Architectural Salvage and The American Barn: Recycling or Robbery?

In my days in the bowels of Detroit the architectural scalpers came in waves, a clear pecking order.  The professionals and their lackeys removed the most valuable artifacts first: the church windows.  These went straight to New York, some to Europe.  Then the hardware and iron work, remnants of Detroit in its ‘Paris of the Midwest’ days, walked away in the night.  Whatever could be sold in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to architects, interior designers and yupsters who rarely asked for the source or any kind of documentation, gone.  Eventually, long after the hired pickers had exhausted their hunger, in came the hungry….the  bottom of the pecking order: the homeless, the drunks,  the addicts pulling copper wiring, plumbing…anything not of bedrock that could be sold in bulk. The efficiencies of urban salvage are breathtaking in a city like Detroit.

Out in the arid fields and derelict farmsteads of the Midwest the racket is a familiar one for me.  Different setting, same ugliness. They come at all times, day and night.  Chainsaw, rope, crowbar, pick up truck.  Crossing fallow fields, ignoring rusted No Trespassing signs, their bounty a treasure hundreds of years old.   It’s the wood they want: Virgin Oak, Hemlock and Ash.  Virgin Yellow Pine and Red Pine without a knot to be found…smooth as honey.  Virgin timber post & beam barns by the thousands, standing like cathedrals in the fields.  The American icons upon which a nation was built.

Like any market, its supply and demand and throughout the 1990’s the demand for virgin timber was high.   I once sat and listened to an out of work blacksmith brag of his triumphs: he and his crew could pull a barn, load it and drive it west where it would easily claim a bounty of $70,000 or more.  So proud he was of his ingenuity, his little dent in the world of rural capitalism.  He was gittin his.   Most of it went West..into the desert manses where the aesthetic called for big, strong and timeless.  Today, one can go online and buy salvaged virgin timber hand-hewn beams for cosmetic application in new or existing construction. I have heard of timber sellers hiring men with axe and adze who then spend hours hacking away at beams to make them look ‘authentic’.  And the buyer knows no better.  I do.

There is a keen difference between recycling and stealing.  A fine line exists between the two in the food chain life of architectural salvage.

-Break-

I have just taken a call from a woman here in Michigan whose father has contracted with a timber-scalper-posing-as-contractor to ‘remove for free’ the family barn built three generations ago.  She was to inherit the barn.  Frantic, she was looking for any support I could give her in convincing her father to save the barn and stop piecing it out for nothing.  The pillaging of these American icons continues across the heartland as I write…

-resume copy-

When a barn is unethically salvaged ie; dismantled/pulled down and pieced out as scrap what is lost is the artifact as a unified, functioning example of a structural form.  In other words, a standing true post & beam frame in its entirety is the artifact, one that only exists as a sum of its parts.  Dismantled, it exists no longer.  Therein lies the difference between the architectural salvage of a church window and the salvage-for-materials of a barn.  The church window will go on, albeit out of context.  The barn? gone.

-Break-

I just received the phone call..a cease and desist order is being issued against the timber scalper posing as contractor who was in the process of dismantling the 3rd generation family barn mentioned earlier.  Thanks to one phone call made by the daughter, I was able to give her enough information which she then relayed to her father, information which lead to a change of heart on his part toward the barn.

-resume copy-

While the recycling of materials is a responsible endeavor, it is critical that those salvaging timber from historic barns come to understand the ramifications of their actions, however noble they may feel them to be.  The stripping and piecing of barns does not reside in the realm of environmental recycling, it resides in the realm of culturally unethical architectural salvage.

Detroit Up: Plantation Journalism?

I have watched with mixed emotion as a posse of corporate media giants ride into town, plant a flag and commence reporting on their findings to the world beyond. (See Assignment Detroit at www.time.com/Detroit) The world beyond is expected to stop worrying the Depression/Lite, the war(s), politician’s wandering groins, the terrorists and the fact that we are melting and pay rapt attention to… to…. Detroit?  Got news for ya, they didn’t care then and they certainly don’t care now.  Which is ok, that’s the way its always been and it has not stopped Detroiters from doing what they have always done: keep on keepin on.  Which they will surely do after media central sells its manse in West Village.

