On the Hoof

I heard some years ago about a man who was hypnotised and told that between him and the door there was a chair here, a table there, a box beyond that. Back in his normal state of consciousness he was asked to walk from one end of the room to the other. He did this by moving in a zigzag fashion to carefully avoid the imaginary obstacles that had been put into his mind by the hypnotist. Asked why he had taken the zigzagging route through this evidently empty space, instead of laughing in astonishment at his mystifying behaviour, he made things up that sounded sort of plausible: There was a draft from the window, I suddenly remembered something, I wanted to see a mark on the wall, etc. The conclusion drawn from the study was that the ego pretends to know what it is doing, and can't be relied on to speak the truth even to itself.  Thomas came for an encounter with Bree and said that he was looking forward to touching the horses: he stretched out his hand as he spoke. I asked him t...

  Esquisse by Picasso You might recognise the name Bree if you liked to read as a child. It is the name of a horse in a children's book, a talking horse. The author, C.S. Lewis, apparently took the name from a mythical place in a book written by his colleague and friend J.R.R. Tolkien. Writing is the pedigree, the lineage, of the Bree whose birth was registered at Companies House on 1 January 2026. And it's why I've chosen a line drawing, une   esquisse (in French), by Pablo Picasso to represent her.  Bree is an imaginary horse, a mare, and is currently stabled at Kingsmead Equestrian Centre in Warlingham. She is available for hire on a Tuesday at present. She has accepted to meet people who want to learn something about themselves as a speaking animal through an encounter with her.  Humans are animals that speak. Horses don't speak but they do communicate. Interacting with horses via Bree can give you an experience as a speaking animal. She will help you ...

A new brown mare is on the yard. She was pacing around her box and I thought, literally, "unsettled." Was it a signal that I read – or was it a "condition"?  She was put into a central pen while her stable was being cleaned, and tied by a halter rope attached to a string on the fence line. She was pacing back and forth on the end of the rope, which I found difficult to ignore.  I went and stood near her head. She was holding it high and looking around her. It was clear that the simple fact of my presence was not what she wanted, and she barely stopped what she was doing while I stood there. I began to walk around the outside of the small pen she was in, touching the posts and rails, checking the perimeter. This was something I used to do as a matter of course when I began my training as an equine facilitated psychotherapist (see earlier post, Klaus part 1 ). I suppose she noticed but I don't know what effect it had on her. Nevertheless, it gave me time to think....