Equine Voices Podcast
Equine Voices Podcast
Interview with Jordanna Anawalt - www.choicetribe.com
Interview with Jordanna Anawalt.
I'm very pleased to announce an interview with Jordanna Anawalt.
I recently came across Jordanna on a podcast with Warwick Schiller (The Journey on Podcast) I found the conversation so engaging, that I decided to send her an email to say how much I enjoyed the conversation and to invite her on as a guest and to my surprise, she replied straight away and accepted my invitation.
I hope you enjoy this episode, as I loved chatting with Jo and finding out a little more about her work with horses, humans and the knowledge she wishes to share with the world.
Note:
The sound quality may not be as crisp as I would like due to Jo's headset not working on the live stream but it does not distract the message and information that Jo wishes to share.
Jordanna Anawalt.
Jordanna Anawalt is an enrolled Hupa native descending from the Hoopa Valley Tribe of Northern California. She acknowledges that the beautiful Central Oregon land that she currently resides and works upon is the original homelands of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs who ceded the land in the Treaty of 1855.
Jordanna works as a Congruent Communication Coach with humans and horses, a Medicine Drum Dreaming Guide, an artist, a story holder, and a communication channel for those without spoken language. She is the creator of Equine Experiential InnerStanding™ and the specialisation of CHOICE Horsemanship™. Her work focuses on guiding humans and horses to oneness by revitalising indigenous approaches to live in harmony with the natural world.
From her earliest memories, Jordanna was tuned in to the whispers of the natural world and is a lifelong student of the teachings of the 7-Directions as well as the symbolism contained within The Dreaming. During an out of body experience when she was an adolescent, a being appeared and offered her the following insight: "In every moment, you have a choice. You can choose to live in a story that is created by what's happening to you or you can choose to live in a story where you are the creator of events. Your experience is simply your choice."
Jordanna traveled to Western Australia, Indonesia, and Hawaii where she was a student of the land and several Medicine Keepers who gifted her the remembering of the Horse as a representation of Nature. When she returned to the PNW, she held a strongly rooted understanding of the need to cultivate a community connection space where the approach to holistic well-being was inspirited by indigenous wisdoms and inspired by the Medicine Horse and her way of life. She made a choice to create what was being called forward and CHOICE Tribe was born.
CHOICE Tribe was founded in 2019 out of a deep admiration and reverence for the Horse alongside Jordanna's indigenous heritage―Hupa―which honors the inextricable connection between the natural world and spirit plane. The programs CHOICE Tribe presents to the world are an embodiment of the original knowing that there is no separation between Nature and the People, because we are Nature.
www.choicetribe.com
www.facebook.com/choicetribe
Video version (alongside applicable podcasts) can be viewed on facebook and YouTube.
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Contact Ronnie.
mailto:equinevoicesronnie@gmail.com
Hello and welcome to Echoing Voices my name is Ronnie and I am very, very delighted to have a lovely lady from Oregon, choice tribe called Jodana Anawalt. I came across Jo. On Warwick Schiller's podcast and for those of you that listen to my podcast, you know I'm a great fan of Warwick's podcast and I just loved it, it's so resonated and everything she said I felt it in my heart too, which a lot of people did and I thought, Oh, I'd love to chat to her. Straight away after the interview, I sent her an email and she kindly agreed to come on. So all I know about Jo is what I heard on Warwick's podcast and what we're going to talk about tonight. So without further ado, I'll bring her in and she can introduce herself and explain about her work and how she works with horses and how she got into this. So I'm going to share with you a little bit about what it's like to work in the first place. So here we go. I'll bring her in.
Jo:Hi. Thanks for having me on.
Ronnie:You are very welcome. Now, before we start the conversation, you gave me some information before we started. So would you like to just to share that in case you have to rush off anywhere?
Jo:Yes. I have an elderly horse who is having some health issues in the last 24 hours. So I'm staring out the window watching him and. If something looks like it's needing my attention, I will get off the call and go attend to him. So if there's a sudden stop, that's why, thank you for understanding.
Ronnie:Oh, you're very welcome. Horses come first. This is great for you to do this, but that's not as important as the horses are. Okay so would you like to explain to people first of all, who you are and how you got into the horse world?
