Equine Facilitated Experiential Learning

By Lisa Walters

Equine Guided Education is a process of Equine Facilitated Experiential Learning (EFEL).

The EFEL work that we do at the EquuSatori Center is centered on developing our Awareness of Being at the deeper levels where we are unified with all life. Our aim is to create a space where participants have the opportunity to interact with horses and develop awareness at deeper and subtler levels thereby learning more about themselves.

It is the horses that are whispering to us…. and we are learning to listen from our subtle level of Being and with subtle awareness.

When the ancients described the horse as a traveler between “the worlds,” I believe they were describing what we today would call the “realms of existence,” the physical realm, the dream realm and the spiritual realm, to name a few. Horses have been known to communicate in all of these realms or “worlds.”

Why Horses?

Horses have developed their subtle awareness skills over the millennia, in order to survive as a herd. As herd animals they have very few defenses against predators. By their nature, they are peaceful creatures that find their comfort and safety in their connectedness to each other. Their first strategy for dealing with danger is to escape, or to avoid it all together. They can see almost 360 degrees around their bodies. They have sensitive ears and a keen sense of smell. In addition, they have what some might call extra sensory perception. I think of this more as “subtle sense” perception and communication. In all the years that I have worked with horses, I am continuously amazed at the subtle ways in which they communicate. And I have come to believe that we are all connected (or unified) at the most subtle levels but we tend not to be aware of these levels. Instead, our awareness is usually tuned-in at the physical levels of being.

One time I was grooming my mare on the shady side of my barn. I was relaxed and peacefully brushing her coat. As I brushed, a picture of my other horse, Johan, popped into my mind like a little internal TV screen. Appearing like a subliminal ad in a movie, the picture was of him standing in front of his stall looking at his closed door. When the picture popped in my head, I had an accompanying feeling of frustration. At first, I ignored the picture, discounting the message with the thought that I never close those stall doors so it must be my imagination. I continued to brush and again, the picture flashed in my head. I then decided to walk around the barn just to check and see if I was really “getting something.” As I rounded the corner, sure enough, there was Johan, standing exactly as I saw him in my mind, frustrated that he could not get into his stall. I opened the door for him, he entered and turned to me as if to say “thank you.”

This type of communication is common between horses and people. In my experience, a common theme when this type of communication occurs is that I am always relaxed, centered and peaceful. Perhaps when we are highly focused and stressed, we don’t seem to be able to “tune in” to this subtle level of communication. Horses, in their natural state, wandering around grazing, will spend most of their time in a peaceful, relaxed state. It could be that this “sending pictures coupled with feelings” way of communication is common to them. This way of communicating through the unified field may be the form of communication that they developed to alert the whole herd instantaneously of dangers. The nature of the “Unified Field” is timeless communication. Perhaps this is why we experience it as instantaneous.

Because horses’ survival is based on their relationships with one another and their ability to communicate quickly with each other, they are hard-wired with extraordinary communication skills. They are willing and eager participants in the world of relationships and communication. The growing interest in the horse as teacher is partly due to this aspect of their nature and the human desire for interconnectedness. Sometimes, when we receive feedback from other people, we don’t necessarily trust their motives because we fear judgment. When we get responses, or “feedback,” from a horse, it is much easier for us to take in. We know that the horse has no judgments. Only in our ability to respond, and in our observation of the “free of judgment” response from the horse, do we have the opportunity to notice what it is in us that elicited that particular response from the horse.

When we have a sense of ourselves at a deep and subtle level, we gain conscious awareness of ourselves and our world at that same level. Working with horses in this way enables us to gain experience in the subtle abilities that we can then bridge to our regular life. We are able to expand our capabilities of awareness. These are some of the things that horses can teach us by way of their nature and their willingness to interact with us.