Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
New York Times bestselling author of the Horse Boy.
Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
Here on Equine Assisted World.
We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and,
established in the equine assisted field.
This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be
physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have.
These lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.
Thank you for being part of the adventure and we hope you enjoy today's show
Welcome back to Live Free, Ride Free where we talk to people who are living
Self actualized lives, and we'll find out what can we learn from them.
How can we help ourselves to self actualize More better, more fluidly,
more joyfully, more happily and also just their amazing life stories.
And I've got Someone rather incredible with me this week.
I have Linda Kohanov, who many of you horsey folk out there will know from
The Tar Equus and her other books.
But the Tar Equus was the groundbreaking one that I think
Brought to everybody's attention at the start of the twenty first century.
Really a new paradigm For looking at the experience of horses through
a very, very different lens and how that could help in one's life, not
just within one's equestrian sphere.
For those of you who do not know, who are not horsey About the Tao of Equis.
I'm going to let Linda talk to us about that.
But suffice to say, you probably know that Equis means horse, and
you probably know that the DAO or the tau means what it means, which,
of course, is a whole other thing.
So how could the DAO Well, the towel, one can pronounce it either way.
That which is not, that which at the moment one thinks of it is no
longer, That which is everything, that which is everywhere, the
DAO, and the horse be connected.
And How on earth might that help us self actualize?
Well, in fact, it seems that people over many, many generations of humanity for
at least four or five thousand years.
We've been seeing a connection.
And Linda has been bringing it to our attention in our Generation in a
particularly interesting and fruitful way.
So without further ado, Linda, welcome on to Live Free Ryd Free,
and thank you for being here.
Thank
Linda Kohanov: you, Rupert.
It's a
Rupert Isaacson: pleasure.
So, Linda, I think I did say a little preamble there, but I
know I didn't do you justice.
Could you please tell us who you are and what
Linda Kohanov: do you do?
I'm best known for writing five books on what humans can learn from horses.
So, essentially, There's there's many different elements to this over the years.
There's a mystical side, a spiritual side.
There's a personal development side.
There's a Leadership Factor.
So these books are really about what horses have to teach people
about becoming better humans.
And it seems like that I could write a whole encyclopedia of wisdom that
horses keep teaching all of us, that we keep seeing from different angles.
And As we go deeper, we realize that they have a lot more to teach us, I
believe, than we have to teach them.
Rupert Isaacson: If you were going to Preach to the unconverted.
I think that those of us who are horse obsessives, and I know a lot of
the people listening are, absolutely would See the connection immediately.
But imagine that you had really no connection to or
contact with horses at all.
Why the horse?
What makes the horse So special in the relationship between the the
human and, if you like, the universe and the cosmos and consciousness.
What's special About this relationship with this animal.
Linda Kohanov: It goes back thousands of years, and there's a lot of Scientific
evidence now to show that the animals that we, quote, unquote, domesticated
were actually domesticating us as well, that we we coevolved With these animals.
And there are certain things that you learn from dogs and cats and birds,
certain ways you're affected by them.
But most dogs, Cats and birds are actually predators.
So when you come to a really large powerful animal like the horse,
they actually teach you how to be Powerful, but in a non predatory way.
And I had to after a while the word the term non predatory because a lot of
times people, These are large herbivores.
They're vegetarians, obviously.
And a lot of times, they're preyed upon in nature, but they're fully
capable of protecting themselves.
Predators very rarely will attack a full grown horse.
Usually, they're slinking around the edges looking for the young horse or
the injured horse we're the horse who's wandered off without paying attention.
So large nonpredatory animals like horses are capable Of protecting
themselves and even performing altruistic acts to protect other herd members.
For many years, especially in the natural horsemanship field, People
would talk about horses being prey animals and humans being predators, and
this is where a lot of the dysfunction happens in these relationships.
And that's True to a certain extent, but humans actually are omnivores.
We have the eyes forward like a predator, of course.
And we can strategize, and we can Stock, in other words.
And at the same time, we have the teeth of a vegetarian, a
digestive system of an omnivore.
We actually have Aspects of both predatory and nonpredatory wisdom.
And if we can stop over identifying with predatory behaviors
They were used in conquest.
When you think about the whole world being settled by conquest and enslaving other
Races and enslaving other animals, you realize that there's been an overemphasis
on predatory behavior in our culture throughout the world Because it's all
about, you know, stepping in and taking over the lands and rights of others.
So we've grown up in this Predatory environment, but that is not who we are.
We actually have a lot more potential than that.
And From the horse, we learn how to be powerful.
You have to be powerful if you're around a horse.
You can't be a shrinking violet.
You you can find Courses that will take care of you if you're if you're
really looking, and that's that's fine.
But if you're really gonna step in as you have been a horse trainer and rider
So you know you have to engage a kind of power and presence, but it can't be
predatory or the horse won't trust you.
And so they teach us that.
And For my fourth book called The Power of the Herd, and it was looking
at a nonpredatory approach to social intelligence leadership and innovation,
I was researching the presence of the horse in various cultures throughout time.
And one of the things I noticed was that many like, an out actually,
outrageous percentage of innovative leaders Across multiple cultures,
we're also either exceptional riders or exceptional trainers.
So and a lot of people don't realize that the Buddha was an exceptional horseman.
And when I really looked at his background and began to discover more
about this, and I do talk about this in the power of the herd, It struck me
that a lot of the skills that the Buddha perfected that he later translated
into meditation and mindfulness Were actually things you really need if
you're gonna function with horses.
So I feel like, in some sense, the horses were teaching him a lot
of the things that eventually He translated into purely human terms.
But there's also people like George Washington.
In the US, I don't think there's any way On the planet that we would have
won that war without George Washington.
And George Washington was considered one of the best
horse trainers in the colonies.
And you can see from the way he operated with people that he had that knowledge
that he learned from the horses.
Winston Churchill was an exceptional equestrian.
We often think of him as this this beefy guy smoking a cigar all the time.
But when he was younger, he was in the cavalry, and he was a great rider.
I'm not sure about his horse training orientation.
You know, Elizabeth the first, Elizabeth the second Catherine
the Great, Ronald Reagan.
Even if you don't think of him as somebody that you're in sync with politically,
in including any of these people, actually, What you can see is that
his presence and his ability to engage with and motivate large populations
to follow him in a certain direction Is very much like what happens when
you learn how to ride and train well.
And he was a very fine rider And spent a lot of time riding at his ranch when he
was taking time off from the presidency.
So there's just multiple examples of this.
And so I've really been looking at this throughout history.
One of the other elements too is that from a mystical viewpoint or spiritual
viewpoint, In multiple cultures throughout the world, in multiple mythic complexes
and religions, the horse is considered not only a sacred gift From the gods.
But the horse is also an animal that can take People from this world to the other
world and bring them safely back again.
So a lot of mythology involves forces taking someone To the other world.
And by that, we mean other states of consciousness or even other dimensions
and then actually bringing them back.
So the horse is like a psychopomp and a guide throughout history
and and around the world.
So this is why I find It's so rich to bring horse wisdom into
the human world because they have things to teach that we've lost
sight of in our city based culture.
Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting what you're putting your your finger on there.
Obviously, you know, any aristocratic or military leader Since we domesticated
the horse has, to a large degree, been a horseman because we know that this
process of conquest that you talked about happened largely On the backs of horses
which I've always found intriguing.
Your you point out that, you know, you need to have the power
presence To affect a horse.
At the same time, if you bring the predatory aspect of that to the
horse, the horse, as you say, will not trust you because he's gonna think
quite rightly that we might eat him.
And he'd be right, by the way, because if we got hungry enough,
we'd eat every horse in our barn.
We wouldn't be happy about it, but they're right to be a little bit skeptical of us.
But Then, of course, we've taken this predatory behavior to our
fellow human on the back of a horse.
This we know that we've done.
However, although history recounts that well, I I feel that you put
your finger on something else there, Which is many of these leaders
were not necessarily warlords.
And you started with the Buddha, and it's interesting that you say that Siddhartha,
As he would have been as the prince before he became what we know as the Buddha.
I hadn't thought about it in that regard before, but, yes, you must be
absolutely right because if you were a Prince of North Indian, Southern
Nepalese kingdom at that time.
You would have de facto been a horseman both chariots and riding.
He there's no way he could have not been with his upbringing.
So you're absolutely it's it's intriguing that you bring that up.
So here's my question.
Because we have to get over.
We have to be powerful without being predatory in order to
be effective with horses.
Do horses teach us tact?
Do horses teach us diplomacy?
Linda Kohanov: If if you're really going to have a horse form a real partnership
with you, you have to learn that.
And you have to learn that tact and diplomacy at a at
a wholly nonverbal level.
So it's not just about what you're saying.
It's your Whole body that's radiating and then also responding
thoughtfully from moment to moment to what's going on with the horse.
And so In the nineteen nineties, psychologists determined that
only about ten percent of human communication is verbal.
Ninety percent of the messages that we send back and forth to each
other are in that nonverbal range.
And a lot of times, people now just rely on words, and a lot of times,
they're conveying Something completely the opposite with their body language.
When you're with a horse, you have to learn how to have an
intention and a focus And have your entire body be in sync with that.
So if you're conflicted, the horse is just not gonna respond as well.
So Bringing all of that into play is essential.
And, really, there you know, the average rider Can engage serious forms of
maybe even disturbing levels of tack.
And I mean by this, you know, saddles and bridles and spurs and webs to
motivate a horse just out of the horse just trying to get along in the world.
But if you're gonna have a real partnership with the horse, you're
actually gonna be transformed from the inside out, and it's
going to affect Your entire life.
Rupert Isaacson: Do you think that this happens Because in order to really achieve
that union with a horse, The horse sort of forces us to engage with our higher self.
Linda Kohanov: Absolutely.
And it it it is an interesting combination with horses too because it's dual.
So you have to engage your higher self, Ultimately.
But it has to be fully grounded in this world.
So they they actually teach us a grounded spirituality.
Duality.
And the fact that they lure us into other states of consciousness or other
worlds Doesn't mean that we are not supposed to be here now completely
embodied and focused on the moment when we're interacting with them physically.
You could sit over a fence with a horse and have the horse essentially take you
into an altered state of consciousness where you can kind of Lose track of
your body and where you're at and really go off into these other worlds.
But if you're gonna interact with a horse And if you're gonna go inside the
fence and ride that horse or lead that horse somewhere, you have to be able to
engage some level of embodied presence.
So They're constantly making us exercise both sides in in ways that I think
other people and animals rarely do As a way of interacting with you yeah.
Embodied spirituality is what they're bringing
to
Rupert Isaacson: us.
This this brings me to another thought, which is that Many people, I think, are
unaware that the horse was, I think, the the last riding animal to be domesticated
or, as you say, maybe domesticated us.
I know that we started with the reindeer, which is a relatively easy
horse as long as you weigh sort of under a hundred animal as long as
you weigh under a hundred pounds.
Then I think it goes to the camel.
Then I think it's the I think the ass and the elephant are roughly Concurrent.
And then it's the horse.
And I've often wondered about that, why the horse was so late.
And then, of course well, yeah.
The horse works, of course, in three dimensions, and the horse
is this really complicated animal.
mIght some might say, well, an elephant's really complicated, but I
think an elephant's Brain is a way of looking at the world is perhaps closer
to ours and more intuitively ours.
So what is it about the horse that we Why why do we create this mythology around
the horse and the spirituality of the horse in regard with us And not these
other riding animals that we've also had these long relationships with because One
does not find quite the same mythological engagement and quite the same spiritual
engagement with these other animals As with the horse, why do you think that is?
Linda Kohanov: Well, I think they were working on us creative and
Creatively and spiritually long before we were capable of riding them.
They're just so athletic and so fast, and you have to really know what you're doing
if you're gonna try to ride one of them.
But the interesting thing is that our relationship with the horse
goes back thousands of years before we were able to ride them.
And There is significant evidence now that they were drawing us out years
before we had the technology to get on their backs and and ride them.
And the reason I say this is because When we began to understand the the
cave art in France and the Lascaux cave and the another older cave
that That escapes me at the moment.
There's Lascaux, and I can't remember at this moment.
The Chauvet.
The Lascaux and Chauvet caves.
In these caves, you see this strange evolution where You have an obsession
with cave art related to horses.
And they thought at first that people were hunting horses.
But as it as it turns out, as they really started to look at bones left around the
caves, they found out that the correlation between animals eaten and the animals
Painted wasn't wasn't really related.
So there's a lot of deer meat and deer bone not deer meat anymore, obviously,
but deer bones around those Caves.
They were eating deer, but they weren't eating so many horses, but
they were obsessed with horses.
And even to the point where they were By the time you go from the Chauvet cave
which is much older, it's like thirty thousand years old, to the Lascaux cave,
which is about, I guess, twenty thousand years old, You see that that they're
painting even more horses later on.
And in the Chauvet cave in particular, which is the older one, They have
two alcoves, separate alcoves with horses in them set apart from all
the other animals, lions, rhinos.
They they don't really have wolves painted in these caves,
by the way, interestingly enough.
And so In these alcoves, horses are coming out and looking at you as if they are
stepping Forward and engaging eye contact with you and really looking at you.
And this looks to me like the the initial somebody was really Trying to convey
that initial moment where a horse reached out to us and didn't run off and then
began to invite us into a relationship On the ground for thousands of years
before we were able to ride them.
And there's a lot
Rupert Isaacson: of Go ahead.
Sorry.
I didn't mean to interrupt
Linda Kohanov: you.
No.
It's okay.
I was just blown away when I when I began to realize that.
And I I recently revised the DAO of Equis.
It's gonna come out in a revised form in June.
