Jini’s Herd & How They Got Their Names

Many readers have asked for a quick-reference ‘glossary’ of all the horses in my herd that I write about. What?? Is it difficult to keep all the details of 11 horses you’ve never met (in person) straight in your mind? 🙂 Others are curious as to how I named them. So here’s a brief snippet about each – even my vet asked for list, so I put breed and birthdate in the first line, just for him.

Without further ado, here are the members of The Singing Horse Herd of 11 – in the order they came to me:

Zorra – is a domestic-born Registered Andalusian, born March 24, 2005

Everyone else experiences Zorra as tremendously sweet and kind. With me, although we are deeply spiritually connected, I experience her as more brusque and matter-of-fact. The remarkable story of how Zorra came to me from New Jersey (3,000 miles away!) is here.

I have tremendous respect for her and a kinship of being the one who got this tremendous ’thing’ started. Zorra has chosen my daughter, Zara, as her special person and she often comes to Zara in her dreams. When Zo works on me (energetically in deep meditative state) I can’t feel, see, or sense what she’s doing. She tells me, “Stop trying to map this, just open to receive. Your attempts to understand are slowing/interfering with what I’m doing.”

Zorra came with her registered name of HS Zorra (vixen) which we both liked and saw no reason to change.

Audelina – is a previously semi-feral, purebred Belgian. She was born May 2012.

I often say she chose such a huge body to go with her ginormous heart – she is so incredibly loving and affectionate.

Audelina is like the Divine Mother – so strong and powerful, yet pure love and nurturing. She will smooch you and do your hair. If you have a ponytail she will make it more bouffant – she likes things big and puffy.

Aude is lead mare in the herd and will move only for Montaro. She is the finest example of balanced motherhood (of Juno) that I have ever seen.

Aude set me a real challenge with her name; she said she wanted a name that reflected her Belgian heritage, with the letter “A”. It took me almost 2 weeks to find Audelina – which we are both very happy with.

Montaro – is a previously semi-feral Fjord/Belgian cross, he was born June 2013. I’m told the official term for his coloring is Lineback Dun.

I met Montaro as a 2-year-old stallion shortly after he’d been sent to auction. I went into his paddock and he walked right up to me and breathed into my nostrils. I breathed back. And we stood there for 2 minutes circle-breathing. Through which our souls joined and I knew I would have to take him – even though I had no land and had never handled a stallion before. I trained martial arts intensively for 7 years in my twenties, but I call Montaro my sensei, as in, my Master Sensei.

He has taught me more about managing my energy, and using energy to change physical experience/reality, then any human teacher I’ve known. He is the herd leader/guardian.

When I asked Montaro about his name, he sent me a picture of mountains. Montaro means ‘mountain’ in Esperanto and ‘big boy’ in Japanese. I often call him Taro for short.

Jax Moonlight – is a previously semi-feral Arabian/Belgian cross, he was born April 2014.

He was an 18-month-old stallion when I met him and I didn’t initially plan to take him either! But Aude would not get on the trailer without him – she watched over him like he was her baby and she knew he was meant to be with us.

Jax has the absolute best traits of both breeds. He has all the fire, speed, and intelligence of the Arab, balanced with the strength and level-headedness of the Belgian. I call him the Magician or the Wizard because he carries wise trickster energy.

He has actually given me chiropractic adjustments (confirmed as beneficial by my own chiropractor). He has an incredible sense of humor and a lightening quick mind. If I ever want to teach the herd something, I show him first – because he learns so easily and quickly – and then he teaches the rest. Jax already had a name he was happy with and I felt fit him well.

Junonia (Juno) – is 1/4 Fjord and 3/4 Belgian. He was born July 17, 2016

The night before Montaro was castrated, he went through a solid wood fence with hotwire and bred Audelina. Juno was born 10 months later and he really is a true blend of the best of both parents.

He was very dignified, right from birth. Although he was the cutest thing on 4 legs, he didn’t like much touching or cuddling. But he was very directive about where he’d like to be scratched or rubbed. I have watched Montaro coach him for leadership and seen how he encourages Juno to practice using his power/energy.

At the same time, his beautiful heart energy is so strong that I often mistake him for Aude – because he feels just like her. He is only 2-years-old and spends a lot of time wrestling with Cobra or Makah-Mahpee.

On the day of his birth, Juno sent my daughter Zara (to her mind’s eye) a picture of a blue butterfly. We went home and looked at pictures online of blue butterflies – there was one that was blue on top, but the underside of his wings were the exact color of Juno’s coat! The butterfly was called Junonia orithya.

Kaliah – is a feral mustang from an area north of Vernon, BC. Their range spans provincial land to First Nations reserve land. Her age is unknown.

During the ordeal of their cull and transport (BC Horse Angels has an arrangement with a few of the slaughterhouse drivers), Kaliah was the fierce leader that kept their little band of 3 together throughout the ordeal. When I thought I was just going to take her, she was the one who made it perfectly clear (by climbing over a steel arena panel and blowing through a solid wood fence while 9 months pregnant) that she was not going to be separated from her remaining herd of three.

Now that she and her herdmates are with me, Kaliah has dropped into more of the space of a dream-weaver. She still holds immense personal power, but she isn’t using it on the physical plane much. Instead, she spends long hours in meditation and has shared some powerful bodywork (using energy/ki only) with me and a few others who have visited. She often works in tandem with her daughter Xadaa; where Xadaa will be the one who is physically close to the human, or touching them.

