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Welcome to A Horse Leads Me to Water , an educational resource dedicated to relating to the horse in freedom for personal and social well-being – with a horse or without one.
The phrase “A horse leads me to water” reimagines the familiar proverb:
“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”
Traditionally, this saying reminds us that knowledge or opportunity can be offered to someone, but not forced upon anyone. The version presented here reverses the roles and reorients the metaphor to reflect a deeper truth about knowledge and the desire for freedom in order to live an undisturbed compassionate life.
In this reversal, the horse leads, highlighting how nature moves in harmony with a spontaneous, non-personal intelligence unaffected by individually contrived beliefs, preferences, or agendas, inviting you to discover the perspective that clarifies the mind and aligns it with your real Self.
Your desire to relate without domination opens the gate to liberation. Freedom from suffering without imposing suffering on the horse by uprooting the ignorance of your real nature and living up to the knowledge of your actual abilities and responsibilities is the water.
If your likes and dislikes have not rendered your mind undisturbed, in relationship with the horse or in other aspects of life, it may be your call to follow the horse to water .
A Horse Leads Me to Water directs inquiry into:
- The nondual essence shared by all beings — When no longer seen through the lens of mere utility or separation, the horse and the human are known as expressions of the same eternal reality.
- The illusions born of ignorance — What assumptions do I bring to this relationship? Which are true, and which are based on unquestioned conditioning?
- The identity of the one who knows — Am I this person seeking control, validation, or healing? Or am I the ever-free awareness in which all experience appears?
When we renounce coerced or painful control of the horse with humility and trust — not as an act of passivity but as a deliberate practice of understanding —relating to the horse in freedom becomes a living and artful practice of compassion and joy.
Please, make yourself at home. Allow me to show you around –
How to Relate to the Horse in Freedom is where you’ll find the lesson topics and opportunites for discussion and questions. Offering objective insights on horse-human relationships helping to resolve doubts and overcome obstacles to relating in freedom, including practical management solutions.
The blog is where I share the principles and values embraced here including my own experience to help you in relating to the horse in freedom, gaining relative knowledge of the horse body-mind and the human body-mind. Stay inspired and motivated to hone the practical discipline of unbound stewardship for the horse and yourself.
The Glossary is where I feature words and phrases that have technical relevance, special meaning or importance for the principles and practices of relating to the horse in freedom. Feel free to drop me a line with words and phrases you’d like to see defined and discussed.
Note well:
The information shared on this website and in the teaching offered in regard to relating to the horse in freedom and the art and science of hoof care is for educational purposes. It is not meant as a replacement for liscenced human psychological therapy or medical treatment nor for veterinary diagnosis and treatment for horses.
A Horse Leads Me to Water and Relating to the Horse in Freedom accepts the horse’s perspective and nature and the fact that she acts for her own sake. The principles and values taught are intended to be instill psychologically free relationships between humans and horses. Responsible, safe and species appropriate physical conditions should be maintained and supplemented as necessary for the well being of the horse, all to the best of your ability. In the value of non-injury it is understoood that you will not subject the horse to punishment or coercion to achieve specific results.
It is well known that humans can experience therapeutic effects as well as gain insight into their personal and spiritual development in the presence of horses. However, relating to the horse in freedom holds the position and teaches on principle that these effects are not the responsibility of the horse and that humans should not directly or indirectly interact with horses with expectations that they will attain a particular special experience. The horse does not owe us anything – not healing, teaching, comfort, friendship, respect or time of day.
Use and training of horses for pleasure riding, assisted learning or therapy, breeding for sale, entertainment, any other commercial use or equestrian discipline is not condoned. The knowledge and principles for relating to the horse in freedom are not techniques meant to facilitate such uses. In fact, their effect is unreliable or negated without full commitment to a psychologically free horse.
It is understood that many (holistic) equine health and hoof care providers who share the position of A Horse Leads Me to Water and implement the principles with their own horses may be working with horses who are living within the constraints of the above mentioned conventional equestrian and commercial enterprises. This is excusable in that all horses need health and hoof care and those things in and of themselves do not support use of horses. Besides – these practitioners have opportunities to educate their human clients who may be receptive to the idea of relating to horses in freedom!
If you are just at the beginning of leaving the conventional horse world behind, or at least thinking about it, I welcome you to explore the content here. All of us started our lives with horses in the world of the equestrian-industrial complex, so you will not be judged for your past. Having a horse or even access to one is not required to benefit from the teaching here!
Turning things around
When I set out to change my life through horses, I thought becoming an equestrian would satisfy a restless desire for purpose and reinvention. But the horses had a different message.
They didn’t conform to my ideals. Instead, they revealed a truth I couldn’t ignore: that the conventional model of control and utility demanded a denial of their nature — and mine. This conflict marked a turning point. I didn’t want to dominate; I wanted to relate.
My search for another way led me to the work of Alexander and Lydia Nevzorov. Their teachings exposed the ethical and emotional cost of traditional horsemanship, and demonstrated a culture of human-horse relations based on freedom and uncoerced cooperation.
While this shift in relationship could be an end in itself, for me it was only the beginning. In Alexander’s book The Horse Crucified and Risen, references to Eastern and Indigenous spiritual traditions and philosophical assertions sparked a deeper inquiry that led me to Advaita Vedanta, the wisdom teaching that reveals eternal, unchanging awareness as the essence of all beings and our true nature, ever-present freedom itself.
A Horse Leads Me to Water was born of this understanding. It begins not with training the horse, but with recognizing how our relationships reflect the clarity—or confusion—of the one who seeks to relate.
Since 2011, I’ve supported others on this path—first as a Representative of Nevzorov Haute Ecole, and now as the founder of A Horse Leads Me to Water. This work is for those ready to turn things around and discover what remains when the need to control gives way to the natural order of what is.