Those of you who have read any of Linda Kohanov’s books, like Riding Between the Worlds: Expanding Our Potential Through the Way of the Horse or Margrit Coates’ Connecting With Horses will already be familiar with various methods used to communicate with your horse.
Perhaps you’ve already done some experimenting and just need a bit more guidance. Or perhaps you’re already fluent, but are curious as to how others do this thing! I’m going to start by sharing with you the way that I communicate with my horses (and other animals) and then afterwards we will look at famed animal communicator Anna Breytenbach’s method, and a great presentation by animal communicator Pea Horsley.
Jini’s Method Of Communicating with Horses
For myself, connecting with horses (or other animals) always starts with connecting myself to Source FIRST.
What does that look like for me? Sometimes I bring divine light, or source energy in through the top of my head and run it down my body, down both legs and out the soles of my feet into the earth. Other times, I will pull energy up from the earth (from either the tree root grid, or the magma at the center of the earth), up through the soles of my feet and either circle that energy in a loop around my body, or fountain it out the top of my head.
Then I open the front and back of my chest to source energy – or to receive life force energy (chi) from a tree; coming in the front of my chest and out the back.
HOW do I do all this?
I simply close my eyes and IMAGINE it all happening. Remember that thing adults kept trying to stop you from doing as a child? Yes, that thing: Imagining, envisioning, soft-focus daydreaming. That’s all it is. Therein lies the key to the universe. Pretty darn simple huh? And usually why kids are better at healing, or connecting to divine energy, or universal consciousness, than adults.
But never mind, fortunately, although our powers of imagination can get rusty, they never leave us. And with a little effort, we can start visioning – see it in your ‘mind’s eye’, bring in what it would smell like, sound like, any tastes involved… really let it come to life in your mind. At some point – and this gets easier and faster with practice – your imagined feelings, vision, experience will morph into something similar to a movie; that you lose yourself in without awareness of time. I call this being in the zone.
Once I am connected to source and am in the zone, I bring to mind my intention or desire. Sometimes that desire is simply to say to the horse, “I am open and listening.” And then I just stand there focusing on my source energy connection and sooner or later, the animal starts sending me pictures, or what I call thought packages.
For me, these thought packages are a combination of pictures, words, feelings and knowings. Then I respond with an energy (love, healing light/energy, compassion, etc) or a thought package of my own, and so the dialogue/communication begins.
I have taught many people how to communicate with animals and the most important guideline is this: There is no right or wrong way to do it! You actually don’t need to copy anyone else’s technique. Just use stillness and breath to connect to Source, the divine, Jesus, your angels, Mother Earth (I could go on!) and then open to whatever comes and whatever you feel like doing – trust in whatever you receive and ACT on it.
TRUST your intuition. Stuff will just pop into your mind, or you will feel something in your heart, or see an image with your mind’s eye and you need to trust that it comes from the animal and trust that what you sent out is received.
Of course, once you have trusted that what you received is authentic, then it’s time to bring in your rational mind and double-check your interpretation:
- Double-check the information received with an unbiased source if possible (e.g. call the previous owner, have your vet run the test, etc.)
- Scan your heart honestly to make sure you don’t have a hidden agenda that is interpreting what you received and skewing or twisting it to align with your desires. Or conversely, to reinforce your own lack or wounding.
- Watch and observe your horse; often a shift in their behaviour will confirm that you are on the right track. Look for corroboration from their physical body – if you don’t get it, then stay in listening.
- Act on the information received, but be open to being wrong, or to realizing that you need more information, or that there is another layer – that you may have not gotten to the crux yet.
As you become more fluent in telepathy you will not need to double-check so often as you will learn the difference between a clear communication and a muddled one – just like you can tell the difference between a whisper and singing.
“Let a man decide upon his favorite animal and make a study of it. Let him learn to understand its sounds and motions. The animals want to communicate with man. But Wakan-Tanka does not intend that they should do so directly. Man must do the greater part in securing an understanding.” – Brave Buffalo, Standing Rock Reservation
Faith Leads to Action
In the beginning the ideas, words, thought packages, pictures etc that you receive may be very weak and faint. Or so fast, they are just a flash. Then your conscious mind pokes its head around the corner and says, “Was that it? I don’t know, I’m not sure… Let’s ask again and see if that was really it.”
