We are visiting friends who live next to a farmer. There is a horse in a fold right next to their house. The kids want to feed it carrots. After a while of them being out there, I wander out, and to my horror I discover that my youngest son has entered the fold. I initially get scared — but then I take a deep breath and watch him.
The other kids are frightened and are shouting, but he sits down calmly on a tree stump and the horse walks up to him. It is enormous compared to him. But he is completely calm. Offers the horse his small hands to smell and talks to it quietly. The horse smells him and then puts its big head next to his. They stay like this for a while and then the horse walks off, calmly.
The other adults come running out and my friend tells me that the horse is not normally calm around people, especially not kids. My son gets up with a smile and tells us that the horse told him that it doesn’t like noise and that that’s why she gets scared of kids.
I am in awe.
How did he intuitively know what to do? I quickly realise that I know the answer to this question already. The answer is that we all know, we just forgot. He hasn’t forgotten yet. He knows that he and the horse are one.
How do I ensure that he doesn’t forget this immense wisdom? I want to preserve it, sustain it, cultivate it without cultivating and normalising him. It feels as endangered as indigenous crafts traditions and pandas and blue whales.
Let’s connect! https://www.instagram.com/the_immaterialist/
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM
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Photo credit: Cole Winters on unsplash.com