The riding season's all but over, the shows have wrapped up, ribbons and memories have been stored and across the country horses and riders are settling in for the winter. It's a great time to contemplate the successes and lessons gained and to make plans for next year. On the list will be a review of stuff like trainers and training programs, conditioning regimens, tack upgrades, show commitments and so on. But you might want to consider some ancient wisdom found in a treasure of a book published nearly 50 years ago called "Kinship With All Life" by J. Allen Boone, motion picture animal trainer. His work with animals on production sets launched a lifelong quest to understand the connection between humans and all creatures. Among his stories are insights into relationships with horses and tribal peoples from the high plains of North America to the deserts of Saudi Arabia.

He had long been fascinated with the symmetry, coordination and ease with which native people on the prairies rode their ponies without saddle or bridle. Opportunity provided a chance to become acquainted with a tribal Chief. Through an interpreter he asked the Chief about their secret of riding a pony without tack. For days his question lay unanswered until the Chief offered an answer in sign language. But he cautioned Mr. Boone that, for him to ‘full-know' what he asked, he would have to have been native born, native taught and raised with an Indian pony as his brother. Only then would he truly understand the mystery.

Through skillful movements of his fingers and hands, the Chief shared his wisdom. Mr. Boone was able to decipher that the contact between a native person and a pony was based on friendship and understanding and that their lives were forever entwined. As horse and rider, they would experience life as one, functioning as a single unit in mind, heart, body and purpose. Intuitively Mr. Boone understood the ancient tribal philosophy that there is a mental and spiritual connection with all life. All creatures are important and all things are needed in the universal plan.

According to Mr. Boone, the Bedouin's reason for his success with horses "...lay in the fine quality of his thinking about them. This thinking preceded him when he moved in their direction; it continued with them while he was in their presence; it remained with them like a benediction after he left them. His thinking expressed sincerity, admiration, appreciation, respect, affection, a sense of fellowship, humility, unselfishness, sympathy and a desire to share his best with his animals... In everything the Bedouin said about his horses, he gave them a mental and spiritual rating equal with his own. He regarded them as celestial creatures and he never spoke of them without in some way paying tribute to their divine qualities..." A broodmare was especially blessed for the Sheikh would take his prayer rug to spend time kneeling and sitting with the mare. He would meditate, pray with her and recite to her from the Koran.

As he had with the Chief, so Mr. Boone asked of the Sheikh the secret to his unusual relationship with his horses. Like the Chief, the Sheikh expressed with his hands the oneness of the entwined life between the human and the horse. And in that simple desert expression was the embodiment of the universal kinship with all life.

Half a century, and we've come full circle. Perhaps we call it horse whispering; perhaps we refer to being in sync; perhaps it's simply a rhythm, an understanding murmured just beyond the conscious realm. Whatever it is in our harmony with horses, it is ancient, it is profound, and it is at the core of our entwined world.