I have recently written about the trail in The Trail as a Metaphor for Life.
Continue reading Sharing heart and mind with your horse on a trail ride
Category Archives: Horses at Liberty Foundation Training
Who is the lead horse?
In Liberty Foundation Horsemanship, we talk a lot about “leadership,” which is also talked about in other forms of horsemanship. Basically, what that means is that a person must earn the “respect” of the horse, which begins with forming “trust,” or some sort of healthy “bond.”
3 case studies address horses’ fears
As a follow-on to last week’s blog, 10 Tips for Working with A Fearful Horse, I collected three very different case studies of fearful horses. With each, the treatment was slightly different, adjusted to the situation and the fear the horse was experiencing.
10 tips for working with a fearful horse
Horses are fearful by nature; they are flight animals. How we address fear in the horse has to be a very fluid and dynamic thing because not all horses will respond to the same approach. A frightened horse is potentially dangerous because they are hard wired to flee or react suddenly when frightened.
Healing horses from 500 miles away
For a number of years now, I’ve been doing distance bodywork on horses and people. Honestly, it doesn’t matter how far away those horses are, they can still greatly benefit from this help both anatomically and physiologically.
How a caretaking horse is born
“At any kind of transition point in our lives we all need the certainty of knowing at some level that we are securely held. This is the ground from which we leap, however near or far, and to which we can return and be welcomed back.” – Wisdom of the Body Moving, by Linda Hartley.
The honesty of the horse
Horses and their honesty, which sometimes translates to their inability to be polite, is energetically one of the things that differentiates horses from people and also from dogs. With horses, mostly what you see is what you get. But it takes time to know what you are looking at.
The trail as a metaphor for life
I have ridden many miles of trail in my life. Years ago, I had the thought that the trail really is a metaphor for life, because we choose the trail according to the same basic criteria as we choose to embark on activities in life, except that no one is paying us to do it, usually!
What does your horse work say about you?
I recently became aware of how the Liberty work I teach really expose to us not only our greatest strengths and weaknesses, but also what parts of the work we are drawn to.
When your horse has had enough
From the standpoint of a bodyworker, when the horse has “had enough” is pretty obvious. But even so, students will continue to press on an area and worry over it even when the horse has moved away. Why don’t they see it? Feel it?