Jo:Yeah, I am a Hupa woman descending from Northern California. I currently live in Bend, Oregon and split my time between here and the homestead that my family has in Hawaii. Horses have been a part of my energetic being since I was small. I was the kid who, when I was given a doll, threw it in the garbage and went to play with my briar horses. And have always had a deep connection to both animals and the plant relatives and our elemental relatives. So I've been able to hear through different modalities of hearing what our plant, animal and elemental relatives have said since an early age and horse was always a guiding, energy. Now, I didn't grow up around horses. We lived in an area and we were in a place in our, our family's finances where horses were not something that were on the table, but that didn't stop the draw or hold back the connection I had to them. So. My first horse experience outside of, you know, a stable ride or a pony ride at the fair or running up to fences as a kid to pet horses over the fence. Whenever I saw them was when I was 15 and my family was in the middle of some intense, emotional and structural changes and on my way home from school every day, I drive by this dry paddock. And there was this small horse at the time. I didn't even know terminology for horses. So I now know she was a yearling and she was all by herself. And I drive by her every day and she's beautiful buttermilk buck skin in color. And. I started to develop this relationship with her just on that passed by every couple of hours throughout the day and I started to walk my dog down there and it became my daily way to step out of what was happening in my family life that I felt I couldn't escape my walk to go see this horse with that escape. And over the course of a few months, I developed a really strong attachment to her. I named her, her name was Honey Bee and it got to the point where even when I would just drive by and call her name out of my window she'd whinny and she'd run up and down the fence line and I had this feeling like this, knowing this is my horse. We didn't have property to have a horse I was 15 and finishing up grade 12 and working part time. And how was a horse going to fit into this? But I just knew this is my horse. And so things Unfolded in the form of me actually ending up contacting animal control here in the States would be like the welfare organization that looks after animals because this young horse went from being healthy looking and had weight on her. And that region of California gets really hot in the summer and she had been no feed. She was eating sticks out of the tree. Her water trough had mouth on it. And she was a bag of bones. She looked like a skeleton standing up. And so I contacted the Humane Society and they had someone come out and assessor and I got in trouble for beating her hay over the fence. I was told you can't do that anymore. She's not your horse. You need to back off. We're going to find out who owns her. So there was no house on this property. It was just a vacant lot. They were going to take it from there. So I had to pull back and just. Drive by her and stop all physical contact, but I continue to speak to her across my heart, my heart to her heart. And after 30 days, which was the period they had to hold her there for, she disappeared. And I remember the day that I drove by that lot and there was no horse anymore. Honeybee was gone and my whole being collapsed and it was a stronger feeling than it had been up until that point of, I, that's my horse. I have to do everything in my power to find her and to acquire her. And I don't know how, but I'll figure it out. I spent the next several weeks driving around that part of the countryside. Which I guess was just an assumption, even that she was still in that area, but I, I did it. I drove around and I would just call her name out of my car for hours at a time. And I remember the day that I heard her call back and I could see way at the back of this property, the tips of her ears sticking up over this really tall fence. And there I was I think I had turned 16 at that point, but I marched up to this house and knocked on their door. You have my horse. I was, I was very sure and like, this is my horse and that started a multi month conversation with this family who was one very angry with me that I had contacted animal control, their understanding or level of care that they had for their livestock was different than what even the legal standards are. But what I thought was Correct. So I had by calling them in gotten them in trouble. So they were upset with me. I was not their favorite person. I was proclaiming that this was my horse and how do I buy her? I'd like to acquire her. And that also wasn't, didn't sit well on their palate, I think. But I was persistent. There was this. This knowing in me that was like, this is your horse. You have to do everything to fight for her. So one day, the one afternoon on their doorstep. Finally the woman says, okay, like we're done with you showing up here every day. We will sell her to you for this amount. And I was like, no, like that's way too much. And no, you haven't even cared for her. I'm not going to pay you for this horse that you're not even caring for. Like I'm willing to give her a good home and I'm not a good negotiator, but I apparently was a good negotiator that day because I got them down to a very small adoption fee. And. We signed a bill of sale and then I had to figure out how I was going to get her home or where home even was, because again, we didn't have horse property we didn't have a horse trailer. I went into this just following my intuition and this impulse with nothing in place foundationally to take care of this animal or horse experience to even know how to take care of a horse. All those pieces fell into place. And I got to bring honeybee home and that moment in life began is, is the spark that began everything that is choice tribe with the equine component. So choice tribe, I really believe started that, that spark was set into my soul when I was 12 years old. And I tell that story in the work podcast. It was a. An experience with a higher being when I was hospitalized for a suicide attempt and choice was dropped into my soul, but when honeybee became my best friend, when we got to be in partnership together, I was gifted the greatest teacher thus far in my life. I didn't know at the time that these things I found out in the weeks after I acquired her that she was an orphan. So the reason she was by herself in that yard was because she lost her mom when she was 2 weeks old. So she lived by herself from 2 weeks onward and then lived on that piece of property with no other animals at all from 4 months on. So that created a horse. Not only did I have no horse experience, I then adopted this animal who was more of a predator than a prey animal. She lived, she was fearful of everything, but in a way that manifested or came outwardly as aggression. So Honey and I began our journey and that... Led us from California to Oregon and to my first horse mentor, who put me in a situation sat me down on a conversation and said, you have a choice after she met honey and saw us interact together. And she said, this horse was incredibly dangerous. She is a predator. She has very few prey behaviors. That's because she was orphaned and she had to move from a place of survival and flight wasn't a good choice. Fight became the choice that she needed to choose and she wasn't willing to work with Honey and I. Unless I made the choice, I chose and committed to doing everything necessary for the lifetime of this animal to make sure she felt safe. And that was the beginning of what I call life lessons with horses. I thought it was horse lessons at the time. It wasn't horse lessons at all. It was, it was life lessons. So over the next few years you know, and everything that's unfolded since then, uh, honeybee is 15 now and she lives on the Hawaii homestead. She is my, my reflection or my gauge of where I'm at internally and her life circumstance. Reflected the circumstances of my life and they seem to at each stage of life that we go through. So honey was my 1st horse, my 1st horse experience, and she required because of her past traumas required me to step into a place that was deeper and at a higher level of commitment than anyone else that was in our barn at that time. This was. Rehabilitating a wounded soul souls, because I was also one, but I didn't, I didn't, again, know that at the time and that just one horse led to two horses, which led to more horses. And and through a very, very vast web of. Signs and symbols and synchronicities, I've ended up where I am. Today, working as a congruent communication coach for both humans and horses, helping us return to balance and reciprocity with the natural world. Since we are in nature.
Ronnie:Wow. Thank you, Joe. That was beautiful. I remember bits of that, but I'm still hearing it with new ears too, because you can listen to something and then you hear it again and it's slightly different or it has more meaning or different meaning. So persistent for you certainly paid off.