And then you’re done for! Because the communication was already given and you spurned it! You didn’t trust it. Think of this communication like a muscle; it may be very weak and faint at first, but the more you exercise it (ACT on what’s received/flashed to you), the stronger it gets. But if you don’t take those steps of faith and act, then it never gets any stronger.
The double-check points I mentioned above are not used to doubt your ability to receive, they are used to protect your animal in case your own thoughts/ideas/ego/biases are getting in the way and you are misinterpreting what you receive.
And if you’re new to this, then start with something easy! For example, do the procedure above and open your heart to receive an answer to, for example, “Which bridle do you want to wear – the bitless, or the rope halter?” Once you have received the answer from your horse, go and get the two headstalls. Hold one in each hand and ask your horse, “Which one – tell me again?” See which one your horse indicates. And of course, if your horse walks away then that means, “Neither!” See if the answers match.
Important: But for both parts of your initial question and then your double-check question, you must remain in the same connected, grounded, open-hearted state.
Of course, there are many animal communicators that offer workshops (Ginny Jablonski is an excellent instructor, as is Pea Horsley) where they help and support you to build this muscle/ability stronger, step-by-step – so if you’re struggling, or just can’t overcome your critical mind, that may be just what you need.
Disclaimer: When I say you need to act on what you receive, please keep in mind I’m not talking about big things like euthanasia, or anything else with the potential to really harm your horse if you get it wrong. Big decisions always need multiple points of confirmation. Even if you’re using a professional animal communicator, I would get a second opinion, because no one is correct 100% of the time and we are all susceptible to our own unresolved issues, traumas, or core woundings skewing the interpretation.
Anna Breytenbach’s Animal Communication Technique
Animal communicator Anna Breytenbach dialogues with various animals – but she has also given us the gift of explaining HOW she is doing it, in a very detailed way that allow us to use the same techniques with our own animals!
I’ve excerpted and transcribed Anna’s technique for you and I’ve changed “animal” to “horse” to help it feel clearer for you. Anna says:
We have a protocol to bring ourselves into the right state of being to connect with horses we want to communicate with:
1. Relax – get out of the mind. We want to match the horse’s state of presence by becoming present ourselves. So any meditation to relax, or yogic breathing, etc. will work. My favorite is to watch my breathing rhythm, as that gives the mind something to observe instead of getting itself too busy with thoughts to be in the moment.
2. Set an intention for clarity – You’re not trying to set an intention for the horse. You’re not trying to presume to tell them what to do. You are intending for yourself to have clarity in your connection and in your communication, because the greatest obstacle to this very natural occurrence of telepathy is us getting in our own way with doubts and questions and mental chatter. Intend to have clarity. Intend to receive messages clearly. And when you set an intention for yourself, it’s important to believe it! So it can’t have a tentative feeling or the word “try”. It really is about: I will receive clearly. And state that strongly to yourself, and then let the thought go.
3. Connect – which means something as simple as visualize yourself connecting. Open your heart center. If you would like to add a mental image you can imagine yourself building bridge or a channel which connects your heart center to the horse’s heart center. You could imagine sending an energetic silent greeting from yourself to them. And implicit in that is the question of permission. If they don’t want to connect with you then you will get a feeling of push-back, or No, or a block. You could reach out in an energetic greeting and it will either be received, or it won’t.
These are the 3 steps to get into a place of shared awareness, into which you could then ask questions, and perhaps be asked questions by the horse. You might find yourself having to respond as well. It’s a communication, it’s a two-way sending and receiving of information. It’s not a psychic reading in the sense of us being removed and using psychometry or some other medium to connect with the horse.
We are in a present moment of connection with horses in which they can see us etherically and know us, and our thoughts, and our emotions in that moment as well.
Lastly, here’s a great presentation by animal communicator Pea Horsley if you find yourself skeptical, or wondering if you could possibly learn to communicate telepathically with animals, or if you have a skeptical friend:
Not surprisingly, children respond very quickly and openly to the idea of communicating with animals and also become fluent very quickly. I often chuckle when listening to pompous humans theorize about the superiority of written and spoken language versus the “dumb beasts” of the animal kingdom. Uh, hello? If you could communicate a 1000-word essay, in a multi-sensory thought package, in about half a second, would you bother with slow, laborious, spoken or written language? WHO are the dum-dums on this planet??
