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Est. 1998
Promoting natural horsemanship
& holistic horse care.
& holistic horse care.
How do horses feel about
holistic therapies and medicine?
holistic therapies and medicine?
by Holly Davis
www.nirvanasprings.co.uk
www.nirvanasprings.co.uk
When I first started to use holistic medicine I was very unaware of just how effective it was. I knew that several of my horses had health issues. I had heard of a therapy called Bowen and decided to try it for them.
I was fascinated to watch the horses being treated, they licked and chewed, nodded off to sleep and one of my mares rocked from side to side.
One day Kayleigh was having her Bowen treatment out in the field and wasn’t wearing a headcollar. After the first few moves she walked a 2 metre circle around myself and friend then came back and asked for me. I asked her why she had done this and she told me she was grounding herself. From that day on I have always had their feet on earth and left them untied for their treatments as I feel anything more would have been asking them to accept something they didn’t want or need and grounding is a very important part of their treatment. Our horses and indeed all animals have a wonderful knowledge of not only their physical body but also of their energy body and of their wants and needs.
A good therapist is one who allows the horse to choose, as indeed the horse should. Often past trauma and separation from a companion or owner can cause holes and tares in their energy field that will stay there until repaired.
One day during a Bowen treatment Kayleigh made a strong statement. She told me when vibrational medicine was done incorrectly it was like butchery! I later found out that one of the most famous homeopaths of all time had once said that he would rather be butchered by a surgeon with a knife than by a homeopath.
Thinking about it now she couldn’t have been more right. I was once treated homoeopathically with the wrong medicine against my better judgement and within 2 minutes I was ill and had to be antidoted. This taught me to voice my concerns and trust my instinct and made me realise just how important it is to listen to the horses.
Some people say the wrong remedies do nothing to you …… not true!
I started to communicate with my horses for the practitioners I used, basically passing on what my horses were asking for by way of treatment. Seeing this working is fascinating, often things that weren’t the normal moves were added exactly as asked and the results were amazing. On one treatment, Kayleigh asked me to ask the practitioner to just stand 2 metres from her right shoulder. As soon as she stood on this spot she burst into tears and Kayleigh walked off. I don’t know what was released that day but it seemed to be an emotion she had been clinging to for a very long time. On that same day, Kayleigh kept asking for her seat bone area to be treated in a certain way. But every time the practitioner tried to do it she would walk away…… so instead of trying to ‘touch’ Kayleigh she decided to perform the Bowen moves on her energy field from about 5 feet away. The result was amazing and cone again that day Kayleigh let go of something.
I find it very much the same with reiki. Some horses want to be touched, some don’t. I let them make their choice, if they need to walk away, I let them, THEY know what they need, and I feel that to force such a treatment upon them is invasive.
I’ve had many conversations with Kayleigh about healing. She tells me that holistic medicine, done correctly, should work on ‘levels’. To rush in and treat a particular problem isn’t always right and that we must treat the priority, developing and using our intuition will help us identify this in many cases. She asks for what remedy she wants and usually I will have no idea what she wants it for, yet when treated like e this I see improvement in her and the others. She explains how one ‘set’ of remedies when given correctly, correct potencies, doses, etc will bring her to the next level. Once she has reach that she is ready for her next lot of repair. It’s like building a strong foundation for the body. How can good healing take place when it has nowhere to ‘live’.
It’s also very important to understand that for the horses there is a difference between want and need. Holistic therapies and medicines often work on the emotional as well as the physical. If the emotional body is healed, the physical will take care of itself. It is important to understand that these treatments and medicines are just helpers and that the real healing comes from within the horse. In order for a horse to get well, it has to want to be well. Healing works with intent and will. If the will to get well isn’t there it can’t happen. I hope this insight into Kayleigh’s feelings on this subject will help others understand just how important these things are to our horses and how important it is to trust and develop our intuition, without that we are all just guessing.
