Latest / The Horsehuman Connection Matrix / Charissa Schmidt PART TWO

Transcript

Charissa Schmidt PART TWO · The Horsehuman Connection Matrix

• 0:01
  Hi, this is Ishiba with the Horse Human Connection Matrix, and I have Carissa with me again for our Part two, and we're gonna pick up some of the conversation that we were having about.
• 0:16
  Let's start with the bullying and the shadow side, kind of where we left off.
• 0:21
  And yeah, we, we really did kind of end on a, kind of a deep note and talking about the shadow side of the horse industry and so.
• 0:32
  I think for the sake of this recorded conversation, it might be helpful to set up some of the context around this bullying and the horse industry like thing.
• 0:45
  I'm gonna recap some things, so like, oh.
• 0:49
  If I take us back down to where I felt like we were, and I'm, I'm searching my own psyche for some archetypes to kind of like hold on to'cause we really are that deep.
• 1:02
  I think we were having conversations about the.
• 1:06
  Difference between like a theory-based clinical approach and an evidence-based clinical approach.
• 1:14
  And, and maybe it's more of like the theory versus the method conversation, and that opened the door to my critique of the very behavioral.
• 1:32
  Approach to psychology in the horse industry.
• 1:35
  There's more to psychology than just the behavioral science part of it.
• 1:41
  And so what a lot of people are exposed to right now in the animal science, behavioral science world is the influence of the behavioral school.
• 1:59
  Which has a dark history and it has a political history, and it's not something that I am comfortable with practicing because of that history.
• 2:13
  And so my psychological and field radical orientation is more in the humanistic schools and the depth psychology schools.
• 2:24
  So more of like the, the person centered, humanistic school of psychology, which is kinda like a cousin or a sister to yian depth psychology.
• 2:36
  And it also has its own shadow.
• 2:39
  It has its limits.
• 2:40
  It's also like we could unpack that in a different conversation, but I feel more comfortable personally in that world than I do in the behavioral science world.
• 2:54
  So.
• 2:55
  We were talking about how, like theory is important because it, it informs how you answer the questions in front of you and it informs how you're gonna interpret the behavior in front of you.
• 3:08
  So okay.
• 3:11
  Is that, is attachment, is attachment theory part of theory.
• 3:16
  Yes.
• 3:16
  I mean there's lots of theories, right?
• 3:17
  Definitely.
• 3:18
  Yes.
• 3:19
  So that's one of the theories and attachment theory kind of gets adopted into multiple schools of psychology.
• 3:26
  It's, and I know about it because of my training in family systems theory in emotion focused therapy, and it's also very big in the early childhood development world.
• 3:40
  And so like attachment theory, this is, this is where you hear like the basics of attachment theory.
• 3:49
  Is that what happens in the first early relationships that you have in life?
• 3:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 3:56
  Kind of create a blueprint for how you engage in relationships later in life.
• 4:01
  So if you have a secure base, and we talk about this a lot, so if you have a secure base attachment relationship with your caregivers as a baby, as an infant, as a child, it's really like the first five to seven years of life that are pretty formative there.
• 4:22
  You are more likely to have.
• 4:26
  Harmonious relationship and be able to regulate yourself in relationship later in life.
• 4:32
  Okay, so we were talking about attachment theory and, and like the basics of it.
• 4:38
  And so like there's this ideas of different attachment styles and you can learn about that and use that to explore intimate relationship and, and like.
• 4:50
  Because of the implications of the neuroscience of human animal bond theory and interpersonal neurobiology, we can say that we have attachment relationships with our horses too.
• 5:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 5:01
  And that we are gonna play out those implicit, unconscious relationship patterns with our animals too.
• 5:11
  We're not on the topic of the bullying yet.
• 5:14
  That's, I think that that's important because Yeah, the thing that came up, I shared, I started interacting and commenting on a Facebook video, and then I asked you to look at it and look at the comments and you had.
• 5:29
  You had some good perspective on it because your eye is so much more trained.
• 5:33
  You've been trained in so many more disciplines and it was, there was some bullying that was happening.
• 5:42
  People were calling these people abusive and lots of them were doing it, and some of them were doing it really aggressively.
• 5:49
  In fact, one of them had a picture of a gun point I'm gonna do to you what you do to animals with this like barrel of a gun picture in the comments.
• 5:57
  And I was just like, take that gun off me.
• 5:59
  What you're just as bad as they are.
• 6:01
  And I know that I've gotten angry about stuff before too, and you're always so good to like say, well hold on.
