Stranded in Europe with a pretty mare and an aging pup, our loving couple are seated on the patio of their holiday cottage staring out at the trees surrounding them as they contemplate their next move. They are pleased that the matter of their future has finally been resolved. Their plans, towards which they have been working and sacrificing for months, have come crashing down around their ears but they have come to terms with the fact that they will not materialise. The past has been buried and the future is clear: cleared of everything. It is as untrodden as virgin snow.
Contemplating the future
At last they have time to contemplate the next step. Still staring at the trees our loving couple accordingly contemplate their next step. They stare without seeing, because they are concentrating on this huge expanse of future which extends ahead of them like an enormous pool of emptiness into which they can pour their dreams. The possibilities seem endless. But just where do you start? Our loving couple turn to each other, the question seemingly etched on their quizzical brow? They peer closely at each other in search of just a hint of an answer. None is forthcoming. Resigned to uncertainty, our loving couple turn their stare back to the trees and resume contemplation of their next move.
Then it happens. An electronic jingle announces the arrival of an email on a smartphone and the past rises from the grave reasserting its right to become their future again. It is Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling again. Bold and virile, he explodes from the screen and appears to adopt the pose of a master, generously extending a five-page invitation replete with testimonials from satisfied pupils to us to attend his one-year course. This, he informs our loving couple, will obviate his need to return any registration fee as requested but resisted.
Our loving couple are stunned. It is 28 June and they feel that they have gone forward to the past. She dismisses the invitation outright. Trust can only be broken once. He reads and rereads the email looking for signs that the master whom he once went looking for in Denmark in vain may have finally arrived.
The letter talks about money, lots of it. It talks about the need for authenticity and awareness, for the achievement of an inner status of being which is so strongly conscious and authentic that it will be recognised and respected by horses. It talks of the success of its author as a teacher, and includes letters and references to support this claim. It repeats the invitation to our loving couple but insists that students have to accept his teachings, his way of teaching and the fundamentals of his school.
He reads the email again. Are there really no signs of the master in it? There is its essence: I want money, I am successful, and you must submit unquestioningly to my superiority. Is there nothing else? Where are the hallmarks of a great master? Where are the qualities that could make him just and trustworthy? Where is his empathy for the students who make great sacrifices to learn from him? Where is his capacity to empower humans to take control of their lives? Where is the enlightenment that will abandon ego to the darkness where it belongs? He cannot find any sign of them. The master he is looking for is not to be found on Lyø, not yet, perhaps never.
Lyø: waiting for the master
Reluctantly he resigns himself to this and prepares to pen a lengthy reply. She raises the spectre of the futility of the exercise. Is the man of the email not beyond redemption? Is anyone? He is not bold enough to dare to answer the question in the affirmative. And so he writes and then some more. At the end of it all though, his letter declines the invitation as uncompromisingly as hers.
This must surely bury the past, seal it in a grave and prevent it from resurrecting itself to reclaim our future. Unless, of course, a true master stages a prompt arrival in Lyø, an event which still seems as likely as all horse owners of the world learning to dance with horses without devices of imprisonment and torture.
And so our loving couple return to contemplating their future. Perhaps there is a first step after all. Why don’t they go in search of Klaus’ successful students, those who have become the kind of human in whom a horse recognises a leader? If the proof of his success as a teacher lies in the success of his students and their success can be measured by their success as leaders of horses, then there should be a growing number of leaders of horses emerging from his school, especially after the 20 years he says that he has devoted to training humans. And so our loving couple trawl the internet and ask around. They come across a few individuals who claim to be inspired or taught by the master who dances with horses. So they look for the proof in pictures and videos. In vain.
And so again our loving couple return to contemplating their future.
The European holiday season has begun. We spend a weekend with Vicki’s twin sister, Agathe, and then wave her off to a stay in Spain. Another sister, Agnes, has just arrived with her son from their home in Athens. She has joined us for our daily walk with Anaïs this morning. And as I walk with the mare, her head at my side, both of us breathing in the crisp bright air, conscious of her presence at my arm on the narrow strip of road between the tree-lined fields, there is nothing but the moment. It is glorious and it is now!
Sharing the glory of now
Dear Andrew, I do not know if this will help. Or perhaps have a meaning as some sort of feedback. When I was at Lyó last year Sept people asked me if I planned to register for the Compact Schooling. Some little voice in me said NO. I still have the feeling that my time spent on Lyó in my little tent with my dog was very worthwhile. I personally needed that sort of retreat-like stay. At the same time I took the opportunity to watch and listen to what KFH had to say and show us during the 8 days of the Pure Practical Performance with interest. I knew of KFH´s previous actions. I had spoken to a number of people who already knew him years ago. He is a gifted man as far as the interaction with horses is concerned. I seem to remember that somewhere in his book ´Die Botschaft der Pferde` he mentions that some lady medium (I think it was) tells him that he IS a horse.
Perhaps he IS a horse that has been so traumatised when interacting with people that he has completely lost not only ´horse talk´ but also ´human talk´. Then there were the horses that have helped him get back into his horse talk. And there have been many horses that have been prepared to help him rediscover his horse talk. However apparently there have not been sufficient humans yet that have managed to help him to get back to his ´human talk´. Respect and trust that are so important in the interaction between horse and human have not yet sufficiently been transferred into his human and human learning process. Perhaps.
So perhaps your stay here in Holland in your holiday home, which is a bit more comforable than my tent I am sure, with Vicky and with Dubu and with Anaiis is also meant as some kind of retreat which you needed. Perhaps knowingly, perhaps unknowlingly.
