I was in that half wake half sleep state and light was already streaming through the windows. I spoke the words out loud as I heard them in my dream, “There’s a doctor as a horse”. I repeated them as if I were repeating something in a foreign language, and it took a while for me to comprehend what I was saying. There’s a doctor as a horse. I sat upright and wrote the words down quickly so I wouldn’t forget them.
For months I had been having recurring dreams about past relationships. I had done so much work on myself already: energy clearing, meditation, journaling, courses, and still the dreams. The night before I received the message about the horse I had asked for guidance.
The following night I dreamt I was lying on the ground and a black horse was standing over me. She bowed down over me and then lifted her neck up, ran and jumped over a barbed wire fence. I remember thinking how amazing it was that she could do that. Was she showing me a way out?
A month or two before this a friend had given me the name of a horse therapy centre just outside of Vancouver. I had checked them out online and felt drawn. I decided it was time to give them a call.
Krista, the owner of the centre, was very friendly and open. She told me how it had all started, and specifically that many people came to receive help with relationships. We spoke for a while before she mentioned Cricket, a mare, she said, who was quite the astral traveler, and had appeared in many people’s dreams. I asked her if Cricket was black, and she said yes. I had a feeling it was her in my dream.
A few weeks later I went to visit the centre and as soon as I walked into the barn I felt drawn to Cricket. She seemed equally interested in me and we spent some time connecting. I decided to come back for a full 2-hour session, which I did a few weeks later.
She was out in the field when I arrived and Krista and I walked up slowly and stood next to her. She was munching on grass and not in the least bit interested that we were there. I started to feel slightly anxious and Krista asked me what I was feeling in my body. I told her about the tension in my stomach area. She asked me to breathe into it, which I did. A short while later Romeo, a gelding, came up behind me and started nibbling on the back of my legs trying to get my attention. I turned around and he then tried to nibble my arm. I stepped back and Krista explained that in horse language this means that I had shown him that he was now dominant. Apparently Romeo is an expert horse for working with boundaries. She said that it seemed Romeo had chosen me to work with him and seeing that Cricket was happily munching grass, perhaps I really needed to work with him instead. I agreed.
So we went into the round pen and once again Romeo came into my space. I felt uncomfortable and Krista suggested that we find the distance where I would feel comfortable with him. She drew a large circle on the ground, about 4 or 5 feet around me, and Romeo was only allowed to stay on the outside of the circle. He stayed, and after a while moved to the outside of the pen where Rayne, a mare, was calling for his attention. Normally these two didn’t get on well at all and had to be kept apart from each other, but Rayne seemed as interested in getting his attention as she was at trying to show she wasn’t interested. As I was watching her I realized that I too often gave out mixed signals. Come closer. No go away. She made a huge noise and fuss when he was close to her, almost reprimanding him for coming so close, and yet she didn’t move away. She wanted him there. She just wanted him to respect her.
After a while Krista lead Romeo back into the circle and she suggested that I lead him around the pen. I was nervous. I tried to get him to move and he wasn’t interested in the slightest. I tried harder but I wasn’t convinced myself and this showed. He was responding to my energy and not just my words. I started to feel bad for wanting another being to do something against his will. This was the way that I saw it. Krista explained to me that I needed to convince him that it would be worth his time and effort to do what I suggested. Horses are prey animals and they will conserve energy as much as possible. She suggested I try using a whip and tap him lightly on his side. She explained that the whip would be an extension of your arm and therefore an extension of energy, not seen or used as a weapon. I tried this but I felt really uncomfortable. He moved part way round the pen and then lost interest. At one point he tried to get closer to Rayne.
After a while something inside of me shifted. Without the whip I just decided I wanted him to move. Immediately he felt this and it became effortless. As I moved he followed. We went round and round and round and round. When we eventually stopped I felt like all the fear had melted away. He was in my space and I was comfortable. I stroked his forehead and down his soft nose and could feel where his energy met mine. I knew where my boundaries were and I wasn’t afraid to assert them. We could play in this space.
Something in me had shifted that no amount of reading, meditating or journaling could have done. It felt like my body was speaking to me again, or I was more able to listen. The channels of communication had cleared and there was movement into a new way of being in relationship.
Apparently after I left, Romeo and Rayne continued to deepen their bond, and for the first time ever they were pastured together peacefully. And about 7 weeks later the whole heard came together in peaceful integration, for the first time since Rayne’s arrival three years earlier.
