What If You Are a Horse in Human Form (3 page)

After this I mentioned how close I had been with Lucy, the Arabian cross mare I had known in Georgia. I described my strong impressions that she was a guide of some kind, far older and wiser than the physically six-year old mare that I saw. Linda asked me to ask to connect with Lucy. The entire field of view behind my closed eyelids briefly lightened as I did this, and then I faintly felt Lucy’s presence. After I spoke the request to make contact Linda said, “I just saw an image that makes no sense to me, but maybe you would understand it. I just saw a mare with a horseshoe over her right eye. The horseshoe fell on her eye, and she showed me the horseshoe falling on her eye three times for emphasis.” I replied, “She lost her right eye when she was a filly. Another horse kicked her in her right eye.”

I then told Linda about how I knew when Lucy had died in the summer of 2003 (seeing a mental image of her combined with a “jolt in the chest” feeling). I also described my impression that when my work in human form is complete, Lucy will come to me to take me back to the Horse Ancestors. As I said this, Linda broke in with a loud “Uh!” and said, “I just saw the mare again. She was vigorously nodding her head up and down.” Linda suggested that I could more easily connect with the Horse Ancestors by first contacting Lucy or Copper, who could serve as “conduits” to them. Since Lucy and I already have a bond, it would be easier to contact her first.

After we finished the session, Linda told me that my ability to contact the Horse Ancestors would improve with practice. She said that it is not unlike fine-tuning a radio to pick up a desired station. It took her some practice to progress from just feeling the Horse Ancestors’ presence to seeing the monochromatic images that they send to her.

Linda warned me that now that I was fully aware of what I am, I would be miserable if I did not have at least occasional contact with other horses. She also strongly encouraged me to proceed with my plans (which I had to abandon when I became disabled) to acquire two horses to live with me on a 3.7 acre rural lot that I once owned near my home. She said that “tuning in to the equine wavelength” to contact the Horse Ancestors is much easier to do in the presence of living horses.

In January of 2004, I had an interesting dream that the Horse Ancestors sent to me. It began as a normal dream that soon turned into a lucid dream, in which I was consciously aware of what was happening and was able to interact with it. It was rather like watching a live-broadcast television program, one in which I was able to control the “camera angle” and “zoom distance” (within limits, as I will describe below).

It began sometime during the decades of 2040 – 2060. I had arrived in London, England from the US with a traveling companion (who the “camera angle” and “microphone distance” never allowed me to see or audibly identify until the very end of the dream). We hired a touring car to take us out into the English countryside, to a location about 40 miles due west of London. Both London and the rural towns we passed through still showed signs of recovering from some great, destructive episode that had taken place some years before our visit. I existed both in this future time
and
in January 2004, watching this “documentary.” I (my 2004 self) asked what was going on, and the Horse Ancestors (unseen but palpably present) said in a non-verbal thought: “Just Watch.”

At one point our driver pulled off to the side of the road to look at a map. I looked at it and my 2004 self saw a blurry gray oval obscuring the area to which we were traveling. I (my 2004 self) asked why this happened, and the unseen Horse Ancestors again wordlessly told me to “just watch.” My future self could clearly see the map. My traveling companion mentioned the name of the village near our destination, and my 2004 self heard the name but instantly forgot it. Being unfamiliar with the area, our driver decided to travel on and ask a local for directions.

A few miles down the road, we stopped at a rural gas station to get directions. While there, I saw a technological device that doesn’t exist today. Even though I didn’t see it being used, I (both my 2004 self and my future self) knew what it was. The “camera” zoomed in on it. It was a telephone, but it was unlike any telephone of today. It was a flat, molded plastic square device about 8 inches wide, 8 inches long, and 1.5 inches thick. It was an attractive lavender color with raised yellow Chinese characters molded into the top. The top was a thin lid (hinged at the rear) that could be lifted to reveal a touch screen and a plastic stylus under it, with a speaker recessed into the inside of the lid and a built-in microphone in the top of the base. (I never saw the top opened, but I knew the touch screen was under it.)

It was a real-time Chinese/English translation telephone. (Although there were no scenes or conversations that revealed this, in the dream I was simply aware that in this future time China was a great and prosperous world power, with many of their tourists visiting Britain and other western nations.) A Chinese tourist could make a call to this telephone and its internal computer would instantly process the caller’s speech so that an English speaker would hear the tourist’s words in English
and
in the tourist’s own voice! It also worked in reverse (the tourist would hear the English speaker’s words in Chinese, in his or her own voice). The telephone could do this even with an ordinary telephone or cellular telephone on the other end of the call.

The touch screen was for dialing, and the telephone could also be dialed by voice command. When connected to another telephone of this type during a call, the stylus could be used to write text or draw images (to illustrate road directions, for example) on the screen, which would also be displayed on the touch screen of the distant telephone. In addition, these telephones could translate Chinese characters written on the screen into English words, and vice-versa. Upon seeing the telephone I remarked to my traveling companion, “Gee, they even have those here now.”

There was a calendar on the wall in the gas station, but when I (my 2004 self) looked at it, the date was obscured by a gray blur. My future self could see the date. My 2004 self asked why this happened and was again told by the Horse Ancestors to “just watch.” My traveling companion and I got back into the touring car with our driver, and we resumed our travel. We soon entered hilly farmland that was crisscrossed by stone walls, hedgerows, and country lanes, and there were heavily wooded areas here as well.

We stopped at a field that was bordered by a wooden fence. There were three Shire draft horses in the field, standing about forty feet back from the fence. The one in the middle of the trio caught my attention because of what he was wearing, and the “camera” zoomed in on him. He was wearing a full plow harness and a collar that had ball-tipped hames. He caught my attention because a horse owner wouldn’t normally turn a horse loose in a pasture wearing such a harness (the horse might damage it or get it tangled up in a fence).

This Shire slowly walked up to the fence. He was black with white feathering on his lower legs, and he had a broad white blaze down his face and a white muzzle. I could tell that he was middleaged because he had white hairs sprinkled on the black sides of his face, but he was otherwise in excellent physical condition with many vigorous years ahead of him. As I looked at him through the open car window, he turned his head to face me. As our eyes met, I suddenly felt the same twinge of recognition that you feel when you recognize yourself in a mirror. Simultaneously our mouths dropped open and we both jerked our heads back in astonishment
. I was
looking at myself!

I turned to my right and finally saw who my traveling companion was—my (human) father in this life. He said, in a tone of voice not intended to dissuade me, “Are you sure you want to go back to being that?” I looked back out of the car window at the Shire, who was smiling. We looked at each other for a few seconds, and then I turned to Dad and said, “Yes, I am sure.” He nodded and quietly said, “Good luck,” and then I awakened.

The author astride Lucy before their second wagon train excursion
in the mountains of northern Georgia in 1980.

An impressionist view of the author in his natural form. Artwork
courtesy Sean Simmans.

On May 20
^th
, 2004 I drove to Palmer, Alaska for a weeklong series of Equine Experiential Learning sessions with Jessica Paul (one of Linda Kohanov’s students) and her horses. We had agreed to meet briefly on the evening of the 20
^th
, before beginning the first session the next day.

As it turned out, Jessica and her then-husband Ed had been delayed in Anchorage, so they weren’t at home when I arrived. Having driven several miles from the motel where I was staying, I decided to use the opportunity to get acquainted with her horses.

I was particularly drawn to five horses (three Quarter Horse mares and two yearling Shire/Thoroughbred/Arabian mix geldings, the twin sons of Jessica’s Shire/Thoroughbred cross mare) who were grazing in the largest of the four pastures on the property. The horses all walked up to the fence and sniffed me, and then they blew air out of their noses at me. (In equine language, this means “Who are you?”) I gently blew air at them through my mouth, saying (in equine language) “I am a friend.” Then I quieted my mind and wordlessly thought to them, “I am one of you, and one day I will have your form again.”

At this, their eyes widened and they all backed away from me. They walked away as a group and then stood vocalizing and gesturing to each other, casting glances in my direction every few seconds. After a few minutes they walked back up to me, sniffed me again, and blew air at me with greater vigor than before. They repeated this activity (withdrawing and “palavering” among themselves, then walking back up to the fence to sniff me and blow air out of their nostrils at me) several times. (Horses only have to sniff you once to get your scent, and I wasn’t wearing any fragrances such as cologne that could have confused their sense of smell.)

The mares were especially interested in me. One by one each mare came up to the fence, grasped my jacket in her teeth, and “groomed” it with her teeth as she would groom another horse, then turned her body broadside to the fence. I rubbed each mare’s withers, and then she stepped forward slowly so that I could rub her back and finally her rump without changing my position.

After about 45 minutes, Trixie (Jessica’s Shire/Thoroughbred cross mare), who had been alternately grazing and watching the goings-on from her adjoining pasture, walked up to the fence. She walked right up to me and pushed her head over the fence, almost touching my chest with her nose, while looking at me with a slightly hostile expression. She blew air out of her nose at me forcefully. Without moving a muscle, I very gently blew air through my mouth at her. Startled at this, she jumped backward three feet and then trotted backward about 10 more feet, then stood there staring at me for several minutes.

