"The mysteries of life and its most beautiful gifts often happen on the back of a black horse."
Linda Kohanov "The tao of equus"
In the wild, horses belong to the herbivore family and, as such, they are a prey animal, hunted by predators. Horses owe their survival to the development of a varied range of faculties which directly impact their interaction with humans.
For example, horses have the ability to detect the state of mind of another animal (or a human!). As a matter of fact, in the wild, a horse must be able to tell if the lion passing quietly nearby (at least from our point of view), really comes in peace to join his group or if he is just pretending tobe quiet while actually looking for the best time to attack the flock.
Therefore, to achieve this non-verbal communication, horses have developed several qualities that enable them to receive and respond to many signals which are undetectable to us. For instance, horses notice the slightest change in our blood pressure, any acceleration of our heart rhythm or a tiny variation of our body tension, and those things we cannot control but which reveal our emotional states.
This is how horses manage to perceive our state of mind.
Horses also developed other qualities which enable them to instantly respond to the signals they perceive from others.
Thanks to those reactions which act as mirror of our own emotions, we can open our eyes on ourselves. They also allow us to test other ways of doing things, other ways of being.
In order to use our full potential, we need to reconnect with our non-verbal intelligence (verbal communication only covers 10% of our capabilities ...), which is often underappreciated in our modern societies. Horses can be remarkable tool for us to focus our attention on our feelings, our attitudes and our perceptions beyond words. Qualities which are often very difficult to teach in a theoretical class!
Furthermore, horses have developed a social management system which allow them to build relationships and some sort of “social life", and this can be an inspiration for us humans: body connection, living the moment, emotional intelligence, assertiveness, authenticity, uniqueness, intuition, cooperation, etc..
Unlike humans, it was crucial for horses to develop these perceptions
in order to survive in the wild. This is the reason why humans are disconnected from these remarkable skills and so much more.
Horses can help us reconnect. (can help us to find our way back to such state of awareness)
These highly social animals are always striving to help members of their group to survive, including the weakest. This is perhaps one of the reasons why horses are interested in humans (because they perceive us as less "equipped" to survive), why they want to support us, give us strength, and bring companionship.
They show us the path to a greater well being, and for riders specifically, to a better partnership with them!
They progressively allow us to open up ourselves to new dimensions.
This is the power of horses, just like they agree to carry us on their backs, they also show us a path, they let us make our own decisions and guide us in our progress on this path. They accompany us judgement free and with an amazing generosity.
In addition, we should not forget the extraordinary attraction effect that horses have on humans, their strength, the feeling of freedom and magic from a galloping, the quiet graze of a mare, the joy of a foal playing and the amazing feeling whicle rocking on the babck of a horse.
The EPONA instructor is there to facilitate the work between horses and humans. But the teacher is the horse!
Workshops are organized by theme to better allow you to discover the power of horses:
- for a better well-being or just to feel good
- to develop leadership assertiveness
- but also for a deeper relationship with horses and a more efficient riding approach!