Allan J. Hamilton is a respected neurosurgeon who has spent more than 25 years "working inside the human brain with a scalpel," while also sharing his life with and training horses. Lead with Your Heart focuses on what horses have taught him--truths that have inspired Hamilton to apply what he's learned to the universal context of life in order to become a better person.
"The horse's greatest gift," says Hamilton (Zen Mind, Zen Horse) is teaching us how to "reestablish our unity with the world around us." Through grooming manes and picking hooves, Hamilton was motivated to look upon the lives of equines through a philosophical prism because "the simplest acts can engender the greatest insights." The nature of horses--animals who instinctively yearn for harmony, peace, kindness, leadership, kinship and trust--is an apt metaphor for the human condition. Through a series of clear and concise essays--some are only a paragraph in length--Hamilton conveys meticulous observations and axioms like "drop the reins," "circle for safety" and "horses don't lie, people do." Simple yet detailed examples and ideas, about teaching and learning, leading and following, searching for happiness and sampling different emotional energies, aim toward self-revelation and cultivating a more meaningful life. Quotes from Sartre, Whitman, Shakespeare and others--along with exquisite illustrations by Róbert Farkas--provide additional inspiration.
These reflective, insightful meditations will encourage readers--and not just horse lovers--to be mindful and vigilant about their responses and behaviors, while probing a higher consciousness. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines