Question
What example(s) of communion in empathetic intimacy have you experienced or witnessed in your horses, if any?
Answer
Horses are sensitive to our emotions and physiology. The primary example I can give you concerning "communion in empathetic intimacy" has to do with a horse I worked with just yesterday. She is an untrained four year old. I caused her to trust me through Join-Up® and accept her first saddle and rider.
After that experience, I successfully caused her to follow me in the enclosure, an act which was clearly empathetic. At the conclusion of my demonstration I hurried away from the horse to the other side of the pen and asked an audience of 50 persons to clap their hands together just one time, loudly. The horse did not just come to me, but ran to me as fast as she could.
To the extent that she could, she wrapped her body around me to be as close to me as she could possibly manage. Any intelligent viewer would label this action as communion in empathetic intimacy.