A HORSE’S POINT OF VIEW ON AUTISM

By Armina Bridgeman

Conscious Horse Conscious Rider is a specialty class for everyone and all beings big and small.  I have been facilitating this clinic for a year now and the magic that the horses be and invite us to choose, is phenomenal.  The change that is created in the people and animals in these two short days has changed my reality so much beyond anything I could have imagined.

I have had the joy of having all kinds of people take this clinic: all ages and abilities, horse people and non-horse people. There are no prerequisites for this clinic so there are also people who have never heard of Access Consciousness or the tools that are used in Conscious Horse Conscious Rider (CHCR) prior to coming to a class.
Last year I had the privilege to have an eight-year-old autistic child named Emily in a CHCR clinic I ran in Cormac, Ontario.  Emily was staying at Foymount Farms with my host Sue, and although Emily did not participate in the entire clinic she did participate in the part where we ran Access Consciousness Body Processes and energy on the horses.  For me, it was amazing to witness the level of energetic communication that took place between Emily and the horses, how quickly they got each other and the ease with which they received from each other while running energy.

It was also interesting for me to perceive the ease that Emily and I were able to communicate with each other energetically. During the clinic, we do an exercise where we ask the horse: “If I get on you, will you take care of me?” and before I could even ask Emily to ask the question of her horse, she and her horse Jack were already in the energy, and I became aware Jack was taking care of Emily from the moment she went out to the pasture to catch him.

Another exercise we do during the clinic is to lay back on the horse bareback and perceive the energy of the horses having your back and being willing to take care of you.  When it came time for Emily to do this exercise it was so cool to see how much Jack had her back and how much they were trusting each other through the exercise. There was a sense of peace and calm between them that changed everyone that witnessed this. What if we were willing to have our own backs and to trust our owning knowing the same as a horse does? Emily was also able to energetically ask Jack to move and turn where she wanted him to go – without speaking a single word out loud.

So often these beautiful children are diagnosed or labelled with a disability when in actuality they have an ability that is beyond what this reality defines as “normal”. I have heard Gary Douglas, the founder of Access Consciousness, talk about autistic children and the gift they be to this planet and how they are here to create a new reality with the difference they be and function from. When an autistic child rides a horse, they are able to be peaceful and calm because horses have no barriers, points of view, or judgment about ability / disability and are a space for autistic children to function from everything they are that has never been acknowledged.

One of the many gifts of being with horses is they will not judge you or invalidate you, they will acknowledge you, and demand that you be you beyond the projections and judgments that you may have had delivered at you, or bought into about you. When kids (and adults) labelled with autism and other perceived ‘disabilities’ are received without barriers, like a horse does, something greater than what we have decided is possible can show up.

What is truly possible when you are willing to receive another being with no judgment, no sense of wrongness or inability?  What is truly possible when you are willing to receive you with no judgment, wrongness or inability? What capacities might you discover?