And so I went ahead and added this right in the introduction To talk about how
we have this perception of the horse as being an evolution that happened later,
much later, But it seems like it was working on us for thousands of years
and probably changed certain members of the culture who were lured Out of
early agricultural settlements where horses might have been attracted to
people learning how to plant grain and things like that And luring some people
out into this nomadic lifestyle Mhmm.
That eventually caused people to Form these interspecies societies.
And I find the reindeer people I talked about the reindeer people in
the Dow of Equals because I found them very interesting In that some of
the reports anthropological reports state that these people consider
themselves half human, half reindeer.
Yeah.
And there are certain horse cultures where they consider
themselves half human, half horse.
So a lot of these cultures you find, They're they truly were
engaged in an equal partnership that was mutually transformational.
Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting.
There's a couple of things which spring to mind here.
You talk about an animal species domesticating the human.
And I'm I'm as I'm sure you're aware of and some of our listeners may be
aware of, there is a Fairly well founded theory that civilization as we know
it, I e agriculture and industry that comes out of agriculture, Is based
upon us being domesticated by a certain type of grass that we call wheat.
And that this happened, Oh, between twenty and fifteen thousand years ago,
somewhere in what's now Kurdistan, you know, in those upper plateaus at
the the source of the the Euphrates.
And that this particular type of hardy grass developed a relationship with us
as much as a relationship with them.
What I haven't considered until now, and this is intriguing to me, Is of
course, what would have been eating that grass if not herds of wild horses?
And we know that those areas of Eastern Anatolia and the Southern
Caucasus Going up around to the north of the Black Sea and so on.
This is sort of the cradle of where we find the earliest horse civilizations.
Makes sense.
So Did the did the grass domesticate us and then the main species
subsisting upon that grass, then take that domestication further.
And then another question comes to mind from that, Which is it's often assumed
that herding herding of herbivores predates Farming as a sort of interim
period between straight up hunting and gathering and, Planting of crops.
But what you're suggesting there is a potential other way around, which is
that perhaps we began to be domesticated Seasonally by some of these plants.
Then some of the animals coming in and being attracted to those made us
think, perhaps we could herd these.
wHat do you think about that as a as a motif, really?
We don't have to say it's a belief because don't have to believe one way or the
other, but these things are interesting concepts to motifs for the brain.
What what what do you feel feel and think about that?
Linda Kohanov: There are people who say that outright.
There are scientists who say that outright.
So it's it's what I call the OASIS theory is that humans learned how to plant these
grasses On purpose and take care of them.
They had to guard them, you know, because there are other
animals coming in to eat them.
And and they have to be more settled in order to stick around to guard these
Plants as they're starting to grow.
And as they're sitting there guarding the grasses that are growing the
wheat, Then animals are coming up and they're chasing them off, but they're
starting to observe their behavior.
And sometimes they're chasing them down and eating them.
And then you have some people just sitting out guarding these
these these wheat fields, and they start to notice the horses and
and become more intrigued by them.
And having less of a a hunter mentality and more of a naturalist mentality if
you're guarding the weed like that.
And so they're observing the horse behavior.
They're they're seeing young horses.
They're starting to reach out to them.
They the horses are Getting used to their presence.
And, eventually, maybe somebody actually holds out a hand of grain
to feed one of the Younger horses that they've they're enamored with.
And then through that interaction, eventually, the horses would have
lured Some of those people, some of those more adventurous people
into this nomadic lifestyle.
So there are actually Scientific theories that suggest that we had
early agriculture, and we started to move towards Settled lifestyles,
at least semi settled, to take care of these agricultural situations.
And then Some people were lured into a nomadic lifestyle with the animals
that were attracted to those settings.
So that there's agriculture and then there's two branches.
There's a There's a kind of agriculture that headed toward city
based lifestyles, and then there's a kind of agriculture that headed
toward nomadic pastoral lifestyles, And they branched off from there.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Interesting.
And your your point about Animals domesticating us.
I have actually I have actually witnessed and experienced this twice.
Those listeners who know my pre Autism background.
I I was a human rights activist and journalist in the Kalahari area of
Southern Africa for a long time.
My family is all Southern African.
So I lived with Khoi San hunter gatherers because we were working on their land
claim issues to get them legal title To their ancestral lands in South
Africa and Botswana for many years.
And so I had a couple of experiences there Where, for example, we were
making camp in an area that Had almost no human footprint at all.
And within about ten days, the jackals of that era, the black backed jackals,
which would be quite quickly beginning to circle our camp because they could
smell the goodies, Were at the point where they would come and accept meat
from the hand, I'd say, within ten days.
And but all of the initial overtures in terms of The charming, almost puppy
like behavior and invitations, the sort of getting down with the front legs
and then looking up and cocking the ears and cocking the head To the side.
They're sort of what we think of as invitation puppy like
invitations to play from a dog.
They were exhibiting that towards us.
And, So did did we domesticate them, or did they domesticate us?
Then I had a similar experience with birds of prey, Also in Africa, Zimbabwe
where my father's from where we were canoeing down the banks of the Zambezi
for And it's sort of extended time.
I did it once, and then I sort of went back and did it again a couple of times.
And What happened was that the guides had learned that or rather the
kites, Bode Praetis called a kite.
Had learned that where the camps generally were along the river,
if they circled there'd be stuff.
And the guide soon learned that they could throw bits of meat up into the air, and
the kites would swoop in and grab it.
And then the kites began to swoop in this playful way to, if you like, to
instigate the very, very intelligent birds, The guides into doing this.
Who domesticated who?
I would have said until recently, well, we domesticated them.
We we were in this place, we as humans, And then we did this.
They they were lured by our, you know, goodies, and then we did
behaviors that domesticated them, but perhaps that's not the case.
If that's not the case, what do you think would have motivated and prompted the
horse To come and engage with an upright ape with the eyes in front, which clearly
is a predator as well as an omnivore.
We absolutely do hunt.
I've, you know, hunted with the bushmen.
And they for example, they will hunt zebra.
So, they would've we would've hunted equines, you know, up
here in the Northern Hemisphere.
So given that we did probably hunt them, what do you feel
Made them reach out to us.
Why would they reach out to us given that we're a dangerous lot?
Linda Kohanov: Well, I think they were reaching out to people who were
less dangerous in the beginning.
So you have people who have more of a hunter mentality.
But, you know, as you know, in But, you know, as you know, in a lot of
these cultures, they have hunters have tremendous respect Yeah.
For the prey.
They're not they're not torturing them.
They're not Hunting them to virtual extinction.
There is a there is a symbiotic relationship, and that's that is
even related to the prayers that they say before they hunt, after they've
killed an animal, before they eat an animal, they're thanking this animal.
There is this feeling of a mutual support system.
And and horses are being used are used to being hunted by all kinds of animals.
And when you see Pictures now on YouTube or videos on YouTube in
Africa, you see that a lot of times, these large herbivores, Whether
they're zebras or wildebeest, will live in the midst of predators.
And there will be predators milling around in the vicinity,
and they don't automatically Right.
So they have some herd members acting as sentinels, and they can read the
behavior of a predator when it's on the prowl and a predator when it's just
Relaxing or wandering through the field on their way to a good nap somewhere else.
And so Horses and other animals that are herbivores have thousands of years
of living among predators and being able to tell when they're in that
hunting mode and when they're not.
That's Also Yeah.
Yeah.
And so when people say, oh, you know, the the horse thinks you're a predator
when you get on his back To ride.
No.
He doesn't because he can tell that you're not acting like a predator at that moment.
Mhmm.
And if you are acting in a hyperdominant predatory manner, That horse is less
likely to let you on their back.
So that's one aspect of it.
The other thing I think is that, They called us out, you know, that that there
is a horse consciousness that reached out to us Just like those jackals reached
out to you or those they sensing also because we're we're planting grain
That's that's getting better and better.
We're taking them to pastures and we're guarding them.
We're acting as guardians of them From other predators.
And so there's this way in which you you create this mutual support System with
another species that appreciates that.
I mean, there's the horse has now proliferated around the world because
Their association with humans.
Mhmm.
They you know?
So there were there were advantages to the relationship from the beginning.
And
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
These are these are these are valid points.
Yeah.
I was I'm just minded, I was in Namibia earlier this year, and you're dead right.
We were watching a Pride of lion, who were deciding whether or not
to engage with a very large herd of zebra, who were deciding whether or
not They should be worried about this.
And what was interesting was it was the the pride was actually three grown
lionesses who were the hunters and Some half grown cubs who obviously
needed, you know, to learn the trade.
And so they would stalk a bit And try a little rush here and there.
And you could see that the the you could see the zebra sort of looking and go, meh.
Yep.
Nah.
We'll move off a little bit, but we can tell you're not really a threat.
And but they were keeping an eye on where the three lionesses were.
And When they moved, the herd would shift accordingly.
But for sure, no rush was made in the In the time that we were watching them.
aNd if that is most of the time, I guess, if you're a human predator or Or a or
a feline predator or a canine predator.
Every time you try to make a kill, you're expending energy.
Most Hunts will not be successful.
How many times do you want to expend that energy before you run out of energy?
The Animal.
Your hunting is always faster than you wildier than you.
So I can see, yes, from what you say that Why would they engage with
us when we're tricky predators?
Because, well, we don't always behave that way.
Absolutely.
And do you but do you feel because a lot of people would contend that horses
do not really think rationally, that they represent the more Irrational,
emotionally based intelligence that they're not the strategic communicators
that Perhaps we or wolves or hyenas or other pack based predatory things are.
You know, we have language.
We use that To to strategize.
Do you feel that consciously Horses in this early phase of contact with humans
were Able to take it beyond the okay.
They're not behaving too aggressively, and they've got some grass that we like.
Do you think that there was something else going on?
A curiosity?
Linda Kohanov: Absolutely.
Horses are incredibly curious, and they're very powerful and fast.
And so they can afford to entertain curiosity in a different way
than you might see a rabbit be curious about something.
Because, You know, the rabbit's not powerful and capable of, you know,
really I mean, you see, rabbits are constantly looking around.
It's like, is it safe to be out here in the open?
Because they and they have to run off immediately, whereas a
horse has more of a presence.
And if they're in a group of empowered horses together, They know they
can run off a lot of predators, especially the less experienced ones
and especially when they Draw on that power of a fully empowered herd.
So their curiosity is something that was Captured in those early cave paintings.
When you see the horse coming out of the alcove looking very curiously
And, invitingly the painter, the way he's portraying that.
So, yeah, because they're powerful and fast, they can afford to be curious.
And they are.
They we don't know how their consciousness works exactly, but we see
through their behavior how they are.
And how easily they will override their basic survival instincts when they are
when they feel connected To others.
And so, I mean, if if a horse was purely an instinctual animal,
there's no way You would get such an animal to go onto a trailer.
Mhmm.
They don't go into small enclosed spaces.
If If a horse were a purely instinctual animal, there's no way they would ride
into war, into the smell of blood, Into the screams of horses and humans.
You know?
So they when they have a connection to Certain humans, they will go into war.
And one of the things that I also illustrated in the power of the herd, for
instance, is that George Washington Had this ability to pick exceptional horses
who were exceptionally brave, so he didn't see them as bundles of instincts.
He saw them as individuals, and he would choose horses to go into war who
had a natural presence and bravery.
And there's one description of A bunch of soldiers stuck on a bridge with
the with the enemy coming toward them.
And one of the guys describe who was one of the soldiers describes
how they were, like, Really, really scared at that moment as you would be.
And he actually looked up and saw that George Washington and his horse were
right next to him And that the horse was just had this presence of being really
centered in the midst of this threat, And that he actually leaned against the
horse and borrowed the horse's courage.
So We have to stop thinking of horses as bundles of instincts and
realize there are individuals, yes, who are going to be shy and run off.
There are individuals who don't want to accept a rider.
We know that.
There are individuals who love to be ridden.
There are individuals who love to go out on trail rides.
You know?
There are there are individuals who will reach out to children Who were
in states of distress that normally would cause a horse's nervous system
to go into a flight or fight mode.
That was so clear with Rowan and Betsy, The horse that reached out to him when
he was in a state of real turmoil.
With horses, they're they're highly empathic.
So if if Somebody's in a state of turmoil at that level.
A lot of horses would simply spook and run off, but some horses
have the capacity to step in and help to coregulate that person.
So these are natural healing horses.
Not all horses are gonna be that way.
So I think when we look at them as individuals, we get to see certain
talents and orientations, and we don't know how conscious they are of this.
But a lot I A lot of people act in different kinds of ways, brave or
caring, who are not conscious of what they're doing at that moment.
There's a kind of stream of Of an orientation or a talent that lures
you into places where you gain more and more confidence, and you're not
even conscious of how you got there.
Yes.
No.
Rupert Isaacson: I I I I would agree.
I think that, you know, there's this there's this cliche, Then
like all cliches, of course, it's based in a truth, which is that,
you know, the horse is your mirror.
If you go Grumpy to the horse.
You might get a bit of a grumpy response.
If you're afraid, he might be afraid, and so on.
But but, of course, I feel it goes beyond that.
I and and this idea with the higher self and curiosity, I think What one
sees often with horses is is that really defines this their species as
herbivores, maybe even more than others when you observe them together It's
it's it's playfulness this this seeking out of of play and entertainment.
And when I'm Got my horse trainer hat on.
What I'm often saying to people is don't be a horse trainer.
Be a horse entertainer.
Be interesting to the horse.
Be be worth interacting with, you know, so that when the horse sees you
coming, they think, oh, you know, This might be good crack, you know, today.
What's he got you know, what's shaking?
Rather than, oh, shit.
Here comes that, you know, person that makes me Just endlessly do the
same thing and is always a bit, you know, frustrated with me for not quite
understanding what's in their brain.
I wonder if it's this aspect, this playful aspect of the horse that has
the potential to bring out, if you like, this higher self because in us.
