PAS DE CHEVAL, Curriculum Manual Module 2, Part I

PAS DE CHEVAL

The Dance of Remembrance

Curriculum Manual

A Practice for Life

MODULE TWO

ENTERING THE DIALOGUE

Mutual Respect in Action

In Module One, we began with the human.

Before asking anything of the horse, we began learning how to arrive differently. We explored mutual sovereignty and respectful boundaries. We examined what we bring into the horse’s presence—our expectations, identities, emotions, physical states, subconscious patterns, and incongruences. We began learning to enter the Field of Presence with a clear mind, a relaxed and aligned body, an open heart, and rhythmic breath.

Now we begin to enter the dialogue.

Nothing we learned in Module One is left behind.

The Three Positions are not something we master and then move beyond. They travel with us through every encounter with the horse and eventually become inseparable.

Mutual sovereignty and respect determine how we relate.

The Field of Presence determines the state from which we relate.

The Position of the Body becomes the physical language through which that relationship begins to move.

In this module, we begin bringing all three together.

We meet the horse. We listen. We invite. The horse answers. We answer the horse.

And the dance begins.

Relationship Rather Than Dominance

At the heart of Pas de Cheval is a distinction to which we will return throughout our practice: relationship rather than dominance.

A partnership between horse and human cannot exist if one being continually imposes upon the other. Relationship grows through mutual respect, mutual sovereignty, reciprocity, trust, presence, responsibility, and communication.

We cannot demand the horse’s complete attention while offering only a fraction of our own. If we want the horse to be present with us, we must become present with the horse. If we want the horse to listen, we must listen. If we want the horse to trust us, we must become trustworthy.

If we want relationship, we must participate in one.

The distinction between relationship and control can become subtle. We can abandon obvious force and still manipulate. We can learn softer techniques while remaining entirely focused upon getting the horse to do what we want. We can become highly skilled at producing behavior without allowing the horse to participate meaningfully in the conversation.

Throughout Pas de Cheval, we return to several questions:

Am I still in relationship?

Am I still in the Field?

Am I listening?

Am I guiding, or am I manipulating?

Am I allowing, or am I manufacturing?

Am I participating in what is arising, or imposing what I decided must arise?

Where am I forcing what could be allowed to unfold?

There is one place to which we can always return when we are uncertain: the Field of Presence.

The Field Is Our Compass

The Field of Presence is not an exercise we complete before working with the horse. It becomes our compass.

When we step outside of the Field, urgency can enter. Expectation enters. Anxiety enters. The clock enters. Ego enters. Identity enters. The need to accomplish something enters.

Invitation can become pressure. Guidance can become manipulation. Communication can become something we do to the horse rather than something occurring between us.

The horse knows when we have stepped outside of the Field.

And so, whenever we are uncertain:

Return to the Field.

Entering the Field does not require perfection. It is not sainthood. It is not a question of being worthy enough, spiritually advanced enough, or good enough. It is not religious.

It asks for surrender.

We lay down identity. We lay down ego. We lay down the need to prove ourselves. We lay down anxiety surrounding the outcome. We lay down the story of what must happen next.

What remains are those innate virtues of compassion, empathy, integrity, honesty, authenticity, and presence.

The Field of Presence is Divine Presence. It is the Divine Field, the Unified Field of unlimited potential in which our constructed identities and ego no longer direct the conversation because we have surrendered our attachment to their demands.

And within the Unified Field is intelligence.

Divine Intelligence.

It is not something the human manufactures. It is something we become available to when we enter the Field.

The horse already knows this Field. The horse lives within it.

When undisturbed by us, this is where the horse already exists—in relationship with the herd, the earth, the weather, the unseen, the movement of life, and the totality of nature.

When we enter the Field, we are not asking the horse to come entirely into our world.

We are remembering how to meet the horse in theirs.

The Unified Field and Divine Intelligence

The Field of Presence is not empty in the sense of containing nothing. When we empty ourselves of ego, identity, agenda, and the human constructs that obscure our perception, we become available to something greater.

There is intelligence within the Field.

There is an ordering Divine Intelligence that does not belong solely to the human and does not belong solely to the horse. It flows through both. It flows through nature. It moves through the totality.

There are moments when horse and human enter such profound resonance within this Field that the separation between my action and your action begins to soften.

We remain sovereign beings. We do not lose ourselves. But we become participants within something larger than either one of us.

The Divine Intelligence becomes the grand conductor of the communication.

Horse and human are not puppets. They remain fully alive, aware, expressive, and sovereign. But rather than one directing and the other obeying, both become participants within a greater intelligence moving through the relationship.

This is where the pas de deux begins to reveal its deepest meaning.

Wu Wei — Effortless Action

The Taoist principle of Wu Wei gives us another language for this experience.

Wu Wei is often translated as non-action or effortless action. Within Pas de Cheval, however, it reaches beyond simply using less physical effort.

