Jerry and the Animistic Lightness of Being

After my last rather heavy journal entry, I thought it would be appropriate to offer up some lighter fare this day.

One of the best ways to be lifted out of gloomy negativity is to hang out with Jerry.


Come with me, for a little interaction with this magnificent draft mule, won't you?

Along the way, let's think a little about how alive the world is and how meaningful it is to engage with all of it in a way that reflects our awareness that each entity we encounter (whether mule, or wind, or bulb of garlic) vibrates with what Goethe called "exact sensorial imagination". How thankful I am for this wondrous aliveness of all things!

"Appreciation is the sunlight of love that makes relationships grow and bear fruit. It is the sunlight that can awaken the seed of greatness in another. And it must be admitted that only great individuals can have great relationships. The future of society, if there is a future, will have to be built upon great friendships--friendships between men and men, women and women, men and women, adults and children, of civilized man with the so-called uncivilized, of the privileged with the underprivileged and of people with animals of all kinds." --J. Allen Boone, from ADVENTURES IN KINSHIP WITH ALL LIFE, pg. 27

My friend, Jerry, was born to a Belgian draft mare and fathered by a Mammoth Jack. Jerry, came into our lives, along with his pasture mates, Dee and Doll (also draft mules) in the autumn of 2001. Their former people were moving to the city and knowing Kevin and I already lived with mules on a nice farm (we were still in Michigan at that time) they asked if we would give them a home. Dee, Doll and Jerry were long time companions and their former people did not want them to be split up. We were not looking to expand our equid family further, but in the end, we decided to make room in our hearts for these fine mules even so.

After we moved to Manitoulin Island and established our Sorraia Mustang Preserve, Hardy Oelke (an ardent advocate for the preservation of Sorraias and Sorraia Mustangs) initially encouraged us to create separate environments so that the domestic horses and mules did not mingle with the primitive group of grullas. Both Kevin and I felt differently, however...we desired all our equine friends to have free range over the entire Ravenseyrie landscape. I'm very glad that we allowed this because it provided Jerry (who is in his late teens) with a very stimulating environment in which to fully express his playful qualities and gave us reason to admire him even more than we already did.

Jerry will play with everyone, no matter how old or young, and he is very careful to tailor his games to reflect the age, size and skill of his gaming partner. This is a marvelous re-channeling of Jerry's energies--you see he used to terrorize calves on our old farm, and even attacked Altamiro when we tried to integrate him into the herd as a yearling stud colt. At some point it seems Jerry came to realize that Altamiro and the mares were part of something very special and if he wanted to be a part of it too, he'd better find a different way into a closer connection with them. All by himself, he gave up his thug-like tendencies and created a new persona-- "Uncle Jerry" is a name he now wears proudly.

The half-Sorraia foals, Encantara and Silvestre spend a little time with Uncle Jerry (with Doll in the foreground.)

Past journal entries show Jerry at play with Altamiro and also with Animado.

Earlier this month I was present for a rare instance where Altamiro allowed Silvestre and Encantara to spend a few minutes with Uncle Jerry. Would you like to see how Jerry and Silvestre engaged in their first tentative game? Please enjoy the video clip below:

The games Jerry plays with Silvestre's older brother, Animado and with their father are much more intense...and in time, especially when Silvestre is banished from the family band by Altamiro later this year, he and Jerry will have many more opportunities to develop greater strength and vigor in their game playing.

I went through some older photos in which Jerry appears, and thought I'd share some of them with you.

Isn't this landscape fabulously beautiful and surreal? Jerry, Dee and Doll enjoy the cool breeze coming off Lake Huron on a gorgeous summer day in 2008.

Jerry splashing in the "tide pool" down at the beach in the summer of 2008. Look how big he looks compared to Belina and wee Fada!

Looking magnificent even though covered in clay mud, Jerry of Ravenseyrie, surveys his private beach.

A favorite photo! Taken while I was sitting on top of Jerry (completely at liberty) giving mounted itches.

Jerry, all "fat and shiny" as my friend Jean, once said.

