This presentation addresses four legs of the horse archetype relevant to humanistic psychology and stewardship of the planet: transpersonal knowing, communicative musicality, anam cara and ecospirituality. Traumatizing experiences can disrupt relationships and compassionate actions. A humanistic model based on horse-human relations proffers interdependent power and egalitarian leadership. If human beings learn this interdependence, we can care for one another in the Celtic tradition, anam cara — soul friends. This deep empathy represents transpersonal knowing beyond words but nonetheless known. Horses have a keen sense of authentic — trustworthy — people, an ability often shaken by trauma. I offer the horse archetype as a courageous and deeply empathic roadmap to regaining our humanistic capacities to sense and act, with power and vulnerability. The legacy of the horse archetype is the motif of anam cara, a dedication to authentic living: balancing power with vulnerability for the greater good of all our sacred earth tribe.
This workshop was presented at APA’s Div. 32 hospitality suite at APA 2019 in Chicago.