Because when horses are playful together, as we know, they're quite
rough, and they're you know, When horses are really playing together,
a weak little monkey like us is it's not great to be in the way of that.
There's a reason why we call Rough play horseplay.
Yet you can engage with them.
And as you say, that that they will modify their behavior Like Betsy did
with my son, for example you know, in in a way which I thought I knew horses
quite well until I observed that.
And then I realized, oh gosh.
I Really don't know horses as well as I thought I did.
In fact, I need to revise everything I know.
This is really interesting.
This is a good thing, Which brings me to my next question.
And I think
Linda Kohanov: also I mean, I just one little point here Yeah.
Is that, you know, when they when They'll say they're not conscious
or they don't have logical capacity or strategic thinking or whatever.
I mean, I have several horses that know how to open gates.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I have to put one out there.
They'll get out, and they'll let everybody else loose.
And I never taught them how to open these gates.
And I even have a horse that,
Rupert Isaacson: You just provided them with rather rather interesting
puzzles for them, which is very nice of
Linda Kohanov: you.
Right.
Well, I mean, I I I have some temporary corral panels that I set up, and I've, you
know, sort of put a chain around the gate.
And then I've had horses figure out how to loosen the pins, pull up
and loosen the pins, and get out.
You know?
So You have to just you have to realize they're strategizing.
They can totally run mazes on my property because I have all kinds of
different sections of corrals that are if I open them up, they know
how to get from one to the other.
They know exactly what to do.
So these are things they learned on their own.
They figured it out for themselves.
So there is logical strategic thinking in horses.
We're It's just that when they're out in the, you know, like, zebras
in the Kalahari or something like that, They they don't have a need for
that kind of strategic intelligence.
They're paying attention to other things.
Is
Rupert Isaacson: it this This is the question I'm I'm is it this playfulness
and this curiosity bring that we something in us responds to that.
Right?
The what to us is play and curiosity, if not joy?
Right?
And so It seems to me is is it do you think that that's perhaps the difference
between Symbolic relationship with horses and the other animals which we
ride, like Reyders, donkeys, camels, elephants, water buffalo, and others.
Do you think it's this aspect of playfulness And inquisitive curiosity.
That brings up this Special sort of meta love that we seem to have
for this animal across cultures.
You know, one finds horse cultures in every continent except Antarctica.
Is is that what it is?
And is that why horses have this ability to sort of heal the human heart?
What what what To bring us back to joy.
What what what are your thoughts about that?
Linda Kohanov: Horses experience a full range of emotions, And they
move through them very quickly.
They're very emotionally agile animals.
So if they're angry at a stallion that's Coming in too close, you know,
the mayor will sort of, you know, pin her ears and then crescendo if
the stallion isn't paying attention.
She'll then, You know, squeal and turn around and bite.
And then if he doesn't back off, then she'll turn around and mule kick the guy.
And then, you know, maybe ten minutes later, you see them hanging out
together under their favorite Free.
So that's emotional agility to move from anger, which is about setting
boundaries, and then move to a sense of peacefulness and connection.
And they experience they definitely experience sadness and grief.
I've seen it a lot.
A lot of people don't realize that, but I I have talked about
it quite a bit in my books.
They experience incredible joy and peacefulness and contentment, and
yet they move through all of those emotions very efficiently and go
back to grazing as I like to say.
Whereas humans hang on to certain emotional states and retell the
story over and over and over again.
So this is one of the things that we learn from horses when we begin to
see them as teachers is how to be more emotionally agile and how to Feel an
emotion in its purest form and get the message behind it, change something
in response to that message, and then let it go and go back to grazing.
So there's an emotional intelligence in horses that we can learn from
that we've lost sight of in our city based cultures, in our Focus
on language and telling stories over and over and over again rather than
being in the present in the present.
It's not that we don't Want to tell stories or shouldn't
tell stories, we should.
But to fixate on them at the expense of being present in life is part of our Sort
of human psychology that's gotten out of control over time with our focus on words.
But Horses engage in incredible moments of joy and contentment and peacefulness.
I talk about Standing among a group of horses huddled together
on pasture about how I'm often privy to a secret bliss, Really?
Rupert Isaacson: Privy to a secret place.
They're dosing.
Write that down.
Please go ahead.
Privy to a secret place.
I love
Linda Kohanov: that.
I mean, sometimes they are dozing, but sometimes they're not.
Yeah.
They only seem to be dozing.
They're actually engaged in this Collective, subsonic reverie so deep
that I feel like it vibrates through the bones and And expands the heart,
leaving the ears untouched so that you're you're when you're with horses
and you really Slow down and stop being so fixated on your human agenda
and just enter into their world.
You begin to Expand into areas of peace and joy and connection that
sometimes people have never experienced with a member of their own species.
So it's it's very profound, and I think this is part of the reason why
horses being with horses is so healing.
Well
Rupert Isaacson: put.
It's interesting that almost all of the metaphors that we use around horses are
always Superlatives or positive things.
If you compare a situation or somebody or something to something equine,
That person's a real stallion.
That person's a real stud.
That you know, that person has got a, you know, I suppose suppose you say kick like
a mule, but it's really a type of horse.
That person gosh.
There are so many, I think, equine references in our culture.
We know that Shakespeare was a great horseman and Falconer.
And he he's peppered his plays with it all the, you know,
hold your horses, hold hard.
You know?
But that, generally, You don't use a metaphor of a horse
to say someone is rubbish.
You you usually use a metaphor of a horse As a as a as an emotional
strengthener that's positive.
Right?
One of the things which you pointed out about this emotional agility.
I wrote that down too.
I like that.
Are you familiar with Gulliver's Travels, you know, the the the eighteenth century
English novel that was made into a Disney made a famous film about you know, you've
got Gulliver who's The Lilliputians, the little people, they tie him down.
So that's that's one of the he goes to the island of Lilliput.
He goes to the island of Brobdiagnag where he encounters giants.
But he also goes This was not in the film.
He goes to the island of the Hui Hinnoms.
And the Hui Hinnoms are horses, but they're horses that speak English and
live And a sort of a a a a a life that reflects eighteenth century England.
And there's this he has Great admiration for them because they seem to have
exactly, as you just pointed out, a sort of emotional agility and perspective
where He's taking tea with a very elegant mare, a very elegant sorrel
mare who's serving him tea in her house.
And it comes up in the course of the conversation that her
husband has recently died.
And Gulliver's, oh, I'm terribly sorry to hear that, my lady,
and, you know, my condolences.
And and she says, oh, no.
Why why would you say that?
He he led a very, very good life.
We had a An absolutely lovely time together.
He's been dead about a day and a half, and I remember him
well, and my present is good.
Do horses bring us into the present moment?
Linda Kohanov: They do.
Absolutely.
But I've also seen horses Engage in extensive grief so that I mean, we
we would say that that's incredibly emotionally agile of this, You
know, Lady Mare in that book.
I need to go and read that because I've never I never knew that part of the book.
I need to find that.
So she's showing extreme emotional agility.
Yes.
He lived a good life, you know, all of that.
And and it doesn't seem like she's grieving.
But in reality, horses do grieve Because part of it is because our
nervous systems sync up, and we know that from the polyvagal theory,
For instance, of Steven Porges.
We know that we are, as mammals, and that includes sources, designed to connect
with each other, To experience safety through connection and that that it's
really impossible or difficult for us to heal or, Even evolve as a lone wolf.
I mean, even wolves don't really engage in lone wolf behavior.
So mammals are are designed to socially engage and to use their nervous systems
to coregulate each other so that one one is distressed, Others will reach
out and calm that horse and vice versa.
And a lot of people didn't understand that this is actually a Feature of
the nervous system of mammals until recently when doctor Porges came out
with his theory, and it explains a lot.
So one of the things that happens with horses when they are allowed to form close
lifelong partnerships is their nervous systems sync up and affect each other.
And so when one of these horses dies, the other horse really
feels like their nervous system is missing something huge if you just
wanna put it in scientific terms.
So I've had horses, and I don't I have several horses who I've raised.
I've had multiple generations of a certain Herd of horses that they were
never separated from their parents.
They were weaned, and then they were put back in with their parents and brothers
and sisters and cousins And uncles.
And when one of those parents dies, the horse that's closest to that parent
will actually Shut down and become incredibly depressed because there was I
can see in certain instances where they were in such See, co regulating each
other for years and years and years.
But then when that physical presence is no longer there,
there's something huge missing.
There's like a part of them dies with the other being that dies.
And that's the same for spouses or parents and human children.
So
Rupert Isaacson: Why is it though that why is it that horses bring
us into the present moment?
There's a really good quote from the Tower of Equus where you you talk about
when you're when you mount a horse, you must Put the past where it belongs.
You must be in the present, and you must have your mind on the
immediate sort of optimistic future.
Why is it that horses put us into the pre why do we need to be in
the present moment with horses?
And why is it that we do seem to go into that State of unawareness of
anything else when we're with a horse.
What what what what what's doing that in us?
Linda Kohanov: Part of it is because they're so big.
You have to pay attention.
You have to be present if you're gonna be around them or you're
getting knocked around and stepped on.
And If if you're really present, and I know you know this, Rupert, because
you are a fine rider, you can feel a worse I don't I don't know whether I
should say thinking of spooking, or you can feel a horse's intention to
spook in your body before they can get their thousand pound body to do that.
And if so if you're really present, you can move with a sudden sideways
leap because you're you're there's a part of you that's already sensed
it's about to happen, And you can't do that if you're not fully present.
You know?
That's how you topple off and and get dragged or left in the dust.
So I think When you're with horses and you're really doing serious things
with them, like riding or training young horses or rehabilitating abused
horses, The more present you are, the more you can actually feel what's
about to happen and do something to shift it before it gets out of control.
Yeah.
That's the advantage of being present.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I could see yeah.
I I I think that the presence of imminent danger It's exactly as
you describe, which one is whether one's next to or on top of a horse.
It's just there.
As you said, it's a thousand pound animal that can respond
Violently to small things.
And when one's on it you know, one of the things I often think is so interesting
about riding is How one has to go completely against nature and intuition.
You know?
The the horse was not designed really to carry monkeys yet.
There we are sitting on one.
And with our top heavy you know, heavy head and shoulders, we're not really
designed to sit on a moving barrel yet.
We sort of Evolved to be able to do that if we put enough work into it.
And then we want to, as, you know, sight apes, Solve our problems
with our eyes and our hands, which, of course, might work against us
with horses if we grab on tight.
And then, of course, we we want to go into a bit of a of a crouch if we
feel afraid, which naturally we're going to on the back of a horse.
But because if we do that, we're gonna tilt forward and go out
the front door let alone transmit our fear to to the to the animal.
Yet and and, of course, it doesn't really make an awful lot of sense
for a horse to let us come near.
You know?
Every herb of all has to be, if you like, trained from the wild as a baby
To accept the presence of humans.
And yet, miraculously, if we put enough work into it together, it seems to happen.
What I'm wondering is is thing.
Go you go go ahead with this.
Yeah.
What what what do you think about
Linda Kohanov: about that?
Well, here's the thing.
We have to stop thinking of ourselves as apes that just showed up out
of the blue among herds of horses.
This is not true.
We're talking about at least I I think it's about six thousand years of evidence
of actually riding horses, But longer evidence, as I say, with the cave
paintings of people being inspired by them and intrigued by them and engaged.
And through those interactions, we have evolved.
So we're not purely Oh, I would agree with
Rupert Isaacson: you there.
But but nonetheless, one has the the horse, when it's a very young horse
even ones that one has bred oneself, their first reaction to a human
is, you know, and they might come across for a bit of a sniff, But they
kinda wanna get behind their mom.
You know?
And even the mom who is used to us is like, okay.
But this is my baby.
You know?
Be cool.
And then, of course, when we climb up on horses, when we're learning to ride,
we're entering a completely unknown Three-dimensional space where we have to
basically create a body map with an animal that we may or may not really understand.
He has to create a body map with And we have to sync our nervous
systems up, and then we have to learn all this technical stuff.
And it's jolly difficult, which is why relatively few people do it.
Otherwise, everyone would be doing it.
Right?
But, nonetheless, it happens.
I always feel that there's some aspect of the miraculous with that.
I I agree with you that we've had thousands of years of interaction
with these animals, But it it seems that every single time,
we're still starting from scratch.
I mean, every time I start with a new horse that comes to me for
train, I'm starting from scratch.
Every time I'm writing a new book, I'm starting from scratch just because
I wrote a a book, you know, before.
It doesn't mean that when I sit in front of that blank page I know that one.
You know that one?
Yeah.
You know that And I'm sure a lot of
Linda Kohanov: people god.
Every time I think it's gonna be easy and it's absolutely not, it never gets
Rupert Isaacson: easier.
No.
You you sort of kid yourself it's gonna be so that you begin,
and then you're like, oh, shit.
Why did I Why did I let myself in for this again?
Absolutely.
Oh, here we go.
Another five years.
But the the yeah.
There's this miraculous thing where you, yeah, you look up and then
then, boom, there's this book.
And, Oh, I've just added another one by the in to the cohen
of, you know, Uh, library.
And then you have called immediate amnesia because you're beginning the new one.
Writing Sometimes brings us into the present moment, but I don't think it
brings you know, one sometimes has to find one's way into the present moment
with the pursuit of the human arts because it's one is contending with
one's own nervous system and brain only.
I think there's this thing, do you not agree of contending I'm finding
relationship with a whole other nervous system and brain that is not our own.
It's not a dance partner that's human.
It's not a lover that's human.
It's not Someone that we can stop and say, hold on.
Hold on.
Can we just rewind there?
What did you mean by that?
Or could you touch me differently?
Or you stepped on my toe or or whatever.
We have to evolve this other language, don't we?
Um, uh, what do you feel about the miraculous In the human horse
relationship, which, for me, is that Immediate boom straight into the present
moment whether you want to or not.