I have been lately peeling what's left of last year's garlic harvest so that we can mince it and dehydrate it before it sprouts. I like to do this outside, so the wind whisks away all the papery layers, keeping me from making a complete mess of our small house. One day I was sitting out on Kevin's stack of barn beams when Jerry noticed me and decided to come investigate.

Can you feel the "heart connection" present? It's far more potent than treats or a halter and lead for bringing together horses (mule) and humans.

"Still, there is a great power in the world around us. It has not disappeared just because we no longer notice it. Redeveloping the capacity for heart-centered cognition can help each of us reclaim personal perception of the living and sacred intelligence within the world, within each particular thing. It moves us from a rational orientation in a dead, mechanized universe to one in which the unique perceptions of the heart are noticed and strengthened, to a deep experience of the living soulfulness of the world."--Stephen Harrod Buhner, from THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF PLANTS / In the Direct Perception of Nature, pg. 21

This past Sunday, I was once again outside peeling garlic, sitting this time in the yard, with the house at my back sheltering me from what was on that particular day a rather cold March wind. In the lee side of the house, with the sun warming me nicely, I was able to watch Mistral and his group grazing off to the east and also enjoy the vision of Altamiro and his family band off to the northwest. During this very pleasant time of day, Jerry came up once again to see what I was so absorbed in. It pays to keep one's camera handy, and I'm glad I had hung mine off the back of my chair, because Jerry looked so handsome standing there watching me at work:
Unable to disrupt my work by putting his nose into the middle of the garlic basket this time however, Jerry took to making himself look as goofy as possible. The more I laughed at his faces and took rapid fire photos, the more he posed in outrageous ways.

What a clown, eh?!

"Our most immediate experience of things, according to Merleau-Ponty, is necessarily an experience of reciprocal encounter--of tension, communication, and commingling. From within the depths of this encounter, we know the thing or phenomenon only as our interlocutor--as a dynamic presence that confronts us and draws us into relation. We conceptually immobilize or objectify the phenomenon only by mentally absenting ourselves from this relation, by forgetting or repressing our sensuous involvement. To define another being as an inert or passive object is to deny its ability to actively engage us and to provoke our senses; we thus block our perceptual reciprocity with that being. By linguistically defining the surrounding world as a determinate set of objects, we cut our conscious, speaking selves off from the spontaneous life of our sensing bodies.

"If, on the other hand, we wish to describe a particular phenomenon without repressing our direct experience, then we cannot avoid speaking of the phenomenon as an active, animate entity with which we find ourselves engaged. It is for this reason that Merleau-Ponty so consistently uses the active voice to describe things, qualities, and even the enveloping world itself. To the sensing body, no thing presents itself as utterly passive or inert. Only by affirming the animateness of perceived things do we allow our words to emerge directly from the depths of our ongoing reciprocity with the world."--David Abrams, from THE SPELL OF THE SENSUOUS/Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human-World, pg. 56

Why did we ever decide as humans to accept an unconscious world and shut off our perception of our rich heritage of unity? How much more meaningful is this world when all things are perceived as alive and in communication with us! What an exquisite lightness of being we experience in this animistic realm! This is our true heritage, not lost to us, rather, waiting for us to embrace once again. All we need do is set aside those cultured shapings we grew up with which told us animals and plants and the elements were not conscious beings. We are not separate from all that is, but are intricately experiencing all that is, even as all that is is intricately experiencing us. As you've now seen for yourself, Jerry is a good reminder of this. Thank you, Jerry for lifting us up with your playfulness and light-hearted way of being.

The Precarious Future of Horses

"Wooo, ooo, oooooo...Wooo, ooo, ooooooo. Oh, a storm is threat'ning..." Metaphorically, I've have recently been hiding under a rock--my head and heart throbbing with the haunting rhythms of the Rolling Stones' anthemic "Gimme Shelter".


In the shadowed shelter of my lichen covered rock, I can process all the confusion and disappointment I feel in so much of the activities of mankind.

