as I had not been consciously aware of seeing anything unusual or threatening. There, on the steel railing, I saw the stimulus that had made me bolt. It was the crinkled, shiny, faded transparent red remnant of a piece of electrical tape, fluttering in the breeze! Except for the end that was still stuck to the railing, the tape had disintegrated in the sunlight (leaving behind the crinkled upper film), whose unusual appearance my mind had been unable to immediately identify as harmless.

The year 2003 marked the beginning of a series of events that culminated in this book. That fall I discovered—within days of each other—a web site and a book that gave me the courage to seek out other horses in human form. The web site was “If WisheRs Were Horses” (yes, it is spelled that way), whose URL is:
www.unicorndream.co.uk/destrier/index.html
. It is a collection of short stories, poetry, and artwork by several authors and artists on the theme of human-to-equine transformation. I spent 19 hours straight reading and re-reading everything on the site, trembling all the while with a mixture of awe and excitement.

The site also contains information on shamanic and magical methods that one may use to effect a temporary astral (spirit form) transformation, and it discusses technological methods by which a complete physical transformation might be achieved in the future. (I have since discovered other web sites by other authors that are also devoted to this subject, but “If WisheRs Were Horses” is the most comprehensive.) I have corresponded with several of these authors, and some of them answered in the affirmative—although hesitantly— when I queried them regarding their true selves.

The book I found is
The Tao of Equus: A Woman’s Journey of
Healing & Transformation through the Way of the Horse,
by Linda Kohanov. Her book discusses the many unusual experiences she has had with horses, which led her to the conclusion that horses are much more than they appear to be to the casual observer. Far more than being just “beautiful but stupid beasts,” horses are, she found, highly developed creatures who use emotions as information and who have true empathy for humans. The synergistic relationship between horses and humans led her to pioneer the fields of Equine-Facilitated Psychotherapy and Equine Experiential Learning, which she teaches and practices today at her ranch (see:
www.taoofequus.com
)
.

Linda’s experiences also led her into contact with the Horse Ancestors. They are the collective spirits of every horse who has ever lived, who is alive on Earth now, and who is yet to be born. As she mentioned in a very oblique way in her book, the Horse Ancestors did touch upon the subject of horses being born in human form.

In late October of 2003 I wrote to Ms. Kohanov and told her about my memories, experiences, and feelings, and I asked her if she could ask the Horse Ancestors questions for me. I found her reply both exciting and comforting, for she said that she had found that the desire to be equine and the memories of having once been a horse are quite common. Far from my being the only one who had ever contacted her regarding being a horse in human form, she told me that she had received many fascinating letters from people who had kept their experiences secret all their lives.

Regarding my questions for the Horse Ancestors, she said that she preferred to facilitate my own connection to them so that I could ask them all of the questions I wished over time. She offered to help me with this during a telephone consultation, which she arranged for late December.

Before that session took place, however, the Horse Ancestors unexpectedly contacted me first early one afternoon in December. The contact began as a normal dream that turned into a lucid dream before I woke up, but they were still there after I awakened! It started at about 20 minutes before 2:00 PM.

I dreamed that I was standing in a stall (in human form) in a darkened stable at night. I was looking at an approximately 4 foot by 8 foot rectangle of very coarse tan fabric (like that of a feed sack) that was nailed to the back wall. A hanging light bulb illuminated the stall. As I stared at the fabric, mediaeval-style embroidered images of horses’ heads and necks (like those in tapestries) began to “materialize” out of the fabric. They represented all horse breeds and were of numerous colors. As I watched them, I gradually became aware of the presence of countless equine minds. I couldn’t see or hear them, but their presence was palpable in my mind and gut.

They communicated with me in what could be called “preverbal” thoughts. (As an example, when you see an unfamiliar object and think to yourself, “What is that?” that thought is already in your mind even before you put words to it.) Their thoughts to me would be translated into English as: “We wish to speak with you. Will you speak with us?” At that point it became a lucid dream, in which I was consciously aware of being asleep and dreaming. In my dream state, I knew that my alarm clock would go off in a few minutes and that I would have to get ready to go to work. (I was working the evening shift at the local airport’s parking authority at that time.) Not knowing how long the encounter might take, I thought back to them: “Please, not now, but soon.”

I then woke up (I’m a very light sleeper), but the Horse Ancestors were still there with me in my bedroom! They repeated their request, and this time I pictured myself talking with Linda Kohanov (with her teaching me how to contact them). I again thought to them: “Not Now. Soon.” I sensed approval from them and another thought that in English would be: “Very Well. We will talk then.” Just as I gradually became aware of them in the dream, they gradually faded from my consciousness’ ability to perceive their presence. I got up and went into the kitchen to fix my “breakfast.” The encounter was not spooky or dramatic; it was relaxed and pleasant. I felt no fear, nor any pressure from them. They were a gentle and quiet presence.

