The Horse that joined the Plant Meditation...

Just a few weeks ago I was running my Natural Awareness course for counsellors; one of the activities involved a Plant Meditation. Being one of my favourite activities, I decided rather than do it in the woods that we should go to a field on the edge of the wood instead and sit with the sun shining down on us.

As we sat in the field sharing our experiences of the Plant Meditation I became aware that something was happening behind me as the expression on the face of one of the group had changed and that his attention had been drawn to something else. As I turned to see what had caught his eye, I saw a rather large horse heading straight for me. I suddenly became aware of my anxiety of being too close to horses, having fallen off one while at boarding school when I was around 14 yrs old.

The horse came right up to me and I tried to create in my mind a picture of feeling calm, and to let him know what had happened to me in the past, interestingly I did not feel anxious within my body just in my mind, if that makes any sense. I carried on talking with the group when the horse began to rub his nostrils up and down my back. I have never had an experience such as this before.

I was very aware of how close his teeth were to my left ear and I just had to trust that everything would be ok, for to panic now I felt would have been not the right thing to do, the rest of the group watched in amazement at what was unfolding. He then moved his mouth round to the back of my head and I could feel his breath down the back of my neck. I thought to myself please do not think of my pony tail as something you might want to eat and then his mouth was an inch away from my right ear. The whole time I worked with the group around the Plant Meditation.

The horse then entered the circle and approached another member of the group, before returning back to me to continue to rub my back quite vigorously with his snout, I began to relax as I realised that he would not hurt me and I came to enjoy this amazing experience. As the horse eventually moved away after some 15 minutes one of the group said "that was clearly meant for you Geoff."

It has been my experience that when people enter into a meditation, dogs and cats like to enter into the middle of the circle and lay there to enjoy the calmness that is created from the meditation. This experience with the horse was a very special one and one that I was very blessed to be a part of.