Because I feel a special kinship with horses that goes even deeper than the distinct unity I feel for the rest of creation, these days a confluence of darkness has gripped me where they are concerned.

I will share with readers the reasons for my gloomy funk:

Our Ravenseyrie Sorraia Mustang Preserve's efforts to enhance the severely inbred, nearly extinct genetics of the Iberian Sorraia by bringing together a purebred Sorraia stallion and North American mustang mares of Sorraia type, providing them a wilderness habitat where they can live a virtually autonomous life, generating offspring with enhanced genetic variability and rich physical and mental vitality (well balanced bodies and minds) has been an exquisitely beautiful success story--one which many people seem to enjoy reading about. However, as we prepare for this year's foals to arrive, there has not been an overwhelming desire expressed by other people to acquire Altamiro's offspring. In fact we have not sold or adopted out any Sorraia youngsters at all, and so far this year have no prospects presenting themselves. This complicates things in ways we never imagined.



Kevin and are I in agreement that Ravenseyrie should not be chopped up into separate holding paddocks and limited pastures. Putting severe restrictions on our free range horses would be physically and mentally disruptive for them, one could even say it would be cruel to take away such freedoms which are rightfully theirs and to which they have become accustomed. We think Altamiro would go crazy if we put him in a separate pasture where he had to watch the rest of the world (which was once all his) go by. We don't think any one of our horses, whether primitive or domestic, would feel good being kept in a smaller area, unable to participate in the full world of Ravenseyrie. We do think the youngsters who have already been pushed out of the family band would adjust beautifully if moved to a different setting under the right human care.

Altamiro plays with his nearly two year old son, Animado

With segmentation and separation out of the question for us, and with no one interested in negotiating to acquire the youngsters, we further explored the option of administering the PZP contraceptive to the mares in an effort to suspend further pregnancies until we are able to find the best situations for our present fillies and colts. After almost a year of consultation with The Science and Conservation Center at Zoo Montana, we agreed to give the PZP a try. After jumping through the appropriate bureaucratic hoops to obtain the clearance to import this drug into Canada, we were sent confirmation on March 4th that the PZP would be sent to us. Later that same day, a surprising reverse decision was made and we were informed a misunderstanding of our intentions had occurred. It became apparent they had not thoroughly grasped that we would be hoping to sell the offspring and resume breeding when conditions were more favorable, (though our intentions of using PZP only temporarily were clearly expressed in my collective of lengthy correspondence.)

Though I was never presented with any literature that stated the Science and Conservation Center would not provide PZP to organizations which continued to breed and sell horses I have been now been informed that this is against their principles and policy. If we agree to halt breeding altogether and never sell horses, and manage Ravenseyrie as a "sanctuary" rather than a "selective breeding preserve", they will then happily sell us the PZP. Until then, the Ravenseyrie Sorraia Mustang Preserve is considered a "commercial enterprise" so we are told in a letter from Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick, (director of the Science and Conservation Center and creator of the PZP vaccine) Dr. Kirkpatrick also relayed that regardless of our good intentions Kevin and I are participating in the "traffic of horses" during a time when the world is faced with an epidemic of unwanted equines. Could it be that Dr. Kirkpatrick would not feel a pang of sadness should the Sorraia horses eventually disappear all together?

I went into a deeper hiding spot under my rock trying to get over his palpable disapproval of what we are trying to achieve here at Ravenseyrie. In his book "The Four Agreements", don Miguel Ruiz reminds us "Don't take things personally"...at first I failed my prior training and did take Dr. Kirkpatrick's comments as a personal condemnation, but, the magic of the Ravenseyrie rocks helped me eventually suspend such unhelpful thinking.


In truth, I wasn't all that disappointed that we had in the end been denied the use of this equine contraceptive. PZP (porcine zona pellucida) is formulated by manipulating a vaccine out of pig ovaries which when injected into a mare causes an immune system response that inhibits fertilization of her eggs. These pig ovaries are a by-product from a commercial slaughterhouse in Iowa which processes factory farmed pigs for human consumption. I had been considering the PZP a necessary evil that we would use so that we would not have to separate Altamiro from his mares and disrupt their family dynamics in order to temporarily prevent pregnancies. But I never felt it was the right thing to do, to use this type of science and impose it on our mares who would have no choice but to accept our darting them with this drug. The reverse decision handed down by The Science and Conservation Center saved me from once again going against my intuition. I actually feel amazingly relieved!