Niagara www.NiagaraDetroit.com

I admit I was a bit gushy at the thought of my beloved city finally getting its fifteen minutes of fame.  So what if it turns out to be a 12 month urban colonoscopy, viewed live by millions.  Who would of thought Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom would have had a 25 year run on network TV?  One never knows what folks will tune into.  My gush gut passed quickly however as I realized that this might indeed be one more heartbreak for a city that spends more time explaining itself to those on the outside than any other metropolis on earth.

Plantation Basketball…

Once upon a time a young kid in Detroit could buy a ticket and head into a stadium within walking distance or a short bus ride from his or her home and watch the Detroit Pistons run the court.  Then one day the hometown team left home, predominantly black Detroit, and moved to the predominantly white suburbs.  The team moved into a shiny new stadium known as The Palace, far away from where Jr. lived.  They were kind enough to keep their name though: the Detroit Pistons.  The Auburn Hills Pistons is just not as intimidating now is it?  While we NEVER talk about the elephant in Detroit’s living room, racism, and its cousin reverse racism, I will now.  And I wish I could recall who coined the phrase but we in the city affectionately referred to basketball in the ‘Palace’ of Auburn Hills from that day forward as Plantation Basketball:  A bunch of white folks watching black folks work.

Plantation Governance…

Doesn’t stop there.  Detroit elected its first Black Mayor in 1974, Coleman Young originally from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  The Coleman ran the roost.  And the band of brothers from the ‘burbs ran him…or so they thought.  Today, the ‘old white guys’ still hold the strings of the city and call the shots.  Titans of Industry and commerce, the likes of the Taubmans and the Fords, are the ones who truly have run Detroit over the years.  And most Mayors and City Council members have abided by them.

Plantation Journalism?

Time will tell if this new endeavor to explore and accurately convey the intensely complex terrain of Detroit is truly objective. Will it be sensitive to the local idioms of a remarkable city, its history and its dreams? Will it r-e-s-p-e-c-t those who have given blood sweat and tears to make Detroit a damn great place to live, work and create?  Will it be bold enough to leave the current globally spewed ‘Detroit’ news frame on the far side of Eight Mile?

Copyright 2009   Nancy Kotting    All rights reserved, reproduction by permission only. Please email:  NancyKotting@gmail.com

Green Housing? Try an Old Barn/Part 2

Please note: the Category ‘Barn’ here at Watapama has been relocated to its own Blog: http://therealbarnblog.wordpress.com/

Green Housing? Try An Old Barn

Please note: the Category ‘Barn’ here at Watapama has been relocated to its own Blog: http://therealbarnblog.wordpress.com/

9/11: Moving from Conspiracy Theory to Developing Story

It is Wednesday September 9, 2009 and like many of you perhaps, I am thinking about Tuesday September 11, 2001.

Based on the facts that now stand, I believe the destruction of lives on 9/11 in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania was in fact  the secondary horror.  It now appears that the role of our own Government may indeed be the primary horror in this modern day twist on evil.  Exhausting as the thought may be, there remains a festering around this event in the American psyche that is relevant, and pressing.  Like all wounds to the psyche, individual or across populations, we must go back down into it, raise it to a conscious level and remove it so that we may move on.  The key to healing and using the wisdom of pain in building happiness is the complete, thorough and infinite revelation of Truth.

Before you sigh and say to yourselves, ‘oh great… another slide into the rabid,  foaming-mouth conspiracy theory..ho hum..not credible..but perhaps I will be entertained so I will read on….’ Let me gently point out that there comes a point in time when what was correctly defined ‘conspiracy theory’ ceases to be such and becomes in journalistic terms a ‘developing story’.  With regards to the cause and responsible perpetrators of 9/11, that time has arrived.