Jo:It did. It did. And that's quite out of character, even still for me unless it's that intuitive feeling, like this is the thing, go after this. Yeah,
Ronnie:yeah and you both needed each other. So I know she wasn't the easiest of horse and you had to delve deep. But for you, after what you mentioned earlier, that was probably something you really needed to, you needed to, to go to those areas that we don't necessarily go to. And especially as a young, as a young woman too. You know, it's only as you get older that you start to think, well, why does that happen? And you question things and you question yourself, when you start taking responsibility for your own actions and seeing that things happened around you because of your choices, your decisions, and it's not anybody's fault, it's just choices. When you start to look at yourself, that's when you get. Insights and things come along and you have reflections and animals they touch parts where a human can't go, basically, they get straight to the soul and you will do things for an animal that you won't necessarily do for yourself, although that's not what they want you to say. And that's where a lot of horse relationships, whether you ride or don't ride, whatever you do, animal relationships, they start you on a particular journey of opening up. So can you explain to people what a congruent, that's a word I can never roll off the tongue, a communicator is? What exactly does that mean? I know what that means, but what does that mean for the viewers and the listeners?
Jo:So I'm going to take us back to the beginning of communication as animals. So we enter the world as human animals, and we receive information just as all other animals in the animal kingdom do through our sensory system, our entire sensory system. So we're taking in information through sound, through sight, through smell, through taste, through touch, and through deeper senses that are coming from a place of. Knowing spiritual guidance, what I have observed and what the horses continue to share is that as humans have evolved, as we have gone from the nomadic lifestyles that we had thousands and thousands of years ago, as we domesticated horse, and we moved into. More stationary lifestyles where we began to build villages and have agriculture and then advance even further to where we are in the modern world, we moved away from nature and we moved away from needing. To rely upon that sensory system, that sensory receptor to communicate fully, we now rely, and I'm speaking in generalizations, there are lots of people and specific cultures around the world that have not moved away from this. Or have been able to keep the volume of that sensory system turned up since they were very small, but when we're born into the modern world, most of us. Start receiving information through that sensory system at a very, very young age that if you don't see something, it's not real. That there's a period of time as an infant and toddler where it's acceptable to have imagination and to see things and to hear things that aren't visible to sight or touchable. But then we get to a place where we're asked to please quiet those things down, that they're not real. And that's actually our natural system of communication. So having this conversation with words is just a fraction of the way that I can communicate. with you, with the horses, with the trees outside, with my ancestors or those who walk beside me from higher places. So what the horses started to show was that in all of these different techniques or methodologies that we would approach them with, That we're focused on creating clear communication, concise communication, communication, grounded in connection, we were doing it from a place of limited sensory experiencing. So, we were taking in most of the information through our eyes. And through our touch, what could we see the horse doing? What could we, and then when you see something, that information comes in, it goes right to the brain. It's, it's analyzing, making a decision comparing it back to something we've seen or creating some level of story. So a story about what could happen, what has happened of patterns, and then we use touch also. So we would create touch communication with the horse and use our eyes to receive feedback. So, for the most part, most of these communication methods with horses. For training or teaching purposes, we're limited to those two senses and that the horses asked us to step forward and to return to that original state of communication, which is using all of our senses. To communicate returning back to how we were designed to come into the world and communicate outside of the confines of what we've, what we've learned or been brought up in so congruent communication is communicating with self with others with environment through the entire sensory system. And checking or being aware of the congruence or reciprocal nature between all of the senses between all of the way that information is coming in and we, each individual has a different set of preferences. Or senses that are there, the more predominant senses through which they receive information. Some people are really visual. Meaning they get a lot of imagery or things come into their minds. I, some people are really auditory. They, they hear things that come in. Some people feel things in their body, like actual sensations in their body. Some people. Have a knowing that comes in to the place of center and they act from there. Some people are still very closely attached to their sense of smell and taste and receive information that way. What I help people do is remember, begin to turn the volume back up on. What, how, what, how are those senses even saying to you when we take away sight and we allow ourselves to drop into our body and we start to experience the world through a sense. So with eyes closed, we listen to what's happening around us in the environment, and we allow all of the physical sounds to move through our mind, just noticing, but then we take it deeper and we begin to listen to the feeling. What is the energy signature? What is the sound telling you about the environment? Did the birds go quiet because it's rest time? Did the birds go quiet because there's. A predator in the area. Are the birds making a different sound because they're making a warning call or are they just chatting about daily life happenings? There is a energetic frequency or vibration feeling that's occurring at all times in the environment, and we can tune into that through different senses. So if you're auditory, you're going to be able to use your senses. Of sound to really feel what's happening and take that information in horses are doing this all the time and animals are not just horses. Animals can lose a sense. They can move through life without a sense of being non human animals and adapt. Fairly well, humans do this too, but we're really afraid of not being able to see not being able to hear and not being able to move our body. Because we have moved away from trusting or even knowing that we have a highly advanced and keen sensory system that will compensate or step in and make up for places where we might Thank you very much. Have something taken away where we might need to fill in the gap if we don't have sight, our other senses will step in. So teaching people how to communicate with themselves. And understand this is how I receive information. I'm really auditory. I'm really visual. And then