You're just there.
You don't even have to try.
To me, that is miraculous.
And it it seems that mythologically, You know, we we're always equate
equating horses to the miraculous.
You mentioned Pegasus in the Tao of Equus, you know, very eloquently.
What is the winged horse if not an expression of miracle?
You know?
What is your feeling about the miraculous with horses and humans?
Linda Kohanov: Horses have a connection with this world here and now where I
also believe horses have a connection to a much wider view of consciousness,
whether that's spirit, whether that's god whether it's the great
mystery, whatever you wanna call it.
And, you know, a lot of a lot of people Who do trans transpossession,
let's say, in certain cultures.
They call themselves horses when they do that.
And the idea is that the spirit's coming in and actually riding you.
Mhmm.
And horses just seem to have a capacity for that with Human
riders as well as actual spirit.
So I've seen horses act in ways that are not related to how their
personality is in normal life.
And it seems like they're being they're being ridden or possessed for a moment,
you might say, or opening themselves up to An influence of a larger spiritual nature.
I've seen them take on the personality traits of people people who have
passed In the presence of certain people who are grieving, let's say.
Now that's miraculous for sure.
And So I think this ability to to be very powerful and present, but also
being This may be why horses are agreed to be ridden, actually, is that they are
capable of also expanding Into allowing another form of intelligence to come
in and actually run things for a while.
So that by eventually having a human being able to ride, maybe that was
just a small physical Manifestation in their minds of the idea of being
ridden by larger spiritual forces.
There's also a group intelligence with horses that I encountered in
the Tao of Equis where I talk about accessing the horse ancestors.
aNd, You know, there's just ways in which they are open to what's happening
in the moment in this physical world, but they're also equally open, it seems,
in the moment to spiritual forces.
And it's hard to be around them For years and years and years
where you see the miraculous things that they do with people at times.
It's out of character For the individual horse at the time without
actually realizing, oh my god.
There's something else going on here.
There are other forms of intelligence.
There are there are things that we can allow in too.
Because when you're writing a book, you're you're accessing
another form of intelligence.
It's it's, In this case, when you're writing, it's a it's it's a slightly
dissociative Presence because actually, I had a person study this and talk
about discordant dissociation where it's survival dissociation where you associate
because you're going into flight or fight mode, and you're trying to just survive.
Whereas there's also concordant dissociation, which is a form of
dissociation that artists engage and writers so that you know, how you
when you get into the State, you lose all contact with what's going on.
And four or five hours later, you realize you're starving, and you didn't even
realize it was five hours that went by.
And during that time, you almost feel like you're downloading something.
You know, sometimes you're staring at the blank page, and you're like, when when
can I get this thing to to Take over here?
Right?
Yeah.
And then when it takes over, it's there's also a feeling
of ecstasy associated with it.
And studies of of people who go into creative states, and they show that,
yes, certain endorphins are released in states of creativity that reward
you for going into those states.
So there's an interesting interesting aspects of horses that let us in on
certain Mysteries of the universe that we wouldn't be noticing otherwise.
And like you were saying earlier, just to ride a horse, you have to do all kinds
of things that are counter Dingshul.
So that when a horse spooks, rather than roll over into a fetal
position and grab on, because that causes the horse to go faster.
You have to sit up, and you have to start breathing, and you have to
sink into the saddle In order to have any hope of staying on the horse.
So horses are teaching people, and people are teaching horses all the time to
do things that are counterinstinctual So that we can begin to use our
nervous systems for higher purposes.
Rupert Isaacson: Beautifully put.
To be able to do things that are counter instinctual, well, those are
jolly useful skills if one's going to Be alive and thrive on planet
Earth in whatever sphere, I guess.
I feel that there's some aspect of dream In our relationship with horses.
You know, as you say in the shamanic, for example, when I was
in Mongolia with the shamans There.
They talk as to the shamans in Tibet of the wind horse.
You know, everybody has a wind horse, which is sort of your luck, your mojo,
your but you can also ride the wind horse.
It can be an Cool thing.
To an altered state of consciousness if you're a trained shaman to
get, Instructions from the spirit world or the ancestral world.
The word in Mongolian for the wild horse, what we would call the Provalski sources,
the takin, which means, Revered one.
The venerable one.
Honored one.
This idea of of of this repository of power.
And these are not the horses they ride.
These are the horses that exist outside of of their domestication.
We Have this idea of horses carrying us.
You know, you've talked about this essentially between worlds
as well as two new worlds.
You know?
We the conquistadors went on the back of the horse through the Yes.
But the idea also of riding the wind horse, the dream horse.
At some point, you were dreaming about horses.
I realized that We're you know, about an hour in.
I have been so into nerding out on all this that I've forgotten to ask
you anything about How you got here?
To live free and ride free.
When was there a little girl version of yourself Dreaming about
this relationship with horses.
And how did you come to this point now where this is your
life, this is your work?
Talk us through the biography,
Linda Kohanov: please.
I was always enamored with horses, And I was one of these kids that
would just beg for a horse every year, and my parents were afraid of them.
We actually had enough land to have horses, but they were afraid of horses.
And So they you know, I would have to sneak off, actually, because they
wouldn't even let me take lessons.
I would have to sneak off and go through the woods, and I found
this old horse traders farm.
And I could come up to the back of his property, and He would have this transient
herd because he was a horse trainer.
And some of them were ex race horses.
Some of them were ex riding horses.
Some of them were really old that you knew that this was their last stop
on the way to the, you know, the the slaughterhouse or something like that.
And some of them were very dangerous, and some of them were very calm and Suite.
And I didn't have bridles or halters or a riding instructor.
I would just go back there and spend hours and hours and hours.
I even built a little fort right next to the the pasture where the horses were,
and I would just sit out there for hours.
And I would lure certain horses over to the fence if they were
amenable, and I would get on them.
And I would just kinda ride around bareback.
And I, Of course, I had no real control.
I was just a little kid, but the horse would let me on its back
and carry me around, certain ones.
And you could tell the difference between the ones who were and engaged and the
ones who were frantic and dangerous.
And so I would just learn over time how to assess.
And if I hadn't have learned to assess, I probably would just
be, you know, I would be dead.
I would have died with one of these racehorses running over me or something.
So, um, so that was a a way of developing this expanded
nonverbal awareness of horses.
And then I would hire myself out at the fair to people just to groom horses.
And so and it was, I mean, it was such an extreme interest, but at the same
time, I was I was also a musician.
aNd What sorts of music?
The the viola.
You play the violin?
The violin, viola.
I I play the viola.
I I was actually a music major.
I got a full Scholarship to be a viola major in college.
And so I played in a lot of symphonies and chamber music groups.
But as you're growing up and you're learning to play an instrument like this
And you're playing in lots of chamber groups since I was ten years old.
And then in in high school, we had orchestra Five days a week, and I
was in chamber music groups as well.
So I'm spending hours and hours in in this place with the horses that I was
sneaking off to see and with the music in this Place of nonverbal awareness expanded
nonverbal awareness and engagement with others in a nonverbal setting.
anD you have to be really present also as a musician.
You learn how to To actually be in symphonies where you're
portraying strong emotions at times.
And, you know, when you have a brass section behind you And you're they're
projecting out to a full audience.
That is moving that that sound of those brass instruments behind you is Actually,
rattling your entire nervous system.
And in the middle of that, you have to stay present with what you're supposed to
play, But you have to be emotive enough.
So if you're, like, riding the wings of the angels into ecstasy and you're not
present with what's happening at the same time, you know, the both Lies out
of your hand, and it hits the conductor.
And he falls off, and the whole thing comes to a crashing halt.
So with music also, you learn how to be present in the midst of wild,
Strong nervous system invigorating things that are happening.
So I think those two things together.
And then when I started to to write, I was also a music journalist.
So I was learning how to I was learning how to write about things
that were hard to put into words.
So by the time I was got my first horse when I was in Tucson working as a
classical radio announcer and a jazz radio announcer sir, and a music journalist.
I I I noticed how easy it was For people in Tucson to have horses.
You don't have to have barns.
You don't have to worry about ice and snow and mud here.
You can just have a nice Shade cover for the horses in your backyard
and have a couple of horses.
It's not a big deal.
So I and finally in my thirties, I said, you know what?
I'm getting a horse.
Because, actually, I wanted to get a horse to get as far away from
people on a regular basis because people were driving me insane.
Because I had You know, most people suppress emotion.
The average person's taught to suppress emotion and wear a mask
of whatever's socially acceptable.
Musicians are taught to express emotion, and they're rewarded
handsomely for it in some cases.
But both of these Suppression and expression exploits are two sides
of the same dysfunctional coin.
And so when I got my first horse, I was just Like, these
musicians are driving me crazy.
These regular people are driving me crazy.
I just have to get out of here.
And you know what?
I have enough money finally.
I'm getting a horse.
And so I got my first horse to get away from people, but what I noticed
was that the horse Was showing me a different form of emotional intelligence.
So people who express emotion never get The message behind it and change something
response and go back to grace, and they just express and express and express.
And people who suppress emotion Never get past that first step either.
You know?
So when I noticed horses having this four point method of emotional
agility it was like they brought me back into the capacity to engage
with people in a more productive way.
So the four step method was I could see it.
It took me about five years to put this into words, but horses feel
the emotion in its purest form.
Then they get the message behind the emotion.
Then something in response to the message, and then they let it
go, and they go back to grazing.
Whereas most people don't get past step one.
Expressors Feel the emotion, but they never get the message and
change something in response.
There's all kinds of musicians we see who get rewarded For engaging in ill
fated relationships so they can write the next hit song about, you know, she
done me wrong or something like that.
Or in rap music, They'll put themselves especially in the early rap music, they
would put themselves into situations that would drum up large amounts of rage.
And And so then they wouldn't really get the message behind that either.
They're just rage, rage, rage, or sadness, sadness, or crying
in your beer country music.
And Putting Putting a tear in your
Rupert Isaacson: beer.
To live a life.
Yeah.
Pardon?
Putting a tear in your beer.
Yeah.
Linda Kohanov: Right.
Exactly.
Yes.
Putting a tear in your beer.
So, um, so when I was with horses, I'm like, oh, they have the answer.
You know?
The suppressors don't even get to step one.
They do everything they can To not feel an emotion.
The expressors feel an emotion, but they never get to the other steps.
And then I noticed horses were doing this very intelligent
thing, And it changed my life.
Rupert Isaacson: So talk talk us through it step by step.
Exactly.
Step one, step two, step three, step four, and at what point you
You really first observed this.
Linda Kohanov: One of the things I first observed, and this seemed magical,
it seemed miraculous, Was that when I would go out to the barn, people
would say they were fine, You know?
Or or act like everything was okay or act really macho about something or another.
But I could actually Tell what emotional state they were in by
the way their horse was acting.
It didn't didn't take me very long to start noticing that pattern.
So, You know, horses will act, consent, and then act out sometimes
the exact emotions somebody's hiding.
So
Rupert Isaacson: you were keeping your horse, Your first horse at a barn where
other people were keeping their horses, and you got to observe this interaction.
Linda Kohanov: Yes.
And for a while, I was like, wow.
That is fascinating.
How is that even possible?
And, I mean, now there are ways that I can explain it and which That's
why I've written a number of books, and I do explain it more in my video
courses where I really go through what it what is, How are horses doing
this, and what are they teaching us?
And how are humans doing it too?
We're just not conscious of it.
Is that emotions are contagious, basically.
And when you suppress an emotion, actually, it causes your blood
pressure to rise, and it causes the blood pressure of everyone
interacting with you to rise also.
That's a study in social intelligence by Daniel Goleman.
And so horses just as empaths And being more fully present than we
are, have the capacity to sense the emotion underneath the mask or facade.
And they will Act it out or just walk away from it.
And when a person becomes congruent, when the person actually acknowledges the
hidden emotion, The horse will often come back over and engage even if you haven't
done anything to solve the emotion.
Because, Like, one of one of the most powerful things I ever saw was a woman
who had been raped who was coming out to do some work to be feel more
empowered and step back into life.
And she went in with this horse named Sam, and she, She started crying,
and the horse just went and flipped his mane and walked away from her.
And she was like you could imagine what she felt.
You know?
She's being rejected by the horse now.
And she's like, well, everybody's just telling me I should just get over
this and everybody's, you know, um, they're just tired of all of my tears.
And and I said, no.
No.
I don't think that's what's going on.
I think There's an emotion underneath the tears that you're not acknowledging
or because this horse act what do you think that horse was was conveying?
What emotion do you think that horse was conveying as he, like, tossed his
head and sputtered sort of marched off?
And she goes, well, you look kind of angry.
I said, yeah.
And I said, so is there any anger underneath the tears?
And she realized that, yes.
I mean, anger really is an emotion that's about that rises when somebody's
overstepped a boundary with you.
And it's the emotion.
The intensity of anger is is supposed to let you set a
boundary if you use it properly.
And so that's One of the ultimate boundary violations is to be raped.
So, yeah, she had sadness, and her life had been turned upside down.
But underneath was this Absolute outrage at her entire life
being turned upside down.
So she started to access this anger, and she started pounding on the fence
post and talking about this, You know?
I'm really starting to to show the true body language associated with anger.
And that horse turned around and came back over And wrapped his head around
her as she pounded on the fence post.
So it was like the horse Didn't was less upset about whatever she was feeling than
the horse was more aggravated by the fact that she was hiding a strong emotion.
And once she accessed the strong emotion, as long as she wasn't directing
it at the horse, the horse was like, I can be here with you in that.
You know?
And so when people are crying sincere tears of sadness or grief, horses
will often come over and comfort them.
But also, if there's sincere anger that's legitimate that's being accessed,
I've seen horses walk over and be present with a person during that too.