While Dr. Kirkpatrick and others may feel that selling horses is some form of deplorable, unethical activity, we do not (if the right kind of people can be found), and it remains now our best option--though it is obvious that we may have to find buyers who do not necessarily have an interest in breeding Sorraias or Sorraia Mustangs as a preservation effort.

Herein lies another disquieting element that one ponders gloomily while under a rock shelter: can we find the right people for these wonderful young horses? More and more individuals are coming to look upon horses as companions and friends rather than as livestock slaves or disposable sport tools. More and more people are realizing that horses are happier and healthier when provided a natural lifestyle on varied acreage, rather than being kept in stables and dirt paddocks. How do we find these people? Here we are on an island in northern Canada...are we too far away from the right network of kindly people?


Another huge concern for Kevin and I is how can we be sure that none of Altamiro's offspring are subjected to abusive handling? Abuse comes in pervasive forms, moreso from a wrong perception of horses than ignorance.

A recent flurry of outrage circling online equestrian sites has been brought to my attention demonstrating that "kinder, gentler" training is not necessarily so. While I always had my doubts concerning the perception many popular "Natural Horsemanship" trainers have for horses and how they have crafted their different training techniques in order to serve humans more than to serve the best interests of the horses, I always felt that they were nonetheless more devoted to "making the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy" and so refrained from methods of painful coercion. I always felt that any rough handling that was done in the name of Natural Horsemanship was due to the misunderstanding of students applying the techniques.

Several excerpts from a Level 1 Parelli training dvd which have been put up on YouTube have opened my eyes that at least one school of Natural Horsemanship uses intimidation, harassment and pain at the foundation level of their training, and it is being taught from the originators themselves. One segment shows a nervous, one-eyed Thoroughbred horse being trained in a manner designed to (in Linda Parelli's statement upholding the value of this technique) "change his dangerous habits and give him the confidence in the leadership of a human."

Another segment shows Mrs. Parelli teaching this same horse's owner how to develop his feel of using the "phase 4 interrupt"--which made me feel just as sick to my stomach as the other excerpt, especially to hear Mrs. Parelli praise her student for getting in a "good clunk" on the horse's lower jaw with that large metal clip on the specially designed Parelli lead line.


Would you want your friend treated this way?

There are better ways to be with horses, and I want to dedicate myself to finding people who are already engaged in better ways or are looking to exchange old concepts for new ones, concepts that see these noble horses as friends and companions...these are the only types of people I want to place the Ravenseyrie youngsters with.

We humans need to stop believing that horses have to be intimidated, dominated and punished in order to be safe to be around! I turned away from this belief years ago and discovered how much better it is to be with horses who have not been coerced into being with me. I, myself, would not treat a criminal the way this horse was being treated at the Parelli training center, and yet people so readily rough up their horses and call it a necessary feature of the horse's education. It's not necessary and its shameful behavior to relate with horses or humans or any entity in this manner.


My head is spinning, thinking about the way we humans treat horses, the environment, each other...and it's not just the present polices coldly and methodically reducing the wild herds of North American mustangs that has contributed to my weeping blue funk--these polices simply reflect a prevailing mindset held by rule makers who don't find value in these horses and so craft bills which turn the hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands over to unsustainable, unethical economic interests buoyed by political croneyism. No, it is also about the overall disservice we humans continue doing to horses, even as we profess to love them. And its about the separatism we uphold between our human selves and the rest of creation. This belief that human consciousness has evolved us into something more advanced than plants and animals has done little to create a well-spring of enlightened behavior--rather such superioristic beliefs have darkened the horizon with hideous demonstrations of violence. It is shameful that "Gimme Shelter" is as valid a wailing against inhumanity in 2010 as it was in 1969. We humans are creatures prone to demented destruction and yet are also are capable of genuine nurturing love, with the balance all askew toward the former. We are a schizophrenic species, which is maybe at least a bit more empathetic a description than Edgar Morin's "homo sapiens demens", but clearly somewhere along the evolutionary process we humans became mentally twisted.