In order to conquer evil, we must have the courage to fathom it.  And until we muster this courage, evil at the societal level is often cloaked as ‘conspiracy theory’…a convenient tool to preserve our very sanity. By definition, a conspiracy theory is a belief that some  influential organization, acting covertly, is responsible for an unexplained event. The term is often used dismissively in an attempt to characterize a belief as outlandishly false and held by a person judged to be less than credible or a group confined to the outer edges of political culture.  Likewise, by labeling an act of horror a ‘conspiracy theory’ we give ourselves permission to remain in the comfort of denial.  We give ourselves permission to look the other way.  The role of denial in protecting the psyche of the individual from trauma, the acknowledgment of which has the potential to overwhelm and literally destroy the organism, is understandable. This phenomena of denial is prolific in mass psychology just as it is in individual psychology.  A temporary state of denial serves an invaluable purpose: it prolongs the recognition of truth by our minds long enough for our hearts to prepare for change.  A permanent state of denial however destroys any prospect of true happiness by denying us the wisdom of failure.  Until we could as a species fathom 6 million incinerated in the Holocaust, it remained in the realm of  ‘conspiracy theory’.  Until we could fathom the twists and turns of Iran-Contra, it remained in the realm of  ‘conspiracy theory’.  Classifying horror as ‘conspiracy theory’ renders it easy for us to dismiss what we simply cannot stomach, nor have the courage to face.  At least for the time being.

Those who stand to be harmed by truth work diligently to get the crime labeled ‘conspiracy theory’ in mainstream media with its current culture of nano-second citizen journalism.  Once the mantle is on it, most main stream media 9 to 5′ers will not touch it.  It is the nature of 89% of the population to gravitate toward conformity, linking such to survival.  To leave the herd means certain death so one must constantly fold back into the boundaries set by the herd as acceptable.  To step out and risk being associated with ‘fringe’ or ‘radical’ or whatever, is not going to happen.  I burden you with this elementary lesson in instinct simply because it operates x100 when you are employed in media, particularly in these times of an instant global access by millions to ones words.  It is up to the other 11% of us to walk into dark waters knowing damn well we may walk alone for a while.

What differentiates a conspiracy theory from a developing story?  Simple: Conspiracy Theories are seldom supported by any conclusive evidence.  They are rarely supported by facts and often are sustained via conjecture, fear and false assumption in a prejudicial manner.   A ‘developing story’ is characterized by a root fact or set of facts, empirically known and easily expanded through accepted investigative practices.

With the removal of the gag order previously placed on Sibel Edmonds, winner of the 2006 Pen Award, by the Department of Justice this past July, certain facts are now public regarding the involvement of our Government in the 9/11 murders of 3000 US citizens on U.S. soil.

Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds

“FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, was dismissed and gagged by the D.O.J. after she revealed that the government had foreknowledge of plans to attack American cities using planes as bombs as early as April 2001. In July of ‘09, Mrs. Edmonds broke the Federal gag order and went public to reveal that Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban were all working for and with the C.I.A. up until the day of 9/11.” -Charlie Sheen. With the removal of this gag order, a removal quietly allowed by the Obama administration, the facts surrounding the role of the U.S. Govt in 9/11 no longer meet the definition of ‘conspiracy theory’.  Read Transcript here

With the revelation of facts released in Ms. Edmonds testimony now in the public realm, the events surrounding 9/11 and the role of our own Government becomes, in journalistic terms, a ‘developing story’.  This critical turning point is poised to change history forever.  It is now entirely legitimate and morally obligatory for mainstream media to boldly do their job by relentlessly ferreting out the truth so that we may all gently lift the protective cloak of denial, bring Truth into our collective consciousness and finally obtain moral justice for ourselves, our lost loved ones and our country.