So, You know, when we're when we're afraid or we're feeling vulnerable, the
worst as long as you acknowledge that, One of these more therapeutic oriented,
healing oriented horses will come back over and actually do what Steven
Porches would call coregulating you.
The horse will reach out and be present with you and connect with you in
the midst of this authentic emotion.
So there's so many brilliant things that horses do emotionally.
And, you know, that four point method and then You know, I I did some research
into various emotional intelligence authors and found some useful definitions
of the various emotions that I put into an emotional message chart.
And so I teach that as well.
And the horses generally respond to those emotional definitions So that, you
know, negative emotions aren't mistakes.
They're not designed to torture us.
They are course correcting emotions, And they're uncomfortable because
they're asking us to change something.
If we were comfortable, we wouldn't bother to change something.
So when horses teach us how to use emotions as Course correcting
signals, and then we learn how to move through them and then go back
to grazing, your whole life changes.
It Truly changed my life.
Just that one piece, let alone all the other wild things I've
learned over time with them.
Rupert Isaacson: Let's go back to these four points.
Can you what what are the four points of that constellation, and can you
walk us through how they progress?
Linda Kohanov: Sure.
So the first step is you feel the emotion in its purest form.
Rather than suppressing it, you actually notice that it's there.
Yeah.
The next thing you do is you get the message behind the emotion,
then you change something in response to the emotion.
You take its advice on some level, and then you let it go
and you go back to grazing.
So in the case of fear, a horse would say, I feel fear.
And horses can transmit fear at a distance to each other.
I've been in that position where I've felt it.
Yeah.
So I you know, horse says, okay.
I'm feeling fear.
And then what is the message behind fear?
Well, there's a threat in the environment.
So you go, what's the threat?
What do I do to move to safety?
And then so you get the message.
What is the threat?
And then you move to safety is the third step.
So the first step is feel the emotion.
The second step is Get the message behind the emotion.
The third step is change something in response to the emotion.
So, yeah, I see there's a lion walking up.
I get the message, yes.
This lion is on the prowl.
Now I'm gonna run.
And then when I get to a position of safety, I'm gonna let it go,
and I'm gonna go back to Grace.
Horses, as far as I can tell, don't stay up all night
debating why God invented lions.
They just like, oh, The lion's on the prowl.
He's a threat.
Let's run.
They get far enough away, and they get their sentinels up Who are
ready to, you know, protect against the lion, and then they just all
lean down and start grazing again.
It's brilliant.
Yeah.
It
Rupert Isaacson: is.
I've I've I've observed the same behavior in, Hunted deer getting away from
wolves or or or other other predators predator prey things where, Let's
say an animal was pursued quite hard, sometimes was even grabbed but got away.
Sometimes what one will see is a sort of shuddering off of the or the
cortisol, all of the stress hormone.
But then as you say, they don't then go for ten years of therapy.
They return to their previous behavior Pretty quickly.
Right.
So it it it is is the great lesson that we're learning
from horses here resilience?
Linda Kohanov: Yes.
Absolutely.
Resilience.
And they are they are they can also be in states Put in states of learned
helplessness or appeasement or, you know, certain kinds of post traumatic
Stress reactions you'll see in horses.
Right.
But when there's when there's there's a shift in the environment
and a real connection with somebody who truly understands dance, how
to help them move through this.
They generally move through these things much quicker than the average human does.
Yeah.
So they are more
Rupert Isaacson: result.
I would agree.
And and, interestingly, having spent so much time with hunting
and gathering people, I have seen them undergo great trauma.
You can imagine some of the unpleasant things that happen To people in those
situations when other people are trying to come in and get their land and so on.
And what I've observed every time is is is an extraordinary resilience where
they don't lose their quality of life.
They don't use their lose their playfulness.
They don't lose their ability to be happy.
anD you said, well, why not?
You know, this this terrible thing happened to you again.
It's not the first time.
And they're like, well, yes.
But we grew up, you know, dodging elephants and lions, and we do
accept that, yeah, If it reaches a certain point, it becomes
untenable, and we will shut down.
But until that point arrives we will Be resilient.
And I learned much from them because they had at their core of their culture,
if they're lucky, you know, a shaman, A healer who's trained to go into an
altered state of consciousness and, you know, help with this process.
I wonder if in Our society where, of course, you know, we went
through the witch burning centuries.
We sort of put to death anybody who male or female who knew anything about herbs,
let alone could access the spirit world.
And so we broke that tradition.
But having been around, say, not just the Kalahari sun bushmen, but also, you know,
for example, You know, horse and reindeer, shamans in Mongolia, they have this, and
they're using the power of the horse.
Do we have with horses a shaman in our midst?
Do we have a healer in our midst when we're lucky enough to be Part
of a horse culture, even if it's, you know, a sport horse culture in a barn.
And then here's a question.
If we do have this shaman in our midst, if the horses Heal us in this
way, showing us this resilience, walking us between these walls.
How do we not be parasitic on them?
How do we make sure it's symbiotic with all our intense monkey stuff
that we tend to bring to things?
Linda Kohanov: Well, I think you know, horses lure you back Into a deeper
connection with nature and being present.
They're they're transforming us Just from that action alone and causing us
if we if we will sit in the presence of horses and allow them to influence
us, We begin to feel and hear and see things that we're disconnected from,
and so we feel connected to a much larger Vision of the universe that's
fully aware and conscious and, in some sense, benevolent in so many ways.
And We begin to notice things.
And, you know, you just reminded me, and I I was looking this up as you were talking
about You know, because I'm a I was a music major, and I I also bring music
into a lot of the workshops too because it's a form of nonverbal communication.
It opens creativity and Mind body awareness.
But there's all kinds of musical mysticism associated with the fact that
the ancient Greeks were more obsessed With what they called the music of the
spheres, the music of the stars and the planets that's actually you can't really
hear it or Feel it unless you really slow down and become really present.
And they were they were really obsessed with this more than actual music that we
make out of instruments Or with our voice.
And I just saw in this Facebook post recently A reference to the lost
world of the Kalahari, and Lawrence Vander Post was was living amid
the bushmen in the Kalahari Desert.
And He describes how shocked they were that he couldn't hear the stars.
They actually felt really bad for him, like he had some major disability.
And so, I mean, horses lead us back into that deep connection with nature
Where we can begin to feel things we've never noticed before, and then
maybe maybe eventually going into these deeper states where you can actually
hear the music of the stars in the planets and and the first om that
sort of sang the universe into being.
So there's one of these mystical connections the horses are making
for us At any time that we're willing to sit quietly with them.
You know?
We can do things with them, but I think sitting quietly with them is an
important part of Accepting the healing potential they have for us and the
wholeness that they're offering us.
But also I had and I talk about this in my second book, Riding Between the
Worlds, and in my book, Way of the Horse, which is a set of horse wisdom cards.
My one horse, Rasa, who was really my my shamanic horse who led me Into
multiple states of consciousness.
She had twins.
She had twin foals, and we we tried to prevent this.
You're you try to prevent Horses having twins.
But somehow, the whole thing slipped through the cracks, and she ended
up having twins born prematurely.
And one of them was stillborn, And the other one was born so premature
that we had to he needed twenty four hour care for ten weeks.
We had to, like, put him in a sling so So that he wouldn't damage
his legs because he shouldn't have been out of the womb yet.
We had to have him lean up against our body, or he would have seizures because
he wasn't supposed To be out of the womb regulating his own nervous system yet.
We had to milk Rasa and feed this bull who we named Spirit.
And so while I was spending lots of time with this bull I would I would
pretty much spend the night with them, and I would Have this full up against
my body so that my nervous system would would stabilize his, and then
Rasa would literally stand over me in the Oh, and and I would fall asleep.
And then then when I would wake up I would wake up, she would be, you
know, sort of hitting me with her hoof like a mare Sorta hits their full to
get that full to stand up and nurse.
Well, she figured out that it was me who was gonna do it, So then I
would have to get up and milk her and then feed this horse and spirit.
And I started to reflect on the symbology of twins.
And I looked up because I'm you know, us writers, we're
always doing stuff like that.
Right?
So you have a thought, then you have to go research it because
it feels like it's It would be an interesting way to to handle something.
And what I found was twins, particularly male twins, are associated
with horses In multiple cultures.
I mean, it's insane.
Mhmm.
And one of the one of the aspects of twin mythology associated Deed with horses,
is that one one twin dies and connects the living twin to the other world.
And so that it really is It it really is about having the ability to
access twin forms of consciousness.
And, So now when I teach people to go into what we might call
shamanic states, we don't associate it with a particular religion.
I use this horse mythology to talk about accessing the twin forms of
consciousness, the logical earthly twin with a set location in time and space
And that otherworldly twin that can move through walls and move back and forth
through time and space and change form.
And, like, One of the one of the first journeys we do in workshops
where we exercise this ability is we have the person become the horse.
We have their Then connect with this twin form of consciousness and with drumming
and some evocative music, actually have that twin Human form morphed into a horse,
and then you have an adventure as a horse.
And there's a lot of Shamanic traditions in horse based cultures where the shaman
becomes a horse during the trans states.
So, I you know, I've even read where some of the shamans have, like, you know, sort
of rings in their shamanic robe where Somebody holds a pair of reins as they
go into this shamanic state and expand outward into that place where they might
also be ridden by form of spiritual, you know, spiritual presence of some kind.
So, what I think the horses are doing is offering at Every moment
for anybody to learn how to exercise this twin form of consciousness
to go into these shamanic states.
They're not They're not just saying I'm gonna do this for you.
They're saying, let's do this.
Let me show you what you can do.
Let me show you where you can go.
Let me show you how to access this information you're in yourself.
So I think when we when we have the horse not just take the journey for
us, but Teach us how to journey in this way ourselves, then everyone has
the potential to Engage what we would call a shamanic form of consciousness
for all kinds of reasons without necessarily feeling like you you're
gonna over identify as a shaman.
But it just seems like the horses are saying this is a birthright of everybody.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I So What the Bushmen would better than you What the Bushmen have always
said to me is, well, Rue about fifty percent of people or more can heal I.
E.
Access that shamanic state for healing or for hunting and magic or for
Other things that you might need to use it for, plant magic and so on.
However, only a a small minority of people feel a kind of vocational calling
Towards that, and therefore, we'll go on and go through the, you know, many
decades of rigorous training that are required in actually doing it, know,
becoming the shaman for the community.
But I think you're right.
And and something which is interesting from what you say there is you know,
if someone's listening to this I'm thinking, well, I'm not a horse person.
And I think the point that you're making is, yeah, but you don't need to be.
yOu don't need to be a dog person to, Get a benefit from being around dogs.
You do not need to be a musician to access an altered state
of consciousness with music.
Any of us would know that.
You do not need to be a horse person to be able to access this through horses.
However, what one does need because horses are so big and
sometimes, you know, unpredictable, is that one does need a guide.
One does need a a a guardian, a safe keeper To help one interact
with a horse if one doesn't have, quote, unquote, horse knowledge.
Sure.
Another another Of those metaphors in our culture.
Horse sense.
If someone has good horse sense, meaning an ability to to navigate through life
that we we we call it that, don't we?
Horse sense.
And I I I think that there's a real benefit for that.
If you're listening And you've come this far.
You're not a horse person.
You think, well, I wasn't gonna listen to this one, but, well, I've kind of
well, this is all kind of interesting.
Don't think that you need to necessarily be part of the subculture of people that
actually ride horses in order to do this.
But what you do need to do is is reach out to somebody like Linda who knows how
to intercede Between you and the horse.
So that, obviously, you're kept physically safe, but you can then access this.
The word that comes up from his paradoxical.
We talked about miraculous, but also the fact that you have to go against
your own instincts and the horse has to somehow I'll go against their instincts.
And then there's this paradoxical miracle that happens where we can
meet in the middle and actually do things together as awesome human.
In your in the Dalvik quiz, you talk about Pegasus, which is the sort of
ultimate miracle horse, the winged horse, Which is if if that's not a
metaphor for the ultimate of what is possible, you know, what isn't.
You know, Pegasus kinda gets everything right, Even when Zeus
sends the GAD flight to sting him and he dumps Bellerophon who's riding
him, he it's it's it's Perseus Goes to the gods and gets a nice home.
It's Bellerophon who falls into the ocean.
But you talk about Pegasus being born from Medusa's head, which is something
I've noticed before in mythology.
Again, a rather paradoxical thing that Medusa, who is a Gorgon, who is
regarded as the or presented as the sort of destructive element of the
feminine, gives birth upon her death from the hero Perseus, if I'm remembering
it correct, to The miracle horse.
Paradoxically, she gives birth to this miracle male horse.
Pegasus, what's going on in that motif, do you think?
What?
Linda Kohanov: Well, there's a lot of stuff going on there because, also,
The reason the reason she was sort of, quote, unquote, pregnant to begin with
is She was a really beautiful woman.
And Poseidon, who who in Greek mythology created the horse, he he created the
horse to impress another goddess, Demeter, but that's a whole other story.
So Poseidon seduces Medusa And when she's beautiful and then Medusa,
at a certain point, tells everybody that she declares that she's the most
beautiful woman even among goddesses.
And then I think it's Venus that gets pissed off and turns her into the Gorgon.
So that's part of what happened there.
Yeah.
The unfair basically.
Yeah.
Right.
And so, so what you have is a manifestation of of feminine wisdom
in its darkest, most disturbing form, but already being, In some sense,
impregnated by the god of the sea, which is associated with the collective
unconscious and emotion and all of that.
And so then when she when her head is sliced off by Perseus, her
blood drips down to the sea, and I I guess I think it's where it
touches the See that Pegasus arises.
And so, um, there's all these themes that are about integration of of Elements,
you know, the collective unconscious, emotion feminine wisdom, and and Feminine
wisdom in its darkest, most disturbing form, and all of these things coming
together at a certain point to give rise to To this kind of redemptive
transformational figure of pen Pegasus.
