APPROACH

Free-roaming horses allow us to experience and access our true nature, underneath the masks and social armor that we build up innocently to protect ourselves. The nature of being amongst horses, requires us to be fully aware, of when we are in the present moment, and when we are caught up in our personal thinking or conditioned mind. Horses speak the language of truth beyond words, bringing us back to our heart, our intuitive nature and what is important in the direction of our lives. Through embodiment practices, somatic experiences and breath-work that emulate horse herd dynamics, we attune to our own expanded energy field, stepping into a new, embodied, and grounded sense of self with clarity and sovereignty. At the root of The Reflective Horse® programs is the knowledge that horses are intensely spiritual beings, residing in the present, with the ability to seek and reflect the truth of who we are.

WHY FREE-ROAMING HORSES?

Interacting with horses who are free to express themselves, we experience ourselves from an entirely different perspective. We recognize that horses, who are neither haltered or constrained, activate our innate awareness, ground us in our bodies, and support us in reuniting with our intuition and, in remembering the power and freedom that is our birth-rite. As prey to other beings (as are humans,) horses live entirely in the present, responding innately when required, and living in peace and meditative harmony in connection with their herd. Horses’ innate sensitivity and alertness read the intention of everything, including our emotional terrain and the purity of our spirit. When we access this part of ourselves, we become magnets, in touch with the pure essence of our being, letting down our guard and remembering the oneness we are a part of. Horses renew our sense of empowered belonging and have the ability to take us into spiritually uncharted territory, beyond the limitations of our conditioned minds.

Somatic Riding® explained

I created the concept of Somatic Riding® based on my own experience of friendship and connection with horses without the use of bits, saddles, and other tools of control typically utilized in the “training” of horses and the humans riding upon them. My personal philosophy developed through reconnecting to my original childhood experiences with horses, before being taught the techniques of "horse-riding” by instruction. These early interactions were based on curiosity, presence, friendship, trust, and relationship developed over time. My foremost experience between the age of 4-6 years old was with a donkey that lived in a field on our street. I would spend hours being alone with “Busby,” and developed a relationship with him. As a child, this was a timeless experience, guided by no-one, where intuition, feeling and presence were the language that connected the two of us. In time, Busby allowed me to get on his back, and walk from the back of the field to the gate. I have no recollection of how or when this happened. Only that I felt a sense of safety, comfort, calm, connection and deep trust in my body, mind and spirit when I was with him. It was my first relationship of trust in another and myself.

As I continued with “horse-riding" lessons in my pre-teen years, the highlight of freedom and fun was actually riding bareback with no halter or rope. Cycling before dawn to the local farm and gathering with a few friends, we would take turns to be the one at the gate, rattling a bucket of pony-nuts (pellets) when commanded by whistle, where upon all the ponies would take off at a gallop with us on their backs to the gate at the top of the twenty acre field. The excitement of climbing up on the back of a “wild" pony and galloping freely was the hight and delight of connection and trust. 

I remembered, that this is where connection is made, through a deep sense of trust in myself, my ability to self-regulate, to breathe and therefore be in balance and presence. To be present and aware in each moment of my connection to the being that I have the honor to ride upon the back of, and to feel the freedom of their soul. This was my insight. This is what I seek.

My life, having left school at fifteen, took me on a journey with horses, as a groom in various hunting-yards and stables based on the traditional techniques of horse riding, but as a sensitive teenager, I recognized the purity and innocence of the horses I was paired with. Most labelled as “difficult,” “disrespectful,” “rebellious” and sometimes, “dangerous,” all of which I related to, I had compassion for them. I discovered and recollect that all I did was trust the horse, remain grounded whatever their behavior, feel compassion and, a secret underlying joy and respect for their self-expression, their need to release, and to allow their experience to pass through them. As soon as they did, they became calm, reconnected, and were wonderful partners and compadres in leaping the tallest banks and hedges at speed using their innate abilities and wisdom. In full confidence of their knowing, I just went along for the ride!

When I was in my twenties, having gained confidence largely through horses, I began a career in the theatre, and later a decade in Casting for film and theater. Then, after birthing and nurturing my three sons (in a very similar way to my intuition with horses,) I came back to horses, through a resonant lens; with champion bareback jockey of El Palio, the famous bareback horse race of Siena, Italy. When I first met Roberto, I knew this was a calling to remember my formative experience with horses. To let go of control, to share responsibility, to self-regulate, quieten the fear in my mind and to trust in the innate connection between my body, my mind and my horse. The guidance of Roberto added the element of trusting a human in the dynamic, which was an invaluable piece of the puzzle. After three years with Roberto and Louis the horse, I felt the incredible transformation that was happening within myself. As well as guiding my own children from this unfashionably free-range perspective, I was becoming more and more involved in actively studying and subsequently teaching emotional intelligence and communication models in schools, for parents, and in woman's circles. I could see the parallels of communication and relationship with horses, and I started to research the possibility of pairing horses and teenagers in communications and relationship building capacities. The seeds had been planted.

In sharing my insights through the creation of Somatic Riding® which I officially registered as a modality in 2008, I had the pleasure to help others to remember the deeper connection and relational nuances of partnering with horses. I wanted to share this for the sake of the horse, as I could see how easy it is to become fixed in technique, inflexible in relationship, and how freeing it is to be creating friendship and trust through embodied intuition. But this was not the only thing that Somatic Riding® brought light to. Through relationship with horses on the ground, my clients were able to access parts of themselves that had been on autopilot, so to speak, through trauma, conditioning and learned behaviors. Somatic Riding® placed people back in the center of their being, reconnected them to their intuition, bringing them into presence, reestablishing connection to their expanded energetic field, as well as to their boundaries and ability to respond from a grounded and regulated place. Meeting the horse from this expansive perspective, allowed for a gentle, reciprocal and harmonious experience where the invitation to ride upon the back of the horse is felt and experienced by both horse and human.

Somatic Riding® was the catalyst to recognizing the power of partnership with horses and to fine tune the modality of Equine Guided Empowerment® and Somatic Reprogramming® that I registered as modalities some years later. This also led to the creation of SheHerdPower, a collaboration with Beth & Emily Behrs, providing women who have experienced sexual trauma with Equine Guided Empowerment® programs, as well as numerous outreach programs. These catalytic and deeply transformative experiences did not require any subjugation of the horse.

I loved sharing the concept of Somatic Riding® for the many years that I did. Helping people to understand the relational reciprocity of communication with horses and to inspire the remembrance that relationship with all beings is fostered, and flourishes through non-judgement and non-agenda. It has been a joy.

As I deepened my own understanding of horses and the power of experiencing their freedom of expression, I became less and less interested in teaching the “riding” aspect. My awareness that to “teach” Somatic Riding®, I had to compromise my own horses when it came to working with clients who naturally wanted to feel the progression from the ground to “riding,” felt incongruent and misaligned for me. Somatic riding is a felt experience, and to teach a feeling is multi-faceted. Some people are more empathic than others. Some have intuitive sensitivity. Others have an agenda or mind-set that favors an outcome, a goal, an end result. I was not willing to override my horses “no" to accommodate clients differing values. So, I made a commitment to respect this deep resonance within myself and to share horses’ profound teaching and wisdom in ways that feel congruent in valuing and elevating their sovereignty. 

It is important to note, I am not in disagreement with riding upon a horse when the agreement to do so is reciprocal. When it is right for both horse and human, it is one of the most beautiful unions in the world. For me, it must be a reciprocal union, coming from a deep respect for each others freedom and self-honoring, otherwise it is a relationship based in dominance, overpowering, or controlling the free will of another.

— Cassandra Ogier, Summer 2023