I suppose it was in the early 90s, as I was just transferring to UW-Madison’s Agricultural-Environmental Engineering Program from 3 semesters at Colorado State University, that I started searching for answers regarding how the world worked on a deeper and more personally useful level. 

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   I certainly understood the basics, having traveled and experienced a great deal by a young age, but it seemed something was missing from the traditional religious, medical and scientific education I had so far received. 

 

   Somehow that gap was filled for me in horsemanship, and so I clung to the specific sport (show jumping) within that world I enjoyed the most, and let the horses and horseman teach and guide me in ways traditional knowledge seemed incapable of.

 

   Gradually, through study and thought and theorizing with other diverse open minded horseman, I found answers that directly impacted both the health and performance of my horses and I, individually and as a whole.

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   Since horses are 100% honest emotionally and physically, they are the perfect subjects on which to test theories that stretch the limit of traditional human thought.

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   What I’ve learned is the world and those beings living in it are first and foremost energetic entities, and the physical always follows, flows and manifests from the energetic.  Like every piece of matter on the planet, a living thing contains an electrical current … brain neurons fire, chemical reactions occur on the cellular level, and energy is transferred. 

 

   Seventy five percent of everything I learned in my engineering courses, studies designed to ultimately teach physical building, involved quantifying the transfer of energy.  Whether the course was thermo or fluid dynamics, electronics, physics, mechanics of materials, chemistry or biology, there was always a mathematical equation designed to somehow translate the potential to do work (contained potential energy) to something moving (ie kinetic energy, flowing energy actually working), and vice versa. 

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   Humans and horses from an energetic standpoint are much like an electrical device moving and utilizing current.  Our energy must be grounded, contained, and we need to flow.  Like an electrical current, we experience resistance which slows or even stops the flow, and we can be strongly swayed and influenced by the magnetic pull of other large energy sources. 

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   I think of horses and humans as a bubble or balloon of energy.  If the balloon is strong and well cared for, it bounces when it experiences trauma or impact.  It is capable of physical and energetic feats that defy reason, and it stands independent and strong in the face of magnetic pulls that may otherwise engulf it.

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   If the balloon is weak, its capabilities are limited, it breaks rather than bounces, and it is easily engulfed and swayed by the pull of other larger forces and energies.  

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    There are two main energetic forces pulling on the world we live in.  The first is a light, fast moving, fast vibrating energy which feeds current, fortifies, empowers, creates, and on an intellectual level clarifies.  The second is a heavier dark energy that vibrates at a slower rate, provides resistance, dissipates and engulfs the lighter energy, and at an intellectual level clouds and confuses. 

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   There is also a broad range of energies and vibrations operating between these two basic poles, but for the sake of simplifying an insanely complex topic, I intend to focus here on these two powerful forces. 

   

   The act of training and developing a horse is the act of climbing an energetic mountain to strengthen both the horse and the horseman as a team.  When you handle or ride a horse, your bubbles merge, and you become one energetic being.

 

   The same way a muscle or tendon or ligament is strengthened by stretching (or releasing) and compressing, an energetic being is strengthened by dropping down from and climbing back up a mountain of these two opposing energetic poles. 

I think of this mountain as having the lighter energetic pole at the top, and the heavier darker energy transferred across the bottom. 

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   If you prefer spiritual terms, when our energy comes to this world, we are deposited close to the top.  Spiritual source or soul energy represents the lighter vibration at the top, and the heavier physical energy is somewhere in the middle.  At the bottom is the heavy resistant pole, or what in the past I have called out of control human ego, but here I’ll simply call dark energy.

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   We come to this world strong energetically, but with a physical body, and so we are dropped down the mountain a bit by that solidity and heaviness (as opposed to a soul without a body). 

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    As we live life, we experience hardship and trauma.  Whether it is something as simple as becoming ill or experiencing hunger or discomfort, or something as intense as an actual trauma that makes us feel as if our life is at risk (whether physical or emotional) each of those experiences has the effect of creating resistance and dropping us energetically down the mountain. 