• 6:09
  You know, there's the right way to do this and you're so patient and tolerant with people at different levels of learning and I just appreciate that.
• 6:18
  Yeah.
• 6:20
  So we had this conversation, this was earlier today, and we were, there was also people jumping on and saying, oh, this poster is so egotistical that rider is so egotistical and, and there's something about being egotistical that's now been demonized in the horse world.
• 6:38
  And rightly so, because again, if we think about the history of the development.
• 6:46
  Of the horse industry, and I think back a few decades, there was very much a need to call people out for being egotistical and abusive.
• 6:57
  Like there was very much a need to have that conversation and to have definitions of what constitutes abuse.
• 7:05
  And there was very much a need to challenge the egos of pretty successful trainers.
• 7:14
  Who would get in there and just and force a horse into a, a frame and force it to go around.
• 7:24
  And you could tell these horses were just tight and tense and angry and resentful.
• 7:29
  So I mean, there was a need for that in the past.
• 7:32
  And there's, I think.
• 7:34
  Because new people continue to come to horses, there will always continue to be a need to have that conversation.
• 7:43
  And to have a conversation about how deeply horses reveal ourselves and how deeply they are capable of mirroring us.
• 7:59
  And, and they will expose.
• 8:02
  The all sorts of things, including the things that maybe we deny or hide about ourself, including being manipulative and being egotistical and being, like being forceful and things like that.
• 8:24
  So.
• 8:26
  If I touch back down to.
• 8:29
  Why it's so important for me to not engage the behavioral school of psychology when I step into spaces with horses.
• 8:41
  And I got to the point where in this first conversation that we had, I found myself kind of surprised of how strongly I was protecting the space against that influence and, and.
• 8:54
  Stepped away from my previous conversation feeling pretty justified in how protective I was being by saying, no, I can't let this into the circle.
• 9:04
  I cannot let this into the space.
• 9:07
  I must protect the integrity of the space that I have with the horse.
• 9:15
  Protect it, protect it from.
• 9:18
  Behavioral psychology, like we just wanna be really clear.
• 9:21
  Yeah.
• 9:22
  Yes, yes, yes.
• 9:23
  And, and the reason why is because, and I said this and I, and let's unpack this, like that is the school of psychology that has been used by governments to oppress people.
• 9:38
  And it, in horse training, it's used.
• 9:42
  A, a parallel is used to oppress horses, but that's not what you're saying.
• 9:46
  You're saying that you wanna keep that away from horse therapy or away from your mind when you're interacting with the horse?
• 9:54
  I think definitely from my mind when I'm act interacting with the horse, and I think this is like probably a really personal conversation because.
• 10:08
  A lot of the work that I do professionally is around works of decolonization and around works of like engaging liberation psychology and liberation theology and things like that.
• 10:26
  The path that I am on personally.
• 10:30
  Is one of questioning and challenging patriarchy.
• 10:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:38
  Which is a very, very normal stage of feminine development.
• 10:47
  We are born into a world, we're conditioned by that world.
• 10:54
  And then we rise up and are conscious enough to realize how deeply we've been manipulated as humans and as women.
• 11:01
  Yeah.
• 11:03
  And, and the horses have been too.
• 11:08
  And so that is a meeting place, and I would prefer to meet the horses in that space and have them be my teachers in that space than I would in instead of.
• 11:20
  Studying the systems of positive reinforcement and targeting and shaping and all those things.
• 11:26
  Is it okay?
• 11:28
  There's a lot there, Carissa.
• 11:29
  Hold on.
• 11:30
  Yeah, yeah.
• 11:31
  Okay.
• 11:31
  Because I opened a really big door.
• 11:34
  Is is it?
• 11:35
  Is it fair?
• 11:36
  Is it is?
• 11:37
  We're talking about patriarchy.
• 11:39
  Is it fair to put a lot of horse training methods and liken them to patriarchy?
• 11:47
  Is that fair?
• 11:49
  Yes.
• 11:50
  And, and I'm saying, what I'm saying is that I think one of the re Well, yes, I mean, and if we think about the history of horsemanship, like women were not allowed to ride a stride until the late 18 hundreds.
• 12:06
  We were not even allowed to be in some cultures on the back of a horse in some cultures, right.
• 12:12
  Well, and I'm, I'm speaking to west dominant Western culture.
• 12:16
  Okay.
• 12:16
  Which most of us listening, most of the people listening to this podcast mm-hmm.
• 12:20
  Are coming from that culture.
