Embodied Awareness

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Animals as Teachers. I look forward to your comments and feedback.

Tara came from a rescue center, found on the hills near Galway, Ireland with a foal at foot. They were both close to death from hunger and cold. When I saw her on the center’s website, something in me knew she belonged with our herd. She was a little black pony, 12.2 hands (about 127 cm), keen-eyed and alert. At first, she would not let anyone touch her.

I gave her time to settle. Most days, I went to the field and stood three or four meters away, simply letting her get used to me. As I slowly got to know Tara, even from a distance, I could see that she was a most perceptive little horse. She was aware of every nuance, and if I so much as thought of moving closer to her, she would immediately move away. And yet, it became clear that she did, in fact, like human company, although it did not require physical closeness.

She knew the sound of my car passing by her field on the road, and I would often find her waiting by the gate as I drove into the entrance of the property. I cannot explain how she recognized the sound of my car over all the other vehicles that passed by, yet she did when none of the other horses did.

She is beautiful to look at, with clear perceptive eyes, and a practical, no-nonsense personality. Even as the herd grew, Tara would usually remain at the periphery rather than in the center of the group.

As time went on, I would stand within a certain radius of her and simply, through my gaze, say: “You are so beautiful.” She would look directly at me, and it seemed to soak in the words. If I moved even slightly closer than what I came to understand was her preferred space, she would walk off. If I so much as took a hand from behind my back or out of a pocket, she was gone immediately.

Over time, it became clear: Tara was not truly frightened. She simply liked her own space. She loved her grub. I sometimes thought she had made a pact that she would never go hungry again. At first, she had no idea how to take a carrot or apple from anybody, but once she got the hang of it, she began to eat directly from my hand. I do not usually give treats to horses, yet in this situation, it became a way to build trust with her.

As she grew more comfortable with me, I realized she liked my company and would often stand close by even when the other horses were away grazing. Physical contact was just not part of Tara’s way of connecting. Even though I longed to cuddle her, she made it clear that nearness did not mean touch. She had such a furry, beautiful little body that all I wanted to do was scratch her and love her with my hands. In fact, it took a full year for me to get close enough to lightly touch her nose with one finger!

One sunny day, when I arrived at the field, Tara was standing alone by the woodland edge, away from the other horses. I so wanted to walk up to her and make physical contact. Yet I knew the chances of that were slim, and that she would likely move away. I stood at the gate watching and taking my time before entering the field. I found myself letting go of having my agenda by wanting or expecting anything from her.

When I entered, I walked slowly towards Tara as she stood at the side of the field. I carefully recognized her boundaries, keeping my hands behind my back. When I came within a meter of her, I stopped, I waited, and tuned in. I slowly turned my body in the same direction as hers and looked at the trees that she seemed to be looking at.

Something happened. A dynamic stillness filled the air around me. I heard nas it seemed absorbed the birdsong around me in such heightened awareness that even the breeze moving through the leaves became a crystalline backdrop to their calling.. My whole body became awake and tingling with life force that felt almost electric. I was not only listening with my ears—it was as if I were hearing through my whole body.

There was no sense of time, and none of the pressure that so often accompanies it. The earth, the trees, and the air seemed to merge into one harmonious field of sound and frequency. It seemed to mingle with the insects’ subtle soundings. The closest I could call it to a complete nature world symphony

Never had I been so intensely aware of sound, shape, and color with a living, almost electric air moving through it all. I had the profound sense that time, as I had known it, did not exist.

The experience was infused with a transcendent, overflowing, present-moment bliss, vital and alive. In that moment, Tara reached over and gave a gentle nibble to the knuckles of the back of my hand, something she had never done before, and normally I would be nervous about it, but I was not, as it felt and seemed I was in another world.

As she nibbled, I clearly heard, internally:

“Welcome to my world.”

In that instant, I understood that I had dropped into the place horses live in all the time: the pure presence of the moment. It was beyond any words I could use to describe it. If there was a way to name it, it would be something akin to a timeless body-ecstatic awakening, and it was amazing.

I comprehended more deeply the nature of this exquisite sentient being. I experienced how she lives without thought, in the present moment, with fully embodied wakefulness. There was no sense of attachment to the next day or even to what the next moment would bring.

Standing there, receiving her wisdom, I remembered again why I am writing this book, and how much horses and all animals can teach and guide us to come out of our spinny, rational minds and be here, embodied and present in the now.

In the 1980s, when I studied and lived in Switzerland, I attended a retreat with the revered Indian teacher and mystic, Krishnamurti. I clearly remember one of his teachings: “Time does not exist,” he said. “It is a construct of the mind.” I heard those words in the 1980s, but it took me many years, in fact, until I was standing beside a little black pony in her field, to fully experience these words in an embodied living way.

Entering Tara’s world that day has stayed with me as a profound, body-felt awakening. In our ego-driven society, this is the antithesis of what we are conditioned to do: pause, look, listen, be, and feel.

These rapidly changing times demand dynamic approaches to accessing our inner spaciousness, poise, and peace. Nature, her seasons, and her four-legged sentient beings can once again become a threshold, not only to healing but also to the ever-present vitality and awakening that already reside within the temple of our bodies.

Mary Berkery, Celtic Soul Coaching

The picture is of Tara the pony in this story.