RIDING BETWEEN THE WORLDS by Linda Kohanov

The horse on todays post is a horse that changed my life; Pjakkur.

My belly is so big now (37weeks and 4days) and it´s difficult to sleep more than a couple of hours. It´s just too uncomfortable BUT when you have a good book what does it matter if you´re awake when the house is quiet and you can enjoy your book?

Last night was one of those nights and I enjoyed reading the last chapters of RIDING BETWEEN THE WORLDS by Linda Kohanov.

I always knew that horses are good mirrors of our own true feeling and states of minds. However in this book Linda´s clients experience connection with horses and themselves that is truly amazing. Their experiences helps them to overcome fears and find new positive pattern for living their life as stronger human beings without interference from a tragic childhood, abuse, trauma etc.

Pjakkur 2year old

Pjakkur 3 years old

This is her second book. Her first book was The Tao Of Equus. In her first book she laid the theoretical groundwork. Some of the characters are the same and you already have a deeper knowledge of the horses in the book, their background and how each individual is a master when it comes to help a certain kind of person. It´s possible to read each book separately but I am glad that I read her first book first. In RIDING BETWEEN THE WORLDS Linda takes the Horse-Human bond to another level of healing what´s broken. She shows possible ways of how the amazing bond between horses and humans can be like. She concentrates on the extraordinary real life stories that support the facts she showed us in her first book. I appreciated the basic knowledge of the concept that her first book gave, I think that I would have had a hard time following some of “her logic” without reading the first book. Both books are worth reading more than once and I am sure that I will understand even more the second and the third time I´m reading them. Like her first book this book is challenging to some of our common beliefs but I am certain that we have everything to gain from reading it with an open mind.

Pjakkur 4year old

The full title of the book is RIDING BETWEEN THE WORLDS – Expanding our potential through the way of the horse. It made me think of all the horses that had a special place in my heart since I was a little girl. How completely different they´ve been. Why have these particular individuals been more important than others? I haven´t owned all the special horses or even ridden them all but still some stand out of the crowd. I haven´t been able to see a pattern until after I read Linda´s books. It has nothing to do with how they look or how well they behaved when riding them, how often I saw them etc. It all had to do where I was in life. The horses that I connected with all had something in common with what had happened in my life or what was happening at that very moment. They helped me to see myself as they perfectly mirrored my true feelings. Some of them forced me to take actions. One of the best examples of that is the young Icelandic Horse I met a few years ago.

A friend of mine had her horse on a big pasture with a herd of horses. Some of the horses was riding horses and some were youngsters that wasn´t even halter broke. I had been to this ranch several times before. I was actually interested in buying a competition horse they had. He was a silver dapple gelding with long white mane and tail, beautiful, experienced and very well trained – exactly what I needed? We never connected and I didn´t buy the horse. Something about this ranch made me want to come back again and again and again. This was in Sweden and it was winter. Winter in Sweden = snow, lots of snow and darkness. The girls that owned the horses on the pasture took turns in keeping the big barn in the middle full of fresh straw. The horses were turned out 24/7 and they had a big barn that they could seek shelter in whenever they wanted. This particular evening when I met the young Icelandic Horse it was my friends turn to fill the barn with fresh straw. It was getting late and cold, everything was covered in complete darkness. We drove her car up close to the gate to the pasture; we had the bales of straw in the back. We didn´t have a flashlight but we had the headlights from the car. We started walking back and forth between the car and the barn. The snow was deep. The headlights didn´t light up the entire way. After a short while we had a little trail in the snow that we followed. Everything was really quiet. We couldn´t see or hear any horses. We knew they were out there but it was a HUGE pasture.

My friend has a back injury and she was in pain after a long day. I offered to finish the job by myself as she was resting in the car. It didn´t take long until I felt a presence of someone approaching me. I couldn´t see or hear anything. The feeling was very strong. I kept carrying straw to the barn. I stopped a couple of times to listen, even reach out my hands in the darkness to see if I could feel anything, I couldn´t. I kept walking on the little trail between the barn and the car. When you can´t see anything in the darkness all your other senses becomes very strong. After a while I heard breathing behind me, a few seconds later I could smell that it came from a horse. Still couldn´t see or touch anything. Everything was very calm around me. A few minutes later I could feel the breath on my neck, a few seconds later I felt a soft touch by a muzzle on the bare skin of my neck as I stopped walking. I stayed quiet and waited. The horse was out of reach but definitely there. I kept walking; maybe ten more times back and forth to the car, as soon as I was out of the headlights dim light the horse came up and started walking behind me. The last time I came to the car the horse was close enough so I could see him. That was how I met Pjakkur for the first time. He was two years old at the time.

I kept coming with my friend when she trained her horse. I even started to ride one of the horses on the ranch 2-3 times a week. Every time I went to fetch the mare I was riding this young horse came up. He was very curious but with a lot of integrity. After a while he became braver and braver. However he was untrained and way more expensive than I could afford because of his famous father. Horses are up to 3-4 times more expensive in Sweden than in US. After a few months his owner told me to make an offer because she saw that we belonged together. I bought him and started to halter train him on the pasture. I adored the horse but he was a lot of horse!

Too shortened the story a little bit it took a lot of research, meditation and time from my side to change myself. I had to really listen to my horse and think outside the box to reach him. It was definitely well worth it and I learned a lot on the journey. I had to both listen and set boundaries for our relationship. Pjakkur was very strong mentally and exactly what I needed at the time. I´ve always been a pretty good listener but I haven´t been able to set boundaries. The strength I gained from this horse made me stronger and it turned my life around, literally. I started to say NO when I needed too. I ended a destructive marriage. Followed my dreams to a new life.

I can relate to the strong stories in Linda´s book! On her website Linda says: ”Defining exactly what shifts in the presence of horses, and why, has been the focus of my research for over a decade. In RIDING BETWEEN THE WORLDS, I delve more deeply into the equine mind and spirit to discover what these amazing creatures have to teach us about the untapped potential of our own species.”

http://eponaquest.com/about/books/

It´s definitely worth reading and I can´t wait until I get my hands on her third book Way of the Horse.

 



Pjakkur 4½years old