There are moments when we empty ourselves of the human construct—the ego, identity, expectation, predetermined outcome, anxiety, and need to control—and enter the Field so completely that another quality of action becomes possible.

We are still participating. We are still conscious. We have not disappeared. But we are no longer trying to manufacture what happens next.

Within that surrender, the Divine Intelligence of the Unified Field can move through the relationship and unite horse and human within the dance.

This cannot be manufactured. It cannot be demanded. It cannot be produced through technique.

We can prepare ourselves. We can cultivate the conditions. We can become receptive. But we cannot command it.

This is Wu Wei within Pas de Cheval: action through non-action.

Not because nothing happens, but because the ego is no longer obstructing what can happen.

The Field opens us to Divine Intelligence. Wu Wei is the effortless action that can arise when we stop interfering with it.

There is no contest to win, no identity to defend, no horse to conquer, no performance to prove.

There is simply the next movement arising within relationship.

The Black Stallion — Before I Had Words

When I was twelve years old, I encountered a black stallion alone in a field.

At that time, I knew virtually nothing about horses. Horses were not part of my life. I had no training method in my mind, no preconceived ideas about what horses were supposed to do, and no understanding of what a human was supposed to do with a horse.

I had nothing to apply.

And that absence was perhaps one of the greatest gifts I could have been given.

I had been raised beautifully by parents who gave me the freedom to spend enormous amounts of time in nature. Nature was not somewhere I occasionally visited. It was where I felt at home.

As a child, I had no language for the Field of Presence or the Unified Field. I did not know the term Divine Intelligence. I did not know Wu Wei.

I simply lived there naturally.

I had not yet accumulated the enormous architecture of identity through which adults so often meet the world. I did not arrive before that stallion carrying someone else’s method of horsemanship, someone else’s expectations, or a predetermined idea of what I was supposed to make him do.

I was simply there.

And so was he.

When we danced together in that field, I did not make him dance. I did not ask him to perform something I had learned. I had nothing to prove.

Something arose between us.

There was a profound sense of unification—horse, child, earth, nature, movement, awareness—all participating within something larger than either one of us.

What I understand now is that I had entered the Field of Presence naturally. And within that Field, I experienced the Divine Intelligence of the Unified Field.

I could not explain it. I could not name it.

But I knew it.

And it became one of the most profound experiences of my life.

I Did Not Need to Learn — I Needed to Unlearn

As I grew older, I entered more fully into the human world.

And with that came identity, expectation, conditioning, trauma, false beliefs, the identities other people placed upon me, and the identities I accepted for myself. There were ideas about success and failure, approval and worth, and what I should become.

Eventually, when horses entered my life in earnest, I encountered something else: horsemanship.

There were systems, methods, trainers, rules, Natural Horsemanship, Classical Dressage, Competitive Dressage, and countless human ideas about what horses should do and how human beings should make those things happen.

I tried to learn.

But something kept happening.

Whenever I stepped outside of the relationship and attempted to apply a construct to the horse—regardless of whose method it was, how gentle it claimed to be, or how respected the trainer might be—I felt the relationship begin to close.

Something disappeared. The communication changed. The life within it diminished.

And somewhere beneath everything I had been taught, I knew:

This is not what I want.

The answer was not another method.

I needed to unlearn.

I needed to unravel the constructs I had accumulated around myself, the identities other people had placed upon me and those I had adopted, the trauma, false beliefs, expectations, and human conditioning that had separated me from something I had once known naturally.

I did not need to learn how to enter the Field.

I needed to remove what was preventing me from recognizing that it had always been there.

Stary Taught Me How to Return

My first horse, Stary, became one of my greatest teachers in this unlearning.

I had begun surrounding her with constructs too. What should she do? How should she respond? What had I been told a horse should become? What had trainers told me? What was I supposed to accomplish with her?

And she showed me where those constructs led.

When I tried to impose them, the relationship closed.

So I did something that became fundamental to everything that followed.

I was willing to get off.

I was willing to stop trying to make the horse fit what I had been taught.

I was willing to listen.

And Stary began teaching me how to unlearn.

She helped me unravel what I had constructed around her and what I had constructed around myself. Layer by layer, I began returning to something I already knew.

The Divine Presence I had entered naturally when I was twelve had never disappeared. I had simply accumulated things between myself and my awareness of it.

Stary helped me remember.

And when I surrendered the ego, the expectation, and the method—when I entered the Field again—the same intelligence was there.

The same essence. The same communion. The same unification.

Only now I was old enough to begin recognizing what was occurring.

It Happened Again

And it did not end with Stary.

Years later, I danced with another black stallion—the sire of my Friesians, the stallion of my Friesian mare.

And there it was again.

The same essence. The same unification. The same Divine Intelligence.

And then it appeared again with another horse. And another. And another.

This recurrence became profoundly important.

If it had happened only once when I was twelve, I might have dismissed it as an extraordinary childhood experience. But whenever I surrendered the construct and entered the Field, the same thing continued to reveal itself throughout my life with horses.

