sacred truth is in the poop
Back in May, I had the soul-stirring pleasure of experiencing “The Listening Field” with Kim Hallin in South Carolina. Kim has three horses, including Shilo, a mustang born in the wild who lived there for his first five years before being rounded up, gelded, and adopted into the domesticated world.
When I first arrived, Kim’s mare, Tempo, had just pooped. Shilo walked over, smelled it, and nibbled on it. Kim explained that in the wild, stallions smell and nibble a mare's manure to gather critical reproductive data, monitor her cycle, and establish scent-based dominance. While it looks bizarre to us, it is a highly sophisticated form of chemical communication. It was fascinating to witness, but I figured it was just a "wild mustang" thing.
Fast forward a few months. I was guiding a somatic breathwork session for a client under a canopy in the pasture, with my own horses nearby. Toward the end of the session, my mare, Jesse, stopped right at the edge of the canopy and pooped. My gelding, Apollo, immediately walked over, smelled it, and nibbled on it.
I was stunned. I had never seen my own horses do this. Furthermore, Apollo was gelded at a young age and has only ever known a domesticated life. I shared this rare, strange moment with my client, inviting her to be curious about what message it might hold for her.
Since that day, Apollo has repeated this behavior three more times. It hit me: maybe this message wasn't just for my client. Maybe it was for me.
The Wildness Hidden Within Us
Why does Apollo, a domesticated gelding, still act like a wild stallion? Because some things are so deeply embedded in our blueprint that no amount of "domestication" can erase them. It is pure instinct and intuition. A horse's scent processing links directly to the emotional and memory centers of the brain. When a stallion reads a scent trail, he is essentially reading a historical log—a raw, unfiltered truth.
As women, many of us have spent decades adjusting our behavior, wearing social masks, and letting cultural indoctrination silence our inner voice. We bury our truths so deep that we lose contact with them. But Apollo reminded me that our primal, intuitive "knowing" never actually leaves us. It is always there, waiting for us to reconnect and listen.
Turning Toward the "Dirty" Stuff
In many spiritual traditions, horses represent freedom, raw power, and the bridge between the physical and spiritual realms. The spiritual significance of this behavior centers on deep discernment. It is a reminder to look past outer appearances, trust our intuition, and "sniff out" the truth before we commit our precious energy to a situation.
The act of turning toward what humans consider "dirty" or unappealing highlights a profound paradox: the most valuable insights often come from looking at what we have cast off, hidden, or labeled as messy.
If we want to reclaim our true, untamed freedom, we have to be willing to look past the surface. What if we stop running from the messy parts of our stories? What if we truly look for the sacred truth in the poop?