Trixie then turned around and stood with her rump toward me for several more minutes, after which she turned to face me again and came back up to the fence. She blew air out of her nose at me, and this time she didn’t flinch when I blew air through my mouth at her. She looked me up and down, then turned and walked about 20 feet away, and then she walked back up to the fence and blew air at me. She “advanced and retreated” like this several more times.

As I walked around the property to greet the other horses, the first five horses I had met kept running up to the fence. Each time they did this I walked up to them, and they enthusiastically sniffed me and blew air at me.

The next day I met Jessica and Ed. She and I went over the written material (produced by Linda Kohanov), including an emotional message chart that explained the messages behind the often-strong emotions that are brought out in Equine Experiential Learning sessions. She also taught me how to perform body scans (as described in Linda Kohanov’s books). One stands quietly and breathes deeply and slowly while standing with eyes closed, feet spread apart, knees bent slightly forward, and arms hanging loosely.

The body scan is simply a way of intentionally and systematically sensitizing oneself to receive and interpret “gut feelings,” which everyone experiences at one time or another. This body position, known in the martial arts as the “Horse Pose,” forces one to pay attention to the body because it involves putting the body slightly out of physical balance. While standing in the “Horse Pose,” one projects one’s consciousness into (or concentrates attention into) different parts of the body, usually starting with the top of the head and moving down.

Jessica had a round pen for training and exercising horses and for use in Equine Experiential Learning sessions. I went into the round pen with Trixie, the Shire/Thoroughbred cross mare, while Jessica stood outside the pen. Before doing so I performed two body scans, the first one with my back toward Trixie and the second one while facing her. This served as a control. Any feelings (or more intense feelings) that I felt while facing Trixie would be from her, projected to me. If I experienced the same feelings while facing in both directions, then the feelings originated within me.

When one gets a feeling (pain, tightness, etc.) during a body scan, one “breathes into” the affected area and asks the body for just one piece of information about it (a thought, impression, emotion, or image). When I performed the two body scans, I felt tightness in my throat while facing in both directions. When I “breathed into” that area and asked for the message behind the sensation of tightness, the words “pre-conceived thoughts of self-doubt” popped into my mind. I also felt an “expansive” sensation in my gut during both body scans, and this was just due to my excited anticipation of working with Trixie.

After I stepped into the round pen, Trixie walked up and sniffed me. She then pushed her head against my shoulder several times, each time more forcefully than before. She was testing me to see if I would establish boundaries with her, which I did (I pushed her head back). She walked away and then she came back, sniffed me, and blew air out of her nose at me. She repeated this several times.

At one point Trixie gently pressed her muzzle against my groin, but only once. I got the impression that she was testing me to see if my motives were non-sexual (they were, as I did not become aroused as I might have otherwise). She pushed her head against my shoulder again, this time to scratch her forehead. I established boundaries again; I pushed her head away and then scratched her forehead with my fingers. She bowed to me, showing me respect as the leader of our herd of two.

I then got an impression that Trixie wanted me to reassure her about something, by pressing against her. I was feeling tension at that time, not from fear but due to doubt (“Who am I to think this is real?”). I stood next to her and pressed against her neck and left shoulder, facing to her rear. She put her head over my left shoulder and licked her lips, which signified the release of an emotion from me. (Equine-Facilitated Psychotherapy and Equine Experiential Learning practitioners have discovered that when a horse sighs or licks his or her lips during such moments in sessions, this signifies that another horse or a human has recognized and released an emotion in himself or herself.) Just before she did this, I had gotten an impression that Trixie recognized me as a fellow horse.

Immediately afterward, Jessica and I talked about this incident and other things for several minutes. While we were conversing, the feeling of tension returned. Trixie walked away from me, to the other side of the round pen, and began grazing. I spoke of my desire to return to equine form and my concerns about if I could make it happen.

As I stood there, a flood of thoughts suddenly came into my mind: “No fear about not being able to go back to equine form one day…the Creator does not play cruel jokes…I can better help humans and other horses as a horse after having had this human experience…no desires exist without fulfillment existing for them…many other horses in human form like me want to go back to equine form, and we cannot all be desiring this in vain or it would be a cruel joke…choosing equine form is not rejecting human form— equine form is best for me.” After these thoughts came to me in rapid succession, the tension lifted. Trixie suddenly raised her head, walked up behind me, put her head on my shoulder, and licked her lips.

The next day, Jessica instructed me to perform another exercise. I walked around the pastures alone and “read” each horse after doing a body scan, then jotted down my impressions of each horse in a notebook. Afterward, as I named each horse, Jessica described his or her personality and traits. When I checked my recorded impressions, they all closely matched her descriptions.