Again and again.

Whenever I released the ego and surrendered into the Field of Presence, horse and human could communicate within the higher Divine Intelligence of the Unified Field.

That communication surpassed any training method I had encountered. More importantly, it deepened the relationship in a way no human construct ever had.

This did not mean knowledge became meaningless. Technique did not become meaningless. Body position mattered. Timing mattered. Balance mattered. Understanding the horse’s body mattered. Training principles could have value.

But they had to become servants of relationship rather than replacements for it.

Technique could never become the grand conductor.

The Divine Intelligence within the Unified Field remained the grand conductor.

That distinction changed everything.

From Experience to a Way of Being

What came naturally when I was twelve became something I later had to rediscover through unlearning.

Rediscovery became recognition. Recognition became conscious practice. Practice became relationship. Relationship became trust. And trust allowed communication to become increasingly subtle.

Eventually, the recurrence became too consistent to dismiss.

The Field was no longer an exceptional state available only in extraordinary moments.

It became the place from which I wanted to live—with horses, with nature, with animals, with life.

And this is the essence from which Chevalia emerged.

Chevalia is not simply a place where horses live.

At its deepest level, Chevalia is the remembrance of living within the Unified Field.

Pas de Cheval gives us a practice through which we consciously return to what the horse has never forgotten.

The Horse Has Not Forgotten

The horse already lives within the Field.

This is where horses exist when we are not interfering with them. They do not need to intellectually discover their relationship with nature.

They are nature.

They live within its rhythms, frequencies, relationships, perceptions, and intelligence.

Human beings begin much closer to this state as well. Very young children, when their innate virtues are nurtured rather than overridden by early programming, live with remarkable immediacy, openness, authenticity, curiosity, and presence. Before identity becomes rigidly constructed, they remain naturally within this Field.

But human beings gradually accumulate stories.

We learn who we are supposedly meant to be. We create identities around what has happened to us. We acquire beliefs about success, failure, approval, status, fear, worth, possession, achievement, and control.

Eventually, we may mistake the story for ourselves.

We have a story. We are not the story.

The horse has not forgotten.

We have.

This is one reason the horse can become such an extraordinary partner in remembrance.

The Relationship Begins to Anticipate Us

As relationship deepens, something beautiful can begin to happen.

The horse begins to anticipate our arrival.

They may see us coming across the field and turn toward us. They may leave the herd to greet us. They may walk away from food to come and stand beside us. They may offer a familiar movement before we consciously ask.

Sometimes it may seem that the horse has entered the conversation before we ourselves feel that we have fully settled into the Field of Presence.

We must understand this very carefully.

It does not mean that we have progressed beyond the need for the Field. It does not mean that the relationship has become sufficiently established that we can return to the human construct of horsemanship and expect the horse to continue giving us the same relationship.

Quite the opposite.

The horse is anticipating relationship.

The horse remembers where we have met.

The horse has experienced us within the Field and has come to recognize the relationship that exists there. Their willingness may begin arriving before we have fully arrived ourselves.

That is an extraordinary gift.

And the more generously the horse offers, the more carefully we must protect the offering.

The horse’s willingness is never evidence that we no longer need the Field.

It is evidence of how deeply we must honor the relationship that was created within it.

Familiarity must deepen reverence, never replace it.

The Horse Calls Us to Remember

If the horse sees us and leaves food to greet us, notice it.

That may appear to be the smallest, most ordinary thing in the world. Someone else might barely notice it at all.

But the horse had a choice.

The horse was eating.

And something within the horse said:

There you are. I want to be with you.

That is reciprocity.

If the horse lowers the head and places the nose into the halter before we have fully offered it, notice that too. If the horse begins walking beside us before we ask, stops upon the breath almost before we consciously exhale, turns toward us at liberty, or offers a movement that has become part of our shared language, do not think:

Good. I don’t need the Field anymore.

Recognize what has actually happened.

The horse remembers the relationship.

And the horse is inviting us back into it.

The horse is saying, in the language available to the horse:

I remember you. I remember us. Do you remember?

There is something profoundly humbling in this.

It can feel almost as though the Divine itself is whispering through the encounter:

I love you. Remember me.

And suddenly we are there.

The horse has brought us back into Presence.

Not because the Field was unnecessary, but because the relationship established within the Field has become so meaningful that the horse is already waiting for us there.

Never Take the Small Things for Granted

This is why we must be extraordinarily careful about what we call ordinary.

Putting on a halter can become ordinary. Walking through a gate can become ordinary. A horse approaching us can become ordinary. A horse leaving the herd to stand beside us can become ordinary. A horse leaving food to greet us can become ordinary.

But relationship is expressed through these seemingly small choices.

I never want to become so accustomed to a horse’s willingness that I stop recognizing it.

The smallest voluntary gesture can carry enormous meaning when we understand the sovereignty of the being who offered it.