Copyright 2009 Nancy Kotting.  All rights reserved, reproduction by permission only.  Please email:  NancyKotting@gmail.com

Dressage: Reflections on the Art

As I look back on my time in the company of horses, one all encompassing fact comes to the forefront: It is through the lessons I have learned from the horses that I have acquired what I believe to be the better virtues we humans can possess, practice and use as our guideposts through life. The virtues of courage, patience, persistence, fortitude, endurance, vision, creativity, forgiveness, awareness, humility, empathy, perseverance and the ability to lead. I believe it is through the practice of classical horsemanship that we can attain, not merely intellectual understanding of these virtues but the literal engraining of them into our souls. I believe the practice of Dressage makes us better humans.

As riders, we do not peak in our sport until we are in our forties and fifties. I believe it takes this long for a rider to mature as a human mentally and emotionally. While many younger riders have success early in their years in competition, it is my observation that the true Masters of the sport do not acquire the depth of humanity within themselves to be successful in this art form until they have weathered at least four decades. Therefore, for me, the practice of the sport exists on two levels, one as the template within which I bring a horse along and two, as a life metaphor, constantly mirroring, engaging and pushing my own growth and that of the students I have the privilege of teaching, along our own life journeys. Yes, it is intensely rewarding to create healthy athletic horses and gifted riders but the knowledge that what we have accomplished also, in the end, contributes to our ability to live our lives away from the horses in a more fulfilling manner is a desirable end result that has a far reaching positive ripple effect.

Each and every day must come with the health, safety and well being, both mental and physical of the horse at the forefront of our minds. Through the systematic, time-tested application of the Training Scale to the athletic development of the horse, we can build an elite athlete that is harmonious in its activity and intellect. One that moves with joy in its body and is willing to share this with its rider. While I utilize the Training Scale as the fundamental framework of the program with each and every horse, I also leave room for creativity when considering the specific needs of any given horse. Each horse is different, each rider is different, and each moment is a new moment that demands creativity within the fundamental framework of the training scale. A humane, empathetic approach that encourages athletic development over time is the best approach.

It is imperative that each and every rider comes to a level of self-awareness regarding his or her own emotional capacity prior to sitting on the horse. By this I mean that it is humane for the rider attempt to be clear of any emotional/psychological issues in their lives that may block their ability to be completely present and emotionally neutral while interacting from the saddle. While I have never met a horse that was not willing to double as a therapist, it is our job to lead and to create a space, a feeling from the saddle of calm and peace that the horse can rely on as we proceed in the training. As riders we must be able to control our emotions, our frustrations so that the horse comes to trust our reactions as we guide it forward into the unknown, as we ask it to perform out at the edges of its own mind and body day after day. We must build its confidence and trust. To do this we must be consistent in our empathy and support for the horse. Always.

Nancy Kotting

“Please Sir, may I have another?”

Dateline Ohio…

My brain is inundated with three words these days:  Failed, Plan, and Policy.  They are everywhere.  Raining down upon us, beating us into moral defeat.  Our sense of self, of who we are as U.S. citizens,  is a bloody pulp.  The sheer weight of what we have allowed to happen to us is settling/rising into the consciousness here in the heartland.  However, the nationwide numbing effect of the ‘fear factor’ is wearing off.

Heads up. BIG heads up….

Some people say that Democracy as an experiment has failed for one reason:  Its success is contingent upon ‘intelligence’ in the masses.  And the masses, from what I understand according to the corporate media depictions, apparently are not intelligent.  We have been pounded into thinking we are stupid for so long that we have come to believe it.  The result being the continuance of a ‘public policy’ of sorts, perpetuated of, by and for the masses which I now officially label as the public ‘Please Sir, may I have another?’ policy of handling oppression.   We have slowly been beaten into thinking its our privilege to take it up the ass.

Bend over and shut up.

But wait. Chewing on my own words like cud, I decided to find a corroborating source.  ARE we really that stupid? Are we this passive?

I do not travel  in the Bermuda Triangle of wonkdom (NYC-LA-DC) with 42,000 feet of thin air between me and the guts of the country below.  I travel in a vertical line, deep down into the bowels of what this country is.  On the county roads, in a pick-up truck club, signed with a two finger wave over the steering wheel rather than Masonic handshakes in the halls of power.  I did so this past winter from my home in Northern Michigan through the great black swamp of Ohio, the fog laced Blue Ridge, the pecan orchards of Georgia and into the tangle of central Florida’s hammocks.