knowing that it's always a combination of things. We receive information through all of our senses, but if you're a predominant seer, mind's eye seer, and then you get intuitive knowings with that, those are going to be the way that we start to structure your communication experience. with others. So it started with how do we do this to get something not from the horse to build something with the horse because This all came through the pathway of communicating with horses. And the horses very clearly said, stop. It's not about us at all. You can't even begin the conversation with us until you find congruence in yourself. So you are able to check yourself and say, wow, right now my emotional body and my physical body are out of balance. When we get to a place where we're in inner congruence. We're using our sensory system to move through our life. We then are able to start reaching out to create connection with the horse and connection with horse or any other animal or the environment occurs when the other, we'll say horses example, the other is also congruent. So there are some times More often than not that we're working with animals and domestication that aren't living in a state. of congruence when the human arrives into the situation. They pull a part of themselves out of their bodies as a mode of protection. Simply, like in the most simplest terms, just because their history with humans is that We don't understand how to communicate the way that the natural world communicates through these senses as a whole being experienced. So they just pull a little bit of themselves out and say, yeah, humans here a little bit of distance because they don't get it. They have forgotten when you show up to a horse and you say, Hey, I remember now, look, I could communicate to you on this level of congruence within myself. And I'm offering that out to you as a bridge to have connection with. The horse might have some stuff they've got to work through to, to find congruence. And so then in the process of beginning a connection with a horse, which I do, I teach people by using their primary sense, primary senses of receiving information to begin to send things to the horse through those senses. And. The horses then begin to show us how they receive. So some horses receive images really well. Some horses don't. Some horses receive the, the energy behind. Or the intention behind what words carry and words don't have to even be spoke and they can just be thought some horses feel things in their body. So you feel something in your body and you send that feeling over to the horse to share that. And so we then begin to share with the horse that they can find congruence that we notice that there's a place of incongruence when we, as the human show up in their situation. And that are our purpose in being in that relationship with them. is purely just to create a place where we're both congruent so that we can connect. When we get to that place and we can connect, that's the place that communication can begin to develop. And that was what I struggled for so many years working with. Horses and training working as a writing instructor with students that there was this I felt like there was like two steps missing in the staircase. Like, how do you go from just being here and You know I understand this knowledge about, you know, this is how horses behave their prey animals. This is what they do. This is pressure and release. Here are all of these things scientifically about horses animals. Yes, and scientifically about humans. Yes. But what about the thing that we can't touch? We can't see the thing that comes from that deep knowing what about those steps? Because I, I felt that those steps, something about that was really important. Okay. To getting to this place of communication, where the horse wasn't communicating because there was, they had a choice, they had a choice to communicate. I wanted that and not just to experience it in my own life walk, but to be able to share that with others and open the door to say, there's such a deeper level of partnership or relationship you can have with a horse. With your dog, with someone in your family, with the land that you live on, and that that was that piece of, wow, it's that congruent communication from the sensory system, from the whole being, spirit, the senses, that allows us to connect. And that we kind of skip those pieces they're just not prioritized or held in. They're just not held in priority in the majority of the modern world systems. And so communication was just a little fraction of what it could be. And it was built from a place that didn't have true connection. Because it didn't have congruence of self other environment.
Ronnie:Thank you, Joe. That was beautiful, that was beautifully explained. As you were talking and it was funny because sometimes I feel, sometimes I sense, sometimes I get a visual, but it's not like looking at you it's like, it's just there. And there was this sense of horses lined up in a semicircle, sort of nodding. And then saying, and imagine what that's like when you've got 10 people trying to talk to you all at once, and we're all different and we all communicate in a different way, how confusing that is. And that sort of came through as you were talking but also we were brought up not to think like that in the western world, you go to school, you get a job you learn about all the things that you think you should know about, but you are not taught so much about feeling, being honest and being able to speak. In a classroom, you go to school and you speak certain times there's a window of opportunity, and if you're not happy about something, there's not always the time to explain. So I'm sort of generalizing here, it's not like that everywhere, and I know it's changed. And there's mobile phones, the TV, the radio. We're all guilty of wanting to fill our heads with sound, distractions, and it's habit, it's habitual. It's only when you take a break from that and you sit with yourself or you just allow your thoughts, which sometimes can be difficult because if people have things that need addressing and that can be little things, big things, the thoughts come in and it's like, I can't do that now. I can't deal with that now. I've got a job to do. I have to do this. I've got children to look after. It's all this little chatter. So we, we get into that routine of not listening. Thank you. And it's normally through something major that makes you listen or puts you in a place where you can't move around. You've literally got to just be in that space when things start to come forward and you start to You start to sense things and then it's then, which if you have an opportunity to understand what that is, if somebody is with you or synchronicity, you hear a conversation, you hear a podcast and it's this little spark, and you might not even know what that is, but something's moving. The wheels are starting to move. And animals are great at doing that. Nature's great at doing that, going for a walk. So. We are going in a different direction now, but it's trusting yourself. It's trusting what you get and understanding what that is. Cause sometimes people think, well, that's my thoughts. That's my imagination. How, how do I know that's from the animal? How do I know, you know what that is? Cause it's your voice that you hear in your head. So explaining that is a big thing. It's a big step to say, well, actually, that's how it can start.