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   I should explain very quickly here this idea is based on acceptance of the ‘Law of Attraction’. LOA states like attracts like vibrationally, meaning you are not actually physically climbing the mountain.  Whatever energetic state you find yourself in, that for the sake of this analogy, is the energetic scale and location you will be drawn to automatically. 

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   Animals have a similar energetic experience.  The difference between a horse and a human is a horse more naturally maintains its link to the top of the mountain.  This link acts as an energetic rope that consistently pulls upward. If the heavy energy is released you simply automatically are sourced with and lifted by the pull of this lighter energy, and thus find yourself moving up through whatever traumatic contrast has temporarily weighed and pulled you down.

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   Humans also possess this rope like connection to the light energetic source, and are more than capable of releasing and allowing themselves to be raised back up following stress.  The problem is a huge portion of our culture and social structure resides energetically at the bottom of the mountain, and many of us struggle to overcome that strong magnetic pull, not truly understanding what residing in this place long term is doing to us individually and as a whole (creating emotional and physical imbalance, dependence and instability). 

 

   Horses, like humans, feel and experience emotions (and obviously from this take have a soul).  However, their emotions are channeled and felt in the moment they come (horses not being intellectually focused on the past or future, but ever present in the now), and thus are usually quickly processed and released. 

 

   The same way thoughts have energetic components (there are light positive thoughts and heavy dark thoughts) emotions have energetic components.  An emotion of joy and love is a higher energy, an emotion of fear and despair is a lower energy. 

 

   To climb to the top of the mountain from the lower dark energy most of modern society resides in, humans must break free of the mire and pull (often representing social acceptance, physical security, etc) and pass through each previously acquired negative emotion as they scale up the mountain.

 

   I think of these emotions as a little toll man guarding a gate you must honor and come to understand, before you are allowed pass through and move beyond to the next level and eventually to the top, where your whole self (or inner being) resides.  When a horse feels an emotion, it knows it (often in the form of instant physical pain), and then immediately seeks to work through it. 

 

   Humans on the other hand, tend to resist feeling the pain of unpleasant and traumatic experiences.  We are taught from a young age to repress these feelings, and when they are released inappropriately because of the resultant build up of energy caused (such as displays of anger or fear or depression) we are considered unhealthy and weak, rather than being honored and encouraged as we fight to work our way upward.

 

   Often times the body manifests emotions and energetic states of being in the form of illness or injury (a heaviness or darkness in our energetic flow). As pain forces us to feel and address the reality of that particular state of being, we are more likely to understand and learn from it, and to then be capable of moving past it or to flow once again beyond it.      

 

   The only way to move up the energetic mountain is to honor each emotion the trauma of sliding down (in whatever way or for whatever reason we find ourselves at the bottom) has caused.  These are energies with a life of their own, and that life and its message must be understood at a soul level, felt and channeled, before we can move past it to a higher vibration. 

 

   Now there is the possibility of distracting or disassociating ourselves from that current energy location to sort of temporarily vibrationally release and float to the top of the mountain, which can give us relief and a vision of (guiding us towards) a possible new state of being.  But to bring our full selves there and to be stable at that location, is to honor the event and channel the surrounding energetic emotion so that we can pass through that gate and permanently reside at and operate from a higher level. 

 

   Desire is the pull that inspires and motivates us to work through our emotions, or to not work through our emotions and to stay where we are (it resides at both the top and the bottom of the mountain).  There is the desire of the light energy and the desire of the dark energy.  Desire of the light energy comes from our soul, desire of the dark energy comes from our ego.  Spiritual desire consists of fulfillment, freedom, satisfaction, and a sense of security that transcends all physical realities and events. 

 

   Desire of the dark energy consists of maintaining power through deception, manipulation and control (it steals creative energy to thrive rather than raising and becoming something more in and of itself).  Like all living things these energies seek to self maintain and expand.  Dark energy traps, contains and fights freedom because to release is to move away from and thus lesson it.

 

   Very few animals (especially those not directly involved with humans) enter the realm of dark energy at the bottom of the mountain.  This is a human realm of vibration, because it has been created and maintained over thousands of years by the human ego. 

