Thursday, March 8, 2012

Horse Ventriloquism


When children play with dolls, they give voices to the bundles of cloth and plastic.  They create stories, with lives full of worries and cares.  They interact with the toys and play with them for hours.


An interesting phenomenon is that when people come into contact with living horses, they seem to continue this habit, adding words to a body that has no capability of human speech.


 The curious thing is that we tend to believe each other’s stories.


Today we have a chance to peek at the private and public lives of millions of people who work with horses.  When we do so, we can listen to many words being inserted into the soundtrack of a horse’s life.  

How many of these words do you agree with?  Do you think that the horse would actually say this or think this way?  How can we get closer to understanding what another being is trying to communicate?

When we can look at a horse and acknowledge her as a complete mystery, we gain access to a different perspective, an experience of life through another’s eyes.

We become the students, learning from a race that has walked this earth far longer than we have.

Listen today to the words you speak for your horse, or a stranger at another table, a man in a car, or your dog.  Listen to the words others speak to explain horse behavior, to nail down the mystery.  You might be lead to a glimpse of the new world, beyond the safety of thinking we speak for horses, the place where real horses speak and humans feel.

1 comment:

  1. Couldn't finish watching the "strap the leg up" one and barely any of the rodeo one! I am so embarrassed by9and FOR) human beings that can be so STUPID and uncaring. If they can do this to a horse, they can do things like this to their fellow humans. There is no difference in my mind and heart!

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