• 12:21
  You and I come from that culture.
• 12:23
  Right.
• 12:23
  And that, so that's fair.
• 12:24
  So the other, the other thing that you were saying there, that you want to keep.
• 12:30
  Out of your mind when you're with the horses, the things the train, like click clicker training, and only positive reinforcement.
• 12:38
  Because as you were teaching me when you used to come out and give me mm-hmm.
• 12:42
  Lessons and we would meet, we had some conversations about clicker training and it, and being able to use it as a tool if you have a relationship based training in place, but by itself, it.
• 12:55
  It would run into some problems.
• 12:57
  And so you're also like mm-hmm.
• 12:59
  The clicker training and only positive reinforcement because now we know because horse, brain, human brain, that horses actually have six different modes of learning.
• 13:08
  You're saying that those are part of the behavioral psychology also, that you want to stay away from, keep out of your brain while you're with horses and in that space.
• 13:18
  Is that correct?
• 13:19
  Yes.
• 13:20
  Yes, and, and partly because behavioral psychology is a patriarchal dominated field.
• 13:28
  It is, it is a very masculine method, and I'm saying masculine and kind of the more classical like ying yang sense of the word masculine.
• 13:39
  It's, it's a top down approach where there is a hierarchy.
• 13:45
  There is dominance in influence and I'm more interested in relating to nature and relating to the world, and engaging with the world from a more like egalitarian circle, feminine space bottom up.
• 14:02
  Yeah.
• 14:02
  Starting organic and then manifesting to the mind as the last, yeah.
• 14:07
  Yeah.
• 14:08
  Yeah.
• 14:09
  And, and I will say like, that's just my bias.
• 14:13
  And, and I'm saying like, I know that I have my personal experiences that influence that bias.
• 14:19
  Right?
• 14:20
  Owning that and knowing that you're looking at it through a lens, but it's the right lens for you to have on.
• 14:27
  And it might be the, it might not be the right lens for someone else.
• 14:30
  And I understand, like I do wanna say that I.
• 14:34
  Believe that the behavioral sciences have progressed the conversation in horsemanship in my lifetime, in a positive direction.
• 14:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 14:50
  And it's limited in what it can accomplish.
• 14:53
  It's limited in its scope.
• 14:56
  And, and yet, like earlier today when we were looking at that video, you were really defending some of those methods that from my lens, which is not nearly as educated as yours is from my lens, were looking questionable when you're yanking a horse's neck and it looks like it could break its neck and the horse is flipping over backwards and it's all, but it didn't, so it, it did not flip over backwards.
• 15:24
  The horse did not flip over.
• 15:25
  Okay.
• 15:25
  So in the video, what I remember seeing in the video was there was the comment in the subtext of the, the video was that there was a loose horse that was not halter broke, but it had a halter and leader up on it, right?
• 15:42
  And it was loose and a big open field kind of on the boundary line of like undeveloped open land in a suburb.
• 15:51
  Well, I saw three.
• 15:53
  I saw three different clips.
• 15:54
  Right.
• 15:55
  So I think, yeah, like this is worth talking about too.
• 15:57
  I mean, we're talking about perceptions, we're talking about lenses that we look through.
• 16:02
  We're talking about Yes, biases.
• 16:04
  Yes.
• 16:04
  All of these, like this is an example of all of those things.
• 16:07
  It's also an example of top down, bottom up.
• 16:09
  It's an example of feminine.
• 16:10
  It's an example of patriarchy.
• 16:12
  It's all of these things.
• 16:14
  In this example, right?
• 16:18
  It's gonna get complicated because I'm also stepping in and saying like, I think what we saw in that video was a healthy, top down, patriarchal, masculine action, intervening to prevent chaos.
• 16:35
  Okay.
• 16:35
  And I'm gonna say I'm not sure we're seeing the same thing because Yeah, there was the first scene, there is a horse being lassoed.
• 16:43
  Yes.
• 16:43
  That has something on its face.
• 16:45
  Yes.
• 16:45
  It's blurry.
• 16:46
  And there's a house, like the horse is right next to a house.
• 16:49
  You can see Right.
• 16:50
  The house in the background.
• 16:51
  And what I saw was the horse's neck move and then the horse, I didn't see it hit the ground, but I saw it come up off the ground in a very contorted.
• 17:00
  Like airborne thing and then it cuts to a different Yes.
• 17:04
  Then it cuts to a different scene, which is the middle scene and it's a different horse and a different rider.
• 17:10
  I.