Jo:And there, there actually was a point like a moment that you just explained where I couldn't move. That I remember when this information started to trickle through. I have to keep laughing when I spend time with all the horses that are in the tribe, they do this thing now where they will like side I look and I can hear them laughing like silly human, like, thank you for being on the role of understanding. Because I know now that they've been all of the things for the last 12 years that have been dropping in, furiously writing in my journal and drawing pictures and figuring out what is this? What am I getting? Like, what is this communication that I want to teach? I mean, I was receiving, but it was the horses dropping information and it was coming in through my voice. So I thought it was me. It was the horses just coming in a recognizable presence so that I could receive it, which was at that time, my voice. Now I know what it's my voice and when it's. Someone else sharing something on that level, but I had honey during my teenage years and I never thought horses were going to be a career path. That was the farthest thing from my mind at that time. I was a professional snowboarder. And I was, I, I was the coach for the instructor. So I coached coaches. And I taught people movement analysis, so I taught coaches how to watch a student on a snowboard, how they move their body, how the snowboard interacted with the body, or how the body affected the snowboard's movement in the snow, and taught people how to pick out effective and ineffective movement patterns. And how to then very quickly look at it in effective or effective movement pattern and come up with a plan on how to bring that movement pattern into balance so that you can make the most effective turn in the snow or, or do the most effective trick. And that was what I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life doing. I love, I love being outside. I loved being able to use my body, but that that awareness of body movements and the effect that they have on outside object or how outside forces affect the body was very, it wasn't in body practice, but at the time it was a very cognitive practice. I relied strongly on my intellect and my ability to see something and then process it in my brain and I'm so angry when that. Was taken away from me through an accident an injury. I had an injury that seemingly came out of nowhere. It just appeared one day and I no longer could perform that job and I ended up actually in a wheelchair for some time and in a walker and my movement was stopped and I was grounded at the barn. I lived at the stable where Honey lives. And I was offered like an apprenticeship or a, my instructor basically said, do you want to just come and sit in the arena and watch me teach lessons? You're already a coach. So maybe you can sit out here and you're Walker. And watch me teach horse lessons and you'll start to pick up on the same types of things you were able to teach in snowboarding, but just with horses, maybe this is the next thing since you can't do that anymore. And that was this point of really recognizing the difference between equestrian activities and any other sport on the face of the planet. Horses are sentient conscious beings. They're not snowboards. They have feelings and thoughts and bodies, and they are on a continually evolving path and journey. And yes, I could look at a rider and see the angle between the hip, the knee, and the heel, and the pitch of the upper torso forward, and know that it was creating X, Y, and Z in the horse during sitting trot. Like, I could see the movements happening, but it was different now, because I wasn't talking about... I wasn't making those analyzations with a inanimate object, like a snowboard or the snow it was another moving animal and this is now an embodied practice. Like I actually have to feel into like, what does that feel like in my body as the horse is experiencing that? What are they trying to share probably with the rider's body? What kind of images, what is the transaction of communication going back and forth? And that was where I, I felt like there was those missing steps in the staircase, like, wait, so you can't just create a movement, make a choice, create a body movement. And then say that that's communication. So I'm incredibly grateful for, for my injury for having to be stopped and from making that transition, which is an awareness from, wow, I relied upon my intellect. I relied upon knowing I could see something, which meant I could trust it and then I could make a choice from there to having that stripped away and having to learn how to acknowledge that. Yes, I see something that makes sense. On an intellectual level, but now I need to go deeper. What does it feel like? What if I couldn't see it? Would I still be able to pick up on what was going on? And how do we, if it's happening for me, it's got to be happening for other people. How do we make that translatable? How do we begin? To open people back back up to that.
Ronnie:Thank you, Joe. Once again, I'm sorry, but this happens quite often when people are talking, but it's coming quite quick with you. As you were talking, this horse came forward and said, please tell them about this. And a scenario is, sometimes there will be a horse carrying a rider and the rider may not be able to sit or have their body in a certain way and this horse, this particular horse's experience was saying that I move Myself and carrying myself in a way to enable the rider to be comfortable and to feel at ease at that moment but sometimes that's seen by the observer as I'm moving incorrectly, I am but if I move correctly for me, the person will not maintain that position and that's come really strong. And they wanted me to share that with the listeners. I know you're aware of that anyway and also it's like, there's a group, but this was one that came forward. sometimes things cannot be seen with the naked eye. And that's why we ask you, we, the horses, ask you to feel within yourself and trust that feel because with the best intentions people can say this is what you should do but you need to feel that within and that's where the connection becomes stronger and becomes Available to you as an individual yeah, thank you. Thank you. So, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Jen.
Jo:No, I mean, what you just said is spot on from what I received from them. And as I continue walking my journey alongside both the physical horses, but then also horse, the big horse out there My understanding is continually evolving and shifting and changing, and there was a point in my journey where I was like, no more writing. No, like, we're done with all of this. No writing no tack. We still don't use equipment, but none of this and I recently had 1 of my guildings come up to me and he was like, You know, you could put a halter on us now, if you needed to, we now know that, you know, that we have a choice and that you'll honor the choice. But it was you as the humans who needed all of this time to not have equipment to restrain us. So you could learn to know what our choices were and to honor our choices. That was a fun bar. But what they have shown one horse in particular. He's a Oregon Mustang who's been in captivity for the last 16 years, and he's quite a phenomenal individual, but he came forward a few months ago and he said, what you saw in the journey, I took a drum journey several years ago, and I ended up in a place, uh, that I no as like the timeline of existence and I moved along that timeline and I was brought to this place and I was shown the symbol like a pictograph of a horse and I reached out to grab it and I grabbed it. I had this overwhelming sense that merged into my whole being, uh, horses and humans have an infinite energetic contract to work with one another and that part of my purpose in this life is to be able to show other humans by creating space for horses that we have a deeper connection to the horse than physical interaction with them there's something that contract that we have between humans and horses is a contract about staying in balance with nature. So this one Mustang a few months back during a session is like, well, you know, that we're not from here, right? What do you mean? You're not from here? And he's like, well, we're celestial beings from a galaxy far away, you'll never know where you won't ever see it but we agreed to come here and over the millennia that Earth has existed, we've come in different forms but we've always carried the energy of horse and our contract with you, our agreement is to basically hold space for the humans while they learn and they go through this lesson of coming back into the embody knowing that we are nature. There is no separation between humans and nature between horses and nature between humans and the earth. We are the earth. The earth is us. And that there will be times that they are willing and they accept that in part of that contract or that role that they are serving out with us. We have had to go through and we are going through the acts of taking away choice from horse, the acts of dominance of horse, and then beginning to shift our awareness and become accountable so that the paradigm around horses and horse activities can shift. They will tolerate is not the right word, but like your example between the horse moving a certain way to be able to allow the rider to feel. Horses have this responsibility on a deep, historical timeline, soul contract level of stepping in to allow us to learn how to feel and feel is not just what you feel from your hands in the reins how to feel, how to feel from the heart, how to feel from the place of center behind the navel, how to feel with the entire physical body and sensory system. So, yeah they step into places where they will make sacrifices and although they're all individuals here on the planet, they are here carrying the energy of that bigger wisdom, wisdom that is horse.