"What we take to be advances in civilization are at the same time advances in barbarism", writes the French philosopher Edgar Morin in his book Homeland Earth. Probably reading this book also contributed to my gloomy funk, for never have I read a more concise accounting of the darkside of humanity. Though Morin describes humans and earth as doomed by the very nature of the cosmos, he prescribes a remedy to make the most of what we have while we have it:

"There is, among the goals mentioned, true, better living, the quest of something in excess of development. The significance of development goes beyond development; for instance, to develop an appreciation of music does not mean that the history of music is a progressive development, that Beethoven is better than Bach or Richard Strauss better than Beethoven. We must acknowledge the limitations of development as a concept, even when defined anthropologically, because the word suggests unfolding, unwinding, spreading. We must relate it dialectically to the idea of envelopment and involution, which brings us back to the origin or preworld, which immerses us in the depths of beingness and reimmerses us in antiquity, which involves reiteration, self-forgetfulness, a quasi foetal immersion in a beautific amniotic bath, a oneness with nature, reentry into myths, an aimless quest, a silent peace." -Edgar Morin

What fantastic dynamics as Animado goes to the older geldings when the game gets too rough!

There are many reasons why the Horse is in crisis and many reasons to believe that the answer is to stop them from breeding in the wild and to stop people from breeding and selling them until such time as the epidemic of unwanted horses subsides. It reminds me of how many women in apocalyptic movies choose to not have children because the future looks to cruel and hopeless. Why would I allow our horses to continue to bring forth young in such a disturbed, schizophrenic human dominated climate? I'll tell you why...because the world needs this type of naturalness, this type of beauty, this type of freedom, this type of non-human intelligence so well represented in not just our endangered primitive horses, but in all horses. Though I don't know what the future holds for us here at Ravenseyrie, I'm inclined to agree with the words of Hölderlin which Edgar Morin quotes in Homeland Earth, "...where danger threatens, that which saves from it also grows."

Awareness is the key, opening up our landscape for more of the wilderness to return is necessary and nurturing our capacity for love and unity and poetic living is essential, and something I hope the Journal of Ravenseyrie can stimulate.


I must go now, and extend an offering to the rocks which give me so much courage to carry on.

"Love, sister...its just a kiss away...its just a kiss away..."

"Eeeyeahyeahyaaah!"

When the Answer is "No"

Zorita and her 2009 filly, Segura

In today's journal entry, I'm addressing a comment left by June regarding the concept of honoring the horse's "no".

June wrote:

Another question/comment - both Lynne and Imke seem to take the horse's "no" as absolute, or am I wrong? Whereas KFH will argue back - there's a nice sequence of photos in "What Horses Reveal" where KFH is riding without tack in the middle of a huge open area, and the horse doesn't want to go over a ditch. But Klaus says, "yes, we are going to." The horses is annoyed, saying no - and of course, without tack, is at liberty to do whatever he pleases. But in the end Klaus prevails in the "discussion." I think he calls it a "gentlemen's disagreement."

Whenever we are engaged in a relationship with another being there may arise occasions when one or the other may have different  ideas about how a given situation should proceed.  In my opinion, disagreements can be handled a number of ways depending on how each individual feels within the situation they are facing and how resolutions are presented. 

A dictator obviously responds much differently than a friend when a request is met with resistance.  A dictator meeting with resistance aggressively uses whatever means is necessary to gain a "yes".  You could say in that instance the "yes" is absolute--it is the only answer the dictator will accept and any discussion of the matter is forbidden.  When friends encounter a similar resistance to a request (depending on the content of the situation), to accept a "no" as unquestionablly absolute would also mean any discussion of the matter is forbidden.  Both scenarios to me reflect a stifled relationship, something less than ideal, where one individual's "voice" is absolute and the other has no option but to accept what is given.  Such a situation demonstrates inequality in the relationship, each demonstrating inflexibility and neither is the type of relationship that I feel is healthy or mutually beneficial.