• 17:11
  That are lassoing.
• 17:12
  I don't know if it is.
• 17:13
  I it may have been.
• 17:15
  It is because the man has a red shirt, a different camera.
• 17:18
  Well maybe it's the same Oh.
• 17:19
  But a different day.
• 17:20
  'cause he's wearing a red shirt and one and a and a in a and a blue shirt in the, in the other one.
• 17:25
  And Oh, interesting.
• 17:27
  Okay.
• 17:27
  Scene that you see.
• 17:28
  Is it there?
• 17:29
  It's again, kind of blurry.
• 17:31
  There's a pasture and then there's a road and you can't tell because it's blurry.
• 17:36
  If there's a fence between the pasture and the road got and the horse is again, beating last, and your attention is on the action, but you are aware of the background.
• 17:45
  And then the final scene is like from a GoPro where you're seeing the ears of a horse.
• 17:51
  You know, from the writer's perspective, and he is not suing another horse with a halter and a lead rope flying, right?
• 17:59
  It's open desert.
• 18:00
  There's no house.
• 18:01
  There's no road.
• 18:02
  It is just a desert scene.
• 18:04
  Which could have, right.
• 18:06
  Okay.
• 18:06
  So there's three clips back to back to back and it's exit sequence.
• 18:10
  I think the clip that is getting the most attention in the comments and that maybe elicits the most energy, is that first one.
• 18:19
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:20
  And, and what I saw was someone, like someone, there was a person roping a horse.
• 18:30
  What I saw is that they threw an overhand loop, and I, I think, like I, I'm not as much of an expert in roping to know the name of the type of the loop he threw, but he, he threw an overhand loop.
• 18:46
  And when you catch a horse and rope a horse, you have to throw the root, the loop over the horse, the top of the horse's head, and then you want it to fall down.
• 18:56
  Over their face and onto their chest, which is what happened.
• 19:00
  And what I saw happen is when the top of the rope made contact with the top of that horse's neck, it fought it and reared up into it.
• 19:12
  At the same time, the loop is closing and tightening and the guy dials off because he needs the leverage of another horse.
• 19:24
  To stop this animal and it stops before we know what happens next.
• 19:34
  So we don't know where the release of pressure is coming from for this horse or if it comes at all, right?
• 19:44
  But what we do know is what I see is.
• 19:49
  A horse moving and a horse and rider moving in parallel with it.
• 19:55
  So they're moving together, the rope lands on the horse, reacts to the rope, and then is, and then, and then it's tethered to another horse.
• 20:09
  That's all I know.
• 20:12
  But because, and, and this is, this is something too, so like.
• 20:17
  Nature is violent.
• 20:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:21
  The horse fought.
• 20:23
  Right.
• 20:24
  And we don't know the before story or the after story.
• 20:27
  Right.
• 20:27
  All we're doing is these three short things, which is really interesting.
• 20:31
  Right, right, right.
• 20:31
  The conversations that come in to me, it's like I'm not.
• 20:36
  I mean, I was judging it a little bit when I first saw, but as I started to interact with the, the postings, I found myself asking questions, you know, being curious, calling other people out and offering, like somebody said something, well, there's no other way to catch a wild horse in a pasture.
• 20:53
  Which of course was this opportunity for me to, you know, describe a way to do that, which then got a whole lot of attention.
• 20:59
  You know, and it may have been a little bit off subject, but what I loved about the whole thing is that it was.
• 21:04
  The video caused the conversations that I wanna see happen.
• 21:08
  Yes, yes.
• 21:11
  And I watch, it was really lovely to watch you step up and engage that conversation.
• 21:16
  There has been kind of a collective evolution.
• 21:22
  Especially since TikTok and Covid and everyone has been on social media, I'm gonna go back a few decades again.
• 21:32
  Early two thousands, that's when I first got introduced to the pellis and natural horsemanship as a concept.
• 21:40
  I had already learned quite a few other things from other people and, I.
• 21:50
  Remember the conversation back then was a respect for what the Perellis were doing because again, they were creating a pathway of invitation and learning to help new people enter the horse world.
• 22:09
  But those of us who were already there.
• 22:14
  Saw how shortsighted their teachings were.
• 22:17
  And even back then, people were predicting that natural horsemanship as a movement had a short, it was gonna have a short lifespan because it, again, was, was a strict application of a method.
• 22:36
  And there's interviews out there with the pearls where they say, yeah, we're behaviorals.
• 22:39
  And they, they cite and study like BF Skinner and things like that.
