"There is just something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a human."
Honoring The Spirit of The Horse
You are invited to spend a few moments basking in the magnificient presence of these noble, majestic, incredibly beautiful, graceful, elegant creatures! They have given so much of themselves to mankind...won't you take a moment or two to give something back to them now? A simple acknowledgment of respect, recognition, appreciation and gratitude for their enduring spirit, their considerable contributions to civilization and their service to humanity is a great place to start!
"True courage often lives in the gentlest of hearts." ~ Iroquois proverb
ASPCA Equine Program
Horses have played an indispensable role in human history, yet these sentient, sensitive animals have suffered untold abuse and neglect in work, war, and so-called entertainment. It was the sight of a carthorse brutally beaten by his driver spurred Henry Bergh to found the ASPCA, and we’ve since made horse protection an important focus of our work. We need your help to continue Bergh's mission to fight horse cruelty and neglect.
Today, the ASPCA works to protect and aid horses through legislation, advocacy, education, targeted grants, and enforcement of the carriage horse and cruelty laws in New York City.
To Read & Sign WSPA "Animals Matter" Petition ~ Click Here
WSPA ~ World Society for the Protection of Animals Home Page ~ Click Here
To move through the playlist selections below, simply scroll your cursor over the bottom of the player viewing screen to bring up other video selections. Be sure to click "pause" on each player before moving on to the next, or both of them will play at the once! If needed, hit the refresh button on your browser to reset the entire page. And, don't forget to turn up the volume on your speakers, so you can hear the wonderful international music that goes along with all of that fancy footwork!
About The Higher Moving Center
On this page you will encounter opportunities to connect with, to recognize and to validate the moving, and especially, the higher moving centered experiences that you may have encountered in your own life. Higher moving centered functions include an encompassing sense of oneness, of inner and outer integration, of sublime beauty, and of moving in synchronistic unison, vibrational attunement and exquisite energy-in-motion with another physical plane being. A wonderful example of this kind of unity-in-motion can be easily recognized in the video (above) entitled "Dressage Artist." See if you can find more examples on this page, and within your own life, that might serve to reflect back to you your own higher moving centered experiences through the dance of life. There is a synergistic blending of all three of the higher centered functions contained within the integrative embrace of the higher moving center itself.
I hope you will enjoy these "Dances With Horses" from around the world as much as I have enjoyed putting them all together!
Cavalia ~ Apassionata ~ European Tour and Cirque Avaia in Toronto, Canada
From the creators of Cirque Du Soleil, an equine extravaganza of unrivalled parallel! Enjoy the magnificient presence and mystical beauty of the equine spirit through masterful, magical performances and equestrian disciplines from around the world! There are nearly 35 clips in this playlist, not all of which show up on the lower portion of the video player screen as selection options at once. The videos on this player will be rotated out monthly so that all of the performances can be viewed over time. You are invited to check back in periodically to view the latest video selections. I hope you will enjoy the show!
School of Classical Horsemanship The Spanish Riding School Vienna, Austria
The Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria is the seat of classical horsemanship as it is known today. All of the practices, principles, disciplines and philosophy of the school, as well as the performances of the Lipizzaner stallions today, were once geared to keep their riders out of harm's way during battle. These manuevers are rigorous, difficult and demanding and require great strength of limb, heart, body and mind! Many years of physical conditioning, training and refinement of the tasks asked of these horses are behind their masterful public performances. Only the very best horses are kept at the riding school itself, and the rest are often sent on tour around the world.
American Western Riding Tradition
This playlist captures the spirit of the old west and the role horses have played in the western riding tradition in the United States. It also takes a look at the shifting role of the horse from a subservient executioner of the human will and a "power over" rather than "power with" paradigm, towards a more egalitarian approach of true partnership, connected inter-relationship (as in Monty Robert's "Join Up" techniques) and a more cooperative union for horses and humans alike! We're slowly moving from mankind's unbridled will toward domination, to earning the horse's unbridled love, trust and mutual respect, and many contemporary western horse trainers are actively promoting this underlying perspective.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride and Tolt-aly Cool 5-Gaited Icelandic Ponies
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are internationally known for their "Musical Ride" performances and for their breeding, training and horsemanship skills and disciplines. The horses used have been bred especially for the purposes they serve as police & cavalry horses, and most all of them are the same color, with a deep, rich dark brown to black coats. They are a cross between thoroughbreds and percheron draft horses. The Icelandic Ponies featured in this playlist are the only completely naturally five-gaited breed on earth, although there are other "pacing" breeds of horses as well.
Dancing Aztecas & Mexican Vaqueros
(Hablas Espanol, por favor? I could use Some help with translation here! LOL! Okie doke Laurie, you're up!)
South American Dancing Horses ~ Peruvian Pasos & Paso Finos
The Peruvian Paso and the Paso Fino have no "trot" gait whatsoever. Instead, they possess a kind of running walk that can average 10 -12 miles per hour at a comfortable pace, and faster if asked for a more excelerated speed. These horses are like the Cadillacs of the horse breeds, in so far as ride comfort is concerned. One of their horse show events consists of carrying a full glass of champagne in the right hand while putting the horse through its paces with the left. The contestant with the most champagne left in their glass at the end of the event wins! This is the horse to ride or to own if you've got back problems! :-)
Mongolian Steppes Mountain Ponies ~ Indian & Pakistani Dancing Horses
Now these videos are something you do not see every day! A very different culture from what we westerners are used to, and yet through the music and the horses themselves, a bridge of sorts, an unspoken undertanding, appreciation and connection might be constructed. Horses have woven their way into the hearts, minds and souls of humans in cultures spanning the globe, and perhaps THEY may be one of our most immediately accessible and available common links to greater acceptance of the differences that would otherwise divide, and ultimately, conquer us all in the end.
