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Horse-human harmony goal of new DVD
Source: Billings Gazette
January 26, 2008
by BECKY SHAY
Of The Gazette Staff
What you put out there comes back to you.
It's a simple approach to life, said Phillip Whiteman Jr., whose American Indian culture has followed the philosophy for centuries. The way of life dictates that everything a person does affects him now and in the future. The viewpoint is extended to the mirror concept, in which good thoughts - and bad ones - are reflected back.
"You see what you want to see," Whiteman said. "What we put out there, it comes back to us. Fault finders see negativity."
The philosophy applies not only to humans but also to horses. Using it, Whiteman has developed the "Medicine Wheel Model to Natural Horsemanship." He has been giving workshops and camps on the training method for several years and recently released a video on the model.
The method applies to horsemanship the American Indian meanings of the Medicine Wheel, which represents four colors, four directions, four seasons and the four stages of life. In the philosophy, the creator is at the center, and all beings are equal and connected around the circle.
The segments of the wheel, moving from the top, or north, to the right start with the spring and infant in the northeast or the horse's front right; fall and adolescence are the right hindquarters; the tail is a center of balance, where rites of passage take place; the fall, or adult, is the left hindquarters; and the winter, or grandparent, is the left front, or the northwest.
As the phases move around the Medicine Wheel, they go from the vulnerable infant to the emotional teen to the sneaky adult and to the wise grandparent who is again becoming vulnerable. Age-appropriate behaviors exist with each side. For example, the defensive adolescent might kick, while the grandparent is more wise and receptive to learning.
Whiteman, who is Northern Cheyenne, released the DVD in December. The 45-minute video has been more than three years in the making. The time consumed doesn't bother Whiteman - nothing happens by mistake, he said, including the segment of his father, Phillip Sr. playing hand drum and singing.
"Dad passed on to the spirit world two days after he last sang for me, and we caught it on film," he said.
The video was filmed on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in fields of lush green grass and with panoramic mountain backdrops. A horse demonstration was filmed in what Whiteman called "my office," the 30-foot round corral near his Lame Deer home. The video features Whiteman playing flute and performing a traditional grass dance.
Deb Black, editor of Today's Horse Magazine, which has featured Whiteman, says in the video that the model is as much "a people-training approach" as an equine model.
Whiteman said one of the keys to the model is that the mind and spirit of the horse and human work together and mirror each other. Most horsemanship methods are based on a prey-predator approach that uses flight and fear instincts of the horse to teach the animal.
Whiteman doesn't take that path because, as he says in the video, "Sooner or later you will become the prey and the horse will become the predator."
His approach to the training is to work with the horse on terms that the animal understands: Follow the Indian way of avoiding eye contact, which is considered threatening or disrespectful. Don't stress or push the horse, but rather use its natural bearings to work with it - for example, follow off the horse's hip. "In our culture, you lead from the back," he said.
Horses use circular thinking, right to left, ground to top, Whiteman said. Indigenous languages follow the same route, he said. Linear thinking moves in the opposite directions, which can cause humans and horses to struggle with each other, he said.
"When the two languages come together, if they are not understood, it creates a clash. It creates an unbalance," he said.
Horses, which were foreseen by the Cheyenne prophet Sweet Medicine, are a symbol of holiness to the people, and their extraordinary powers of perception are highly appreciated. For example, the Native belief is that a horse can absorb the stresses and ill will in a group of people, take it in and "literally process it and put it back into Mother Earth," Whiteman explains in the video.
"People are starting to understand the healing powers of the horse; it's starting to be used around the world," Whiteman said in an interview with The Gazette. "Horses and animals have spirits. Indian people have viewed that since the beginning of time because of their connection to Mother Earth."
The video is dedicated to Whiteman's parents, Phillip and Florence Whiteman. Phillip Whiteman was a chief in the Council of 44, the traditional leaders of the Northern Cheyenne, and Florence Whiteman was the last original ceremonial woman of the Elk Scraper Society.
It is a reconnection to his parents' teachings, his upbringing and the Cheyenne traditions that led Whiteman to develop the Medicine Wheel Model, he said.
Whiteman also credits his wife and business manager, Lynette Two Bulls, with helping him through a life transition back to a traditional way of life that is in balance.
"I was developing the Medicine Wheel Model before Lynette came into my life, but when she did come into my life, I knew she was part of this energy that is evolving in my work today," he said.
A part of the DVD proceeds will help fund Whiteman and Two Bulls' nonprofit organization, Yellow Bird, which provides cultural and traditional education to youths.
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