'Holding Birds'
Have you ever held a chic? or a mouse, or a hamster?
There is a quality of protection and containment with
freedom. The chic, or mouse or hamster, is still mobile
and alive within your hands. Your hand holds its
position gently. You can't squish the chic! Yet
you have to embrace it closely enough to keep it in your
hand.
This quality can serve you in your riding and life.
In riding, you would directly translate this skill to how
you hold your reins -- which is really how you connect with
your horse's mouth.
Another way you can play with this is to imagine holding
your eyes this way. (yeah... that's weird!) Play
with it, though! Allow your eyes to have the quality of
the chic -- alive! vibrating! Imagine your eyes
embraced by the eye socket, which keeps them in your head
while allowing them to vibrate and be free. There is a
feel perhaps of water.
While you're doing this, you can add in an imaginary
embrace that holds you! It kind of wraps around your
sides from your back, providing protection. It's thin
and sturdy and skims 'you.' Meanwhile you are free
within the embrace. Let the hug be what holds you erect
as you sit, as you walk, as you run, as you ride.
The insides do not have to be SOLID. The insides take
on the quality of the held chic, or the held mouse, or the
held hamster.
When this becomes doable, you can take this into your
riding again with the idea that your legs embrace the horse
in the same way.
This is way different than understanding the skeleton, the
muscles, the mechanics ... or just about anything in the
tangible world. It's about finding a quality and
allowing the quality to direct the way of being.
original artwork is from Centered Riding,
p80
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