On December 23
^rd,
2003 I had the telephone session with Linda Kohanov. Before and during the session, the Horse Ancestors revealed to her facts about me and about Lucy (the mare I knew and rode when I was a teenager living in northern Georgia) that I had never told Linda about, things that she could not possibly have known otherwise.

As we talked before beginning the session, she told me that she had contacted the Horse Ancestors before I called. She had asked the Horse Ancestors if they could provide her with any information about me that could help her to work with me. She saw an image of a group of horses standing with their upper lips curled. (Horses do this to retain faint scents and to direct this scented air to a second, more sensitive olfactory organ in the sinuses.) They were doing this to “read” me. They confirmed to her that I am a horse. Next, she saw an image of a man’s legs, viewed from the back. Then she saw up to the base of the spine, where there was a hole in the back on the right side. Energy entered the back through this hole and flowed up to the heart, where it flowed out of the body. The base of my spine on the right side is precisely where my injured back hurts. This is very significant, as is explained below.

Before we actually began the session, I asked Linda THE question that perplexes us horses who are in human form: What are we doing here in human form? Her answer was astounding, but not totally surprising to me. In human terms (and her own words), our purpose here is espionage, infiltration, and influence on human society. The Horse Ancestors do not fully understand human behavior or motivations, and they asked some horses to live among humans in human form so that we could learn “what makes humans tick.”

They are not able to give us detailed instructions on what to do as we live among humans. Linda told me that I and other horses in human form will have to rely on our human-derived wits to determine how to proceed with our work on behalf of the Horse Ancestors. They want us to do nothing less than alter the course of human civilization. They know that current human attitudes are resulting in environmental destruction and the exploitation and needless suffering of billions of animals, including humans who live in the Third World. (Living in human form, I know that these attitudes result from beliefs such as “Nature belongs to man to do with as he pleases,” “The market is all that matters,” “In everything there are winners and losers,” etc.)

The Horse Ancestors want us to persuade and influence humans to adopt the Way of the Horse, a way of life which values cooperation and gentle persuasion over conquest and domination, never prospering at the expense of another (what humans call “Win-Win” situations), and in which 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 back pain resulted from when Copper had dragged me many years before. She asked me
not
to adjust my back to stop the pain, but instead to “breathe into” the pain, mentally “re-live” riding Copper that day and falling off his back, and describe any thoughts or impressions that came into my mind.

I had felt anger, which prompted me to violently jerk the reins as Copper dragged me. This suddenly pulled his neck far around, injuring it. I also felt sorry for having hurt him. Linda asked me to connect with Copper and to tell him I was sorry for having hurt him. I saw a dim white spot of light behind my closed eyelids as I did this, and then I faintly felt Copper’s presence and his calm, quiet acceptance of my apology. At that very instant my back pain stopped, and Linda immediately asked me what had happened to my back pain.

Then she revealed to me that the Horse Ancestors had told her that my back injury was intentional—it had been inflicted on me so that I would continue to feel and perceive with my whole body (the sympathetic, parasympathetic, and enteric nervous systems) as horses do, rather than exclusively through my mind as humans typically do. In other words, it has kept me grounded in “equine sensory mode.”

I also mentioned the discomfort I was feeling in my neck, and Linda asked me to “breathe into” it and ask Copper for any messages it held. I “heard” a thought that I had held his reins too short before I fell off his back, which constricted his neck. I did this because I had felt a fear-based need to control him. He had tried to throw me several times, which had made me think he was trying to hurt me. Linda said, “No, he was trying to send you a message to ease up, but you weren’t getting it. When you fell off, he was trying to get away from you, not hurt you, which is why he dragged you.”

At this point thoughts spontaneously popped up in my mind, thoughts of being constricted by my mind’s own thoughts themselves. Pre-conceived ideas limited my ability to think freely, and I always worried about the many ways that any given situation could go wrong. I also felt strong worries about not being able to care properly for the horses that I planned to get (at that time, before I became disabled) or sense any illnesses they might contract. Linda made the point that the mind should “ride” the body as a rider rides a horse in partnership (in other words, the mind should work in concert with the sympathetic, parasympathetic, and enteric nervous systems that are responsible for “gut feelings”). Instead, most humans think of the mind as ruling the body and ignore gut feelings, just as they often try to control horses rather than work in partnership with them. After I acknowledged my understanding of this, the discomfort in my neck significantly decreased.