Ronnie:Yes, absolutely. When we talk in that way, sometimes people might start to switch off thinking, oh, okay, here we go again it doesn't mean to say that they're all treated badly and we get them, we ride them, we do things with them. Yes, we do. It's. It's giving them a choice, like you said earlier. And sometimes if you say, this is your choice, you don't have to do that. Or let's see what's more comfortable or what's more acceptable. What are you more comfortable at? What's your passion for you? Then they may say, well, I don't want to do too much of that, but actually today I'll do that with you. Cause I know that's what you want, you're excited about that. So sometimes when you give them a choice, they almost give you back what y'all but you have to do that generally. It's not like, well, I really want to do that, but I'll let you do that. If you don't want to, when you mean, actually, I really want to do that. You've got to generally say I'm prepared to not do that. If that's not what you want, does that make sense? I'm not sure I explained
Jo:That's acting from a space of congruence of being accepting you can. You can hold a desire or a goal, an outcome, but being unattached to the timeline on which it occurs and on knowing that if you're going to offer a choice out, just if you offer a choice out to a human, it's sometimes good to reframe the way we think about our relationships with horses and the way we think about our relationships With other humans or even with our domestic household pets, because we treat them quite differently than we treat horses. And that if you put a choice out to another human and you might want them to make a certain choice, but if you're saying, but I accept whatever choice you make, and then you're upset that they made the choice that you didn't really want. Well, you weren't really saying that they had a choice you were like, I'll say what you want to hear, but your words. Or your actions didn't match your feeling. That's incongruence in the self. And that's the place that horses say, we need you to learn how to be congruent when you act from a place of congruence. We are willing to connect with you in a place that we can then communicate and they will do things, even if they're sometimes outside of what they really want to do, because they see that the human is in a place of feel of authenticity of congruence and that that is part of their bigger purpose here to help us come back into that.
Ronnie:And as a human even if it's with a friend, you know when you've said something but you don't really mean it because you just feel it. And normally the person that you're talking to feels that too. So you understand that, but that's actually, that's actually a good thing because if you recognize that, you recognize what That feel is like that you're actually not telling the truth to yourself, so you're not honoring yourself because actually it's not what you really want, it's not what you're saying. As you said, your words have a different vibration to what's actually coming out. So that's a good thing, because if you look at that. You start to know, well, if somebody says to me, are you okay with your horse, are you scared of your horse? You go, of course not, but you feel actually I am and I shouldn't be. So if you think, well, I know I'm not telling myself the truth, what is that? Is it because I'm scared of falling off? No, that's not the case. So what is it? Is it because I'm scared of looking silly? No, that doesn't feel right. So what is it? And that's how you start to ask questions to yourself and there isn't a book really that you can go, okay, that's the first lesson that's what I'm doing, right? Or that's what I'm doing wrong. It's understanding what it is for your feel. And we've all got that skill. We've all got that. It's in our DNA. It's in ourselves. It's in our whole being. It's in our energy. So it's there. When we acknowledge it, that's when things come forward and start to, to highlight, i. e. you go towards a horse and you think, I'm going to have a fun day today, and the horse runs up the field and say, not on me, you know, because they can sense something coming, it's like you just have to pull back and think, okay, where am I? Where's my energy? What was I thinking? And you might not get the answer, but it's being prepared to just ask the question and see how that unfolds.
Jo:Yeah. It's the first step is becoming aware and it's awareness of self so what are my thoughts? What are my feelings? What are the stories I tell myself that I might not even realize I've been telling myself for a long time because it's just a story that's been around since I was young. Does that story actually exist in my life? No. Why am I living by the outline of that story? When you become aware of self, Then you can start becoming aware of others. You can become aware of the environment and the relationship dynamic or the exchange between self other collective or environment. And then you sit in what my experience has been is that you sit in awareness. For quite some time, humans need a long period of having an awareness and having an awareness deepen and become an awareness from many different perspectives, from many different sets of shoes before we can become accountable to an awareness where we can say, okay, I got to do something to shift this, or this is not what I want anymore. Why am I feeling this way? Sometimes it's really what's happening outside of us. Like why do these situations keep cropping up in my life? Why do people keep treating me? Why does the horse keep running away? All horses do this. That we didn't say, okay, so I'm aware that there's something going on and I'm ready to become accountable to that. So I'm going to start learning how to take actions to be accountable to my awareness. And that, that just continues to evolve into a place where you can then act from a place of alignment where your actions in regard to that one awareness. So knowing that every aspect of our life is a different, it's one little awareness in the big web of awareness. And then when you become aware of something, you can then eventually become accountable to your awareness. And then you can become actively aligned where your choices all the time line up with what you believe physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and then you move into that place of attunement there's not any effort that has to be put into it. It's become a part of your being. That awareness and how you want it to be present in an authentic way. But at every moment of life, we have hundreds, if not thousands of different awarenesses that we're somewhere in that cycle of bringing into attunement of becoming accountable to. And the horses offer us just such a beautiful opportunity, a beautiful space to get to explore that because, We can come to awarenesses about ourself or relationships. We might have situations we might be engaged in without having a feeling of confrontation because the horse is willing to hold space. The horse reflects back in an authentic way what we are navigating and moving through.
Ronnie:Thank you, Joe. And it's not about being perfect, is it? They don't expect us to be perfect, because no, we're not, they just want us to try and to make a start. So, if somebody is listening to this now or listen to the audio later and they've got a horse and they're just going through the normal things that they do. And they'd like to make a change, but you can't change everything overnight and how their life is and how the horse's life is might not present that straight away, what would you suggest that they could do to start themselves on their own path opening up to communication and to that deeper understanding, that deeper connection with their horse.
