What Horses, Rudyard Kipling And The One Command Have In Common

When I was a young girl I lived on a ranch with sheep, cattle, pets and especially my best friends, our horses. I was cautioned many times “to be careful” as an eight year old of the danger around horses, at the same time I was taught how to ride and brush, curry, clean and feed these glorious ...
When I was a young girl I lived on a ranch with sheep, cattle, pets and especially my best friends, our horses. I was cautioned many times “to be careful” as an eight year old of the danger around horses, at the same time I was taught how to ride and brush, curry, clean and feed these glorious gargantuan, magnificent creatures.

Watch out for the teeth and feet, walking around the rump of a horse, and irritating it when you put on a saddle and cinch it tight, were at the top of the list of the “watch out and be careful” orders.

And then there was the list of what I needed to know of what not to do. “You can ride,” my dad would say, “but don’t ride too far, don’t ride too fast, don’t run the horse, don’t let him have his head, don’t let him eat grass when you’re riding him, don’t let him drink water when he is hot, and don’t fall off because you’ll hurt yourself.”

I was pretty depressed about riding by the time dad got through with all the rules, which he absolutely never missed every time I rode, which was every day. I started with a great deal of excitement and zeal and confidence in myself that I could ride, and ride well, but by the time I got onto the horse I was pretty terrified that I’d do it all wrong, let the horse get away from me, injure the horse in some way by bloating from drinking water, or over eating, or falling down a gopher hole because I was riding too fast, or hurt myself by falling off and down that long, long way to the ground. That was a pretty big burden for an eight year old.

It seemed that my special horse, Miss Tiny listened in to our conversations because she would turn her head right when dad was giving me the what to be afraid of, and what not to do list, neigh a little, shake her head and then look away. I noticed that she was right on cue every time with the same action.
Then when I mounted her and settled in the saddle she would turn her head look back at me and seem to send me a quiet message, “OK that’s over lets go have a great ride”.
Within moments of leaving the paddock, and going out for our ride something amazing would come over me - a sense of peacefulness and rightness within me, and the world. There was a relationship between Miss Tiny and me that superseded fear, anxiety, and the thought of getting it wrong or right that was simple comfort, fun, pleasure and confidence in what I could do when I was riding her. She was the best relationship of my childhood.

As you may well have figured out by now the correlation to my adulthood and The One Command is comparable to the “fearful don’t do it wrong – have to get it right” part of me in my ordinary every day beta mind, and the confident, relaxed, joyful one who has discovered the Miss Tiny experience in my theta brain wave and The One Command.

I had a great grammar school teacher about the same time who was teaching us poetry and I remember especially the “If” poem by Rudyard Kipling that he wrote for his son, because it made me think of the possibility of greatness we have right within us and I had a craving to try to live that kind of life, even though I thought it almost certainly impossible. Let me share the poem with you because this is part of The One Command as well, looking at what might be possible rather than impossible.

If

IF you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

IF you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

IF you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

IF you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,‘ Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

Note from Asara: If Rudyard were alive today I’m sure he’d be more inclusive and speak to both sons and daughters!
When The One Command arrived in my life I was at the bottom of down and out facing tremendous loss, financial ruin and even thinking about checking out of the planet. I had to face the fact that I really didn’t have answers to my problems but my memory of Miss Tiny reminded me that my father’s point of view, or the world’s point of view of worse case scenario wasn’t necessarily correct.

I had experienced something bigger and more wonderful in my relationship with Miss Tiny and when I went into the theta brain wave that I had been practicing for a few years, I got the message of the words of The One Command and something essential shifted in me that has remained, an experience of a greater truth of who we are IN A BIGGER AND MORE WONDERFUL WAY.

Now I thought that was worth sharing with the world.