Horses represents freedom, movement and power (1). If a horse appears in your life, it may be time to free yourself from constricted views and limiting beliefs. A question to ask yourself is “Where am I stuck?” Consider the manner in which you need to assert your personal power. According to Ted Andrews: “Horses bring new journeys. It will teach you how to ride into new directions to awaken and discover your own freedom and power” (Ibid, p. 282).
 
Horses have been a great ally of human kind, serving humanity in various functions, including travel, minimizing the distances between people and societies. In this way horses have helped humanity to a more expansive understanding of the world around us and the multiplicity of life.
 
For Sigmund Freud, horses represent passion and the sexual drive. I think there is so much more to it. I think horses symbolize the life drive or life force energy itself. Have you ever experienced a dream of galloping on a horse? I remember a few dreams like that, but I also had the privilege of going on some outrides in forests in the mountains.  The feeling of exhilaration, joy and aliveness is incredible. Over the ages many poets have likened riding horses to flying, with good reason..
 
Numerous legends speak of the clairvoyance of horses. They have an ability to sense what is going on in the morphic fields by picking up on the vibratory patterns or through resonance. Morphic fields underlie our mental activity, perceptions, nervous system and physical organization of all biological life forms. In a very interesting summary on morphic fields and resonance, Rupert Sheldrake explains that ‘the fields of our minds extend far beyond our brains’ (2), making it possible for horses (and other animals) to tune into our mental activity. According to Sheldrake morphic fields are self-organizing patterns of vibratory or rhythmic activity that are not static, but evolve, and contain a cumulative memory through self-resonance. This sounds like a complex kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, doesn’t it? So, we really need to actively learn to think outside our own box in order to transform our lives.
 
References:

1.  Animal Speak, Ted Andrews, 1993.
2. https://www.sheldrake.org/research/morphic-resonance/introduction

 
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​I recently attended an “Art, Horses and Constellations” workshop run by animal communicator, Anthea Myburgh of @UbuntuHealing.  I originally signed up for this workshop months ago after the appearance of a white horse in a soul retrieval dream.
 
The dream: “I had a little baby with me. Wanting to show her the beauty of a small glen and went to sit on the banks of a pond. I put her down, leaning her against the embankment with the water lapping against her. She was in discomfort (getting wet), feeling scared and uncontained…  I found myself elsewhere… I suddenly realized I had left the baby unattended. I was fearful she might have drowned. I returned to the pond, but she was nowhere to be seen. I gazed into the water; the shape of her head barely visible. It was shallow enough for me to grasp her. I struggled to pull her out. Panic was mounting. I laid her down, giving her mouth-mouth resuscitation, having chosen breath to enliven her rather than pumping her heart. Eventually she started coughing and I turned her on her side to drain the water. I wrapped her in a towel and held her close to me, relieved she was alive. I looked up and saw a white horse grazing in the bushes next to the pond. It looked up, gazing curiously at us. I thought what a special moment to be visited by such a beautiful animal.”
 
During the workshop we took turns viewing each other as a resource. As I was practicing seeing another as a resource, I was aware of what was happening in the ‘field’ around us… a big white mare was walking directly towards us. In the context of my dream, the approaching horse became a reminder that no-one person is the resource for others on their own, but that the whole ‘field’ supports them. When I was my turn to be the resource, the white horse walked right up to me and gently nuzzled me as if to affirm the message: We are embedded in the field around us and the whole field supports us.
 
During some ‘free play’ with the horse I realised that the different way in which they interacted with us, as constellated in the field, could be seen as a reflection of each person’s inner world. Horses are acutely sensitive to the resonance within the ‘field’.
 
#Dream #Dreams #dreamwork #Dreamappreciation #Dreammeaning #dreaminterpretation #dreamanalysis #symbolism #symbols #soulretrievaldream #whitehorse #babydreams
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‘The Soul’s High Adventure’ (1) is a call to live our lives as heroic journeys. The hero myth is a deeply human mythological narrative, an archetypal pattern woven into soul. Joseph Campbell studied the hero archetype across cultures and understood this pattern to be a fundamental primordial instinctual drive in the human psyche which serve as a vessel of transformation of our consciousness.
 
The hero’s journey always begins with ‘a call to adventure’, having to leave the ordinary world and our ordinariness behind. The heroic journey is a metaphor for the process of individuation and the quest for something beyond (current) consciousness. Consciously or unconsciously, we are in search of the innermost Self, what Jung called the Archetype of the Self, or the God image within. In myths and fairy tales the hero or heroine ventures forth from a familiar world into strange and sometimes hostile lands - or they may a descent into the Underworld.  According to Campbell this is symbolic of the individual’s departure from their conscious personality, descending into the unknown uncharted regions of their psyche in search of the “ultimate boon” (2); to return back to the ordinary world with ‘the Elixir’ to share with others, having incorporated the insights from the figures encountered on the journey. Jung suggests that “the treasure hard to attain” (3) lies hidden in the deep waters of the unconscious.
 
Campbell mapped the hero’s journey in three major phases (with subphases): departure, initiation, and return. First there is a disturbance or disruption of the familiar world, throwing it off balance. In real life this may be a challenge, upheaval, set-back, crisis or loss. These are ‘the ordeals’ we have to face. The hero’s journey involves facing tests, crossing various thresholds, meeting mentors and allies, confronting enemies, and learning the rules of the ‘special world’ in ‘approaching the innermost cave’ - going deeper into themselves. The death-resurrection motif inherent in the Hero’s Journey may be seen as a purification with the hero being transformed or reborn, having sacrificed personal interest and ego-driven desires for the sake of something greater.

Written for @jungsouthernafrica 
 
References:

1.  Campbell, J. (2012). The hero with a thousand faces (3rd ed.). New World Library.
2. Campbell, J., Kudler, D., & Joseph Campbell Foundation. (2004). Pathways to bliss: Mythology and personal transformation. Novato, Calif: New World Library.
3. Carl Jung, CW 14, par. 756

 
Image credit:  https://www.oritmartin.com/
 
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