From Gunny: Greeting Breath

Disclaimer: Written while attending Carolyn Resnick's 2010 Waterhole Ritual Insider Circle Class. The following post is a combination of my own ideas and also reflects my personal experience, understanding, and application of material taught in the class.

The Greeting Breath is used whenever two horses are coming back together after a short or a long separation, or when two horses meet for the first time. It is very similar to the thing that I have seen humans do where they take each other’s hand and shake it in order to establish a connection and feel each other out. When horses come together for a greeting breath there is much feeling of the other horse, how they walk up, how they reach out, how they blow their breath, and what they do after the greeting breath has been exchanged. Each of these things communicates a world of information from one to the other.

The Greeting Breath is important to our society because it allows us to assess another horse’s motives and mood (emotions) instead of going straight to dominance games. It is a way to assess a new member of the herd to see if they want to integrate with peace or with fighting. Each horse’s style of greeting tells the other horse a lot about where they are in the pecking order and whether they operate in the realm of community-minded horses or in the realm of dominant horses. The exchange of the greeting breath (or the unwillingness to participate in this ritual) sets the tone of the interactions to follow.

Holly has always greeted me, but in a human way. She would walk into my pen and ask me to come to her and then she would put her hand out for me to touch with my nose. Then she would put my halter on or put my flymask on so I could go out in the pasture, or whatever else. This was all right with me, but the closest I could translate this in the Code of Horses was that she wanted to be dominant by playing dominance games. I was fine with her greeting me that way because playing dominance games is fun. The reason that I translated her greeting that way is because a horse who wants to play in the dominance realm will go right up to the horse they want to play with and exchange a greeting breath and then go straight to engaging in dominance interaction.

The way that the greeting breath ceremony is carried out communicates the intentions and mood of each horse. If a horse isn’t ready to be greeted, they can always walk away to communicate the “no” in a peaceful way. Community-minded horses spend more time Being Together and assessing the situation first. They do this by checking the area out and sniffing poop and tasting the food or water. If a dominant horse approaches right away while they are checking out the area, a community-minded horse will walk away to say that they don’t want to engage in dominance games. When they are ready to say exchange a Greeting Breath, the two horses will walk up to each other. or one will approach and one will allow himself to be approached.

The main thing with the Greeting Breath ceremony is that the one being approached is in control because the Code says that if they leave, they are saying no to the interaction at that time. If the other horse walks away too, then no rank is gained or lost by the interaction and peace is maintained. If the horse being left stands and watches the other horse leave, then he allows that horse to move up in rank over him. If the horse being left follows or chases after the horse saying “no”, then he is communicating that he is interested in dominance and conflict.

When Holly started using the Greeting Breath ceremony in more of the way of the Horse, she was able to say more things to me in a way I could easily understand. Sometimes she comes into my pen and we Be Together for a little bit before approaching or asking me to come to her. If she approaches me, she comes in much more slowly and leans down and forward for me to reach out down and forward to sniff her hand. Then she walks away or steps away right away. This tells me that she is there in peace and community and wants to be in the community-minded horse realm. If I approach her, she meets me and we both reach down and forward slowly. This places her above me in rank in a peaceful way because she caused me to stop my approach.

I have tested Holly on this ceremony with as many variations as I can think of. Sometimes I can draw her into dominance for a few minutes but it doesn’t happen very often anymore. I remember one time that I arrogantly said “no, I don’t want to say Hello right now” by pinning my ears at her. Usually that would guarantee a round of a dominance game. But that day, Holly turned and walked away in response. I was so surprised that I turned and looked at her with my ears pricked and in disbelief at what happened. At first this made me feel even more arrogant and powerful because now I could say no and she was listening to me, plus I didn’t even have to move my feet! But I really like Holly and want to be around her. So when she would walk away when I really wanted to play games with her, I didn’t like that so much either. I started to greet Holly nicely some of the time.

Other times I would try different ways to play games, but then Holly started to ask that I have manners when I say no. Somewhere she must have learned the piece in the code of horses where in order to say no politely, the horse must leave. So when I would try to say no by telling her to go away while I stood my ground, she would cause me to move my feet instead. A couple of other ways I have tried were to ignore Holly’s offer of a greeting by standing still but looking the other way, or by starting to say Hello but looking away at the last minute. At first Holly would walk away when I looked away and I really liked that because I would feel more arrogant from the fact that I had ignored her and gotten away with it plus that she moved her feet and I didn’t have to. But in a short time she started to step off to the side and make a noise or movement, which I would just have to look at. Because each time she could get me to look at her when I was ignoring her meant she gained a little rank over me, I decide to use the Greeting Breath in the proper way pretty quickly now.

I have one other version I like to use once in awhile. I call it the Border Collie version because I get up on my toes with my ears pricked, head up, neck arched, and am ready to go in any direction with explosive energy, just like a dog that used to come and visit our farm. I use this version when I am very full of myself and feel like trying to intimidate Holly and I also use it when I am wound up and partly skeptical and partly curious at the same time. When I want to intimidate I try to get Holly to reach her hand up towards me more by looking really interested in connecting but being unwilling to reach down. Then when my nose almost touches her hand I jump in place but a tiny bit towards her to see if I can get her to jump.

When I am more skeptical I do the same thing but jump backwards instead. Holly gets me to reach down and forward now. This helps me to calm down and to feel less in charge, when I am in this mood. When she just greets me and then walks away I forget about trying to intimidate her. And if I was skeptical, I become less skeptical when she walks away right away.

Next week I plan to tell you about the Ritual that community-minded horses use to create respect. It is a special Ritual because horses only perform it when they in in the community-mind realm.