Love from a horse is humbling. Trust from a horse is humbling. The empathy and compassion a horse can extend toward a human being are humbling.

These are not things to which we are entitled.

They are gifts within relationship.

And occasionally something happens that goes far beyond anything we expected.

A moment arises with a horse that can only be described as spiritual.

Nothing was planned. Nothing was being sought.

Yet something is given.

The experience can bring us to tears, bring us inwardly to our knees, and bring us into profound humility, reverence, awe, and wonder.

Receive it.

Do not seize it.

Do not immediately ask, How did I do that?

Do not make tomorrow’s objective, I want that experience again.

And do not mistake a profound spiritual experience for proof that we have reached some level of accomplishment.

We do not possess these moments.

We receive them.

The Divine Intelligence within the Unified Field is not something we command. There is an awareness of us within it. These profound moments are given when we are ready to receive them.

We cannot capture them. We cannot control them. We cannot schedule them.

But we can be ready for them.

Do not seek the sacred moment. Become available to it.

The Horse as Remembrance

There are people who travel across the world searching for awakening. They may retreat into monasteries, climb mountains, study for years, or sit at the feet of spiritual teachers.

And yet, for those fortunate enough to live with horses, a magnificent teacher may already be standing in front of us.

The horse gives us biofeedback.

Not through judgment. Not through doctrine. Not by telling us what to believe.

The horse responds to who we actually are in the moment.

When we are scattered, the horse may show us. When we are incongruent, the horse may show us. When we are forcing, the horse may show us.

And when we finally arrive—when mind becomes Open Sky, body becomes Pillar of Light, breath becomes Ocean Wave, and we surrender into the Field—the horse may show us that too.

There. Right there. Remember.

We stop seeking something far away.

It is right here.

The horse has not forgotten.

We are learning to remember.

And as relationship deepens, sometimes the horse begins the remembrance before we do.

That is not permission to abandon the practice.

It is an invitation to honor it even more deeply.

The Field Becomes a Way of Being

At first, we may consciously practice returning.

We stop. We breathe. We soften the eyes. We surrender identity.

We return to Open Sky. Pillar of Light. Ocean Wave.

But as the relationship deepens, something changes.

Horse and human repeatedly meet within this resonance. Trust accumulates. Communication becomes subtler. The horse recognizes us there. We recognize the horse there.

Eventually, our practice of returning becomes less separate from the way we live.

The Field becomes a way of being.

That does not mean everyone around us will be living there. People may approach us through identity, fear, conditioning, judgment, expectation, social constructs, and unconscious patterns.

We cannot make another person enter the Field.

But we can remain within it ourselves.

From there, Divine Intelligence guides us in navigating relationships even with those who are not consciously aware of their true essence.

We remain present. We discern. We listen. We respond. We maintain sovereignty. We remain compassionate without abandoning discernment.

The Field becomes guidance. It becomes protection. It becomes the place from which we navigate life.

This is why Pas de Cheval ultimately becomes more than something we practice with horses.

It is A Practice for Life.

Guidance Is Not Manipulation

Mutual sovereignty does not mean abandoning the horse to a world the horse did not create.

We live within a human construct. Roads, automobiles, trailers, wire fences, barns, gates, veterinary hospitals, machinery, property boundaries, and countless other structures are human creations.

The horse did not design this world.

Because horses live within it, we have accepted responsibility for helping them navigate it.

This is guardianship.

We do not open a gate beside a highway and say, You are sovereign. Choose.

We protect the horse from dangers the horse cannot be expected to understand.

We guide. We protect.

We have their back.

The question is not whether we guide.

The question is where that guidance comes from.

Relationship? Trust? Presence? Responsibility?

Or ego, urgency, domination, and determination to obtain an outcome?

The Trailer, Surrender, and Wu Wei

A horse trailer gives us a clear example.

Walking into a metal box is not something a horse would naturally understand. Yet transportation may be necessary.

The conventional question is often, How do I get this horse into the trailer?

Pas de Cheval begins somewhere else:

Can I enter the Field?

Perhaps this is the horse’s first trailer. Perhaps we have an appointment. Perhaps people are waiting. Perhaps I allowed fifteen minutes when the horse needs an hour.

The clock enters. Anxiety enters. Expectation enters. Determination enters.

The horse perceives all of it.

Coaxing can become pressure. Pressure escalates. Soon the encounter becomes a contest.

This is precisely where we surrender.

Release the clock. Release the anxiety. Release the image of failure. Release the need to demonstrate competence.

Enter the Field.

Visualize the horse calmly walking into the trailer. See the possibility clearly. Feel it.

But do not grasp it.

Visualization is not another invisible form of coercion.

Offer the possibility into the Field and release the outcome.

Now listen.

The horse may look. Pause. Sniff. Take a step.

We respond to that horse in that moment.

Perhaps another step comes.

Sometimes the horse simply walks in.

Communication can occur before the obvious physical request has even been made.