• 22:44
  And they're doing what they can to change people's behavior in relationship to horses, which I think was, has a limited effect to it.
• 22:58
  But at the same time, they forgot.
• 23:04
  A lot of the things that those of us who are generational horse families have learned.
• 23:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:17
  It is, you're right.
• 23:17
  It is the same conversation with some different nuances.
• 23:20
  And you and I have talked about these training methods and about clinicians and you know what my problem is with all of it too, but I mean, I just think, and maybe this is part of my autistic lens, but I think a lot of people that are doing.
• 23:36
  Like the YouTube videos and teaching the clinics, I the whole setup seems wrong because you're in front of people.
• 23:43
  In order to do these things with the horse, you, you need to have an open heart.
• 23:47
  Like that's a big part of what I see going on is not just like the physical, I'll stand here that will manipulate the horse to do this and that.
• 23:54
  It's doing it with an open heart, it's doing it with a connection.
• 23:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:57
  With the horse.
• 23:58
  But the minute you step in front of a camera, the minute you step in front of a crowd and start talking, you're not in your heart.
• 24:04
  You're not in your body.
• 24:05
  Suddenly you're performer.
• 24:07
  Right?
• 24:07
  And so there's a huge, well, I do think that there's some people who can maybe, but, and, and I also, I understand like there is a showmanship side to the industry.
• 24:19
  Like horses have been used for entertainment for so long.
• 24:24
  That's a good point.
• 24:26
  Like there, there is that, that is a part of the craft.
• 24:32
  It is.
• 24:33
  I get that.
• 24:33
  But I guess my problem is like if I'm going to a clinic to learn Yes, and I'm trying to learn what these people are doing and they've stopped doing what they normally do because they're in front of a crowd and somehow I'm supposed to understand what they're doing when it appears.
• 24:49
  That they don't actually understand what they're doing on an energetic level, and nobody can explain that.
• 24:54
  That's my problem with clinics, clinicians, and it's kind of the same problem with this top down because you're, it feels cut off in some ways.
• 25:05
  And so the whole mm-hmm.
• 25:07
  The whole the whole thing is very problematic.
• 25:09
  So I'm actually glad to hear you say that somebody could see that it was shortsighted, because in my mind, I'd like it to be kind of.
• 25:15
  History.
• 25:16
  It doesn't seem effective.
• 25:18
  It doesn't seem like, like the right thing to do.
• 25:23
  And I think Elsa Sinclair like brought the whole thing to a head.
• 25:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:27
  You know, with, with Taming Wild.
• 25:29
  And she was a, a fourth level Pelli student who made the move.
• 25:32
  Right.
• 25:32
  The documentary about the Mustang asking the question, can I ride, will they let us ride?
• 25:39
  Do they wanna be ridden?
• 25:41
  And then in the end, that's a beautiful, beautiful documentary.
• 25:44
  It is a beautiful documentary.
• 25:45
  Yeah.
• 25:45
  But in the end, she admits, yes, I, I'm not using a halter, I'm not using a round pen.
• 25:50
  I'm not using treats.
• 25:51
  I'm not using clickers.
• 25:52
  I am doing this with relationship and with breath.
• 25:55
  I.
• 25:57
  But I'm also manipulating by where I stand, by where I breathe, by how I breathe, right?
• 26:02
  But she's also entering their world like, like I feel like the ideas, a lot of the ideas I have about entering the horse world and them having a separate culture come from some of her work, which feels more as I'm saying it, I'm thinking as I'm talking here, feels more like a top, like a bottom up approach.
• 26:20
  So, so let's go back and maybe we need to unpack the like top down, bottom up terminology.
• 26:26
  'cause it gets used in different ways.
• 26:28
  Okay.
• 26:29
  So if again, like, think about like, I.
• 26:35
  There's top down learning and bottom up learning.
• 26:38
  Bottom, top down learning is, is a more cognitive approach to learning.
• 26:46
  A bottom up approach is more implicit.
• 26:50
  And when we say implicit, what it means is that we're tapping into areas of the consciousness that maybe don't have words, and so it requires us to.
• 27:03
  Be aware of the more subtle energies in our body and our emotional process, different states of being and things like that.
• 27:14
  A basic way of breaking it down body, heart, brain, or we can go brain, heart, body.
• 27:22
  So it's like action, feeling, thinking or thinking, feeling.
• 27:26
  Action.
• 27:29
  And we need both.
• 27:32
  We need both.
• 27:34
  Yeah.