Across the diesel pump islands in the wee hours beneath the soft light of tulip signs, I stared into the faces of men and women whose carved facial terrain told me the stories of their lives beginning with ‘Once upon a time…’ and ending with hard.  Just hard.  I gazed into faces marked with the deep erratic lines that come from a lifetime of trying.  Like plow marks left behind in the dirt by a schizophrenic on a tractor.  In the heartland.  I thought, yea…we are just that beaten as citizens.  We are tired.  They have worn us down and the policy  of ‘Please Sir, may I have another?’ is what is left.  Figured I had proven my point to myself.  I had come out and found the corroborating evidence: we are a nation of broken down idiots.

Then I looked into their eyes.

It is what I saw embedded in the eyes, the sound of diesels idling in the background, that fired my soul.  Politicians on campaign trails cannot see it, impossible through their necessary and unavoidable aura of otherness. Its what the Bin Ladens, the Rumsfleds, and the Ruperts and yes, even the Obamas of the world will NEVER get close enough to see, and if they did, it would scare the living SHIT out of them. It scared me.  What I saw in the eyes is something I have not seen since having a lock jawed stare down with my Grandma Barber as she, six kids to her credit, raised on a dirt floor in Appalachia and never out of her thread bare house dress, tried to spoon me castor oil.  What I saw is what nobody has seen on these shores since the Revolutionary War:

I saw Resolve.

The same resolve that runs in my own Scotch-Irish blood of Sir William Wallace, the resolve of Revolutionaries.

And this resolve is so deeply embedded in the DNA of Americans and has been so masterfully lulled by the likes of Rove into a stupor for so long that upon seeing it first hand, live in front of my very eyes, it slammed  me and froze my spine into Detroit steel in the turn of a moment.  And, yes there rose tears.

I was looking at the pillars of own my country, sunk down on hard pan.

The pillars that don’t hang out in headlines, that don’t twitter or compulsively check 401k’s.  These are the guardians of the genes that built a country out of the love and devotion to four things: Truth, Justice, Liberty,  and God.  The very genes, literally, now working and living and surviving in spite of it all on the dead-end roads throughout this country. The genes that once told the Monarchy to fuck off and disposed of some tea.  And it is clear to me, from the tundras of Ohio, that we are ready willing and able to do it again if necessary.

Heads up.

On the road, heading home, I realized that I had flat out fallen for, and arrogantly perpetuated as if I wasn’t talking about me,  the corporate media definition of who we are here in the belly of Ms. Liberty: stupid, passive, and purveyors of the public policy ‘Please Sir, may I have another?

I stand corrected. Its just not true.

Copyright 2009 Nancy Kotting  All rights reserved. Reproduction by permission only.

Etherland

As a consummate participant/observer in media culture, (aren’t we all these days?) I am intrigued with this platform of Facebook. How adults use it (thanks kids but your time is up and brace yourselves for the impending ban on preteen Facebooking- the studies are coming in: you’re screwed) and where it is going.

What I see is the dominate social profile platform (FB) becoming a mandatory possession in ones personal slew of ID’s. Just as an email address added itself to your moniker decades ago along with your phone, cell, and land address, your FB profile is now quickly gaining the stature of ‘mandatory’. Your Skype ID is running neck and neck with it.  (And don’t get me started on Twitter.  Way to close to ‘Twit’, an ominous foreshadow participants should pay attention too…)  If you’re not in, your out. And nobody can afford to be out these days, or at least so we think. What still remains as a bit of escapism, a cyber stop in the misc bookmarks, a panic hole on ones laptop that you can escape into undetected for brief reprieve from the realities swarming about you wherever you may be, will become THE place where you can reliably be found by those whom you want to be found by. Control is good. So far I have not been spammed by little green profiles trying to sell me into Chinese electronics. So far.