Jo:To begin a practice to connect with themselves through nature. So I find just sitting outside or walking outside, being out in nature and choosing a specific sense. So I am going to take my shoes off and walk around on the lawn. I know that there's nothing I can run into, so I'm going to choose that one somewhere safe, but I'm going to be barefoot and I'm going to close my eyes or wear a blindfold. And I'm going to experience what it's like to move through time and space, relying upon my sense of touch and notice what does that bring up? When I put the blindfold on, did I right away feel fear, lack of control, questioning if I can do this? What if I hit something? And then being able to just start to have the awareness to say, wow, that's an interesting story. I'm in the middle of the grass. There is nothing I can run into. It is soft and cookie. I am safe. I can do this. And just continuing through a very simple practice of connecting to nature and self through senses. You can do this by sitting up against a tree, eyes closed, listening. Wow, the birds are so beautiful and the stream is making such a beautiful sound. Gosh, why is there a child crying over there in the background of the park? Like just noticing like that brought up agitation. Why, what is that? Why exploring what having self awareness is and a really doing it through nature and sensory experiencing combined has come to be a very in. What we've been practicing here with with choice tribe students is a very accessible way to begin to open to yourself to be able to understand without getting really in your mind without having any feelings of external judgment and of being able to catch yourself when the inner critic comes out. Because nature is just as the horse because they are nature is such a nurturing and embracing container. So when you step into a place of saying, I want to learn how to be more self aware, and I'm going to ask nature to be my partner and my support system, and I'm going to use my senses to be my guide, you get to experience. What the human animal, like the essence, the essential essence of the human animal experience is, and just that place starting there, really beautiful to see how everybody unfolds differently, but how the experience of connecting with nature through the senses. It's very much the same because we are all nature.
Ronnie:It's beautiful. I'll quite often take my shoes and socks off and walk around the field, I pick an area that's not too bad. it always makes you feel like a child. When you go to the beach, if you're walking on the sand and you can feel your feet sinking into the sand and if the water's coming up it just takes your attention somewhere else and it does make you feel like you've gone back in time into being a child without the cares. And I think that's a lot of it, it's stepping out of that busy head. and all the things that go with that and quieting down. And also when you do that your thoughts slow down your speech can slow down. I'm sure you've found this, you can be having a conversation, you've had a busy day and you can be talking to somebody, but then I'm very conscious when my voice slows down, I know this information coming through and it doesn't matter it can be a conversation about anything, but I know it's flown through as it should do and you can feel that, but that's being aware for me over time, I know that's my sign, that's what that is and that's what I say to people is you won't know until you start using it because it's like a muscle it has To know that you're opening to it. It's like a radio signal You're trying to find the right frequency and you can just hear something But unless you play around with the dial and you actually get it on there The rest of the sound the music won't come through. And for me if I don't see that first word it's like a plug, once I say the word, the rest comes through or the feeling comes through.
Jo:It's the awareness though. You were just speaking connecting, having that, that very present experience walking on the beach, it allows you to move into your body to be present, which opens you to receive it. Being aware you are in a body, but your body is also inhabited by an energy, and the senses and it's like all of these little satellites or radars. Looking for information. And when you start to become aware of like, wow, when I'm walking on the beach, I feel this overwhelming emotion or I get these images of these times in my life when I was really calm like you start to notice, wow, I have a lot of imagery going on. Oh, I get a lot of feelings going on. It's just those awareness that you have when you're connecting with nature they're pointing you, they're little signs saying, look there. Yeah. That's how we're talking to you. Everything is talking to you all the time. Pay attention to the way it's coming through.
Ronnie:Thank you. Thank you for making that very clear, Jo. I know what I was going to say, sometimes you don't want to look silly, so it's fine if you're on your own, some people, to let go And allow that process, allow that fun side to come through, allow that silly side to come through can be difficult for some people but it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be bells, drums, crystals, it doesn't have to be that way, sorry, but it doesn't, it can be a walk in the park, It can be sitting, as you said, next to a tree or on a bench and just watching a squirrel go up a tree, watching a leaf just blow across a pathway, just losing yourself in that moment. Not all spiritual essences are about It's about you. Gurus and, monasteries, it's everywhere in life. It's everywhere. And we've got the choice to tap into that, and it's there for everybody. It's not for the rich, it's not for the famous, it's for everybody. Everything. If we just open up to that and, and allow just a little doorway, that's all your being, all your soul is asking is just let me in, just let me in a little bit and I'll show you this another way. And that's all you have to do. You don't have to know the whys, hows, just trust that that will be enough. You're giving yourself permission to see another way of being and going through this life and that's what horses, animals and people too, are great at showing us, but not always in the way we'd like sometimes.
Jo:Yeah, that's true.
Ronnie:The best teachers are sometimes the ones you don't want.
Jo:Yes. Yes.
Ronnie:Is there anything else you'd like to chat about while you're on?