• 27:35
  And.
• 27:37
  When I have, the reason why I have a bias towards a more bottom up approach is that it gets forgotten and neglected, and it needs, it needs some cultural nurturing in my world.
• 27:48
  And so that's why I have a bias towards that practice.
• 27:52
  And, and this is a challenging, challenging thought for some people.
• 27:58
  Like there are hierarchies in the world.
• 28:03
  A parent is above a child.
• 28:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:08
  And right now we're going through some pretty big cultural shifts where we're exploring gender hierarchies.
• 28:13
  But I was born into a world in a religious system where a man was above women.
• 28:22
  And.
• 28:23
  That's a challenge for me to sit with.
• 28:26
  I haven't completely abandoned that thinking, but I don't like it'cause I'm a woman.
• 28:31
  Like that's not the only reason.
• 28:33
  Come on.
• 28:35
  Well, I mean, okay.
• 28:36
  I, I have some more work I need to do around that personally.
• 28:39
  I have some integration to do, like but, but you're not pushing back and you're not challenging me when I say it.
• 28:45
  A parent is above a child.
• 28:48
  I like that idea, but you know, it's not the reality in the world anymore.
• 28:51
  In fact, that's a really big problem that I'm sure people come to see you for.
• 28:57
  A lot of people are asking that question.
• 28:59
  Yes.
• 28:59
  And actually that is at the same time though there are some ways when like if I'm in a therapy session with a child and it's just me and the child in the room, I am in charge of that space and I have a bigger body and I have more experience, and I have more wisdom and I have more knowledge.
• 29:16
  Yeah.
• 29:16
  Except for Carissa, in any space you're in that I've ever witnessed, whether there's big horses or men or just me, you are in charge.
• 29:24
  Like that's, that's who you are.
• 29:27
  Well, it's also how I've been trained to operate, of course.
• 29:31
  From a young age.
• 29:33
  From a very young age.
• 29:35
  Right, right.
• 29:38
  So I get going back to this video though.
• 29:48
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:49
  Like one of the comments that I had in the video is like, this is kind of like parenting, like roping that horse and getting it out of the housing development I said was like, it's like grabbing the arm of a child and pulling it out of traffic.
• 30:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:07
  Because there are children who don't know not to run into the road.
• 30:11
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:13
  And, and so I do need to be able to have my faculties, but the action of grabbing that child and pulling it out of traffic.
• 30:27
  Is not coming from a cognitive space.
• 30:31
  It's coming from a space of instinct with the child.
• 30:35
  Yes.
• 30:37
  With that horse, like I'm still, like you're saying housing development.
• 30:40
  I saw one house and, and so like we're seeing things that's true differently.
• 30:44
  That's true.
• 30:45
  And, and I'm trying to imagine a situation, and maybe this is like off topic, but maybe it's not, I'm trying to imagine a situation where, you know, the horse has a lead rope and a halter on, and suddenly there's a cowboy with a rope.
• 31:01
  Like, what was that?
• 31:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 31:05
  Were they riding?
• 31:06
  Did somebody fall off?
• 31:08
  Did the horse just get loose?
• 31:09
  Did somebody leave the gate open?
• 31:11
  And we don't know.
• 31:13
  Yeah, right.
• 31:13
  We dunno.
• 31:13
  Any of that.
• 31:14
  And so, but when you, when you're making the analogy with the, the parent and grabbing a child and it being like a, a knee jerk reaction to save a child or to save the horse, I'm not convinced that that's the same situation, is what I'm saying.
• 31:30
  I guess like the moment the, the energy of the video clip that we saw mm-hmm.
• 31:36
  Where this man is on a horse throwing the rope to catch another horse mm-hmm.
• 31:41
  I think is the same kind of energy as like grabbing the arm of a child and throwing the back off the road.
• 31:47
  Okay.
• 31:48
  Yeah.
• 31:48
  I'll, I'll with that.
• 31:50
  But, but, and also like I've decided ahead of time, if I'm gonna pull a child out of traffic, I've already decided ahead of time, based on my years of conditioning and experience, that this is the thing to do.
• 32:04
  Mm-hmm.
• 32:05
  And so I've been trained by my culture that this is the right way.
• 32:11
  The right thing and the heroic thing.
• 32:15
  The protective thing.
• 32:19
  Mm-hmm.
• 32:20
  Why do you think so many people saw and commented on that being abuse?
• 32:28
  What?
• 32:29
  What do you think that's about?
• 32:30
  The horse reared up and the rope did get tight.