She asked for a name that had Kali in it, but she didn’t want it to be up-front or glaring. The first time I experienced her prana/chi, pulled up from the center of the earth and blasted out through her heart center, I understood why she had chosen to have Kali in her name! Kali is the Hindu goddess of destruction/rebirth. The destruction of old patterns or energies is motivated by divine love, for the highest good of all. New levels of wholeness and expansion can then arise, or be re-birthed, from the ashes of behaviours, patterns, or realities that no longer serve our highest good.

Xadaa – is Kaliah’s daughter and was born at the rescue center on April 5, 2018.

She is a very strong, yet highly sensitive personality – the kind of horse who is often misunderstood and so becomes labeled “dominant” or difficult to handle, as a result.

Xadaa requires a delicate balance of listening closely and taking extra time/care with her, combined with setting firm, matter-of-fact boundaries from time to time. I’ve learned a lot about what her personality requires by watching how Montaro handles her. She is a rigorous teacher, because if you get it wrong, she will reprimand you with hoof or teeth – like her mama has taught her to.

It will be interesting to see how big she gets – at 1-year-old her rump is already higher than her mama’s.

Xadaa’s name comes from the Gitxsan Nation in northern BC – who adopted the word from the Tahltan language (a Nation even further north, where one of my dogs is from) – and it means Moose. The second I laid eyes on her I just felt Moose energy coming so strongly through her. I later looked up the symbolism of moose, and it fit her perfectly. She’s pretty happy with her name and recently we realized her blaze looks like a hawk or eagle silhouette – very cool.

Siyone – is also a feral mustang, from Kaliah’s wild herd, so her age is also unknown.

The first time I saw her I was afraid she was going to have a difficult time birthing – her body was so broken down and painful. We ran numerous energy-healing sessions for her, combined with good nutrition (they had just come off a hard winter on the range), and she was soon looking much better.

She has the strongest avoidance to being touched of all the mustangs, but yet she shows us how safe she feels by lying down to sleep only 4 or 5 feet away from where we’re sitting or working. From the day she arrived, Zorra was crazy about her and followed her around closely for about 2 months solid – despite Siyone’s (often) annoyance!

In spite of her physical challenges, when Siyone cantered, she moved so smoothly I named her after the Keres word for ‘flying’ – Tsiyoné.

Raposa (Posa) – is Siyone’s daughter and was born at the rescue center on April 21, 2018.

She is a tiny red horse with the strongest self-possession you can imagine. She teaches how a gentle “I AM PEACE” energy is more powerful than size, strength or fierceness. Her mastery of strong-gentleness means she can share hay with every horse in the herd and when Montaro runs everyone out of the barn, she is often allowed to remain behind – tucked non-threateningly, but firmly, into a corner. I adore her and admire her in equal measure.

Raposa means “little fox” in Portugese. My daughter Zara named her after she woke up from a dream about a fox – which reminded her a lot of Posa. I feel her name also reflects her paradox – the powerfully wily fox, alongside a sweet ‘posy’ of flowers.

Makah-Mahpee – is a feral mustang from Kaliah’s herd. He was a 3-year-old stallion when they were culled, so we estimate he was born April or May 2015.

Makah is an interesting being in that women generally perceive him as very sweet and gentle, yet men/boys perceive him as very powerful and strong. He likes to reach out his muzzle to greet me – by touching my hand – and sometimes will explore my hand and fingers with his lips and teeth. But otherwise, he doesn’t want to be touched.

He has been an amazing teacher, showing me how I can ask him to enter and exit through gates, get in and out of the trailer, and move in very specific ways – all without touching him or using a rope, stick, or anything else. He purposely comes to me and asks to play/learn together. I just adore him.

He asked me for a name that represented his ability to cross dimensions. But he also wanted to keep Mac in there if possible (the name given to him by the rescue owner), since he felt loyalty to her. And he loved the energy that flowed to him when she called out to him, “Mac attack!” Well, again, big challenge! But I found him Makah-Mahpee which means “Earth-Sky” in Sioux. So not only does this name fulfill his two requests, but it also reflects his eyes; one brown and one blue. People often experience a palpable power when they chant his name: Makah-Mahpee… Makah-Mahpee. I pronounce it: Mah-kah-Mah-peh

Cobra – is a semi-feral mustang from the same range Kaliah’s herd ran on, he was born May 2009. He came to this herd through a friend of mine and that story is here. We’re not sure how he came to be legally owned by a band member, but he ran with the feral mustangs as a stallion until he was 7 years old.

Cobra has a quiet, gentle strength and Montaro loved him on sight. But like Kaliah, although he has immense personal power, he doesn’t try to be high in the herd ranking. He spent months coaching Zorra (in much the same way Montaro coaches Juno) in how to increase her personal power – allowing her to “practice” driving him and moving him around, but we could all tell he was just acting!

While Montaro spent years coaching me how to increase and push out my power/ki, Cobra has taught me how to mask and shield it. Cobra has the largest, prettiest eyes you’ve ever seen and many viewers are drawn strongly to him when they see him in videos.

I named him Cobra as he has the same coloring as a King Cobra from Thailand and he agreed to the name.

*Semi-feral means the horse has a legal owner, but the owner doesn’t touch them or interact with them. My previously semi-feral crew lived untouched on a large ranch in the interior of BC and were all malnourished when they went to auction. They all have the same Belgian stallion father, but their mothers are different.

**Feral mustang means the horse is not owned or touched by humans and runs wild/free across a large range, foraging for food and water without human assistance. Since many of my readers/viewers are in the USA, I often refer to my previously feral crew as ‘mustangs’ or ‘wild mustangs’. Not only for ease of understanding, but I’m hoping that the stories I share will help people feel more comfortable with adopting a BLM mustang – as there are so many living barren lives in dirt holding pens (about 45,000 of them). And they are truly wondrous creatures, often far safer than a domestic stabled horse.

Jini

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.