5 minute read
Without Saying Anything At All
By: Jonathan Varkul, Canada
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When I walk around the tall buildings of downtown Toronto, I can’t help but marvel at the ingenuity of us humans. I look around and see throngs of people all busily going about their business, contributing something to the complexity and the grandeur of it all. There is a palpable hum in the air. I can feel all the people working towards accomplishing all kinds of smart and ingenious things, as part of something much bigger than their individual selves.
When I stand in a large paddock on a farm outside the city, I can’t help but marvel at the ingenuity of nature. I look around and see all manner of life engaging, going about its business, contributing something to the complexity and the grandeur of it all. There’s a palpable feeling of living in the air, and I can feel all manner of life working towards accomplishing something smart and ingenious, as a part of a greater whole.
If we include our pre-historic ancestors, humans have been around on earth for approximately 6 million years. The modern form of humans that occupy and build our cities has only been around for 200,000 years and human civilization as we know it has only been around for 6,000 years.
The Horses on the farm, however, have been around for 50 million years.
Our relatively shorter evolutionary journey has led us into a verbal world that has produced poetry, smartphones and modern medicine. Our words, although powerful, can complicate things. We can say one thing while thinking and feeling something entirely differently. We can hide behind our words and pretend that
something is true on the surface when, below the surface, it is not.
Words that convey deeper truth, touch our souls and leave us feeling awed, can also confuse, manipulate, and overwhelm us.
The evolution of horses, however, has taken them deeply into a world without words. As prey animals in the wild, horses cannot afford to spend all day running at the sight of every predator – they would never be able to eat or rest. They need to know the truth below the surface – do you intend to eat me now? 50 million years of evolutionary fine tuning allows them to sense if a predator intends to harm them or not. If not, no need to run, and they can stand calmly right next to a mountain lion if it is fully fed.
If horses could play poker, they would be both the best and the worst poker players. You cannot bluff them, but they also never bluff. This evolutionary superpower, to connect with the world as it is, and discerning it from what appears to be here, is the equine gift to our world.
Equine Learning professionals work with this evolutionary power to help people discern between an actual issue and what it pretends to be. The horse, being the worst poker player in the world, does not hide what it senses. If a client pretends to be ok but is not, the horse can tell, and it reveals this in its behaviour. Horses can also be powerful co-creative partners, helping us become better attuned to a sense-based world. Their powerful presence can break through the noise created by our thinking world and help us acquaint ourselves to our own dormant sensing potential.
Just standing with them in a field can take us out of much of the noise in our heads and connect us with our deeper wisdom that is quietly and patiently waiting for us.
As a trained accountant, software consultant and past business leader, I have always valued critical thinking as a way to address the challenges I face and so when I am struggling with a problem, I can easily become tied up in overthinking. The result is that I sometimes get more buried in my problem and a possible way forward appears almost impossible. At times like these, my partner, Jenn, (an Equine Learning Professional) tells me to “take my problem to the horses”.
The first time I did it, I was struggling with the stage of my business where my revenues were way less than my expectations of where they should be and I was spinning in my head trying to figure out what to do about it.
I wasn’t exactly sure how the horse was going to help me solve my problem, but I went into the field and stood next to one of the horses, Astella. Astella is a powerful, athletic, bay mare. Although she does not know anything about business or revenues, she knows a thing or two about standing powerfully in her own space. As I stood next to her, I felt her imposing presence and my problem felt less immediate and less all encompassing. It was as if her presence itself was pushing my problem out of my head. Within a few minutes I felt myself standing up straighter,
my eyes softened, my gaze lifted, and I noticed the treelined in the distance. My problem didn’t vanish, but it felt way smaller and I felt way bigger. I felt myself feeling more powerful and I had this realization that my business revenues, although not where I’d like or expected them to be, were still perfectly normal for the stage I was at. I felt more relaxed and weirdly also hopeful and re-inspired to engage my business from where it was at.
As we bump up against the limits of a purely verbal world to help us solve some of our biggest challenges, the world appears increasingly confusing, confounding, and overwhelming.
In the midst of our thrashing around to fit all the pieces together, the horses stand there offering us a piece of the puzzle. They show us that our being has the capacity to vanquish the noise in our heads and help us find deeper answers.
50 million years of evolutionary wisdom is standing right in front of us saying something deep, something wise, without saying anything at all. ~*~
Jennifer Schramm ~ www.jenniferschramm.com