And Pegasus is the white winged horse but he's also a companion to the muses.
And the muses are those demigoddesses who, are in control
of different aspects of the arts.
There's a there's a muse for music and a muse for poetry and a muse for novel
writing, probably, and a muse for dance.
And so Pegasus often flies up to Mount Helicon, which
is the mountain of the Muses.
And he hangs out with the Muses a lot When he's not carrying heroes
around for various purposes.
And there's this fascinating myth that's lesser known about Pegasus Is
that up on Mount Helicon, he actually stomps his hoof really hard on the
ground, and this earthquake ensues.
And as the earth opens up, there's this spring of water that comes out of the
center of the mountain of the Muses, And that thereafter is known as the
Hippocrene, which means horse spring.
And that water, as it flows down the mountain, actually becomes nourishing to
Poets and musicians so that people would would climb up supposedly mythologically
to the mountain of the muses.
And if they were having trouble with staring at the blank page, You
would go up and you would sit next to the Hippocrene and drink this
water, and then you would be filled with this incredible inspiration.
So Pegasus is Associated with a lot of paradoxes and bringing them together, but
also associated with Making creativity and inspiration available to humans.
And I've noticed that that is what happens a lot when people
start interacting with horses.
It's like something in that hard, logical, earthly life with that
we've been living that's, like, You know, sort of closed over.
Horses will, like, kinda shake that loose, sometimes in a very gentle way.
And you feel all of a lot of times, people end up Just accessing
this and and and having tears, crying and going, I'm not sad.
And I'm like, no.
It's like the hypocrine rising up, creating an oasis For
creativity and new growth.
And so horses literally have that capacity.
Living horses have the capacity To open up creativity and authenticity in
people and truly change their lives.
Rupert Isaacson: I would agree that, You know, I think any of us who are
equestrians have had more we're lucky people because we've we've we've had
access to more ecstasy, Moments of ecstasy, whether it's oxytocin moving
through our bodies because our hips are rocking, whether it's because
it's you know, that is mixed with adrenaline, you know, and a certain
amount of Low level cortisol as we go into a fence, and then we have this
explosion of energy underneath us.
And one of the things I I I feel is that the horses lend us power.
And I think a lot of people quite rightly outside of the equestrian world
and a bit within, Quite accurately regard a lot of people who are
equestrians as kinda assholes because, unfortunately, Horses make us superhuman.
Right?
They lend us their power.
We're bigger, faster, stronger, more beautiful, all of these
things until we get off.
And then, of course, we're just little monkeys again.
But what we can forget is that the horse has lent us this power.
It's not power that we own.
It's it's we might be able to steward it.
We might be Gifted it, but it's not ours.
But we can behave like it is.
And, of course, with the arrival of interesting with, you know,
equestrianism in its classical form into Europe, which happened, you know,
somewhere in the bronze age came in Through, you know, Anatolia and the
Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia.
It had come down from the areas to the north of that.
It the Mediterranean at that time was not really a horse culture, So, you
know, in terms of like, it had been up in in those early horse areas.
So, we weren't horse tribes Growing up in yurts, you know, with a lot of horses
around us, so it had to be imported.
And the Greeks were the first people to really import it.
When you import something, of course, it becomes, you know, expensive,
And that means it's for the elite.
And we immediately have this association of the mounted man in particular As
warrior elite because, of course, that came in with these Greek city
states, you know, around that time.
It's deep in our consciousness, but it goes back before.
But there's this interesting thing about what it can bring
out in us transformationally, paradox between the worlds, as you
said, riding between the worlds.
As you you're probably aware of the Norse myth where the gods of Asgard
decide they need a wall around Asgard.
And they're deciding, you know, it's gonna cost too much and and who can do this.
Well, I don't know if you can do this with giants, but the giants are our enemies.
How are we gonna do this?
So, anyway, word goes out and someone shows up.
He's a giant in disguise with a this big stallion saying, I can
build you this wall In just one summer with the help of my horse.
And the gods agree, and then they get a bit worried that he looks
like he's Close to finishing because then we're gonna have to pay him.
And Loki says, well, let's make sure we the, you know, the shapeshifter God.
Let's make sure that we mess him up a bit.
So he comes up with the idea of turning himself into a mare.
And so he he changes across the sexes, and he lures the stallion away into
the woods and Makes a stallion mate with him, which, of course, makes the
giant in disguise miss the deadline.
So the giants the the the gods get their war mostly built for
free, Can finish it themselves.
They've outwitted the the the the the giant.
But, of course, Loki goes off and gives birth to an eight legged horse
which becomes Odin's Mount Sleipnir.
And, of course, Thor realizes what Loki's done.
You had sex with the horse, And teases him and taunts him and that and Loki
sort of never forgives him for that.
What I that's an interesting historic, Mythological paradox for me there.
Do you see a relation between that and the this integration of Female
to male energy that's going on with Poseidon and Medusa with Pegasus.
Do horses allow those of us who are feminine to access the masculine,
and they do allow those of us who are masculine To access the feminine.
Do they do this for us, do you think?
Linda Kohanov: They absolutely do that.
And so I I think that's why I called my first book The Tao of Equis because
because They seem to be natural Taoists, and they seem to teach us
things that if you if you go to read the Sound paradoxical, but when you're
with horses, a lot of the things that sound paradoxical in the are actually
things that you engage simultaneously in your interactions with horses.
But another thing that Laozi, whether he was an actual sage or a group
of sages, they're not really sure.
Laozi Ask us to know the yang, but keep to the yin.
Know the masculine, but keep to the feminine.
And whether you're a man or a woman, you have to be able
to do that to be with horses.
You have to know the yang, the masculine active principle, the power principle.
You have to know how to be powerful to be in their presence.
But for the most part, you need to keep to the yin, the feminine,
feeling, connection, mutual support.
And So when you're with horses, you actually learn how to do that.
Men learn how to access the yin, and women learn how to access the
yang and to keep those two In a kind of dynamic balance, of course you
know, according to what's needed.
So that's that's really why I called my book The Tao of Equals.
Rupert Isaacson: We've talked about a horse that is born from a female
male union, I e Perseus, albeit a bit unfair for poor old Medusa
who, you know, as you say, Was, you know, simply targeted by Poseidon.
And then we have some a horse that comes, Ode becomes Odin's horse that
comes from someone changing their gender at least, you know, for enough
time That they can affect that change.
Let's talk about horses that come completely from the feminine.
Epona, The Celtic goddess of the horse.
The Romans arrive in Gaul, we which is now France.
We know that the Romans in the republican era before they were Christianized,
had a policy Rather like the Ottomans did, rather like the Persians did,
of when they conquered people, they would honor the local gods.
They would never force people to, Adhere to their religions with the
occasional exception of you have to honor the emperors of god from time
to time as a way of honoring Rome.
But But as long as you did that and paid your taxes, you know, you can go on.
But the the the Romans, of course, were famous for bringing cults From from their
conquered countries into their into their own culture very successfully, like the
culture of Mithras Among officers in the military which came from Persia.
We we had you know, the cult of Isis was all over the Roman Empire.
The cult of Epona.
They arrive in Gaul.
They smash it to pieces.
They don't behave well in Gaul at all, And yet they absolutely embrace
this Celtic goddess of the horse.
What's going on with Epona?
Well, there's
Linda Kohanov: a whole book now written about the goddess Epona
by a man from The UK, I guess.
Mhmm.
I I just got it in.
But from the research that I had done previously the goddess Epona Well, a
lot of these goddesses or gods that are associated with horses have the
capacity to change from horse form to human form back and forth at will.
So sometimes you see the goddess Epona as a woman, and she's sitting
usually side sideways on a mare.
And there's usually a foal and some of the dog with her.
And so I'm seeing this As, you know, the capacity this is the the ultimate natural
horsemanship idea that this goddess is sitting On this mare that has a foal
at her side in this really vulnerable position, this very peaceful position,
sometimes with a small dog near them.
And for me, it it really is about integrating the predatory and non
predatory power through a feminine archetype, a feminine form of wisdom.
Because The horse is, you know, not a predator.
So being an herbivore and And even though it's very powerful, it has a
lot in common with feminine wisdom.
More sensitive, more feeling oriented, very much Relationship oriented.
I mean, horses are nomadic.
They don't fight over territory.
Relationship is more important than territory.
So There's a lot of feminine wisdom expressed in the horse itself.
And then sometimes The goddess Epona turns into a horse, and
she can turn into a white mare.
And a lot of these, Cults associated with Epona talk about how they would
actually get take a white mare and ask this mare questions, questions,
and the horse would answer yes or no to all kinds of questions.
And I have a theory about why that's possible.
But in any case the you know, as a white mare, she's a benevolent force,
But if you ignore your true feelings and motivations too long she will
sometimes show up in your dreams as This black mare named Melanipe.
And in that form, she's, like, torturing you to sort of give up your, You know,
stubborn adherence to things that that are not true or that are overly egotistical.
So in some sense, she can turn into what would be known as a nightmare to come
and torture you and make you make you out of your Complacency in your egotism.
So there's all kinds of interesting aspects to opponent.
But I think if somebody's really interested in this to look for for
the book, and I don't have it handy.
It's downstairs.
I just got it.
And wildly enough the reason why I ended up Coming to my attention is that somebody
read the book and told me that I was cited in there as a modern priestess of Epona.
And I'm like, Wow.
That's a that's a wild thing to say, particularly since
this author never contacted me.
So, Is this,
Rupert Isaacson: By Mackenzie Cook, Epona, Hidden Goddess of
the Celts by Mackenzie Cook?
That's
Linda Kohanov: it.
That's it.
Okay.
Right.
That's it.
And so, you know, I I do feel at times like I have been possessed
by these glowing archetypes.
There's also the mare headed goddess Demeter.
There's a whole story about her turning into the mare headed goddess.
And I I talk about the mare headed goddess as also an a myth associated
with transformation, particularly from trauma, Particularly from rape.
And you can access this essay about the mare headed goddess in
my book, Way of the Horse, Equine Archetypes for Self Discovery.
It's a book of wisdom cards.
It's a deck of wisdom cards with significant essays.
So if you look in that book, I think it's essay number thirty five or
something on The Marehead a Goddess.
And she's a transformational figure for how transform trauma into strength.
And she gives birth to twins as a result of this rape situation she had.
So there's this twin element there again.
But there were times where I felt like the goddess Epona or the mare
headed goddess, like, ride me hard and possess me and make me give up
things and do things and write Things.
And they ride me hard and put me away wet.
You know?
It's like, you know, please just may I now have a chance to live my life?
You know?
So, I thought cathartic.
Yeah.
Actually, like, cathartic Like, these forces coming in, I I I really feel
like these goddesses are as archetypes, they're like nonmaterial Forms matrixes
of wisdom that in that can engage us Through their stories and myths about
them, but, also, you can really feel sometimes, like, that matrix of wisdom
is coming in and act you can have a direct feeling of being engaged by it.
And even I don't ever feel, like, possessed in the sense of losing my
own personal memories, But I have felt in the sense of feeling ridden by them
in a certain direction that I didn't really feel like going in right now,
that I didn't consider to be practical.
And they wouldn't leave me alone until I actually went in that direction.
And then after I do whatever it is they want then they kinda
leave me alone for for a while.
And I wanna I didn't think I was qualified to write a book, Whatever
it was going to be about horses.
But I just kept being, like, possessed and having this feeling
of write the Write the book.
Write the story.
And I think maybe these matrixes of wisdom, these mythic Matrix of wisdom
from the other world are looking for people all the time who might be receptive
Just to a piece of wisdom they want to bring into the modern world again.
And they some people are receptive but they don't have the skills to
pull it off, And some people aren't receptive and and turn it down.
And for me, I think the thing that happened that made it possible to be
possessed by these Equine archetypes of wisdom is that I had the ability
to write about things that are not normally talked about because I had
been a music critic Where I had to write about things that are beyond words.
And so, um, and I was also completely overtaken by the
magic and the mystery of horses.
And so I think there was a confluence of a calling that a lot of people received
and just my capacity to be able to pull off A certain level of getting this wisdom
Rupert Isaacson: out.
What when did you first become aware of a certain feeling of possession in this way?
Linda Kohanov: I did talk about it in the Dow of Aguas.
I was spending a lot of time with the horses and I was still a music critic
at the time, and I would just I would just come to life when I went out with
the horses, and I was going into this depressive state writing about music.
Okay.
And, I mean, it was a great career to be a music critic and a Music journalist.
I got flown all over the world.
I met all kinds of famous people.
They were sending me their CDs.
They were sucking it up to me because they wanted good reviews.
It's how I met my Steve Roach, who's very well known in the ambient music field.
And but at a certain point, I I would have to drink an entire pot of
coffee just to write a music review.
And yet when I went to the barn, I would have endless energy to ride horses
in hundred degree heat, and I would be filled with all these ideas, and I
would be writing these endless journals.
And so at a certain point, I was, like, following that energy more
and more because it made no sense.
I got my first horse in my thirties.
It didn't make sense for me to become Professional rider or think about going
to the Olympics or something like that.
And so I just started having all these adventures.
And then I started having these where I felt like I was haunted.
And it would just be it would not only be a feeling of Something else
surrounding me, some other kind of energy surrounding me and even
disrupting my coordination at times.
But I would even have horses that would suddenly spook when I
would feel this energy and there would be nothing Happening in the
environment, and I could just be on the ground hanging out with them.
So I ended up going to this intuitive counselor, and I and I
do talk about this in the book.
Her name is Patricia Hirsch, and she had a PhD in psychology, but
she had also studied shamanism, particularly with Hawaiian Shamans,
Hawaiian medicine women in particular.