Facebook is the realm of Etherland.  Here in Etherland, we have the control over our persona that we have always longed for. Whatever our skewed self perception has warped into over the years as we compensate for this, that and the other life traumas, it just doesn’t matter here. So long as your prep school unrequited heart throb can vaguely recognize you, your cool. We are the editors of our lives.

How people use this platform is being defined organically albeit within the framework born of the heads of bubble people in Palo Alto. Some view it as Bragland: I’ve done this, I’ve done that la la lalala…lala…yippee for me. Some use it as Artland for art as defined solely by them. And we tolerate it…only to be blown away by some kid in Busan who posts some of his scribbles and turns out to be Rembrandt on acid. Really goooood acid. For others its Therapyland where we can dump, blather and get affirmed in our daily misery as there is surely a group in support of bunyan removal.

Some use it as Musicland entertaining us for hours with YouTube posts slapped onto ones wall at two in the morning and based on some vague substance induced association with a band that means NOTHING to the rest of us. (Guilty!) Of course I have also become acquainted with some fantastic new and undiscovered works for which I am sincerely thankful. But Kaja Goo Goo? I may forgive you someday.

Some use it as Soapboxland, a venue to snatch the microphone out of the hands of fools and have at it.  Some of it is refreshingly intelligent and reassuring to read. Makes me want to run some of you for office.

For me, its Labland. I am a writer. Unpublished by choice. I do it for fun, at least until they repo my pick-up, then I might slap up a Paypal button like an open guitar case on ye old blog. Here I can dip into enough fodder to last a lifetime. 190 million launch points. You get the cork out and I start pouring…its great fun. The retired CIA dude in Indiana, the lonely blueblood in Argentina, the horny married guy in Seattle, the art student in Ann Arbor, the sorority sisters, the activists, the rising stars and of course my many ex’s who still don’t know who one another are. You are all here. Strangers who needed me in their friend count. New friends whose wit I treasure and savor as a daily touchstone in the chaos.

What serves me well as one who works in solitude both in my art as an equestrian and in my cubby as a writer is this: FB is a place where I can pop in and invariably make a connection with someone who registers as ‘friend’ any time I need to. I can quench my need for social connection on a primitive and adequate level, enough to then slide back into the solitude of my own creative processes. Its psyche ballast in the daily media tsunami. Psyche ballast in the daily media desert.

But why does it work soooooo well? Its simple: Because here in Etherland we can meet this need to connect as social animals adequately without having to navigate the EMOTION of live interaction. Here in Etherland, I can dip into the life of some lovely twit in Bangkok, get a laugh but not be physically disrupted by her physical twit-like energies, whatever they may be. Men (and women) are flat-lining sexually here in Etherland guaranteeing a pheromone free conversation. Imagination free, no. But that is another essay. Dealing with the bombardment of the emotional landscape in the real world can be psychically exhausting. No problem here in Etherland. Ahhhhh….

Each day I come into my ‘office’ here in Etherland, say howdedo to y’all and check your pulses. You never cease to amaze me with the sincerity, the humor and the beauty of your lives. Hats off to your Editor.

Copyright 2009  Nancy Kotting  All rights reserved.  Reproduction by permission only.

To know Peace…

In all the circles I move in, people often ask me why it seems I prefer the company of my horses over humans.  I always smile gently and remain silent, as if I have a secret that is mine alone.

To know Peace, touch a horse.

Peace itself is embedded into the very DNA of the horse. They know nothing of the instinct to kill, to take life as the only option for survival, it is entirely out of their realm of understanding as sentient beings, as prey vs predator animals.  Whilst the lion, the bear, the hawk and the man survive in the carnivorous confines of this equation of death, the horse stands with the nobility of its own bones, blades of grass in its mouth, observing with a question for us from the universe in its head: Why?