• 32:34
  And his neck got pulled over.
• 32:36
  Yeah.
• 32:38
  So, so there was a use of force in manipulation.
• 32:45
  We're not used to seeing that scenario either.
• 32:47
  Like we see horses roped in a corral or large round pen.
• 32:53
  Right?
• 32:54
  Right.
• 32:54
  We see horses herded up with helicopters driven, you know, with multiple horsemen.
• 33:02
  Right.
• 33:03
  We see cattle roped and tied in the, in the rodeo.
• 33:08
  Oh.
• 33:08
  But we don't see horses roped in a, in a large area, running at full speed.
• 33:16
  We don't see that a lot.
• 33:17
  We used to see it more though.
• 33:20
  And, and that's again, back to the shadow and the history of the industry.
• 33:25
  Right.
• 33:26
  Like.
• 33:27
  People used to, it used to be legal, and this is why we have the legislation that was passed in the 1970s to protect the Mustangs because it used to be legal before that legislation was passed to hunt them as sport.
• 33:42
  What?
• 33:44
  You don't know about that?
• 33:45
  No, they were, yeah.
• 33:46
  No horses.
• 33:48
  Yes.
• 33:49
  Well, there is an overpopulation problem.
• 33:53
  And it used to be legal to hunt them a sport.
• 33:56
  And this is where you hear about the practices like tripping.
• 34:01
  And, and so people would go and do the things that we saw in the video that you commented on decades ago before we were born.
• 34:11
  What kind of people as hunt horses.
• 34:13
  I, I'm, I'm sorry.
• 34:15
  I'm.
• 34:17
  A reaction.
• 34:18
  It's difficult for me to answer that because I wasn't alive then.
• 34:24
  I, but I do think that a part of the outrage that still is coming up is like a ripple or an echo of the outrage from previous generations, even if we don't consciously know.
• 34:40
  Right.
• 34:43
  That's a lot.
• 34:44
  Right.
• 34:45
  I'm getting goosebumps.
• 34:46
  That is a lot.
• 34:47
  Right?
• 34:48
  And and this is, so it's like a parallel to the echoes that happen, like when we engage with international politics and what's happening in Palestine and Israel or when we Right.
• 35:04
  And we are having these echoes of protests from the civil rights movement and we're having these echoes of rebellion and are facing the shadow and the echoes of fascism in America.
• 35:20
  Like it feels kind of similar to that to me.
• 35:25
  That's a, that's a really good point.
• 35:27
  This like microcosm of course is reflected in, the energetic patterns, even collective consciousness or DNA or generational, whatever exactly.
• 35:42
  I think we're on the same page.
• 35:44
  Yeah, we're definitely on the same page.
• 35:46
  Okay.
• 35:46
  So I'm getting the chills now too, like, yeah, it's, I mean, it's really good to unpack all of that.
• 35:54
  How do you see the horses leading in, in work that.
• 36:01
  Feels therapeutic with them.
• 36:04
  Yeah.
• 36:05
  Like, well, maybe this kind of goes back to some of the questions that we've asked together before about like, what is it that the horses are teaching us right now?
• 36:15
  What do they have to say for this time in human history?
• 36:19
  And I am a believer based on my own experiences that horses function like a psychopomp and a psychopomp is like a mediator between worlds.
• 36:41
  And, and maybe it's the unconscious and conscious world.
• 36:46
  Maybe it's the inner world and the outer world.
• 36:49
  Maybe we could go into different cultural practices and think about the tree of life in the underworld and the upper world of the heavens.
• 37:00
  They're a mediator and they help us travel.
• 37:05
  And whether it's traveling physically in the material world, like with a cart or a carriage or on their back or whether they're traveling with us psychically and spiritually, when we go and sit and meditate and just be with them, and then we have these amazing experiences.
• 37:29
  I, I do think they offer themselves in relationship with us to help facilitate that kind of movement.
• 37:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 37:46
  Wow.
• 37:46
  That's a great answer.
• 37:47
  That I like on so many levels.
• 37:50
  I hadn't thought about it.
• 37:52
  Like that.
• 37:54
  I have, I have one another question for you.
• 37:57
  What five almost universal mistakes would you address to horse trainers and ask them to stop?
• 38:09
  Oh my gosh.
• 38:09
  Okay.
• 38:10
  Well, I don't know if I have five answers, but let me, let me sit with that a little bit.
• 38:16
  I don't know.
• 38:19
  Let me see if I can anchor onto something.
