Field of Allurement

(image via Joanne O’Keefe)

My friend Maja is a horse-whisperer. She wouldn’t call herself that. She says, “I do horsemanship”. But that’s what it is. Horse-whispering or horse-connecting or horse-something-or-other. I knew this the first time I saw her running her Arabian in a ring. Off lead she was standing in the middle of an indoor enclosure with this beautiful horse charging around and around. She’d occasionally make a few gestures with her hand, as if pushing it away on some invisible rope, but mostly she just stood while it raced in huge circles.

Another rider came up next to me. “Watch carefully” she said. “This is the magic.”
And then it happened. Maja took four steps backward and the horse literally “drew” itself into her like a yoyo on a string. It came to a dead stop next to her nuzzling its face against my friends.

The other rider excitedly said, “Did you see that? That magic. Did you?” It was extraordinary.

Maja later explained.

“Horses are prey animals. And with prey animals, if you push them they will run and run. But when you stop, and withdraw, their tendency is to come close. This is because if a horse is attacked by, say a wolf, if they pull away when bitten their flesh will tear. But if the horse moves into the wolf all they get is a puncture wound. It’s a form of preservation that’s translated into behavior. Indians used to do that with buffalo. They’d drive a herd for three days and then retreat. And the buffalo would literally turn around and follow their hunters as if on a magnet.”

I’ve been thinking recently about what I need to stop chasing so that it will now chase me. Physics calls this "creating a field of allurement". Every atom has an energetic charge, and it's this charge that creates a sense of mass. Amazingly we are 99.999% space. So what makes us seem solid? The energy that "holds" our atoms together. Since all energy either has a positive or negative charge, i.e. attracts or repels, "creating a field of allurement" means to set the charge in a way that will bring what we want closer. We do this through our intentions.

The clue is in what Maja did. Don't over-try. Don't press. Just set in your mind what you want to happen, be specific and clear, step back and trustingly wait. Lao Tzu says, "You must let things go their own way. Trust is the softening of fear into awe."

Allow yourself to be found by that you so desperately seek.