The horse already knows.

We did not do nothing.

We stopped interfering.

The Divine Intelligence becomes the grand conductor rather than human anxiety.

This is Wu Wei.

But Wu Wei cannot become another compliance technique.

The moment we say, I will surrender so the horse will do what I want, surrender itself has become manipulation.

We surrender because surrender returns us to relationship.

Within an established relationship, the horse increasingly knows:

You listen to me. You protect me. You have my back. I may not understand this human thing you are asking me to navigate, but I know you.

That is trust.

The Listening Dictates the Plan

We may come to the horse with a plan.

There is nothing wrong with having one.

The mistake is believing the plan must happen simply because we made it.

When we enter relationship with another sovereign being, the plan remains fluid because we are listening.

Listening begins with neutrality.

How does my body feel? Am I tired? Am I carrying pain? Am I tense? Am I emotionally unsettled? Am I excited, anxious, irritated, distracted, or sad? Is my mind quiet, or am I already searching for an explanation?

The horse may reflect or emulate what we bring.

Before deciding what belongs to the horse, we need to know what belongs to us.

We take responsibility for our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state.

We recognize what we carry, clear what is ours to clear, and return as closely as possible to neutrality.

Then we listen.

Perceive Without Searching

Within the Field of Presence, awareness expands beyond what we perceive through our physical eyes.

Over time, subtle sensory awareness develops. We may perceive through feeling, frequency, vibration, color, sound, tonation, image, visualization, intention, breath, taste, smell, words, or a knowing that arrives whole before explanation.

Do not hunt for these perceptions. Do not guess. Do not manufacture intuition.

Let perception arise.

Something changed.

I feel something.

I don’t know what it means yet.

That is enough.

Discernment does not require immediate interpretation.

Perhaps feeding time is approaching. Perhaps the horse needs to digest. Perhaps a gait genuinely feels different. Perhaps the herd is unusually vigilant. Perhaps the horse is perceiving something in the environment that we cannot perceive.

Rather than saying, There is nothing there, we can say:

I cannot perceive what the horse is perceiving.

Ask:

Is this theirs, or is this mine?

Am I projecting? Is the horse reflecting something from me? Or is the horse communicating something arising from their own experience?

Sometimes we know. Sometimes we don’t.

I don’t know yet is a valid answer.

The progression becomes:

Clear. Become neutral. Perceive. Discern. Listen. Respond.

The listening dictates the plan.

The Three Anchors

Mind — Open Sky

The mind becomes spacious and clear, like an open sky of infinite potential.

We are not analyzing the horse, judging ourselves, worrying about someone watching, or rehearsing what should happen next.

Thoughts may pass.

Let them pass.

Body — Pillar of Light

The body is deeply relaxed without becoming collapsed.

The spine remains tall. The chakra system is alive and aligned around the spine, the pillar of light connecting us with the firmament above and the center of Earth below.

We are grounded, soft, and acutely aware.

Breath — Ocean Wave

The breath moves rhythmically like the ocean.

Prāṇa flows.

Nothing is pinched. Nothing is held. Nothing is forced.

Open Sky. Pillar of Light. Ocean Wave.

Mind. Body. Breath.

Begin Again

You have probably haltered your horse hundreds, thousands, perhaps what feels like a million times.

For this practice, begin again.

Do not assume that because something is familiar it cannot become new.

Enter the Field. Return to your anchors.

Visualize your horse freely approaching you, head lowered, eyes soft.

Extend your open palm.

Wait.

Do not repeatedly call. Do not coax. Do not chase the horse with the halter.

If the horse does not come, remain where you are.

Breathe.

Return to the Field.

Release: Why isn’t my horse coming?

Release: We need to get going.

Visualize the horse coming toward you.

Then release even that.

Wait.

The dialogue may already be occurring before the horse takes a single step.

Receive the Horse With Gratitude

When the horse approaches, receive them.

Feel the significance of the moment without turning it into an accomplishment.

Stroke the horse. Feel the warmth of the body. Receive the presence.

This is not reward.

We are not establishing a transaction.

The horse made a sovereign choice to close the distance.

Our response is gratitude.

I felt your answer. Thank you.

Never allow the repetition of this moment to make it mundane.

Familiarity must deepen reverence, never replace it.

Offer the Halter

For now, begin with the halter.

Later, depending upon the horse, environment, facilities, and circumstances, much of this may be done entirely at liberty. There may come a time when you walk together from pasture to arena without a halter when it is safe to do so.

Hold the halter softly.

Offer the nose opening gently so the horse can lower the head and voluntarily place the nose into it.

Do not push it onto the face. Do not grab. Do not chase.

Offer.

Wait.

Breathe.

If the horse moves away, return to the Field rather than following as though you must capture the horse.

Visualize the horse returning.

Remain available.

Offer again.

When the horse lowers the head and places the nose into the halter, receive the answer and quietly secure it.

Something familiar has become new.