Jini Patel Thompson is a natural health writer and Lazer Tapping instructor. She began riding at age 2 in Kenya, and got her first horse at age 8 in Alberta, and so continues a life-long journey and love affair with these amazing creatures.
I’m an animal communicator myself, and it’s interesting you mentioning children in the article. My kids are a bit too young at the moment but I can’t wait to show them how to do this wonderful connection with horses. You can learn so much from animals at the same time as helping them.
I started today with my 3 horses. Bart was like “do you REALLY want to know what I think? So … Nope, I don’t want you to get on, I don’t want to try this new bridless, and no, I don’t want do anything so what you will say to THAT?” I act on this what I felt and we didn’t do anything. He seemed to be content. My next horse was not human – friendly old mare Fraszka. It took us few minutes to finally me asking her “will you let me do your trimming?” – then she clearly turn back and walked away. That was interesting becuase we stand together and she took off right after my question. And my third horse was young Farys, usually eager to play but also high spirited easy to scare and very stud – sick. Woow. After few sentences from my part he stood still, closed his eyes and yawn for I believe it was few minutes. He was chewing and licking his lips like usually after some new task – this time I was doing practically nothing!! I neede to trimm his hooves and ask him to stand still, which he did but when I was getting secong hoof we saw horses going to the next pasture (without Farys!), which was quite far away. I ask him to try to stand still and let me finish second hoof, then I will let him go. He saw horses going away, he was alarmed but he stood still. I finshed and let him go. He stood a little with me, I invitehim to go to the horses (I knew he wanted that) and then he galloped to the rest of the stud. That was prett awsome 🙂
BUT after some time I needed to finish Farys hind hooves and do the same with Fraszka. And both off them were etremelly annoying, taking their legs from my hand all the time… Usually I’m a bit pissed off when they do that because after Bart’s feet and doing Farys front legs I was tired and didn’t want to struggle with their hind legs! They were terrible. And for the first time I was like “NOTHING will make me angry, I will practice my patience!” And I wasn;t angry (but extremelly tired…). And here I have a question Jini, if I may – whe horses are annoying and it looks like they are mean (like swishing tail right in my face or taking their feet from me over and over again etc.) – WHY they do something like that? To test me? I really dont understand. I always feel like they just want to show me they don’t like me (and don’t respect me). I don’t want use force with them anymore, but I need them to stand still while trimming for instance. Heeelp…. 🙂
Oh Zuza, I FEEL for you sister, I really do. My Andalusian, Zorra, was known by everyone as “the good, sweet girl” She did everything without protest, good as gold. Until she came to me. And I invited her to speak, and I listened. Here’s what happened (funnily enough, it all started with the hooves with us too):
https://www.listentoyourhorse.com/intimacy-with-a-horse-involves-choice/
Let me know if that answers your question 😉
Yes, it’s wonderfull, THANK you! I can’ wait to listen what my dear ones want to tell me because the hooves are always the issue, especially because I do their trimming by myself. I love this articke about the choice. I won’ take my horse Bart for granted – maybe he doesn’t WANT to go trail ride in woods, maybe he doesn’t WANT me to get on, even though he was always calm and “good”. Maybe Fraszka needs to feel she can decide and I won’t use any force or pressure, so she could TRUSt me? maybe )propably) there was NO human ever she could trust… And farys – the horse I was thinking is like a little ‘crazy’ is the most wise and gentle teacher for ME? Because I had the most problems and fears with him, this is why I found your blog. Doesn’t it all make sense? Ahhh… I will see what they will tell me next time 🙂 This is absolutely fascinating!!!!!
Yes it is a fascinating – and often frustrating journey! As Kesia writes about in this post:
https://www.listentoyourhorse.com/true-mutuality-choosing-to-ride/
you may have to go completely “backwards” and surrender to your horses wanting nothing to do with you as they say, “REALLY?? Do I really get a voice? Let’s see…”
Good piece on an important topic. Thank you.
Glad you liked it Pat!