Jo:Yeah, let me think for a moment on that. I love that I get to hold space and walk alongside humans in this journey. And I'm going to I went to. I thought I started thinking of horses, not actually people. So a story, which is, it's kind of like the story of the evolution of choice tribe. It's all the horses that are in a part of the herd, both here in Oregon. I also have a herd in Hawaii, and then. I have clients who have small choice herds at home at their properties and the journey or the story of watching horses learn and accept and acknowledge that we as humans are giving them a choice and then being able to watch how each of them as individuals grows thank you. The way that the horse navigates that experience has been if there's parallels and how humans do it, and then it's really fascinating to see when a human arrives at the campus to interact with the herd, which horse or horses choose to go and interact with that person and without having any background knowledge on that horse and their personality or their experience. There's this natural gravitational pull and they have very resonant journey. So when we started giving horses a choice, we got experiences all across the board. I had horses that were the most. Well behaved, obedient, highly trained schoolhorses, but any I'd let anybody handle that wouldn't bad not two year old child, 90 year old in a wheelchair like this horse. They're like, I know my job. I'm calm. I'm quiet. I love being brushed. And some of those horses, when we gave them a choice, were like, Oh yeah, bye, you know, kicking up and didn't let humans touch them for six months to two years. I was like, we're done. And then there was other horses who were also well behaved, obedient, who withdrew and rather than having this very outward, like, I have a choice now and my choice of no, they kind of withdrew and they stepped back and they observed everything and they were very tentative about making choices in the presence of humans it was like one hoof in the water, like, oh, I'll try it nope. Not going to try that yet. And then others who just like, cool. All right. We got a choice. Yeah. Great. You guys figured it out so we can just continue on with life there was no real change and through that experience, which we're now in year for, the majority of the herds that are within my world are 4 years into having a choice and we get some new ones in from time to time, some new horses that join. But getting to watch that and then seeing where there are still issues, like still hurts or behaviors that seem incongruent. They seem out of alignment with the personality of that individual or the environment, like it just comes and you're like, that's still so strange that that's occurring. And now getting to be in this place where we're recognizing that just like the people that are coming in to interact in these programs who might have maybe big T traumas, little T traumas, but are coming with something. We all have stuff that we're working through. The horses they have stuff that they're working through that they're holding on and they are no longer just holding it They're now able to look at us and say I need help you now have the skills You now have the level of congruence and connection to be able to communicate with me Can you support me while I work through the trauma of my gelding? Can you work through and be there while you help me release the cords that I have connected to the foal that I lost when she ran through a fence. And so those stories, those experiences that we're now as humans, getting to hold space for these horses is so special because it, that is feels reciprocal. It's no longer just like, horse, how can you help me? It's Hey, I can actually hold space and be your support system as you navigate this. Just like I would be for a friend or someone that I love. It's, it's that reciprocity in the relationship. And so those types of stories, and we do have a mayor right now who we're working with she lost a foal the foal ran into a wire fence and got caught and it spent all night trapped in the fence. And she stood with it before it was found in the morning and they had to use the night. And that was 15 years ago. And she has held onto that. And as she's working through that and releasing that the changes in her personality, the changes in her mannerisms and her behaviors. She's a completely different horse so all of these judgments or labels that were placed on this mare for the last 15 years, they were rooted in this very traumatic experience, but because humans up until this point in her life, couldn't hear her, couldn't understand what she was saying, because no humans have put in the time to learn how to communicate. The way that the natural world has designed us to communicate, she acted from this place that was themed naughty or bad behavior, ill tempered. She was all of these things and that in itself, having those labels was painful to her. You know, so we've got horses with these stories and when you get humans to a place where they can, they can use their whole sense of self, their whole being to communicate the stories that the horses are beginning to share are just magical to be able to, to be in a relationship with them in that way. So I love the work I do with humans because it gets us to that point and what a beautiful place the world is growing into where more and more people are wanting to be able to have that level of connection with their horse, you know, so many horses will have that. So.
Ronnie:Absolutely. And there was so many different examples as you was explaining there, that once the horse knew they had a voice, some were like, Oh, okay, great and others withdrew into themselves and others just went by. We sometimes have this vision that when we say that, that they go, Oh, thank God you're listening. Okay. What is it you'd like me to do? And it's not like that. And sometimes you might never get to a point where they will a hundred percent let you in because their world and their trauma and their things, it's up to them when they show that and when they're ready to let go, but it is linked altogether. And sometimes the horse has a key and sometimes we have a key and you get two people energetically together and there'll be click, okay, and something will happen. It could be lovely things and sometimes it's things you think, okay, but it shows you something. It shows you something about yourself and it shows you something about the horse and it's fascinating because You can't say that if we do A, B and D, we will get this result because it can't work that way. It's not mathematical. It's energetic and it has its own timeframe. It has its own evolving where it's going to go and maybe there's reasons that we are not able to see yet, because if we did, we wouldn't take that particular path. We wouldn't read the book if we'd got to the end and knew how it finished, we'd just put it down. We wouldn't experience it, we wouldn't learn about ourselves, because as we learn about ourselves, we learn about the world, the animals, and the people around us. Because I'm sure you know, anyway, that lots of people that work with horses and deal with horses, they'll see their relationships change with their friends and their partners, and they're more amicable or they're more understanding. Doesn't mean to say they have a smile on their face every day and everything's fine, but they're able to go through this emotions and let them go easier than they could before, which is a huge, huge thing for humans to do. Yeah. Well, it's been fascinating speaking to you, Joe I've been very conscious because I know you've got a horse that you want to go check on. So there's lots more questions I could ask you and to go a bit deeper than we have already, but we've gone quite deep. So if you'd like to say a parting few words, Jo.
Jo:Well, thank you so much for reaching out. You were one of the first people that contacted me after the Warwick podcast aired and it's been really beautiful to see the word that has come over and over and over is resonance and that you're holding space on this podcast to share experiences and ideas that will resonate with others and that those resonances are what connect us and connect the horses and connect us back to nature so thank you so much for creating and holding this space and I'm just really grateful to have been able to share with you today.
Ronnie:Oh, thank you, it was pretty quick, I must say, I don't think I've done that before not that quick and I was really surprised when I got an answer so thank you. So thank you so, so much, Joe. I hope your horse is okay. So if you'd like to say bye to the listeners and the viewers.
Jo:Thank you everybody, have a beautiful day.
Ronnie:Bless her. And what a lovely, lovely lady. So if you haven't heard the podcast with Warwick Schiller go and have a listen to it. Warwick himself said he was just sitting back and listening and she had this beautiful voice. We did have a headset on early but it didn't work so, but the sound was fine and that's what's more important. If you have any questions, all the links to Joe's website is at the end of this video. And I'll also put it on the podcast too, if you want to contact her, I'm sure she'll be more than happy to hear from you. Thank you for stopping on by. Hope you well. Take care and bye for now. Thank you.