The comfort of ones horse in battle through the centuries brought a metaphysical context to the moment for the soldier entangled in the hell of the dark side of his own instinct. The horse provided the witness of Peace.  Perhaps even a certain presence of civility in the midst of carnage.
For the modern soldier to reach out to steel, to his fellow soldier for some comfort, some answers to his existence, is to find no answer at all.  There was a time when he, in the darkness, could reach out and touch his horse, and for a moment be reminded, on the physical plane, that Peace is his future.

The violence of the killing instinct continues to perpetuate through our choices of sustenance.  To ingest the kill of our own instinct is to ingest and perpetuate the darkness of our own DNA.   It is the way of the herbivore, the way of the horse, that offers us the opportunity to evolve this out of ourselves.  We are not what we eat, we become what we eat.  Choose wisely.  My choice to not eat the kill, the flesh of others,  is spiritual and biblical at its core: thou shalt not kill.  We must understand why this commandment was given to us.  And the arrogance of man to think the scripture applied to he alone continues to astound me.  My horses, my teachers…

As I move through the days, bombarded by the darkness of my own species’ struggle, in a multitude of ways I stay eternally close to what I know as Truth.  In all the prayer, in all the meditation, all the giving and in all the loving….it is to my horses that I often return to see and feel Gods intention for us.  It is here, it is one way among many that I see, in physical form, the way forward in our evolution toward that moment when we evolve past the darkness that remains in our own DNA.

In these days, stay close to one another.  May love embrace you in the coming year.

Nancy

Copyright 2008 Nancy Kotting All rights reserved; Reproduction with permission only.

Personae Equus Part I: The Root of Emotional Integrity

The so called ‘Leaders’ of recent history have quite often failed to meet our expectations and our needs.  Political leaders, religious leaders, leaders in commerce.  So many seem to fall victim to their own foibles right before our eyes…leaving us with an unsettling sense of abandonment. Greed, malice, selfishness, moral blindness, denial, arrogance spill across our headlines leaving us asking the questions: Where are the leaders with the perfectly calibrated moral compasses?  Where do we find the ones who can over come their own fears so as to help us let go of ours?  Where do we find ones who can not only formulate a vision of a future but who can hold that vision against all odds as a beacon for us to follow? Where do we find the ones whose character is carved deep and whose humility holds them accountable to that which is greater than themselves?

“Of all the creatures on earth, it is the horse, the nature of the horse, that is capable of telling us our own truths.  And herein lies the divine union of man and horse”.  NK

This series entitled ‘Personae Equus’ explores the role of the horse and horsemanship in carving us into better, more virtuous and compassionate humans.  It will also explore the creation of indelible leadership skills, known and proved through the centuries, via the practice of the ancient Art of Horsemanship.

“Men are better when riding, more just and more understanding, and more alert and more at ease and more under-taking, and better knowing of all countries and all passages; in short and long all good customs and manners cometh thereof, and the health of man and of his soul.“  ~Attributed to Edward Plantagenet

There was a time when all men destined for roles as leaders shared one skill:  They were educated in the art of horsemanship.  If not at the hands of wise elders and private Masters, from the great academies of Europe such as Saumur, the Spanish Riding School, etc. horsemen were carved into Leaders.   Trained at the hand of Masters, both horse and human, and instilled with the virtues that can only be ingrained in the marrow of their bones through the grace of the horse.  And when the virtues of courage and ethics exist in the marrow of the bone, they cannot be removed. Challenged yes, but not removed.  Successful leaders of the past possessed the more admirable virtues of humanity:  Empathy, Tolerance, Patience, Courage, Ethics, Humility, Fortitude, Perseverance, and a seemingly natural ability to hold a ‘through-line’ while in the midst of chaos.

Today, I find it amusing that people opt to go to ‘Leadership Schools’.  Granted, some skills can be acquired in this way, intellectually perhaps.  True leaders however must possess leadership skills that reside in the muscle memory, the cellular memory, the very marrow of their bones.  Skills and attributes that will not falter no matter the circumstance, no matter the obstacle, no matter the threat.

So let us begin….