• 38:22
  We could also have the conversation that we started earlier today about the bumps and the Spurs and the Grand Prix and these different, you know, different levels of riding and what we see.
• 38:35
  I think I like we could and, and I think that, well, and I think maybe my answer to that is connected to the answer to the first thing you asked, which is circling back to the idea that we are all just where we are.
• 38:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 38:53
  And, and I guess maybe my challenge and the question I'm asking myself right now there is a natural order and harmony to everything that we see with horses and people.
• 39:07
  And sometimes it's really big and sometimes it's really quiet and invisible.
• 39:11
  All of it is what it is and all of it is what it needs to be.
• 39:15
  Well, the edges of learning and the edges of good horse ship I.
• 39:26
  And the, the edges an intersection of tolerance for other people of where we are.
• 39:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 39:33
  Yeah.
• 39:33
  And wanting to learn the right things.
• 39:35
  Like I find myself wanting regulation or wanting, you know, a 5 0 1 with people that can be called to educate people that are doing things that are unsafe to the horse.
• 39:47
  And at the same time, I also realized that even when these terrible things happen to horses.
• 39:54
  That there are lessons for the people like it, it doesn't feel like it's ever on accident.
• 40:02
  Yes, and like all accidents with horses, I will say like all accidents with horses are caused and, and that is where we can step in with our human brain and learn how to be more preventative.
• 40:22
  And and you know, we've got the work of Temple Grand and has been brilliant in order to improve the life of all animals and all livestock.
• 40:35
  Mm-hmm.
• 40:36
  Like people have completely redesigned what.
• 40:41
  Healthy living looks like for horses.
• 40:44
  You know, I, again, I grew up when it, what was normal was for a horse to live in a box stall and maybe get a couple hours of turnout a day.
• 40:55
  And the only movement that they got, or the only movement that they got was if they were taken out to be ridden that day.
• 41:04
  And.
• 41:06
  That is what was necessary when horses lived a more urban life, and now horses don't live as much of an urban life as they used to.
• 41:19
  And so now what's normal is to have paddock, paradises and big turnouts and things like that, and we've changed our feeding practices and it is for the better of the horse.
• 41:32
  The horses are living longer.
• 41:34
  There's less colic than there used to be.
• 41:37
  But there's also new challenges because there's more laminitis in founder than there's ever been.
• 41:42
  And now there's like dental problems showing up that have never, that were never a problem in the past.
• 41:49
  So I mean, the environment has changed and now there's a new set of imbalances that are being exposed.
• 42:00
  This new environment.
• 42:02
  Does that make sense?
• 42:03
  It does..
• 42:04
  There's a new cycle.
• 42:06
  Yeah, the balance is, is something that's always there fighting to come back to homeostasis.
• 42:11
  Like, and it changes and I mean, yes, it's like us nothing, nothing really gets accomplished when you're in balance.
• 42:19
  Balance is something to return to after you've dipped or went for a high or accomplished something or whatever, you know, whatever it is, it's the rest time.
• 42:30
  So yeah, why would we be there?
• 42:32
  But I love the part about what's going on in the world.
• 42:36
  You know, showing up in small ways in people's psyches as we comment on Facebook that's pretty profound.
• 42:43
  I mean, and it's very real.
• 42:44
  It's probably more real than all the stuff going out going on in the world and, and somehow, like social media has now been a place for us to like work out a lot of that stuff.
• 42:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 42:58
  And that's something too is cameras and the eye of a camera means that we can't hide anymore.
• 43:04
  there's, being someone who wants to be in the horse industry means that you're gonna get watched, you're gonna be seen.
• 43:14
  Yeah.
• 43:14
  And, and sometimes it's hard to control how we're seen or how it's interpreted.
• 43:19
  Mm-hmm.
• 43:19
  Or, or all of that.
• 43:22
  Wow.
• 43:22
  Yeah.
• 43:23
  What, so we're, we're at about an hour again, and Oh my gosh.
• 43:27
  I know it happens so quick.
• 43:31
  Is there anything else that you wanna cover?
• 43:33
  I feel like, man, we talked about a lot of things that were important.
• 43:38
  I think let's, I, I imagine there's gonna be more questions and we could do this again and talk more, but this feels like we've come up.
• 43:48
  Out of the depth of that heaviness that we ended on last time.
• 43:54
  Yes.
• 43:56
  And And are maybe more that feels complete.
• 44:01
  Yeah, I like that too.
• 44:03
  I guess that's a good place to say goodnight.
• 44:06
  Sounds good.