I mentioned my time with Paulo Neuman and didn’t cite what happened there, but I think it’s quite interesting to bring up, because it was when I finally had no more doubt that horses have a capacity to reveal hidden dynamics to us and to act, reacting to what determines our lives, so to speak. So, if I were to tell you everything I’ve experienced with the herd of horses working in family constellations, I would need another course just for that , and perhaps we would never be able to contemplate everything that has been lived. I certainly wouldn’t be able to.
Yeah, so I’m going to focus only on this first experience and then we’ll move on to the more practical side of things, because I feel that by sharing with you my own perception of everything that happened for the first time in a horse constellation field, you will also be able to feel the power of this work. Uh, I went to Paulo Neuman’s because of a friend who gifted me, who treated me, who gave me a ticket to his workshop. At the time, I had just returned from that trip I took, shedding who I was, wanting to discover who I would become, right, and who I truly was.
And I had no money at all to participate in any workshop, let alone one on family constellation with horses. But this friend of mine, seeing my work with the Indian Aman, and knowing how much I was seeking to understand a little more about this subtle plane in which horses act, gifted me the workshop, and he even went along. When we arrived there, it was a moment of a lot of, a lot of talk .
Paulo Neuman brought, uh, various personal philosophies and, anyway, the way he worked, but in fact, the horses were not acting and that was making me feel a bit uncomfortable. That was when , on Sunday morning, I took the microphone and I said that I wanted to see things happen, right? Because we had been there since Saturday and we hadn’t, and nothing was happening, the horses were not moving.
So I brought that up with, uh, respect, with cordiality, but with a certain firmness , saying: "I want to see things happen. " And that was when, for the first time , uh, within the whole workshop, the horses began to act deeply with a person, and that person was me. Paulo asked for someone to bring up a theme, right, to be worked on, and I brought up the theme of relationships.
So, when I brought the topic into the circle, the two relationship horses came up behind me and placed their heads, uh, on my shoulders. These two were older horses that were always walking together, and they represented, within this way of working, the field of relationships, of romantic relationships. They stopped right here on my shoulders, and when they got close to me, the black mare that represented my mother crossed the entire arena, approached me, and when she got near me, the two horses moved away.
And that was very intense, because it became completely clear that there was some issue related to my mother that was keeping me away from other relationships. And that was when several things started moving here. That was when he invited me to speak to my mother, right, to this mare that represented my mother, and, well, I asked for, I asked for release, right?
And then, on that weekend which had been cloudy, rainy, and cold the whole time, at that moment when I began to make that movement with the mare, a ray of sun broke through the clouds and illuminated the horses that were here on my shoulders. And it was something very beautiful. Uh, that left a mark on me.
I saw that this stuff really happens, I saw that there is something more. Oh, yeah. And well, we ended up going home with this deep healing marked in my heart and, uh, and a new universe for me to unveil.
So that was, let's say, my baptism in the field of constellations. And that’s when I started to understand what my horse had shown me the moment he put his head in the window between me and my first partner. He was creating a divide, right?
And there was a perspective there that, before the relationship, this encounter with the horses would have to come first, right? Today, the family I have built, my wife, my children, this place, everything came after my "yes" to the herd of horses. It was when I started working with them that I built a new way of living and found the person who is living this way with me.
So, everything that happened was really beautiful, and that was, uh, my great awakening to this field of work with therapy horses. Later, it was through Elusa Assunção that I began to understand the group family constellation process where several people are constellated. And then, later, when I met Carlos Guiraúa, I was able to see another type of work linked to ancestral knowledge and sacred fire, which is what we did to film this course: with a herd of horses free in a natural environment, meaning, able to graze, able to express their natural behavior.
And that enchanted me even more. I mean, besides using the horse to create, uh, besides using the horse to awaken our consciousness, we can also provide the horse, through this constellation in freedom, so to speak, a way for the horse to be close to humans without it being under dynamics of submission, subjection, or confinement. And as I'm saying this, tenderness arises, or rather, there's a whole sense of relief, right?
Because I feel that this is the great message of the constellation practices with horses . And it seems that this creates a safe environment for this new generation of animal therapists to be able to lie down, to be able to feel safe near us and because the human herd no longer represents such a danger. But after all , what do horses have that serves the practice of family constellations?
Actually, uh, as I mentioned earlier, I feel there is something much, much, much greater than what we can codify for now. But as I already mentioned in that meeting about Peyo, the healing horse, I feel that all horses can be a Peyo. For those who don't know this story, type in Peyo with a Y.
Uh, the healing horse from France that visits hospitals with terminal patients. Uh, Peyo approaches people who are in the terminal stage and the doctors already know, when he approaches someone, it's because that person is already, uh, is very close to death, actually, right? It's because that person is already very close to death, right?
And Peyo was a show horse. So, uh, it was the gaze of his trainer Hassen that made him transform into this healing horse. I deeply believe that all horses can be healers, provided we look at them with the gaze, uh, of someone who truly wants to see, right?
Uh, so, we know that these animals have been living in herds for 55 million years. So, horses have a thirst for reconciliation. If there is any, uh, family dynamic where there is exclusion, the horses feel it and they react to it.
These animals have been on Earth for 55 million years . To give you an idea, our species is around 4. 5 million years old.
So, imagine a little 4-and-a-half-year-old child looking at a 55-year-old man. That is the difference in time that we have had contact with the natural world and horses. This permeates the entire human collective unconscious and, consequently, all horse behavior.
The herd has always been gregarious; ever since horses were 30 cm tall creatures, the Eohippus, which translates to "dawn horse" because it was the first ancestor found, they were already gregarious, herbivorous beings. Gregarious means they already lived in herds. They were already monogastric herbivores, meaning they were animals that ate small amounts of food over long periods of the day.