The psychology of the horse is really quite simple: Horses are prey animals (herbivores) who organize socially within the construct of a ‘herd’.   To watch a herd of horses is to watch something similar to a school of fish..they seemingly move, when under alert or threat, as ‘One’ though they are each physically separate from one another.  This is attributed to the keen state of awareness that horses are in as prey animals.  They rely on the fight/flight instinct for survival.  Thus it is imperative that they perceive outside threats to the herd immediately and communicate it throughout the herd virtually spontaneously. They communicate within the herd via mimicry.  This is the core method of education for the young horse. And so, if one in the herd perceives danger, an alert is sent out via the language of the body and virtually simultaneously picked up by the rest of the herd in a ripple effect- all ready to flee once.

The herds very survival is dependent on this skill, this ‘mirroring’ behavior within its ranks.  Further, horses not only become acutely tuned to one another physically, they become acutely tuned emotionally, energetically more likely,  to one another.  So much so that they seem to possess an additional perceptive reality, sensory receptors we can only theorize upon.  Cognitively, I would say this phenomena is similar to what we would describe pertaining to ourselves as a ‘clairvoyance’.  Horses experience a full and complex range of emotion such as fear, elation, anger, apprehension, relief, curiosity, wonder, determination, and I believe even embarrassment.  Keep in mind that I label these as ‘emotions’ in the horse having witnessed them within, and limited by, the framework of my own understanding of emotions within the context of human emotions.

Just as horses read each others physical body language, they also become acutely tuned to the emotional/energetic state of those around them, both horse and human. This phenomena is, to a large extent, unexplainable via conventional science and so remains somewhat embryonic and questionable as fact in the minds of many.  But, it is my assertion that it is this ability in the horse that defines it as mans wisest teacher.  With this skill, the horse reveals to the human, with unequivocal accuracy, the true emotional state of that person.  They sense the emotional state of the person and then immediately reflect that emotion back behaviorally to that person. Just as they mimic/perceive/mirror the true emotional state of their fellow herd members as a tool of survival.  In this way, our horses constantly provide us with absolutely authentic feedback as to the true emotional state we are in…anger, fear etc., equating to a type of ‘emotional biofeedback’.  The horse is so highly skilled at this that often they reflect back to the person emotional states that the person is often profoundly in denial of.  And because the horse is physiologically unable to process thought through deductive reasoning, beyond basic stimulus response patterns, rest assured that the feedback is absolutely accurate..it simply cannot not be true.  The horse does not have the mental capacity to concoct a lie.

You can begin to comprehend the magnitude of receiving this type of information, this mirror of ones emotion, ones soul, for years, relentlessly from ones equine partner.  The result:  We learn over time to be absolutely emotionally congruent through this constant reality check provided us by our horses….and in turn deeply authentic in our own communication.  “Straight from the horses mouth”?  How about straight from the horses soul to yours.   It is this that carves character into the horseman over time.  A true Master of the Art of Horsemanship is therefore one of the most emotionally congruent, meaning authentic, humans you will find, for they will speak nothing but the truth.  Over the years we acquire no other way of communicating, we know no other way beyond deeply, deeply authentic and in a state of total congruity with our own emotional desires.

While this may sound quite simple, when we think about it, how many of us are capable of being completely connected to our own truths?  We all create some veil of denial as to our self perception and how we think others perceive us.  In short, we are all, to varying degrees, lying to ourselves. And when we perceive ourselves somewhat inaccurately, we in turn communicate from a base of untruth..and our quality, our interpersonal communications become an ever rolling avalanche of distortions.  Oh the trouble we bring upon ourselves.

And so the foundation of ‘emotional integrity’ within oneself is laid into the future leader….through the grace of the horse.

To be continued….

NK

Note: As a woman, I am acutely aware of the use of the term ‘Horsemen as one which may at first glance exclude my gender from this discussion.  I would like readers to know that for me the term ‘Horsemen’ refers to those humans that know, interact and have the honor of riding horses, and I use it in this vein as a term which is gender neutral, gender inclusive just as the term Human is.

Copyright 2009 Nancy Kotting   All rights reserved.  Reproduction by permission only.