Touched by the Horses Heart by Clare O'Sullivan
What path did a woman take (Gloria) that would lead to awakening the fire in her belly that said an emphatic yes to the arrival of these horses in her life, to trust the stirring voices and images in her essence, to work with them as a herd, to trust their powerful bodies and energies to be close to hers and to answer the hunger for peace in humans in partnership with them? I don’t know, but I am so grateful for all the ‘yeses’ that it took, and it inspires me to continue to listen to my own.
The gargantuan feat it must be to take care of them every day, create a loving home for them and to work respectfully with their magnificent spirits. To harvest their innate longing for harmony. Surely this offers healing into the ancestral line of abuse they have suffered through our species. Surely this is two species working together for the good of all life.
This morning, (the day after my session) I am tearful as I remember their beautiful soft eyes so close to me through the computer (how I longed to smell them and touch them), I sense them close to me still, almost like family.
Their absolute faith in me that I can restore balance in my body and their deep encouragement to self-trust and to kick up some hellraising of my own with my hind legs when it comes to my needs and the boundaries around them. Hellraising as I rail against my shutdown culture that denies our humanity.
The white horse is particularly close in my vision just now, his eyes softly lowered as if to encourage me to enter into a peaceful belonging that is inherent in my very being.
When I told them of my hunger to contribute in the world, to speak and be visible it was so energizing to see their response, the stretching, the clearing, the movement – it said “we love you so much Clare, please please offer your gift, you are needed”.
They showed me that the journey from my inside world into connection with the outer world is terrifying for me. A bridge too far and too terrifying. I can do one or the other but freeze in the movement between both.
They warmed my ‘core’ where so much distress lives in my body, from the days being present to my father’s own hellraising at the dinner table. With Gloria’s support in translating their movements, she offered that they are just mirroring the energetic life in my own core and that this is where all the beautiful life is, the strength, the power, the passion the courage.
And then the Impossible Dream – to once again catch the true essence of my life, the innocence that lives on in my soul since childhood, and to not let go, to trust the threads that weave in and out of it and to enter my core, to no longer abandon my truth.
To tend this inner garden that is my container through and from which my life and work continue to sprout. This includes the terrifying practice of speaking up and setting boundaries when I am not held with the care that I need by others. Grant me the wisdom and grace to live this path. To shove and jostle with a sacredness that takes care of the needs of the whole herd.
Writing this brings me so much inner harmony and a gentle grieving that cleanses my body, I almost don’t want to stop writing for fear they will leave me. Gloria says the connection with the horses continues and I trust that. They worked with me from America through a computer. When it comes to spirit, time and place takes a form beyond what our dear left brain can ever put into any ‘order’.
Thank you dear Gloria, and her herd, both horse and human.
Clare O’Sullivan
Resensitisation Through Compassion Coach