My personal feeling is that I very much doubt Imke accepts a horse's "no" as absolute in every situation...and I certainly do not.  Every time we encounter a situation where resistance arises, the content of the moment is variable and absolutes have no place in resolving things.  Only a perception centered on kindness and nurturing which facilitates discussion allows both individuals in the relationship to fully understand the dialogue they are having.  It is not about absolute authority or unquestionable obedience.  It is not about using physical pain or mental intimidation to enforce our will over another. 

While many people want horses to respond without questioning why, like pressing the button on the dashboard of an automobile,  I want more from a relationship with a horse than reliable, half-hearted obedience.  I feel this way about all my relationships, and it is very important to me to know that whomever I am interacting with is responding freely and participating because it is a mutually enjoyable affair.  This applies not just to the other individual in the relationship but applies to me as well.  A great deal of inquiring into my feelings and those of another means that lots of discussion is encouraged so that we each are fully aware of what "yes" or "no" mean in any given situation.

 Tobacco (a.k.a. Mugs)

Just yesterday, one of my canine companions (Tobacco) provided a good example of how I use a nurturing perception and discussion to come to a full understanding of whether "no" is, indeed the final and absolute answer to an offer I made.

There have been occasions where each of our four dogs did something to make one of the horses uncomfortable and so were aggressively chased.  While Shelagh, Maeb and Ganja will still mingle with the horses but keep themselves extra vigilant to how the horses are responding to their presence, Tobacco avoids them at all costs.  Oftentimes this means that Tobacco will say "no" to going for a walk with the rest of us, or if while out on a walk with the rest of us should we come upon the horses, he will turn around right then and there and run back home.

Tobacco is amazingly perceptive and he knows that when the horses are eating they will not be looking to make sport of chasing him and he will walk right by them as we leave to go hiking, or he will use an alternate route to get through the fence of the yard so he can accompany the rest of us on a hike.  If, as it sometimes happens, all routes leaving the yard are flanked with horses, Tobacco will not come for a walk no matter how much discussion takes place and certainly when he is that committed to saying "no" I accept it with no hard feelings between us, for he has convinced me he truly is not willing.  I would cast a pallor on our relationship if in such a situation I got out his collar and lead and dragged him along--he would not think me a worthy leader and he certainly would question our friendship.

Yesterday was a beautiful pre-spring day, with lots of sun, temps just warm enough to initiate a little melting, and being my day off, I felt a nice long hike was in order.  Tobacco thought so too, and engaged along with the other dogs in great leaps of anticipation as I began to put on boots and outerwear.  When I opened the door and we all excitedly tumbled out, Tobacco quickly noticed that Altamiro and his family were all milling around the gate.  There would be no getting through that way.  He then looked at the hole through the fence to the east and noted that Mistral's group were all standing by that opening and he would not be able to get to the open fields that way either.  So even before I got the door closed he slipped back into the house and said, "No, I don't want to go!" 

But I just knew he really wanted to go...I knew his "No" was not absolute, even though he delivered it pretty emphatically.

So we had a discussion.

I cajoled him and told him I just knew we could find a way by the horses, "Please, Tobacco, come with us, it will be fun and you know it will be fun!"  He still said "No!  I cannot go."  But even as he relayed this he remained in the doorway instead of wandering back to his bed in the other room.  This told me he actually was willing to discuss things further.

I knew he would be a little sad to be left behind today, he just needed more encouragement.  "C'mon Tobacco.  You can do it!  We'll climb over the fence to the north, I'll help you."