Equipment must never replace the communication that existed before the equipment was introduced.

Walk as Though There Were No Lead Rope

Begin walking toward the arena.

But walk as though there were no lead rope.

Your hands remain soft. Do not grip. Do not drag the horse forward. Do not constantly correct.

The lead exists as a safeguard while the horse becomes familiar with the energetic language developing between you.

Return to Mind. Body. Breath.

Stay within the Field.

Look where you are going. Visualize walking together toward the arena.

Enjoy the simple fact that you are standing beside your horse. Feel gratitude for the opportunity to begin a friendship again—even if you have known this horse for many years—and to deepen and enrich what already exists between you.

Your Position of the Body matters.

Remain slightly ahead of the horse’s shoulder. The horse should not gradually move forward and take over the line of travel.

You are not dragging the horse behind you.

You are moving together.

The First Stop

After several steps, prepare to stop.

Do not pull backward on the halter. Do not tighten the lead in anticipation. Do not automatically use the physical aid the horse has learned to expect.

Instead:

Breathe out.

Allow your body to melt as you come to a stop.

Let your movement cease. Feel the exhalation. Feel your energetic state change.

Give the horse an opportunity to feel that change and stop with you.

If the horse’s shoulder begins creeping past yours, allow the lead to provide a gentle physical boundary. The rope may become taut if the horse moves beyond your shoulder.

That is simply the backup signal.

It is not punishment.

The horse may be accustomed to physical aids and not yet understand the energetic language you are establishing.

Then soften immediately.

Begin again.

Walk and Stop

Walk several steps.

Exhale.

Stop.

Walk.

Exhale.

Stop.

Perhaps take one step.

Stop.

Another.

Stop.

Let the body soften into each transition.

Do not turn this into drilling.

This can simply become the way you travel to and from the arena.

Feel the rhythm.

Eventually the rope does less. Your hands do less. The horse perceives more.

The energetic communication becomes increasingly effective, and the physical aid becomes increasingly unnecessary.

This is the beginning of energetic synchronization.

The First Steps Backward

When walk and stop become quiet and synchronized, allow another movement to enter the conversation.

Walk.

Exhale.

Stop.

Wait for the horse to settle into the stop with you.

Then allow your body to begin moving backward. Lean back subtly. Take one slow step backward.

Invite the horse to come with you.

Do not haul backward on the lead.

And do not back the horse up to kingdom come.

One or two steps may be enough. Perhaps three.

We are not practicing backing as an exercise.

We are asking:

Can we remain connected when the direction of our shared movement changes?

Then walk forward again.

Stop.

Perhaps back a step.

Walk.

Stop.

Listen.

Energetic Synchronization

This is the beginning of the pas de deux in physical form.

Before liberty longeing, before the wand extends our language across distance, horse and human begin learning to synchronize through something subtler than mechanical aids.

The breath changes. The body changes. The intention changes.

The horse feels it.

The horse responds.

This is the physical manifestation of an energetic relationship that began before either being moved.

Action through non-action.

Wu Wei.

Effortless action.

Not because nothing is happening, but because movement begins arising with less interference, less resistance, and less physical manipulation.

Horse and human begin discovering a common rhythm.

This is enough groundwork for Module Two. In Module Three, we will develop more detailed groundwork and work in hand.

Enter the Arena

Depending upon the environment, the horse may need to remain haltered.

That is entirely appropriate.

Safety remains part of guardianship.

If the arena is safely enclosed, the environment is conducive, and horse and human can appropriately work at liberty, remove the halter.

Then allow the horse to walk away.

Do not immediately begin an exercise.

Observe.

The horse may explore the perimeter, sniff, look outside, blow, stretch, roll, or shake.

Watch this beautiful sovereign being orient to the environment.

Before the arena becomes a place of movement between us, allow it to be a place in which the horse can simply be.

Before the Dance — Listen to the Whole Horse

Before we begin liberty longeing, we listen.

Liberty longeing begins our energetic connection with the horse at a more expanded level.

Until now, much of our physical dialogue has occurred close together—approaching, haltering, walking, stopping, backing, breathing, and synchronizing side by side.

Now that energetic connection begins to expand across greater physical space.

But before asking for movement, recognize what movement can reveal.

How is the horse moving today? Is the gait even? Is there freedom through the body? Is the horse relaxed? Is there stiffness or hesitation? Does anything look different from this horse’s normal baseline?

What is the horse communicating emotionally?

Is the horse curious and engaged? Is something in the environment occupying their attention? Is there willingness? Joy? Vitality?

Does the horse appear well in mind, body, and spirit?

The horse’s well-being comes before the dance.

Before we ask what movement the horse will offer us today, we ask whether the horse should be asked for movement at all.

If something appears wrong, we stop.

We do not raise the wand higher. We do not increase pressure. We do not decide the horse is being resistant. We do not push through because liberty longeing was the lesson we planned for today.

We listen.