And so I just thought, you know, Either either she's gonna put me on
medication or check me into a mental ward or whatever, but I'm just gonna
go in and see what's going on, you because it was driving me crazy.
It was keeping me up at night.
I was I was becoming a nervous wreck.
And, So I was just gonna be coy about this for a few sessions, but just
something about the way she was.
I just blurted out, You know, I'm here because I seem to be haunted.
And she goes, oh, okay.
Well, let's take a look at that.
You know?
And I said, I'm not really sure whether this thing is a Product of my imagination.
Am I going crazy, or is it an external force?
Am I really being haunted?
And if I am, is it Is it benevolent or mannevolent?
I just really don't know.
And she said, yes.
You know, these are very serious concerns.
You know, I once let a troubling entity in my life, And and it's more
trouble than you'd ever wanna have.
I mean, she just talked so normally about this experience.
And so Going through this experience, she helped me access my own intuition
and connection to this force.
And at first, we were like, Is this a human?
Is this it seemed to be awakened by and oriented toward the horses.
So I'm like, is this You know?
And I I have a background from Ukraine, and I have, you know, probably even
some Mongolian blood in me too.
So maybe I have, You know, ancestors that were in the early horse
cultures in that region, possibly.
Likely.
I'm like, is this an ancestor?
You know?
But what what we as we kept going deeper and deeper and deeper into it, we realized
that it was that complex of Horse wisdom that I now call the horse ancestors.
And so it was it was like the collective wisdom of the horses.
And and I learned how to access it, and I learned how to use it in different
ways and to teach it to others.
And I also learned how to use it even for problem solving.
So it can even act as, like, a translation program between the
horse mind and the human mind if you access the horse ancestors.
So These are some things that I teach in workshops and some things I talk about in
my books, but I always put it in in the perspective of the fact that it's It's
exemplary of how horses are so that that's It's an embodied spirituality so that
you must be fully present and capable of being in this world and, at the same I'm
accessing these other forms of wisdom.
Over time, I've seen that horses I can't tell whether they're really
good at moving back and Fourth between these twin forms of consciousness,
the fully present in this world and spiritual sources, let's say, Or if
they are in both simultaneous tell.
But either way, they are helping us to learn how to do that too.
Yeah.
I would
Rupert Isaacson: I would I I agree.
I think I find that when one is around horses in any way,
Riding with them, doing it.
What is one doing but solving problems?
You know, when you're going across when you're simply balancing yourself on
on the horse is pro solving a problem.
Getting across country on a horse is solving a problem.
Figuring out how to get the poo through the mud onto the wheelbarrow so that
the Wilburra doesn't tip and tip all the poo into the mud and get it up onto
the top of the muck keep and do that.
That's a problem.
And and one is constantly Faced with these interesting but entirely absorbing
Because if you don't solve this problem, you can't get to the next thing of where
you're trying to get to with the horse.
As you say, horses carry us.
I want to bring you back to something you said.
You you said when when people were consulting these white mayors in
in the Gaulish Celtic shrines.
And the they would ask the mare almost like an oracle.
You said you had some theories about how they might have interpreted What the horse
did or didn't do for getting their answer.
What tell tell tell me your theory there.
What what do you feel was going on?
Well,
Linda Kohanov: it actually doesn't take that long to explain.
So here's the thing.
As I mentioned earlier That there's been studies that you can read about in the
book Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman that show that when you're Suppressing an
emotion, and I would say also a thought or a perspective or a desire or whatever.
When you suppress something like that, it Takes extra energy to hold it down, and
it causes your blood pressure to rise.
And it all causes the blood pressure of others interacting with you to rise also.
That's been proven.
This happens to people unconsciously all day long.
When you make something that's unconscious conscious, Whether it's an
emotion that you're finally saying, yes.
I actually am afraid, or if you're saying, I actually don't
want to become an attorney.
I'd rather be an artist.
Whatever it is, Whenever you bring up the thing that's been suppressed,
it causes your blood pressure to drop even before you've Even
before you solved it in any way.
You know?
That's why when the young lady who was crying, the horse walked away.
And when she was Accessing the anger underneath it, the horse came back to
her and surrounded her and comforted her.
How did the horse tell the difference between those two?
And I think it has to do with this nervous System activation.
When you're suppressing something causes your blood pressure to rise.
When you access it consciously, your blood pressure drops, And it's
gonna drop in the horse too, and the horse will often show that.
I see this.
You've seen it, where when a person accesses an authentic feeling or
thought Or calling, the horse will lower their head and lick and chew and sigh.
Mhmm.
I see it all the time.
So I think that's what was going on Okay.
Is that people would come and ask The worst questions about and it
was always yes or no questions.
And they would say the horse would indicate through their behavior
whether it was a yes or a no.
So I think a no would just be a horse standing there looking stoically,
you know, or maybe walking away.
And a yes would be the worst lowering their head and licking and chewing.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Maybe yawning.
Yeah.
I I could see that.
Here's another question back to the idea of paradox.
So goddess Epona as you say, depicted usually in a peaceful Manna.
Why would then the goddess Epona get co opted by the Roman military To the
point that pretty much every cavalry unit where they found Archaeological
evidence that there was a cavalry barracks in a certain place.
They always had after after the conquest of Gaul, they always had
an altar to Epona, And they also would have an altar to the spirits
of the Of the training ground.
If you like the we we have this even in American high schools, like school spirit.
Like, the but they they regard them as actual spirits.
And right near where I live in Germany, they're actually and up
on Hadrian's Wall in England too.
They found round pens From Roman cavalry units where they were, you
know, training the horses almost always with altars to Epona close by.
So they've now taken this feminine Thing.
I guess you're right.
There's also the the darker feminine, the the black man who might come psychically.
But then male, and we know that the Roman military was hyper male.
Energy takes this and co opts it for the use of cavalry.
And in their universe, they they do it successfully To the point
that they promote it as a motif, you know, through the regiments.
What do you think is going on there?
Again, we're we're talking about paradoxical natures and forming a yin
and yang, but that's really quite almost quite violent, quite a violent co opting.
And why would the horse ancestors or the The eponymous spirit, if
you like, allow that to happen if we believe that there's a certain
animus In these motifs within yeah.
What what what's your theory there?
I'd be interested to know.
Well,
Linda Kohanov: The Romans believed in gods and goddesses and would often reach
out to a certain goddess for protection.
I think that's pretty much all they were doing.
You know, protection for not just themselves, but
protection for their horses.
She would certainly be protecting the horses.
Mhmm.
So they would be invoking the goddess for protection for For
themselves and their horses.
And the reason why Agadus I from my perspective, I mean, I can't I
can't really speak for something that complex and spiritually
oriented and ancient beyond belief.
But the feeling is is that, you know, you guys are running through your
adolescent fantasies of of power.
And If you invoke me and you start to listen to me and you start
to open up to me, I'm going to help shift that and balance that.
So, you know, um, I would say that that would that might be her motivation.
It would be, first of all, to truly protect the horses.
You know?
So if they're invoking her and putting up you know, tributes
to her and statues to her.
She's, at the very least, gonna protect the horses.
There's no question.
But I think also this feminine archetype of Transformation.
She's a she's a an archetype of transformation.
And so what she would be doing is seeing how what an in she can get to to help to
Rupert Isaacson: ship things.
Yes.
I I could when you were saying that war goddess mounted war
goddess came into my mind.
She was the Valkyries.
You know, the Valkyries come down To choose the slain
from the Norse battlefields.
If you died with your sword in hand, they'll take you up on their
horses to Valhalla, to Odin's hall.
I sometimes think that, actually, my wife, Ileana, moonlights for Odin on
Sundays sometimes and goes around the same battlefields and Takes them up
to it, but she's a bit dark on the subject, but I suspect she does do it.
And There is a warrior goddess who you're not invoking the
Valkyries for success in battle.
You're invoking the Valkyries for transformation from the
battlefield to the next stage.
I wonder if and, of course, as you I think you're dead right that if you're
a cavalry unit, you would absolutely want protection for your horses.
Otherwise, you can't operate.
Right?
If your horses are Not doing well.
You your your your military kit is not working.
But beyond that, if you're a cavalryman, You have a connection to your horses.
So there's always going to be an aspect of the feminine there
whether you like it or not.
There's going to be.
Is what Epona is doing in in that regard a sort of sneaky way
in to say to these guys, look.
You may or may not have even chosen to be here because God knows every soldier
that shows up on a battlefield is not elected to be there by any means at all.
But, yeah, here you are.
Let's make the best of the situation, and at the very least, Convey you to
the to the next world to the or to the next stage in a way that brings peace.
Is it, again, is it paradox?
Is it the peacemaker within the war machine?
Is that what Epona's doing?
Linda Kohanov: I would say the latter.
That's that's what resonates inside of me, and that's what causes my
hard to expand when you say that.
Yeah.
And, you know, they're the horses themselves appear to be, you
know, They it's like they've been waiting for centuries for
us to work out our adolescent fantasies of power and conquest.
Mhmm.
And and, You know, I happen to say that now that they're no longer obliged to work
in our fields and carry us to war, they're finally free To do something arguably
more important, and I believe it was their mission from the beginning, work on us.
And So and I think part of that involves rebalancing, helping us know the yang,
but keep to the yin, as Laozi would say.
Bring the feminine wisdom back in.
Understand how to be powerful, but also be nonpredatory at the same time.
That's a huge piece of horse wisdom.
And you know, that physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional balance that you
learn when you become a really fine rider, This is like them working on you for sure.
You know, you you you transform from the inside out if you
become a truly great rider.
And it's just it it it is almost like you know, when they talk
about the horse in multiple myths as being a gift from the gods.
It's like they they were a gift from the gods, and we didn't
really know what to do with it.
And and yet they've been accompanying us for for centuries And enduring
our ridiculous exploits, but always there, always there, always there
just waiting For us to be open to this new form of consciousness that
they would love for us to step into.
Rupert Isaacson: It's it's very interesting, you know, with the the
method that we've evolved working with autistic children, which we call horse
boy method, which evolved Simply out of me observing that when I had my son in
front of me when he was very young and he was nonverbal, the more collected,
Softly collected the rhythm of the horse, the more communication I got.
And I didn't know why until I went to talk to, Neuroscientists about it and
have them explain that what was going on was hip rocking, creating oxytocin,
oxytocin being The feel good hormone calming down the nervous system, but
also the hormone of communication.
And he was just being flooded with this and, oh my gosh.
Okay.
That's wonderful.
But what's intriguing to me, again, paradoxically, is that the training system
that we use to bring this, Collection, this movement of the center of gravity
under where the rider sits with the hind legs coming forward To create this hip
rocking, blissful feeling is, of course, training the horse for the light calorie.
And and it occurred to me that we were using a system that was
designed to harm your fellow man.
Now because of this oxytocin byproduct to heal your fellow man, But the
horse was an innocent either way.
The horse could lend its power to one whichever way one decided to go with that.
And this humbled me massively because it made me realize how Generous horses.
Ah.
And I I wonder what do you feel about this?
We we we talked about higher self earlier.
I feel that this generosity that horses have with humans Allowing
us to, as you say, our silly monkey adolescent fantasies, you know,
projected through Millennia of conquest, not just a few years of our
human history, and yet they've been patient with us, you know, and given
us all this bliss and all this joy.
Do you feel that they bring out generosity in the human heart?
Linda Kohanov: I do.
And, also, equanimity.
You know, this this ability to be present with what's happening
And to move through it with some level of agility I mean, horses are
very much like Jay Krishnamurti.
He was a famous sage who was discovered in India.
And, Later in life, he went around the world doing lectures on mindfulness and
various forms of spirituality and was very revered as almost Supernatural teacher.
And he was at a lecture one time in Europe, I think it was.
And People were asking questions.
And finally, he said, you know, do you wanna know my secret?
And everybody was like, oh, good.
We signed up for the right lecture because he's gonna tell us his Secret.
And he said, I don't mind what happens.
That's an extreme state of equanimity.
No matter what's It's happening.
I'm present with it.
I can but, also, I I feel like it's it can also be seen as a plan words.
I don't mind what's happening Would be I'm not exclusively in the thinking
brain about it either because his his a lot of his teachings was about going
beyond words, going into the Power of what you can learn by being silent
and how you can listen in silence.
And so when you see horses, They have more of that attitude.
I don't mind what happens.
I don't mind if you're angry.
I just want you to know that you are.
I don't mind that you're, you know, that you're traumatized.
I let me let me help you Calm your nervous system.
You know?
I don't mind that Rowan is autistic.
I don't mind that Rowan is throwing these tantrums.
Let me come over.
I'm with you.
I don't mind it.
You're okay, Rowan.
You know?
And I just feel like they do that all the time.
And so they show how The the supreme generosity of horses
is is godlike in a way in which there's nourishment for everybody.
Everybody's welcome on the Earth.
Everybody's welcome.
We're we're working with you.
We're trying to help you out here, But we're not taking sides here.
And a lot of people recently are constantly making the case that God is
on their side and not the other side.
But, you know, maybe God is more horse like in the sense that yeah.
So I'm I'm Leading Romans on my back here, and I'm, you know, with the Buddha,
and I'm, You know, helping somebody who's very poor plow their fields.
And and the whole time, just waiting for people to wake up and notice And not
using them as tools, but to say, hey.
Can I learn some of that equanimity?
Can I learn how to be authentic And not mind what happens in the
paradoxical sense of that word?
Beautifully
Rupert Isaacson: put.
Alright.
As we approach the end of this conversation, because
I'd like to have you back on.
I've got a lot of questions that are coming To mine.
So if you'd be I could love to come
Linda Kohanov: back on.
I'd love talking with you.
Rupert Isaacson: I'd love to have a round two.
And and there's gonna be a ton of questions from people.
And I've got plenty of my own, which I I just wanna keep going with it.
