Changing the discourse with horses
I want to present a part of a video from the second episode of Cracking the Horse Speak Code (there's a link to it at the end of this writing). Sharon Wilsie is at the very beginning of a clinic and is preparing to work with three horses she has not met before: a Bay, a little Black horse, and a horse with a Blaze. She knows that they are used as therapy horses, that they know each other well, and are very familiar with the place. People are sitting behind a ribbon that has been strung across the bottom end of an indoor school, and the three horses are brought in while Sharon is setting up the session and talking to the people. Everyone is expecting a quiet, calm, informative session. But almost immediately, something else happens. The Bay and the Black horses walk along the ribbon, checking out the people in the seats. Then the Bay horse does something unexpected: he takes the Black horse away and walks him deliberately up to the other end of the school. Then the Blaze horse disrupts the whole scene.
At the end of the sequence we discover that the Blaze horse, who is an important horse in this herd, chipped a tooth that morning. He is feeling pain and discomfort and is not in the mood for work. But no one knows this yet.
When the horses run around the school, Sharon seizes the moment. She doesn't have a whip or any rope, she simply uses her presence and knowhow to bring the situation back under control in about 3 minutes.
She enters the herd using the language of the horse and her knowledge of herd dynamics. She offers herself as a Protector, fluent in Horse Speak. The effect is real.
As a child, Sharon spent a lot of time laid up in bed, unwell, and this meant that she had to learn how to use her body at a much later stage than most of us. She had to learn things consciously things that others had achieved unconsciously by the age of three. This, she says, put her at an advantage when she began observing her small herd of horses many years later.
Putting things into words is no small matter. It is not just which words to use and how to say them, but also which position you are occupying in the structure of speech when you are speaking. Last year at a seminar in the London Workshop of the Freudian Field, Barcelona psychoanalyst Vicente Palomera made everyone laugh when he spoke of his experience with a case during which he found himself saying to the patient: "What is happening to you is real, but what you are saying about it is absolutely crazy." These words were spoken in a structure where the interlocutor was able to hear what was being said. Speaking well involves understanding the structure of discourse as well as the language you are speaking. This is the ethic established by Jacques Lacan which orients an experience of a psychoanalysis, but also for life.
I have extracted a small section from the YouTube transcript to draw out what I want to underline in what Sharon is saying. Not only does she use very different phrases from those usually used around horses, but the way she is saying it is also new. When she enters the frame with the horses, she changes the discourse. She is operating something very like the analyst's discourse with the horses and is getting interesting results.
At 3m13s, the action begins:
Sharon: We'll see here the Bay horse told the Black horse 'No, we can't go and say hi to the people yet. I need to move you out of here.' I think the Bay horse already knew that the Blaze horse was having a problem. Blaze is still out back, we haven't seen him yet. Blaze is the Protector of the group. The Bay horse is in the role of Mentor and Mapmaker and is trying to soothe and calm the group. He takes the Black horse out of the way, he says: 'We gotta move ahead here. I'm gonna take you and we're gonna go all the way down the other end to give that other guy, Blaze, some space'.
Sharon is narrating what she sees to the audience in the school, but on the video she adds what she was thinking to herself: How interesting that the Bay didn't want the little Black horse to come and say 'Hi' to me.
Our attention then moves to Blaze who is near the door, and greeting some of the people seated nearby. He sees Sharon and walks towards her and she notices that he is licking. She remarks that for many people, 'licking and chewing' is a sign that all's well, but something about this licking doesn't seem quite right. She also notices that his eye has a 'tented' aspect, which she says indicates that the horse is concerned or uncomfortable. Then Blaze gathers up his herd and starts driving the Black horse forward. There is something in excess about what is going on. The Bay seems to try to intervene. But the Blaze is sure he needs to 'go'. He pushes the Bay horse, and Sharon reads the Bay as saying "Get me out of here!"
This is the moment she steps in. She noticed that the Protector horse, Blaze, has started pushing the Mapmaker into the fence. The Mapmaker didn't kick, didn't defend himself, didn't fight back, so Sharon thought something's really going on. The Blaze wants out in a big way, but I'm not sure why. She doesn't want to step in as the master and say "Stop!" but she wants to step in as a Mentor and soothe things: Let me soothe this, let me calm this down. I can offer Protection Messages, I can offer Direction Messages."
First, she matches steps with them, staying in the same area that they are in. Then she holds her hand up really high and catches the attention of the Bay: "Hey!" she seems to say, "I'm here!" She catches his eye in the palm of her hand, simulating the long neck of a horse with her arm. This is something she will often say: we don't have long necks and long heads, and they don't have arms and hands. She translates as well as imagines what it would be like to be in a body that is different from hers. The Bay responds, as if he recognises something of what she is doing. He seems to say "All right, I'm going to come towards you and I'm going to walk." But the Blaze horse has now gone to get the little Black horse again and is pushing him around again. The Black horse is doing what the Blaze horse asks, but is not sure where he is supposed to go! Sharon offers a message: "You can come here too." He does. He follows her pointing gesture.
But the Blaze horse is still loose. Sharon says he is adamant and interprets, or translates for us: "I don't want to come in, I want to go home!" So she puts her palm towards the Bay and says "You come here," and we see him calm down straight away. She puts her hand high for the little Black horse, and says "You, go there with him." He says "I'll try!", and goes behind Sharon. Then she turns to Blaze and says "You, come here!" and he does. He stops right there and comes in to greet her.
The scene ends around: 7:54.
Sharon Wilsie, Gretchen Vogel, Horse Speak: The Equine-Human Translation Guide, Vermont, Trafalgar Books, 2016.
Sharon Wilsie, Horses in Translation, Essential Lessons in Horse Speak – learn to 'listen' and 'talk' in their language, Vermont, Trafalgar Books, 2018.
Sharon Wilsie, Essential Horse Speak: Continuing the Conversation, Vermont, Trafalgar Books, 2022
Jacques Lacan, Seminar Book XVII, The Other Side of Psychoanalysis [1969-1970], trans. R. Grigg, text established by Jacques-Alain Miller, New York/London, Norton 2007
Jacques Lacan, Seminar Book XX, Encore [1972-1973], trans. B. Fink, text established by Jacques-Alain Miller, New York/London, Norton, 1998.
Vincente Palomera, "Delusions of Jealousy," lecture delivered to The London Workshop in the Freudian Field, 17 June 2023.
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