If the horse appears physically off, honor that communication and seek the reason why.

If the horse appears emotionally or mentally distressed, listen to that as well.

If something has changed spiritually or energetically, do not dismiss what is perceived simply because it cannot immediately be explained.

Ask:

What is the horse telling me?

This is why knowing the individual horse’s baseline is so important.

Relationship teaches us what is normal for this horse. Only then can we begin recognizing when something has changed.

There must always be these checks and balances within Pas de Cheval because the horse’s well-being—mind, body, and spirit—takes precedence over whatever we intended to accomplish.

If the horse is not well, there is no liberty longeing that day.

There is listening. There is care. There is guardianship. There is relationship.

And that is Pas de Cheval.

Expanding the Energetic Connection

When the horse is well, comfortable, willing, and ready to engage, we begin expanding the energetic conversation.

This is one of the central purposes of liberty longeing within Pas de Cheval.

We take the energetic synchronization that began while standing and walking beside one another and explore whether that communication can remain alive at a more expanded level.

Physical distance increases.

Relationship does not have to diminish with it.

Our awareness expands.

Our energetic field expands.

The horse can expand and modulate their field as well.

As this develops, communication between horse and human is no longer confined to the hand, the halter, the lead rope, or the immediate physical space surrounding the body.

Energetic relationship can extend across physical distance and ultimately beyond time, space, and dimension.

There are no fixed physical boundaries to the Unified Field.

The Divine Field is not confined to the dimensions through which the physical body ordinarily perceives the world.

As awareness and energetic connection expand, the relationship is no longer bound by ordinary physical proximity. Connection can exist across great physical distance and beyond the limitations of time, space, and dimension.

This is not something we force.

We do not try to mechanically make our energetic field larger.

We expand our awareness.

We become receptive.

We surrender.

And as awareness expands, the boundaries we once assumed were fixed begin to dissolve.

Liberty longeing gives us a physical place to begin experiencing this expanded energetic communication while remaining exquisitely attentive to the individual horse before us.

Our awareness becomes more expansive while our listening becomes more precise.

Movement Must Blossom From Relationship

Before we develop liberty longeing further, we need to understand something fundamental.

There is a difference between movement that blossoms from relationship and movement that is manufactured.

This distinction reaches far back into the history of horsemanship.

In the fourth century BCE, Xenophon wrote On Horsemanship, recognizing the distinction between beautiful movement offered willingly by the horse and movement produced through compulsion.

The movements human beings admire already exist within horses.

Horses gather, elevate, leap, change leads, collect, extend, piaffe, passage, and turn with extraordinary athleticism.

The human did not invent the beauty.

The horse did.

The question is what happens when the human sees that beauty and decides to reproduce it.

Pas de Cheval does not reject development.

Quite the opposite.

We develop balance, flexibility, strength, core strength, rhythm, regularity, symmetry, coordination, refinement, and eventually extraordinary movement.

But development serves what is alive.

It does not replace it.

And so we ask:

Did this movement blossom from the relationship, or did I manufacture it?

Pas de Cheval is not defined by a catalogue of movements.

A walk can be Pas de Cheval. A stop can be Pas de Cheval. Backing can be Pas de Cheval. A canter can be Pas de Cheval. A piaffe can be Pas de Cheval. Standing quietly together can be Pas de Cheval. Liberty longeing can be Pas de Cheval. Work in hand can be Pas de Cheval. Riding can be Pas de Cheval.

The outward action does not determine whether something is Pas de Cheval.

What matters is how the movement came into being between horse and human.

Any action that authentically blossoms from relationship, mutual sovereignty, presence, willingness, communication, and shared participation can become part of the dance.

Movement must blossom from relationship.

The Horse’s Offering

When I rode my first Arabians into the mountains, Stary loved to run.

On tight turns she would cut sharply and lay her body into the turn. Sometimes all I could do was stay with her.

I did not teach her that.

It arose from her.

She showed me something she loved, and I had the privilege of experiencing it with her.

But there is another lesson within this:

The horse offering us something does not give us permission to exploit the offering.

A natural ability can become a sport. Joy can become repetition. Repetition can become demand.

What the horse once offered freely can become physically or spiritually damaging when the human decides to capitalize upon it.

Movement must remain alive.

Development Versus Manufacture

There are aspects of Dressage I find deeply valuable.

Shoulder-in and haunches-in can stretch and strengthen the horse. Bending, balance, rhythm, regularity, and appropriate collection can help develop a healthy and conditioned body. The hindquarters and core can become stronger. Balance can improve. The horse can learn to carry the body in ways that support soundness and freedom of movement.

In this way, Dressage can serve much as ballet does for the human dancer: as a foundation for physical development and greater awareness.

But eventually we must ask:

Is this movement still arising through the horse, or are we manufacturing its shape?

Horses naturally perform extraordinary movements: flying changes, piaffe, passage, gathering, elevation, leaping.