 

   These energies are built up and expanded by conscious awareness and focus.  The more beings that focus on or become enthralled with the illusion of control and security, or engulfed by dark energy, the more strength and power and pull it exerts.  The more beings that climb up the mountain beyond that energy, the less strength and pull that force has. 

 

   The very act of handling or training or riding a horse forces a person to lift their vibration.  One can not develop a top show jumping horse (a necessarily extremely sensitive and aware animal) to its full potential if they are stuck in the heavier dark energy.  A high strung athletic horse will not tolerate or subdue to a connection with that heavy energy.  It actually scares the more sensitive horses because their survival for millennia has been based on the ability to be light and quick and aware, and thus continuously tapped into that higher vibration.

 

   The act of introducing human ambition to the training and development of horses in the pursuit of excellence (ie reaching a higher plane of connection and energy) requires an animal willing to drop down the mountain (lower for a longer period than they would ever experience in the wild), partner, and climb back up to a higher plane than they would normally experience in nature. 

 

   They are expanding energetically and becoming stronger in the same way humans are, by allowing themselves to be slightly or heavily traumatized by human ambition (the same way we are all slightly or heavily traumatized by physical existence) and then aligning with the human’s desire to become more. 

 

    The act of starting (or breaking) a horse to be ridden, the act of training a horse to submit to a persons will, the act of training a horse to jump a fence (a feat that always eventually causes stresses and difficulties which must be worked and pushed thru) pulls the horse down the mountain, and then when done properly slowly pulls them back up. 

 

   Developing each horse to their fullest potential requires an understanding that slows a human’s ego ambition to appear to be at the top of the mountain regardless of actual energetic healing, strength and wholeness.   It requires the reality of achieving this state by connecting desires and energies, and then honoring and processing thru the trauma of temporarily moving down the mountain. 

 

   Horses mirror, feel and absorb both the energies and the intellectual and emotional blocks of their riders, and often manifest these blocks as physical injury or illness.  The same horseman will often manifest similar injuries or issues in horse after horse (or sometimes a horse and rider will have the exact same issue).  In this way horses help us to heal by magnifying our energetic blocks so they can be seen, understood and processed. 

 

    Energetic healing is about ignoring the ambitions or pressing needs of ego’s dark energy, and taking the time to feel, know, heal and rise energetically from pain.

 

   Energetic healing is an act of love, because it puts soothing acceptance of the current state before ego’s ever pressing need to be fed, to succeed and steal power. True healing energetically builds and eventually physically creates. Literally riding and uplifting on the energetic sustenance of others creates the physical illusion of success, but on an energetic level always eventually degrades and imbalances. 

 

   The only positive affect of this dark energy is the creation of a desire to move beyond it (and its downward pull) which naturally challenges and strengthens IF it can be overcome.  The dark energy created by the human ego does provide the needed contrast that allows us to flex our energetic muscles and become more. 

 

   However, when this energy becomes so strong that multitudes aren’t capable of breaking free to climb the mountain to healing, strengthening, connecting and maintaining with that higher energy, there is a problem.  This problem expands exponentially when multitudes mistakenly believe they are in fact at the top because they are leading a physically secure and socially accepted life provided to those who simply learn to live in and subdue to this dark ego based energetic state.  This confusion can lead to the world becoming fundamentally unbalanced. 

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   This is the reason in spite of our apparent success overcoming physical discomfort (and our belief in our intellectual prowess as a result), the world appears to be teetering on a collision course with disaster. 

At some deep level we know when we are energetically unbalanced, unhealed, disconnected (the rope to our higher state and self literally cut) and lacking in energetic wholeness.  The dark energy we have all created and many have submitted to, has become more than we are individually capable of overcoming and must be collectively minimized. 

 

   Upper level horsemanship, or any profound, high level connection with nature will help us to become whole and strong.  Nature resides at a higher vibration. 