Here here's a question, though, back to the Live Free, Ride Free idea.
You when you were a little girl Dreaming about horses.
By the way, what state was that?
What state were you brought up in where you would Ohio.
You're in Ohio, and Then you would you would sneak off to where this
trainer had a yard but you didn't find your way to horse ownership
until you were in your thirties.
But you found your way there because you gave yourself a certain economic stability
through music, which a lot of people would say is Itself you know, not an easy way
to find your way to economic stability.
What allowed you To imagine life and a career with the
arts And then with the horse.
And bring that to reality.
This started before horses were reaching out through you or
perhaps they were the whole time.
But, yeah, there's there'll be listeners out there going,
how do I become Linda Konov?
Or how do I become my own version of Linda Konov?
What would you say to them?
What what what what's the most important stages of the journey that bring you
from the little girl Dreaming to the lady sitting being interviewed today.
Linda Kohanov: I think part of it was a trajectory that feels designed for
me to develop some Skills even though it didn't seem to have my own it it was
like things happen that were beyond my wildest dreams when I sort of submitted
to Certain directions that didn't feel like the right direction at times.
Mhmm.
And one of those was that Yeah.
And just feeling like you're you're being guided in some sense even though it
seems like you're being taken off track.
And I realized that those times that I got taken off Track.
I had to go off track and learn something that I needed later for my true purpose.
And one thing I mean, the reason why I ended up being a music major is It's
because my parents thought it was more reasonable to to be a music major than
it was to do anything with horses.
So they were, like, picking the lesser of two evils.
It's like, You know?
Yeah.
Get get her interested in music.
And also, I got a full scholarship in college to be a music major.
And they were like, please take the scholarship.
You know?
And and then I became a music critic and then met my husband through through music.
And, And then what happened was, interestingly enough, music and
horses have always been tied together.
So to buy my first Arabian mare, Rasa, who became my greatest teacher and
the one who really started this work I had to sell my viola and most of
my CD collection to By that horse.
And so then I had all these adventures with her, and then I got
an advance to write the Dao of Equis.
And so when I got that advance, I used it to buy another viola.
And then through all of these years, learning how to be with the horses
and interact with the horses and dance with the horses and breathe
with the horses and learn all of these stress reducing techniques.
It actually brought me back into being able to play and
compose at a whole new level.
So the horses and the music have always been interacting in this very odd way,
and it's fun now to To be in a field where I'm bringing the two together.
We just did a workshop last week, a four day workshop called Not a Brahma, the
universe's sound, And it brings in some of the mystical aspects of music, the
self development and healing aspects of music along with work with the horses.
And there were mostly people there who didn't know anything about horses,
and they were amazed at how the horses opened them up and shifted things So
that they could actually step forward and play at a much more beautiful level.
Even if they weren't musicians themselves, Somehow the work with
the horses gave them even the courage to begin to to make music together.
So somehow the two are truly Interacting all the time for me.
Well,
Rupert Isaacson: I guess I guess what lies at the at the core of
Riding and training horses' rhythm.
Right?
We have to be able to match the horse's rhythm.
We have to be able to it's an emotional rhythm, but there also
has to be a physical rhythm.
Yeah.
One two three four for the walk, one two one two for the trot, one two
three one two three for the cancer.
And these have to be predictable enough to our training system that
we can then do things with them and not be surprised by arrhythmic things
that might, as you say, leave us in the dust or, at the very least, Break
the activity we're trying to do.
And if one thinks of all these musical motifs around horses the the shaman's
drum, you know, the round drum, the in Celtic traditions, which is A galloping
horse Baroque music, which was designed to be Done to these equestrian shows
with the horses, you know, performing in this way in front of Versailles and
these other, you know, palaces of Europe.
The music and horses, it's it's been a concurrent theme and rhythm forever.
Yet at the same time, What comes in what comes into my head is this
also this relationship with horses and dream And the imagination.
And it resonates with me very much that there was this little
girl in Ohio . Who was dreaming.
Although I can absolutely see the Connection between music and rhythm
with the human horse connection and the adventure that we've gone
on over the centuries with that.
It seems to me that this vehicle horses lending themselves to
our dreams, our aspirations, our fantasies, our Well, for good or ill.
But, yeah, this thing of dream.
And there there was this little girl in Ohio Who was dreaming.
And she was dreaming of these animals that seemed to have this ability to Bring
one into dream and then bring one out of dream with dreams somewhat manifest.
Is this something which if someone was to come on your courses,
for example, they could learn how to tap into it and, Harness.
There's another horse motif.
Linda Kohanov: Yes.
Exactly.
Absolutely.
That's that's that's The purpose of what I teach I mean, I don't really I mean, I
I teach emotional and social intelligence and leadership skills to equestrians that
help their Riding and training at times.
But most of what I do is we work with horses to teach advanced human development
skills to people whether or not they've ever thought about horses before.
And and we also bring in, you know, creativity, and we bring in emotional
intelligence skills and And leadership skills because, you know, here's the
thing, is that once you access your true calling and Your authentic goal in life.
A lot of times to manifest that, you need to be able to step into
a leadership role If you're gonna manifest it in any meaningful way.
And so a lot of times, we teach also some some leadership skills through
working with horses so that people who dream big dreams and access those dreams
learn how to then and and be a leader in maybe a new field they're creating
or a new company they're creating.
So and that was one of the things that, you know, was kind of disturbing
to me when when I wrote these books, About what horses have to teach people
is that now all of a sudden, I I'm in I'm in a leadership role if I'm
gonna take it to any certain level.
I need staff people.
I need, you know, Promotional people, I need when people come to
see me, I need to be able to manage whatever they're going through.
And but the horse has taught me how to be a leader in a completely different
way than the way you normally see it in a conquest oriented mentality.
So so there's so much to learn from them, and I'm just so excited to be in this
field that I actually Helped to bring into form just like you with your horse
boy programs, and, certainly, Rowan was was there to help that Happened as well.
And and I feel that way about my horse, Rasa, who actually She was wounded.
She had a condition in her right back stifle that made it hard to ride her.
And because I was knocked off my high horse and had to relate
to her on the ground, That's what created this whole field.
So a lot of times, it's someone who appears to be wounded that is actually
the one who's leading us into a Whole new area of experience and innovation.
I would
Rupert Isaacson: agree.
The wounded weather light shines in.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I and I I've had a couple of horses that could no longer be ridden who
taught me how to work in entirely different ways And allowed me to see
that as metaphors for other areas of my life where perhaps I was stuck,
only seeing things in a certain way.
So listen, Linda.
People are gonna want to know the books, and they're gonna want to know
how to come on one of your courses.
And I presume they're gonna have to travel to Arizona to come on one of your courses.
Is that right?
Or can they do them they can also do them online, I think.
So talk us Yes.
Yes.
What what people need to know, what should they read, in what order, and then how
do they Come on one of your courses.
How do they contact you?
How do they do it online?
How do they do it in person?
Linda Kohanov: Well, luckily, I I have trained instructors all over the world,
and there are Honequest instructors, or We also have a leadership model called
the five roles of a master herder.
So some of them are master herder instructors or Power of the
herd instructors that have more of a leadership orientation.
Eponaquest instructors are really more of a personal development orientation.
And, also, I was able to create these online courses so that, you
know, if you can't travel anywhere right now or you you're just
not ready to go out with Horses.
You can learn these skills with inspirational stories and videos from
the horses, but it's really about taking it directly to the human world.
So my online courses are available on a website called linda kohanov dot com.
And The other courses that are about doing workshops would mostly be on
my Website, eponaquest dot com, named after the quest I've been on with the
goddess Epona, eponaquest dot com.
And you'll see not only workshops that I'm doing on there, but you'll see a
list of instructors throughout the world.
And you can con you can find somebody in your region and call that, Contact that
person and see if they're doing private or group work or workshops anytime soon.
sO If, you know, if you're if you're really curious about which way you
should go I would say just I can I can give you my direct Email?
And you can always just write a note and just say, hey.
This is my interest.
What do you think I should do?
I'm located here.
How do I you know, what do you what would you recommend for me to sign up for?
So I email?
Yeah.
Direct email.
It's it's named after my horse, Rasa.
So that's r as in Ralph, a as in apple, s as in Sam, a as in apple.
Rasa At eponaquest dot com.
So that's e, p as in Paul, o, n as in Nick, a q u e s t dot com.
Rasa at eponaquest dot com.
And you can go to epona quest dot com and just kinda, like, look at
the workshops that are coming up.
And then the online courses are at linda kohanev dot com.
But if you go to upon request dot com, there is a link there that will take
you to that online course page too.
So
Rupert Isaacson: Super.
Now I'm gonna I'm gonna read those off again in a moment so people who didn't
have a pen handy can hear them again.
So don't worry.
People don't panic.
The books in order, Tower of Equest.
Then
Linda Kohanov: riding
Rupert Isaacson: between the worlds.
Riding Then between the worlds.
Yes.
Then?
Linda Kohanov: Then Way of the horse way of the horse.
It's a deck of horse wisdom cards with a significant book that goes with it.
Right.
Then the power of the herd, and then finally, the five
roles of a master herder.
The five roles.
Yes.
Of a master herder.
And this is actually something you and I might wanna have fun talking about
because I would love to hear your experiences with these nomadic tribes,
the horse tribes, and the reindeer tribes.
I took this leadership model from studying those nomadic pastoral cultures
throughout the world in different ways, and I saw that they Actually use five
roles of power and social influence to to deal with these animals that many of
whom are loose quite a bit of the time.
Yes.
Absolutely.
And so Leader leader is just one of five roles of power and social influence.
And so I learned that if we're going to influence It's groups of free empowered
people as all the old fences of social controls are falling down, that we could
actually learn a lot from this model based on those nomadic pastoralists.
I mean, We could have such a conversation on that, and I would be asking
you a bunch of questions for sure.
I'd
Rupert Isaacson: love it.
There's there's someone else I'm thinking of that I I would Involve in it.
Here's my friend, Jumanda Haklebone, who is from Botswana.
He's he's Bushman.
And that particular clan in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve are known for
their horsemanship, and they're known for having sort of adopted and co opted
horses in the same way that, say, the Comanche did and really created a sun
bushman horse culture To the point that I took in fox hunting in Virginia.
And he could ride anything, and he could bring you know, I had a lot of, you
know, White blue blooded fox hunters.
They're going, really?
We're gonna give the horse to this guy?
Like, believe me, he's gonna bring this horse in better than it went out.
And they absolutely didn't how they access the shamanic and how they how they Co
opted all their wild herbs that they use for all their other medicinal purposes
for the horse before they really knew that even without really knowing the horse
and how they created this horse culture.
It's it's it's interesting stuff.
But, look, there's so many questions just generally.
I I think we gotta have a a round two.
Linda Kohanov: Absolutely.
And if you wanna bring your friend in on this too, I mean, that would be thrilling.
It would.
I mean,
Rupert Isaacson: we might not be able to get him on live, but maybe what we can do
is post some questions to And and and get him get him there because who knows where
he is in the Kalahari at any given time.
I see.
Okay.
He'll usually he'll usually answer a WhatsApp at a certain point
when he's At a place where he has it's it's it's it's it's an
extraordinary world we live in now.
You have, you know, people living effectively hunter gatherer
lifestyles with cell phones.
You know?
It's it's We're at an interesting crossroads of our culture.
Okay.
So for everybody listening, start with the Tower of Equus, Then it's riding
between the worlds, then way of the horse, then the power of the herd, And
then the five roles of a master herder.
If you want the online courses, linda kohanov dot com.
L I n d a k o h a n o v dot com.
If you're looking for the live courses, whether in your area or
in Arizona where she is, Hopefully.
I'm sure there's a big waiting list.
Eponaquest dot com, e p o n a q u e s t dot com.
And if you wanna send her your questions r a s a, rasa, At epona quest dot com.
Is there anything that you'd like to add before we close out round one?
Linda Kohanov: No.
I'm just so grateful to be able to connect with you.
And your your story has been so moving to me over the years, and I had an
opportunity just to meet up with you at At Warwick Schiller's conference.
And I got to meet Rowan, and I think you might have seen how in shock I
was at what An outstanding young man he's turned out to be in so many ways.
So I found that so moving, and I'm just so happy to to meet up with you
and have these great discussions.
So thank you so
Rupert Isaacson: much.
Well, thank you.
You know, that that makes me think, actually, you know, for
round two, we should absolutely ask Rowan Some questions.
That would be fun.
Because he has he does have a really interesting connection to horses.
While by no means being The obsessive horseman that I am at
all, and yet he has this connection.
It's it's to and not just a horse.
It's all animals.
It's it's really extraordinary.
So, yeah, maybe we should think up some questions, and and he might
even come on live, see how he feels.
He'll actually be yeah, he'll be he'll be here in a couple of days.
Listen.
Linda, I'm so grateful.
I I know that I'm gonna be emailing you to Come out to Arizona.
I can't I would love that.
So please let's talk about that.
And, Obviously, if you come want to come to Germany and play with our ponies here
in the forests of Hessen, please do.
Linda Kohanov: mAybe in a Maybe in a year or two, I might come back to Europe.
So Please.
Rupert Isaacson: Door is wide open anytime.
buT listen.
We I'm very grateful.
This has been extremely informative inspirational.
I know that All of the listeners, whether they're horse people or not, will have
walked away from hearing you with The Doorways Between the Worlds opened.
So I thank you for that.
Thank you.
And I look forward to the next time.
Me too.
This is the hardest thing.
I'm gonna hit that red button, but let's let's talk further and
try to arrange the round too.
And everybody who's listening, By all means, send your questions to me.
By all means, send your questions to Linda, and we will endeavor
to answer them on round two.
Linda, thank you.
Excellent.
Alright.
Thank you.
thank you for joining us.
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