A retreat to get back to basics. Perhaps.
I wish you and Vicky and the animals all the best. Enjoy your stay here.
Warmly, Geerteke
Dear Geerteke
What you say makes so much sense. We have received so much feedback from people around the world both in comments on the blog and private emails. The overwhelming message is that we need to look to ourselves and our horse for the way forward. In a sense this does indeed mean getting back to basics and that is what we now finally been able to start doing. More about this in my next posting.
Perhaps we can get together at some stage while we are still here in the Netherlands. I know that Vicki would enjoy this as well.
Take care
Andrew
Hi Vicki and Andrew
WOW you are certainly on an adventure. After reading your last few blogs, I think it is a great thing that you have found the truth about certain trainers. If I was in your shoes, I would also question his “greatness” with horses. If he has made you feel this way, then why would horses feel any different? There is a big difference between dancing for ones self and dancing for someone else. I believe that Anaiis is the master that you search for 🙂
I wish you safe and happy travels.
Paulette
x
Dear Paulette
You raise an important point when you ask, ‘If he has made you feel this way, then why would horses feel any different?’ The reason I believe lies in the fact that Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling has a capacity to exhibit the hallmarks of a master – the ability to empathise, empower and adopt an enlightened approach – with any creature who accepts his dominance. Horses do and they do so readily, because they are either leaders or followers and KFH claims leadership (or dominance) within the first few minutes of their initial encounter with them and he does so while clearly showing that he has no intention of hurting them. As a result, it is in following him that horses find their reward.
Unlike horses, however, some of us humans draw a distinction between leadership and dominance: the former we embrace, the latter we reject. We are prepared to be pupils to a master if the latter is just and trustworthy, if he is capable of empathy, empowerment and enlightenment without insisting on dominance as a prerequisite. KFH has shown us that he is not able to be such a master.
Nevertheless, KFH continues to show us that he is capable of being a master to horses. In this respect I still believe we have much more to learn from him than we have until now. This means going back to his books and videos, and trying to find within ourselves that which will enable us to be masters to Anaiis. Paradoxically, the mare will of course clearly show us where we are making progress and where we are falling short. In this sense you are right to say that Anaiis is the master that we search for.
I have started reading the first few pages of Dancing with Horses again. Rereading them in the light of our experience over the past couple of years has begun to yield much greater clarity. Anaiis is also already beginning to notice the difference. More about this in my next posting.
Until then be well!
Andrew
Dear Andrew and Vicki,
I have been reading about your experiences and dashed dreams, which have been brought to my attention because I myself have been so profoundly influenced over the years by Mr. Hempfling’s books and video clips.
As I am sure you know, we cannot control the blowing of the wind, but we can control how we respond to it. And the most holistically edifying response is one born of love, with the intention of nurturing. Sometimes one needs a little time and distance before such graceful refocusing can occur.
The “magic” between HFH and horses is no less inspiring, unless you decide so. There really is no need to let whatever marketing preoccupations he has mandated his students accept without question to ruin that which you were initially moved by, is there? Well and good that you’ve chosen not to accept his offer (the KFH school and workshops aren’t the only way to learn better ways of being with horses), but it will be very helpful for you to devote some of your time now to contemplating what he meant when he wrote to you about, “the need for authenticity and awareness, for the achievement of an inner status of being which is so strongly conscious and authentic that it will be recognised and respected by horses.”
You might also find it helpful to read about another gifted German equestrian–Imke Spilker. A good way to help you understand a bit of how she best feels humans can learn what is good for horses can be read here:
http://ravenseyrie.blogspot.com/2011/03/expert.html
Pay special attention to the link Paulette’s comments there provide, which will take you to some really great questions Imke poses, to help round out things for you and Vicki to meditate upon as you gain perspective of where you are and where to go next.
(Hint: you are already there!…it is not a place or another person…it is your inner guru and your horses…all else is recreational human-centered diversions.)
Best wishes for heightened awareness!
Lynne Gerard
Ravenseyrie Sorraia Mustang Preserve
Manitoulin Island
Ontario, Canada
Dear Lynne
Thank you for taking the time to provide us with such a helpful response.
Like you, I have also been profoundly influenced by Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling’s books and videos over the years and hope to learn more through them over the coming years. Rest assured, there is no way that I will allow the man’s failings with us (and they are not confined to ‘marketing preoccupations’ – there is much that I am not prepared to disclose) to detract from what he has to teach us about being with horses, and there is still much we can learn from him.
You are right to point to the importance of KFH’s assertion of ‘the need for authenticity and awareness, for the achievement of an inner status of being which is so strongly conscious and authentic that it will be recognised and respected by horses’. Without this there is nothing. Without it there is none of the dominance and trust which KFH deems to be essential for achieving anything with horses. Contemplating that assertion is not enough, however. I have set myself the task of trying to live it. In this respect KFH is right: it does not start with the horse but with the human, although the horse will unerringly highlight the human’s progress.
It is some time ago that we read Imke Spilker’s article on your blog. In fact, it inspired us to get her book, Empowering Horses (lovely title). Vicki is close to finishing it and then it’s my turn. Imke Spilker has just recently returned from giving a clinic at Anaiis’ birthplace in Australia (Ribbleton Stud) but has curiously declined our request to explore the possibility of learning more from her personally here in Europe.
You are one of a growing number of people who, when responding to our blog in comments or private emails, have urged us to look to ourselves and our horse in charting our way forward. We have taken this to heart and our next posting will shed light on the direction in which we are moving.
Thank you again for your feedback. I hope to keep in touch.
Be well!
Andrew