 

   To succeed with a horse specifically requires a particularly intense desire for a higher vibration and traversing of the mountain because you are actually merging energetically and can be physically destroyed (by a larger power) if you aren’t sensitive enough to come to a vibrational agreement as you traverse the mountain together.  

 

   Cradilo, the foundation stallion of my breeding program, was a horse who had experienced and been subjected to extreme ego ambition and had been dropped energetically and physically to the bottom of the human mountain.  He was then retired from work and competition based on the medical certainty that he could not recover from his imposed resultant physical limitations.

 

   He had an extreme long term physical injury … his phalanx was cut out and he struggled to breath uninhibited moment to moment.  However, this was a horse with a strong spiritual pull and a desire to climb to the top of the mountain (I would say heightened by his unusual and extreme circumstance) and he came to me at a time when I was feeling exactly the same way. 

 

   I felt the strength and essence of Cradilo’s spirit and his desire to uplift, and from a place of love and respect, worked to energetically heal him.  In my heart and soul I knew if I could help him to connect to that source rope consistently feeding his energy, build his bubble, and help him to lift vibrationally, he may have the opportunity to demonstrate to the world who he really was and what he was capable of, because the physical did in fact follow the energetic.      

 

   When I first started working with Cradilo, it was my simple hope that he could become fit and strong enough to be ridden consistently, and maybe do a little light showing and jumping.  The climb this horse made to the Grand Prix ring in a year (normally at least a three year journey beginning with a healthy and well started and conditioned horse) was nothing short of an unexpected miracle. 

 

   The essence of who Cradilo was, and his desire and ability to tap into his powerful soul energy and overcome huge physical odds, was simply mind boggling to those of us who actually understood the extreme rarity of what was happening. 

 

   How the broader US Hunter Jumper industry completely missed the miracle of this incredible horse competing is a testament to how deeply engulfed and stuck that sport has been in the dark, confused, ego blinded ambitions of ‘winning is the only thing that matters.’

 

   It has become an industry of riding on the strength and healing of others and claiming this false achievement for ourselves, rather than going thru the slow and sometimes painful process of actually learning to traverse the mountain and becoming genuinely whole and independent horseman within our own right.

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   The manner I’ve described of seeing life in this article, which is the way I’ve come to see the world, requires patience to understand and know.  As Cradilo (and his offsrping) have so clearly demonstrated, it will produce physical results but with an eye towards energetic wholeness and understanding first, and the appearance of physical success second (as there is always a lag time, sometimes of many years, prior to physical manifestation). 

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   Every medicine and healing product works on both the physical and energetic level, but in the same way we can appear to traverse the mountain by fighting the ego battle for physical success or actually traverse the mountain by taking the spiritual path to energetic wholeness, some medicines focus on the physical and some focus more on the energetic. 

 

   Acupuncture, flower remedies, shamanic breath and stone work, CBD oil, homeopathic remedies and topical aides with a focus on energetic patching and flow, all address the root issue of energetic wholeness.  They help to establish grounding, flow and energetic containment (ie the re establishment of boundaries) by patching dark spots on the energetic bubble that can form when one is severely out of balance. 

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    I have used all of these methods, along with traditional medicines, in healing both my horses and myself with the goal of strengthening our energy so we can climb the mountain and attain a genuinely stable and high energetic and eventually physical level of achievement. 

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   I know that the largest portion of my success, whether in producing high level horses at unprecedented statistical rates, or exposing and helping to remove strong ego controlled and powered leaders who are continuing to unbalance the energetic state of this world, is because I understand at a root level how things work. 

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    This is a very complex subject, and many books could be written while only scratching the surface of understanding it.  Authors and books that have helped me to formulate my particular take are Louise L Hay, and her book You Can Heal Your Life  … Gary Zukav his book The Heart of the Soul … and Karla McLaren and her book The Language of Emotions.

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   My desire here is to introduce the ideas that have allowed me to achieve some unusual goals against some fairly amazing odds in the hopes of opening peoples minds to what is possible; but also to what must be overcome whether the goal is to achieve an elevated position as a horseman, a balanced and healed life, or a balanced and whole world.