The main goal of Phase I on-the-ground work is to gain the ability to struggle into healthy relationship, but how do you figure out what that means? My answer is by way of modelling. This entails building a functional, consequential relationship with something organic—something that’s deeply grounded in balance and wholeness—so it can teach you how healthy relationship works by being a part of it. This way of learning is ideal because it gets beyond ideas and gets down to experiences of union that are shaped by integrity—by what works.
We used to have a model that shared healthy relationship with us baked into our lifeway. It involved learning how to be in intimate, functional relationship with the earth so we could have the shelter, fire, water, food, and clothing that we needed to survive and thrive. Primitive sleeping shelters give a simple example of how this works. When you live with the earth, you need to learn how to build sleeping shelters so you can safely and comfortably sleep while not being negatively affected by the rain, snow, cold, and other hazards. With our modern approach to building, we tend to ignore the earth’s needs. We use modern techniques, tools, and materials to clear out what’s in our way and then build what we want where we want it. It’s all about us getting what we want, and nothing about being in relationship.
When you build primitive, everything that has allowed you to ignore the earth isn’t available. This means you need to learn what the earth needs from you so you can use what she’s giving to successfully make a shelter that works—something that’s not easy to do. This involves being in a partnership that demands you give what’s needed so you can help nurture a fit with what your partner has to offer. In other words, primitive shelter demands that you find union grounded in integrity instead of just focusing on getting what you want.
The earth will sit back and patiently wait until you figure out how this works. The more you fail, the more you’ll be isolated from her embrace, and the more you’ll suffer. The more you succeed, the more you’ll realize that the earth has offered you everything you need, and that she wants and needs you to find her embrace so you can live, thrive, and contribute to her world. This starts out on the physical plane, and then can build into what some would call a spiritual realm where you find the Life with a capital ‘L’ that’s infused within her. The trick to succeeding with these experiences is balance. With it, you are able to find a tangibly loving and protective embrace that changes a simple hole in the ground into a nest infused with Life that tangibly holds and protects you.
As I’ve written in previous posts, when I was young, I both suffered through abuse and was opened to the power of Creation (Getting started). As I pursued my connection to what I now call Life with a capital ‘L’, I found I needed to heal and come back to Life emotionally to get the chance to be a part of life in my larger world. Because of this, my pursuit of an ever-deepening connection to Life opened me to my second experience of modelling, which was with my emotional system. Like the earth, this system is deeply grounded in balance and wholeness, and to heal at a core level it needs us to learn how to contribute consequentially to it on its terms instead of simply doing what works for us. As with the earth, my core emotions needed me to share healthy relationship with them, and they would patiently wait until I figured out how to do this effectively before they gave me what I needed.
Through my journey into relationship with the earth and my core healing process, I was able to establish a solid foundation of what it meant to be in healthy relationship. I had found two partners I could trust, that wanted and needed me to be in union with them, and that demanded that I get beyond myself so I could learn what it means to be a part of a team that’s grounded in integrity. But as an individual, a time came when I needed to find other individuals to build relationship with so I could broaden my education. Most would probably expect this to be where people came into the picture. But because people were so difficult for me to be in union with, I needed another step before I could really reach them. This involved taking care of and riding horses.
When you ride a horse, you’re getting on top of 1000 pounds of bone and muscle and asking to be in union with it. The question is, who decides where you go and what you do, especially when challenge and pressure are brought into the equation and the horse can shift into its natural fight or flight response. When you’re on top of a horse, you need to be the leader in this relationship so you can stay safe and have direction. The question is, what does healthy leadership look like with a horse? In this culture, most horse people that ride strive to create obedience in their horses. Obedience is a type of control that can get you what you want, but it’s done by way of coercion rather than by earning the horse’s respect and trust. Because of this, it never creates the type of connection and flow that healthy relationship can offer.
For me, getting the chance to own, ride, and take care of horses became my third opportunity to find a model for healthy relationship. Horses are prey and herd animals. This means they use relationship to help keep themselves alive and safe. Through a horse’s eyes, trusting a human to lead them under pressure means they’re trusting you with their lives. This isn’t something they do lightly, and its something that’s tested almost every day of your relationship.
By accepting and working with relationship on their terms, my horses have allowed me to take healthy relationship to a whole new level that has shaped me into the strong and fulfilled person that I am today. It has also served as the gateway into the final piece of this puzzle for me—exploring healthy relationship with the world of people.