Horses will always get old and die; their homoeostasis can’t be perfect 100% of the time, but by listening to their needs we can help make things more physically comfortable for them. Just as we help heal our horses, they come as our teachers and healers too.
This article first appeared in Natural Horsemanship Magazine
I was fascinated to watch the horses being treated, they licked and chewed, nodded off to sleep and one of my mares rocked from side to side.
One day Kayleigh was having her Bowen treatment out in the field and wasn’t wearing a headcollar. After the first few moves she walked a 2 metre circle around myself and friend then came back and asked for me. I asked her why she had done this and she told me she was grounding herself. From that day on I have always had their feet on earth and left them untied for their treatments as I feel anything more would have been asking them to accept something they didn’t want or need and grounding is a very important part of their treatment. Our horses and indeed all animals have a wonderful knowledge of not only their physical body but also of their energy body and of their wants and needs.
A good therapist is one who allows the horse to choose, as indeed the horse should. Often past trauma and separation from a companion or owner can cause holes and tares in their energy field that will stay there until repaired.
One day during a Bowen treatment Kayleigh made a strong statement. She told me when vibrational medicine was done incorrectly it was like butchery! I later found out that one of the most famous homeopaths of all time had once said that he would rather be butchered by a surgeon with a knife than by a homeopath.
Thinking about it now she couldn’t have been more right. I was once treated homoeopathically with the wrong medicine against my better judgement and within 2 minutes I was ill and had to be antidoted. This taught me to voice my concerns and trust my instinct and made me realise just how important it is to listen to the horses.
Some people say the wrong remedies do nothing to you …… not true!
I started to communicate with my horses for the practitioners I used, basically passing on what my horses were asking for by way of treatment. Seeing this working is fascinating, often things that weren’t the normal moves were added exactly as asked and the results were amazing. On one treatment, Kayleigh asked me to ask the practitioner to just stand 2 metres from her right shoulder. As soon as she stood on this spot she burst into tears and Kayleigh walked off. I don’t know what was released that day but it seemed to be an emotion she had been clinging to for a very long time. On that same day, Kayleigh kept asking for her seat bone area to be treated in a certain way. But every time the practitioner tried to do it she would walk away…… so instead of trying to ‘touch’ Kayleigh she decided to perform the Bowen moves on her energy field from about 5 feet away. The result was amazing and cone again that day Kayleigh let go of something.
I find it very much the same with reiki. Some horses want to be touched, some don’t. I let them make their choice, if they need to walk away, I let them, THEY know what they need, and I feel that to force such a treatment upon them is invasive.
I’ve had many conversations with Kayleigh about healing. She tells me that holistic medicine, done correctly, should work on ‘levels’. To rush in and treat a particular problem isn’t always right and that we must treat the priority, developing and using our intuition will help us identify this in many cases. She asks for what remedy she wants and usually I will have no idea what she wants it for, yet when treated like e this I see improvement in her and the others. She explains how one ‘set’ of remedies when given correctly, correct potencies, doses, etc will bring her to the next level. Once she has reach that she is ready for her next lot of repair. It’s like building a strong foundation for the body. How can good healing take place when it has nowhere to ‘live’.
It’s also very important to understand that for the horses there is a difference between want and need. Holistic therapies and medicines often work on the emotional as well as the physical. If the emotional body is healed, the physical will take care of itself. It is important to understand that these treatments and medicines are just helpers and that the real healing comes from within the horse. In order for a horse to get well, it has to want to be well. Healing works with intent and will. If the will to get well isn’t there it can’t happen. I hope this insight into Kayleigh’s feelings on this subject will help others understand just how important these things are to our horses and how important it is to trust and develop our intuition, without that we are all just guessing.
Horses will always get old and die; their homoeostasis can’t be perfect 100% of the time, but by listening to their needs we can help make things more physically comfortable for them. Just as we help heal our horses, they come as our teachers and healers too.
This article first appeared in Natural Horsemanship Magazine