I imagine some of you have noticed my poems start appearing on our social media sites alongside pictures of the horses.
I wanted to take a moment to touch on what you are reading and get you excited about a new Unbound offering coming this summer.
In my last blog, I shared with you all the unique journey I have been on lately, a journey that has taken me towards more creativity and bigger expression. Guided by the horses, I went through the hard but liberating process of a soul retrieval. Walking through the layers of where I have been limiting my greatest potential and striping away the masks and the false identities that have kept me small and out of my light. I am reemerging and reclaiming who I am and who I was always meant to be and that has been showing up in a multitude of ways.
All my life, I have been a writer. It came as innately to me as the horses. I have been writing since before I can remember. When I was too young to write words, I used to make stories with drawings on blank pages I’d staple together. I’d like to talk a little about how writing feels to me and the process of creating art. When I’m in that state of inspiration and flow to write, it’s almost like I become a vessel for poetry— it flows out of me freely without effort and it tells me that I am in a state of connection, in communion with the gift that God has given me. For the past 15 years however, followings series of traumatic events that happened one after another, this gift became inaccessible. It was like the faucet of my gift had been completely turned off. This is a normal thing to have happen following trauma and being in an emotional and mental situation where you are repressed instead of encouraged to flourish.
But finally, after 15 long years of being disconnected from my source, following the experience of the soul retrieval and the healing of past and present traumas, my gift of writing has finally returned.
What is writing to me?
When many people think of writing, they think of someone forcing themselves to sit it in a sterile, white room with a single typewriter on a bare table and no possible distractions in sight. This follows the concept that they have to force themselves into this very sterile, rigid and systematic process to form something thoughtful and intentional, and avoid writer’s block.
This could not be more opposite of what writing means to me.
To me, writing, and any form of art in general, is about living life to the fullest. It’s about inspiration, passion, experiencing adventures and that fire of life. The Romantic Poets believed poetry is about going out into the world and experiencing life fully –finding and fanning that spark of inspiration: looking at a blade of grass and seeing how beautiful it is in the moonlight, or catching the glint of a sunbeam bouncing off a raindrop. Art is about being so present that you are able to capture that split moment - glance, a second - of great beauty or great feeling.
To me, there isn’t anything that kills writing more than being in a sterile white room and not out there having adventures and living life. For me, art isn’t orderly and detached, it's passionate, inspired, fiery, and chaotic. When I am in flow with my writing it is a stream of consciousness. Most of the time, it comes up all at once and I am basically just the recorder. The Romantics Poets also described it this way, that you are simply the vessel for inspiration, a vessel that gets sparked by something beyond just you. It comes up and out of you and you are the artist who simple records or translates it for the rest of the world. I’ll get a spark of inspiration and it just shoots up out of me. Typewriters in white rooms? Pretty much the complete opposite- I write on my phone or napkins or scraps of cardboard, or whatever happens to be first in reach to record with when the words start coming. Sometimes I will even read it after and be surprised at what I wrote because I was so much just in the state of flow – it’s almost a meditation for creativity. Of course all of this is dependent on being able to be in the moment enough to notice the subtlety of the world around me but also the nuances of the feeling world within me. Deep awareness of the present moment inherently means that I have to be deeply in touch with my emotions.
If it’s raining and I’m noticing the singular beauty and focus of the raindrops, what do the rain drops represent for me today? If I am happy or excited for instance, I might see the raindrops and see beauty, hope and excitement. Whereas if I am feeling depressed, sad, or frustrated and it's raining, I might see rain representing sadness and depression.
When it comes to the horses, they live in this space of deep awareness and they request it from us when we are with them. Nothing drops me into the present of the moment quite like the herd does. As prey and as herd animals, horses have to be hyper aware of their environment. They are so attuned that it's said they can even sense rain coming an hour and half before the storm arrives. They are so connected to themselves and one another that they are constantly communicating in the most subtle of ways through the flicker of an ear or the turn of an eye. Beyond all of that, horses relate to emotion as “energy in motion.” They do feel all the same feelings that we do, but as frequencies or vibrations. They are not attached to feelings as ideas of good or bad that hold emotions back like we do. And because they live so fully in the present moment, they are much better than us at letting those frequencies (or “feelings”) move through them without getting fixated or stuck. When we spend time with them, they help train us to be more aware of the moment’s subtleties and better at letting our emotions flow. They help us to not over analyze, over think, or worry– all the things we tend to do as humans, often to our detriment. These skills and practices are the fundamental basis for allowing creativity and art to flow with ease, and everyone has the potential to do this and step into this state of being! A poem evolves depending on what the deeper underlying feeling and content of the moment is. Being present in the moment and hyper aware of your surroundings offers an opportunity to see normal things in a new light with deep emotion. When we spend time with horses, in a mindful manner, they teach us to do these things, because that is what they are doing– that is how the herd interacts, that is how horses are. The more time we mindfully spend with them and learn from them, the more they help us be in this place of flow.
This is how connecting to the horses can help put us into the present flow moment to be able to create beautiful art. Horses can put us in that state of being able to be open to that spark of inspiration and deep feeling.
Even though the gift of my writing was shut off for so long, I remembered this feeling of flow so well. When I am in flow with the horses, it is the same feeling as when I am in the flow of poetry, and it's a feeling of liberated expression, deep emotion, and connection. I am so passionate about creating opportunities for more people to experience states of mindful presence and expressive artistic flow through the medium of horse connection.
And with that...
I am so excited to announce that we will be launching Unbound Creativity workshops coming this summer at the Ranch.
Stay tuned for dates and details and follow along here and on social media. Thank you for being such an integral part of my revitalization and renewal. I am thrilled to be able to offer each of you an opportunity to tap into your own creative flow through the way of the horse.
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