Unlike, for example, ruminants that have a 60-liter stomach chamber where they just shove everything in as best they can. Then they go to the shade of a tree to ruminate. This makes horses constantly exposed to possible predators.
Why? Because they are always in the pastures ; they don't lie down to ruminate the food they've eaten, right? So, this developed in them a phenotype, that is, a physical conformation adapted for flight and for perceiving the environment they are in.
Horses have eyes far from their mouths so that they can graze and see the world around them . They have very mobile ears and large ear flaps so that they can spot or hear possible predators, they can hear sounds all around them. They have a skeleton that allows them to rest while standing.
So they take turns keeping watch; some sleep lying down while others remain standing. Then the herd switches, and those that were lying down stand up while the others lie down . So, they are animals that have evolved for 55 million years to be in a state of relaxed, yet attentive, presence.
If they are in a state of tense presence, they get sick. When does a horse get into a state of tense presence? When it is being exposed to stressors for long periods of time.
For example, horses that are in an environment where there is a constant risk of aggression, mistreatment, or invalidation of their own will, their own individual will. So, these horses will be attentive all the time, alert all the time. This makes them sick, because it is not the natural state of horses.
In fact, it is not a natural state for us either, but we are starting to get used to it and take it as normal. For horses, it's not like that. Also, when animals are alone, confined, we are used to, especially here in Brazil, seeing horses in stables, in training centers, or even pulling carts; animals trapped, caged, enclosed within a small stall the size of a bathroom, right?
I’d like to ask you, if we want to look at horses as therapists, would you go to a therapist who lives inside an enclosed space the size of a bathroom, 24 hours a day, and only leaves to perform movements they are forced to do? I wouldn't, I wouldn't go to a therapist like that, because to me, that therapist is very likely to be crazy, right? And, in fact , horses will display many stereotypical behaviors, right?
Coprophagia, which is eating feces, aerophagia, which is crib-biting, bear-swaying, anyway, stress, tension, acidity. They can express many behavioral disorders because they are in a constantly stressful environment. And this is a horse that can even hinder the therapeutic process instead of helping.
Therefore, equine constellation practices promote a new perspective on the horse, especially so they can express more of their natural behavior, being in a herd with their family, with their friends. Horses feel friendship, horses are sentient, horses live in families; in other words, we have a lot to learn from their relationships, right? And this way of working with horses, so they feel comfortable by our side so they can assist us in our personal healing process, is also a process of cultural transformation so that we can allow these animals to increasingly express their natural behavior and create environments that provide them with this "being a horse" from which we distanced them so long ago, since they entered the kings 'counties and started being part of war instruments alongside chariots, swords, armor, and shields.
The herd has very sophisticated social dynamics. They have been here for 55 million years. So, imagine how much they have developed these forms of communication and connection between herd members.
For example, horses have a type of leadership we call situational leadership, meaning, depending on the situation that arises, a different horse will lead. If, for instance, a foal in the herd senses a danger, gets up, and runs away, the other horses aren't going to say: "Hey, you are below the hierarchical rank of the herd. " Hey, you can't lead the troop because you don't have rank X, YZ , no.
The horses will follow the foal. In the same way, if a lead mare goes to find a source of resources, the horses will follow the lead mare. But if another horse that doesn't have dominance over the others also finds good shade, abundant pasture, or a watering hole where they can bathe, the other horses might follow it too.
So, in reality, depending on each situation , any member of the herd can come to lead. Imagine if we learned this from them. In other words, depending on your personal virtues, you can lead those around you in a given situation.
We would have much more efficient leadership, because no one knows everything about everything. Everyone has something special they are good at. Another thing, the herd has a certain hierarchy or a dominance of one individual over another.
This happens solely and exclusively to save resources. So, when two horses find a food source, and we can observe this when we feed horses grain, it is established who eats first. And this serves primarily for them to save resources.
Once the dominance of one horse over another is established, they won't fight anymore to try and see who will dominate. It is already, it is already settled. If every time they found a resource they fought, the resource they found would be wasted before they even consumed it.
So that is also something we can learn from horses. There is indeed a certain hierarchy, a certain dominance, but it has a single purpose: to provide more abundance, more comfort, more prosperity for the whole. In indigenous cultures, we observe this as well.
Generally, when there is a chief or a tribe leader, he is not the one most served by the tribe, but the one who serves the tribe the most. In other words, when everyone is resting, he is chopping wood. When everyone is in some quieter activity, the leader might be out hunting.
When there is a conflict, and we see this in historical wars that indigenous peoples were involved in, the indigenous leader was the one who went first, that is, he was the one who led the platoon, he was the bravest, right? While in other peoples, the white peoples, generally the front platoon goes first, then the cavalry follows, then another, then another, and finally, surrounded by the other guardians, goes the king who cannot be hurt. So, the leadership of a horse over the others in the group, or the dominance of a horse over the others in the group, mainly serves to save resources and also because it is this horse, the dominant horse, usually the stallion, that will defend the herd of horses from a possible predator, while the others who are dominated by him will be safer.
In fact, another thing we can learn from them is that dominance among horses is determined by the one who makes the other move their feet. So, sometimes it's with a kick, sometimes it's just through visual communication, by pinning their ears or imposing their body over the other, it makes the other horse move their feet. So, the one who made the other move becomes the leader.
So, when we are developing therapeutic processes with horses, we often notice a horse imposing itself on a person, asking them to move. And this is a movement to establish a hierarchy, a dominance. If the person manages to make the horse move, they become the leader of the herd, they become the strongest horse.
M.
