Know Your Horses
Your capacity, agility, and power to move through your life depends upon what is pulling you forward. What you lead with scouts ahead, tests the ground and establishes the course. Like the horses that pull a wagon-coach, your journey depends on what you’re leading with, your journey depends on those horses.
Coaches with only one horse move safely. There is less complication and one horse is easy to take care of. The down side, of course, is one horse can only pull so much. Your one horse has a defined amount of power and capability that you can use. You’ll go a certain speed and carry a certain amount, with little room for expansion. Having only one horse, however, means you have a good chance of truly mastering that creature. As limited as you may be, you’ll come to know and handle that one horse very well.
Two horses can add a lot to your journey. Double the power, widen the load, increase the speed, having two horses enables you to carry much more. With two horses you also gain the opportunity to experience much more. Carrying more with you allows you to meet life in numerous new ways that the limits of one horse couldn’t. You even have the potential of sharing your journey with others, since you have the capacity to hold and carry more.
Of course, you will have more horse mouths now to feed, that requires energy and time. Handling the reins of multiple horses and keeping them in line is more demanding. As well, increasing your capacity to carry more increases your responsibility. You have to ask yourself, is it worth it?
Intriguingly, horses actually provide for each other. They are companions to each other. They end up complimenting each other in a way that promotes them to do their job better. It is through your consistent, intimate relationship with your horses that you notice how they do work together. Side-by-side they provide a lot more and require a little less simply because they collaborate in a way that can only occur when many horses start to work together.
The horses that draw your coach are like the perspectives that govern your life. Having one perspective in life is very safe and easy. While limited in what you’ll come to see and know, one perspective is manageable. You’ll have a good chance of truly mastering that one perspective, having a slow, steady, easy ride in the journey of your life. True, you won’t be able to carry much. With one perspective it is challenging to see another point of view. Your power and speed will also be limited, moving at a steady and defined rate. Not a lot of spontaneity or creativity with just one perspective. And, only a few others may have the opportunity to join you, for one perspective, like one horse, can only handle so much.
To honestly gain some good ground, to truly achieve the things you want to do in life, you’ll need more than one horse, you need more than one perspective.
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Both horses and perspectives provide power, knowledge and capacity. Multiple perspectives enable you to understand, feel and do more. You become better able to relate and communicate with others. As you gain more perspectives, you become quicker at maneuvering within the terrain of your life. You become less stuck in your life, and have fewer moments of constraint because you have greater capacity to hold more.
As with horses, a relationship between your perspectives develops. One perspective somehow informs the others. You begin to make connections that you were not able to before. Since multiple horses can pull you into more challenging terrain, you become more comfortable and able to experience a greater expanse of the world that you couldn’t with just one. No longer are you concerned that your one horse will not be able to make it through.
Yet, both horses and perspectives also require significant respect, refinement and practice in handling them. Horses can be wild. So can perspectives. Horses can become spooked and out of control. As can perspectives. Without proper care, one horse can disrupt the whole team, leading them astray and causing the load to be unmanageable. Same too with an unchecked perspective.
Over time, you may observe that you have a regular lead horse, one that consistently keeps your team in line. This is similar to a perspective that you tend to use first when making sense of your life. A horse that will boldly stride forward into your life influencing the additional perspectives you decide to take on.
It’s important to know your lead horse. You’ll want to know all your horses as best as you can. Yet, your lead horse is the one who keeps your coach aligned. Start with knowing this perspective the best.
Your lead horse is the one you first go forward with. Not always the strongest or the wisest, but for some reason the one that you naturally trust to follow. This horse provides a particular perspective, one you have come to rely upon, one that allows the capacities of your other horses to show up.
Each perspective you have provides you with very particular insights, capabilities and knowledge. Naming your perspectives clearly and distinctly allows you to see which one is running strong or lagging behind. In the moments when you stop to take a rest from your journey, you can take care of your horses, knowing which ones need special attention, since you have come to name them clearly and know them well.
Named horses run stronger. Perspectives that lack clarity simply can’t provide the same for you as the ones that are clearly named. They become ambiguous and conflate into each other, not fully being able to stand strong and distinct in their offering (purpose). A horse that is known well can be used well. It can be strengthened and trained, respected and loved. A well loved horse will work over-time for you, carrying you through the most difficult of times, and gently walking beside you when life is at ease.
Horses do grow old and weary, and some simply stop working well with the team. To live authentically means to know when your perspectives are no longer serving you. You must learn when to retire a horse, out of love and respect for both your horse and your self. There is no integrity in running a horse to the ground. It’s an unsafe deed to do. Lives are in danger when horses and perspectives are pushed beyond their time. Far better to graciously lead your well-worked horse to an open field to eat and wander. Far better to allow your well-used perspective to rest and be known for the bounty it’s brought you. Discernment of when to put a horse to pasture only comes from honestly knowing your horses well. Their individuality, their nuances and their limitations truly known.
The intimacy you can develop with each of your horses can be potentially profound. Your capacity to be in your life, to be with others, to be in the world expands. You’ll go places and experience things you couldn’t have on your own. Holding the reins of multiple perspectives is a challenging task, and your responsibility will grow. You will have to come to terms with how worth it that risk is to you. At what scope do you wish to run strong, agile and free? How many horses does it take for you to live your life well? And how willing are you to truly name and know the perspectives that lead you into your life? The ones that can swiftly take you into freedom, and the ones that require gentle loving care.
Whole-hearted and intelligent relationship with your perspectives provides for you. Your horses want to work hard for you, yet they do require specific attention. Taking your horses for granted leads to a haphazard life journey – a life that meanders partially through the weight of your will, and partially through the unrefined whims of your perspectives. Naming your horses, acutely defining each of your perspectives, instigates the path to mastering them. From here on out, take the reins, know what you lead your life with.