Human beings observed these expressions and sought ways of experiencing their beauty under saddle.

But the outward form is not the whole movement.

We can reproduce the form while losing the life within it.

A horse may become physically engaged while the spirit, willingness, and free participation of the horse are no longer engaged at all.

The form can remain while the life disappears.

Rather than asking, How do I make the horse do that? Pas de Cheval asks:

What conditions allow what already lives within this horse to blossom through our relationship?

Development serves what is alive.

It does not replace it.

When the Horse Creates the Movement

I have experienced this difference while sitting on one of my stallions.

When he comes near mares, his entire body changes.

He powers up. His core lifts. His body gathers. Piaffe and passage arise naturally.

Yet he remains mindful of me.

He knows I am there.

His exuberance does not require him to abandon our relationship.

There is joy, power, collection, pride, presence, and relationship.

The movement has not been manufactured.

It arose from him.

I am participating in something the horse created.

That distinction lies at the heart of Pas de Cheval.

Potential Is Not Obligation

A horse’s breeding does not create an obligation.

Beauty does not create an obligation.

Conformation does not create an obligation.

Pedigree does not create an obligation.

Potential is not obligation.

I have Friesians who do not particularly care to be ridden. Sometimes they enjoy carrying a rider, but what some truly love is dancing at liberty.

Their magnificence does not obligate them to prove anything.

The human world often says that a horse of exceptional breeding, beauty, conformation, or ability should be shown, competed, displayed, or made to demonstrate that potential.

I have fallen prey to that thinking myself.

But the horse does not owe us a performance because the horse is capable of one.

Any advancement into a discipline within Pas de Cheval should spring from relationship and from what the spirit of that individual horse is willing and eager to explore with us.

The Ballet Within Pas de Cheval

Ballet gives us a beautiful language for understanding what we cultivate physically between horse and human.

A dancer develops balance, flexibility, strength, core strength, alignment, coordination, rhythm, regularity, symmetry, harmony, refinement, elegance, and virtuosity.

These qualities are interdependent.

Strength without flexibility becomes rigidity. Flexibility without strength lacks support. Technique without presence becomes mechanical. Virtuosity without harmony becomes display.

The same is true for the horse.

We can help develop strength and flexibility, an engaged core, balance, suppleness, symmetry, rhythm, regularity, and coordination so the horse becomes increasingly capable of carrying the body with ease, health, and freedom.

The human must develop these qualities as well.

Our balance affects the horse’s balance. Our alignment affects theirs. Our rigidity affects their freedom. Our lack of body awareness enters the conversation as surely as our breath, intention, and energetic state.

The pas de deux requires both dancers.

When horse and human become balanced within themselves and acutely aware of one another, something beyond technique becomes possible:

Harmony. Refinement. Elegance. Virtuosity. Beauty.

Beauty Must Remain Alive

Beauty matters in Pas de Cheval because beauty is inherent within the horse and within nature.

A horse running freely across a field is breathtaking because outward form expresses inner being.

Strength, flexibility, balance, power, rhythm, movement, and spirit become one.

The horse’s beauty is an outward expression of the soul, the spirit, the divineness within.

Our responsibility is not to take possession of that beauty, manufacture it, or exploit it.

We protect it, nurture it, and cultivate the conditions in which it can continue to reveal itself.

When movement blossoms between horse and human without sacrificing the beauty, spirit, or sovereignty of either, the movement itself becomes beautiful.

This creates the pas de deux.

Two beings. Two bodies. Two centers of balance. Two sovereign spirits.

Neither disappears into the other.

Yet something arises between them that belongs to both.

The Sacredness of the Dance

There were moments in my life as a ballet dancer when movement ceased to feel like something I was performing.

The music was there. My body was there. The choreography was there.

And yet something else arose.

It did not feel merely inside me. It was not outside me. It seemed to be everything—the totality—and for those moments I was simply part of it.

There was an essence that seemed to arise within every cell of my being.

It was profoundly humbling because it could not be manufactured.

I could rehearse. I could condition my body. I could develop strength, flexibility, balance, refinement, elegance, and virtuosity.

But I could not manufacture that.

It arose.

There were performances after which I returned to my dressing room rather than immediately going out to receive congratulations backstage.

I wanted to remain alone for a little while. I wanted to bask in what had just happened. I did not want accolades to interrupt it.

Years later, horses brought me there again.

Sometimes at liberty. Sometimes under saddle. Often no one was watching.

And that same essence arose.

Eventually I understood something deeper.

The horse was showing me the divineness that already exists in all things and between us.

The horse was not creating the sacred.

The horse was revealing what was already sacred.

Ballet is sacred.

Life is sacred.

The dance is sacred.

The horse is sacred.

The human is sacred.

Nature is sacred.

The dance does not make the horse or human sacred.

They already are.

The dance becomes an expression and recognition of that sacredness.

The sacred does not need to be manufactured. It needs to be recognized, honored, and protected.

.........Continue to Part II