 As I clicked through the pictures, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. Here were horses flying with invisible wings. This man, Alexander Nivzarov, a former war correspondent wounded in the line of duty, and a current governmental advisor, researcher and historian, had found a way to be with horses who were free to express themselves in natural collection. When I read that he worked with the horses without using any punishment, force, or restrictions on the horses' heads, and complete liberty, something in me was shaken, how is that possible? That was when I knew Russia would be my next destination. I used to be a horse trainer. I used to be a riding instructor. Until the day I realized that somewhere I had gone off course. My days were filled with training horses, teaching lessons, and judging competitions. I was good at what I did. I could teach my students how to control their horses. But there was something lost in that process. I looked back at pictures and drawings from my childhood. In the beginning, there was a passion that drew me to horses. A closeness I felt with these gracious beings. Where had the beauty, majesty, and freedom of horses gone? I started to dream. If I could go and meet anyone in the world, who would it be? I looked at the books that inspired me and made a wish list of the authors I wanted to meet. These people broke with tradition and focused more on what we can learn from horses than what we can teach them. My first stop was Colorado. To meet Mark Rashid, a tough-looking cowboy with a black belt Nikito, who talked about passive leadership, softness, and the value of a still mind. A lot of people refer to that as the one we want to emulate. And if you've ever spent any time around any large herds of horses, it's really easy to find the alpha horse, the boss horse, because they're generally off by themselves. Because the other horses don't want to be around them. So for me, I don't know why I would want to emulate that behavior in relationship to training and working with horses. But in a herd of 30 horses, there will be 29 followers and one leader. And the leader is generally an older mare. You say in a wild herd. The stallions come and go. But mayors stay for life. And so it's not necessarily going to be the bossy mare. It's going to be the one with all the life experience. It's the leader that can be trusted, whether it's with people or with horses. The way to develop trust is through consistency. If you're consistent, then you're dependable. If you're dependable, you become trustworthy. If you're trustworthy, the horse will be at peace with you. And if the horse is at peace with you, they can become soft. Softness comes from the inside of the horse or the person. Lightness is just on the outside. You can achieve lightness through training. Meaning you can get a lot of things done. And they look really good. Right up until they get into a new situation, we see horses all the time that people will refer to as soft or light. And they'll bring them into a new clinic. Everything's going fine at home. And they bring them into a new situation and everything unravels. With lightness, the things that are trained into the horse are available when things are going relatively well. With softness, everything is available all the time. Through training, we take all the softness out of the horse and we spend the rest of our lives trying to put it back in. And it's there. It's still there. We just have to look for it and develop it and nurture it and bring it out. Horses who are in captivity are missing out on their activities of being with the herd. And it's my desire that we fill those needs for our horses. If we're looking back to our forefathers, they say that we have something like a realistic world. Things you can see, things you can touch. Klaus taught us exercises to bring us into the present moment, which is where we needed to be in order to connect with a horse. He compared a horse to the ocean, something that we had to come into harmony with, unlike a guitar, an instrument created by man. Until I became aware of how horses mirrored the things in me that I needed to look at, I would continue to be frustrated by my expectations. The last person I went to visit, I didn't find by reading his book. I saw his website. As I clicked through the pictures, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. Here were horses flying with invisible wings. This man, Alexander Nivesarov, a former war correspondent wounded in the line of duty, and a current governmental advisor, researcher and historian, had found a way to be with horses who were free to express themselves in natural collection. When I read that he worked with the horses without using any punishment, force, or restrictions on the horse's heads, and complete liberty, something in me was shaken, how is that possible? I don't have a preconceived notion of where I want to go. Then I would be so focused on that that I would miss the flowers on the sides. I think it used to be at one time about what I can do with the horse, but it's not that way for me anymore. There's a certain way that I'm trying to go through my life, and over the years there's been a shift for me in that it isn't about me and the horse. It's about what the horse is bringing to the table that can help me get to where I need to go. You don't need to put horses in different categories. They're not aliens, they're exactly as we are. They're the same kind of mammal. We are similar in almost every physiological parameter. And also it's quite dangerous to put a horse into some cosmic range of incredible and unseen alien as to put her down to a mere piece of sports equipment. But a close, noble, and concerned relationship with any living creature always gives you amazing results. Everything in life, everything that lives in this world has the same rights for life, for freedom, love, happiness. And a horse gives these possibilities to the human. You only have to hold your hand out, you just have to understand that the secret of relationship with the horse is that you just stop being a creature that is allowed to give somebody pain, to take somebody's life, to give somebody sorrow. You get into a completely different position. In all my travels, I saw that the most important journey we can take is to go within and see ourselves for who we really are. The more freedom within ourselves, the more freedom the horses have, and the more we are awake to the source of life. The horses are our reflections.