I was pressuring him, I know I was, because he began whimpering and dancing in place--but I knew his "no" wasn't absolute--nor did he want me to accept it as absolute.  I knew Tobacco really wanted to come with us--so I kept up the pressure because it was the type of nurturing, supportive pressuring that helps one make a breakthrough through a difficulty that is holding them back from a good experience.  "C'mon Tobacco, we'll do it together.  I know we can make it over that fence!  Let's go!"  And after those encouraging words Tobacco said, "Yes!  Let's go!" 

Before I could even get the door closed and walk over to the north fence, he was already there, checking his options, and in one deft, confident move, he lept up onto the top rail of that fence and then sprung off it in full gallop to the north, leaving the rest of us to find our own way over the fence!  We had a marvelous hike that day!

Where Mistral is standing looking at me is the place in the fence where yesterday Tobacco jumped so he could go for a hike with me and the other pups.  (The horses were not in this exact location at that time.)

I cannot speak for how Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling carried out his discussion with Janosch as he convinced the horse to walk into the ditch.  He called it quarreling, but I feel it was something similar to the exchange Tobacco and I had...that it was based on a nurturing perception of the situation.    Since Klaus was riding in the big wide open completely free of tack, Janosch could easily have made his "no" definitive by dumping his rider and running away.  Instead he remained in the discussion with Klaus and a breakthrough to something better ensued.  Klaus may have projected to Janosch, "You must do this because I say so", or he may have projected "Please, my good friend, I insist, because I know you can do it and it will be good to have this experience."  I'm inclined to think the later was the case, because somehow I don't imagine a strong character like Janosch would accept being dictated to.

In Empowered Horses, Imke Spilker wrote about a situation where she proposed something new for her horse Toppur to try to which she said:

"Toppur retreats in response to my actions and refuses to comply with my request."  --Empowered Horses pg. 96

We all recognize that Toppur had said no.  Did Imke take it as absolute?

She does not, rather she first apologizes for unintentionally confusing him and for causing him to resist and question her reasons for the request she had made.  (Empowered Horses pg.83) 

Shall she accept his "no" and leave matters there, or might she not use the opportunity to explain herself better and make the request from a new place of understanding?

"The more independent our horse is the more quickly he will question the purpose of the work.  Our answer to his question is crucial, because with it we set the course of our relationship.  'Because I say so.'  This answer, emphatically given to the horse, reveals the two-legged dictator.  So, all that went before is really just a prelude to this.  Even the answer, 'Because there is a barrel standing there,' or, 'Because there is a tire on the ground,' does not change the dictatorial drift.  It merely defers the more concrete answer, 'And I want you to go around this barrel.'  Despite everything, horses can--perhaps after a period of hesitation--decide to go along with their person's new idea, even if there are many reasons not to.  It is one of the wonders I wish to tell you about in this book.  Despite everything, horses will go along with us, all on their own, of their own free will, just because we do not obstinately try to force them.  I do not have to assert my will, but nevertheless, my horse complies.  That is a great gift.  The answer that I give Toppur in this instance is, 'Because I think it is important, and because I would very much like it.' Instead of using pressure or exercising power I do exactly the opposite.  I ask my horse to simply try it." --Imke Spilker /Empowered Horses pg.96

And Toppur agrees to give it a try.  Had he still resisted following Imke's idea, if he was still somewhat open, my sense is she would have likely found a different way of presenting her request that he would feel able to comply with, but ultimately she would have honored "no" if Toppur insisted (and likely she would have apologized to him once again).

In sharing with us the manner in which Kirsten asks Kim to leave his pasture mates and join her for some playtime in arena, Imke gives us another example regarding how she regards the horse's "no".

"What would have happened had Kim turned away, if he had signaled, 'No, thank you?'  What would Kirsten do?  She would, one more time, clearly invite him to join her, perhaps also letting him know that it meant a lot to her.  But, what if Kim still did not want to come, if he had even walked away?  Kirsten would respect his position, take away the halter, say her goodbyes with a treat, and leave him in his pasture because his hunger is greater than his desire to join her." --Imke Spilker / Empowered Horses pg. 35

This has been a rather long answer to June's question and probably the short answer is simply to say that I take my horse's "no" as absolute only if I am convinced he feels absolutely committed to saying "no".