Based on my impressions, I chose to work in the round pen with a dark brown Quarter Horse mare named Bella, who was the alpha female (the lead mare) of the herd. She was initially in a bad mood when Jessica collected her from the pasture. She kept backing up and raising her head to avoid the halter, wearing a defiant expression on her face. Once Bella and I were in the round pen, I decided to let her lead me (to show respect for her lead mare status). I ran around the pen perimeter as a horse would. Bella had been ignoring me up to that point, but my running circles around her got her attention.

Jessica walked into the round pen and I walked out so that she could demonstrate leading a horse without a rope, by connecting with Bella’s energy field. (This is most likely the cardiac [heart] magnetic field, which is detectable several feet away in the case of a human. The magnetic field of a horse’s much larger heart is considerably more intense.) Jessica had never done this with Bella before, but after a few minutes she had Bella following her around the pen and changing directions with her. I stepped back into the pen and Jessica walked out, and soon I had Bella following me around the pen as well. At first she bared her teeth and tried to press against me while she was following me, but I blocked her advances with my arm. Before long, she kept a respectful distance from me.

I eventually got to a point where I could feel Bella’s field, as Jessica could. It seemed to have lobes and nulls (areas of greater and lesser intensity in certain fixed directions from Bella’s body), like an electro-magnet’s field or an antenna’s signal strength pattern. Jessica noted the electronic and antenna terminology I was using to describe it, and she suggested that part of my purpose for the Horse Ancestors may be to put this phenomenon into technical language that human scientists and engineers would understand (and not be “put off by”). The term “energy field” sounds “New Age” and begs the question: “What
kind
of energy?” Describing it as a magnetic field (even by conjecture) makes the whole subject more amenable to scientific inquiry. It would also be easy to test this hypothesis using a magnetometer, and Jessica mentioned looking into arranging such an experiment with the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Electrical Engineering Department.

As we talked, a feeling of tension came over me. Bella walked away from me and began grazing on the other side of the round pen. I repeated my insight from the previous day that the Creator does not play cruel jokes, and a further thought came to me that the Creator would not give beings desires that cannot be fulfilled (returning to equine form, in my case). Then I suddenly remembered a sentence from Don Blazer’s book
Nine Secrets of Perfect Horsemanship
: “Only when you accept what is, can you create what will be.” As soon as I spoke these words to Jessica, Bella suddenly raised her head, walked behind me, licked her lips, and pressed her head against me. Simultaneously my tension evaporated. I turned around, and then Bella bowed before me as a sign of respect.

The next day was a Sunday, and we had no session. On Monday I worked in the round pen with Paint, a sensitive Pinto gelding. I was easily able to get him to follow me around the pen, and I could strongly feel his field. Afterward I approached him again and he began to groom my arm with his teeth, and I groomed his face with my fingers. As I did so, I pictured myself in my Shire draft horse form, looking down my long face at him and grooming his face with my equine teeth. Paint’s eyes suddenly widened and he pulled his head back. After looking confused for a few seconds, he went back to grooming me and then affectionately pressed his head against mine. He calmed down almost to the point of falling asleep. When I stepped out of the round pen at the end of the session, he didn’t want me to leave and became rather upset.

The next day I went into the round pen with Maverick, a very sensitive dark palomino Morgan gelding. As he looked at me with a hard gaze from inside the pen before I entered, I suddenly blurted out a thought that he was projecting to me: “I am going to test you.” He not only followed me around the pen, but I was also able to stand in the center and get him to run around the perimeter in my chosen direction and at my desired speed. I found it easier to direct my intention by holding a lunge whip (not cracking it or even waving it, just holding it as one would hold a classroom pointer), but I was also able to direct him using only my arm.

Maverick tested me when I tried to pick up one of his front hooves. He held out his front leg and held it stiff, to try to prevent me from bending his knee. I finally managed to pick up all of his hooves without any fear of being kicked.

After this we groomed each other, as Paint and I had done the previous day. This was remarkable, considering that Maverick was an un-personable horse who eschewed human contact. (To get him into the round pen, Jessica had had to lure him into the fenced-in corner of his pasture with food so that she could put a halter on him!) I pictured myself grooming him in my Shire draft horse form, and he reacted as Paint had. Then he stood close to me, pressed his head against my shoulder, and closed his eyes.

I closed my eyes as we groomed each other, and I found myself slipping into an altered state of consciousness in which I could have left my body and taken on (spirit) equine form. Just then Jessica’s husband Ed drove up on a tractor, and the noise broke the change. This was actually a good thing, because Jessica told me later that leaving one’s body while with a horse can be dangerous. If the horse spooks, one’s physical body can be injured due to the temporary lack of control over it. Maverick stood quietly, eyes closed, as all three of us stroked and groomed him. Ed was amazed at Maverick’s change of behavior.