flowing wisdom as we partnered with horses to teach cooperative, nonpredatory forms of empowerment, emotional fitness, social intelligence, and authentic community building. We named it after the Celtic horse goddess associated with healing and transformation, Epona, who seemed a fitting symbol for an organization that employed horses in the work of human development.
In 2001, when my first book was published, the organization suddenly attracted international attention through the force of a vision that I hadn’t realized would move so many people to action. Based on growing demand, we started a multiweek apprenticeship program that qualified talented facilitators to incorporate our principles and techniques into their own programs. Along the way, we found it necessary to distinguish our carefully trained instructors from those in organizations in other states and countries that were also named after the goddess Epona. By 2012, nearly two hundred Eponaquest Instructors were operating on five continents, as Epona Equestrian Services became Eponaquest Worldwide.
The momentum had been building for years. In 2005, for instance, an influx of international students inspired us to establish an equestrian-based retreat and conference center at a historic Arizona ranch. There, a group of adventurous, highly individualistic people put our most ambitious theories to the test, and I was thrust into a leadership role that I struggled to understand and live up to. The daily challenges of running a business based on the concepts of collaboration and authentic community were significant. Our equine-facilitated learning program at Apache Springs Ranch became a living laboratory, complicated by the fact that several of us stayed on-site with clients coming and going seven days a week. Many times, I felt more like a giant lab rat than a researcher or teacher, but the power of what we preached was enhanced by the act of living it, continually working out the kinks along the way.
By 2009, the center had reached a high level of functionality, offering daylong seminars and weeklong residential workshops. Our clients included educators, counselors, clergy, trauma survivors, parents, teens, artists, engineers, and entrepreneurs looking for ways to empower themselves while relating more effectively to others. We also helped returning soldiers and their spouses practice the emotional fitness skills necessary to handle posttraumatic stress and other warrior-reintegration challenges. Even so, the business suffered debilitating financial blows when the economic crisis coincided with a crucial growth stage. By summer, our beautiful ranch had been put up for sale, and we were once again operating as an agency (albeit a more sophisticated, well-connected global one), sending clients to multiple venues.
The dynamics of living and working at Apache Springs accentuated our explorations in leadership, power, creativity, intuition, personal healing, and social transformation. All the while, the horses kept urging clients and staff alike to enjoy the ride — to soar to new heights of inspiration and expanded awareness one moment; to feel the depths of fear, vulnerability, frustration, anger, and sadness the next; to access the wisdom behind our blunders; and then to calmly, reverently go back to grazing.
As nomadic, nonpredatory beings, horses radiate immense trust in the universe. Intelligent and highly adaptable, they embody strength, freedom, spirit, gentleness, beauty, authenticity, loyalty, and grace, fully immersing themselves in the moment and always ready to explore new opportunities and ever wider vistas of experience. Equine “philosophy” values relationship over territory. In their honest, sophisticated interactions, these animals easily navigate the paradox of nourishing individual and group consciousness simultaneously. As we continue to build our cathedrals, launch our space stations, refine our governments, and explore our visions of a peaceful global society, can we, as humans, learn to do the same?
Obsession and Depression
It’s no small task to think like God’s architect. That’s what the director of the Museum of the Barcelona Archdiocese called Gaudí after he was hit by a tram in 1926 and died in a pauper’s hospital. Within days people were nominating him for sainthood, and even the most virulently anti-Catholic newspaper had nothing but praise for his artistry and dedication. His alliance with the divine, however, did not exempt him from the complexities and sorrows of earthly existence. One anonymous Internet historian cited Gaudí’s unexpected demise as “a graphic illustration of the almost absurd misfortune that filled the life and work of the enigmatic Spanish architect.” Sketchy reports on his final years suggest the man was severely depressed. As a number of close friends and relatives passed away, he retreated further and further into his work until nothing was left but his beloved Sagrada Familia.
Though no one knows what the seventy-four-year-old artist was thinking in those final, fateful moments, rumor has it that he absentmindedly stepped into the street to gain a wider perspective of the cathedral, only to be slammed into eternity’s embrace by the relentless, impersonal momentum of public transportation. Gaudí’s selfless dedication continued to work against him over the five days it took him to actually expire from his injuries. As a public figure who shunned reporters and photographers, Gaudí had seldom been photographed, so the chances of anyone recognizing him on the street were severely limited. What’s more, the man cared little for appearance. Dressed like a vagabond, complete with empty pockets, he looked like a homeless man, which no doubt influenced several taxi drivers who refused to take him to the hospital. (They were later fined for negligence.) Two days after he went missing, Gaudí’s friends finally found him wasting away in an indigents’ ward, but he refused to be moved, reportedly saying, “I belong here among the poor.”
Being hit by a tram and dying a pauper’s death: that comes close to characterizing how it initially felt to lose my home and my life’s savings when a massive downturn in the economy forced the closing of Apache Springs Ranch — although I think I described it to my veterinarian as being “bitch-slapped by the universe” at the end of one particularly demoralizing day. I had just returned to my newly rented home in exile after the most heart-wrenching task of all, laying off the Epona Center staff, only to find Rasa, my soul mate in equine form, suffering a life-threatening bout of colic. With my husband selling off musical equipment to support the move, I had borrowed funds from a few close friends to save my herd and cover the final ranch expenses, as I was determined that no loyal employee or vendor would be left unpaid. Yet my good intentions seemed to go unnoticed as the powers that be demanded yet another, even more heart-wrenching sacrifice. Alternately feeling supremely sorry for myself and downright resentful at my growing list of losses, I was faced with the decision to sell one of my most talented lesson horses to pay for Rasa’s trip to the hospital — and endure the very real possibility of her death despite investing in her care.
Rasa carried an unusual burden for a horse. She was the original inspiration behind my equine-facilitated learning practice, the subject of my first two books, and the symbol of a growing international movement. Some people treated Rasa like a celebrity, which was a relief for me and a bit of a curse for her, as they often approached this steady, matter-of-fact mare with more reverence, excitement, and expectation than they had for the organization’s human founder. That night, however, I was as guilty as anyone in associating her illness with the ultimate demise of the entire vision. Luckily, I caught myself in the act and began gently, compassionately, separating my flesh-and-blood companion from a calling she had initiated and influenced, one she nonetheless could never be held responsible for completing.
As a horse, Rasa could inspire people. She could shift consciousness, showing us new ways of relating to the world and to each other. But she was incapable of handling the organizational details involved in taking this project to the next level. In fact, the vision had already grown beyond my wildest dreams, taking on a life of its own, and I had to concede that I wasn’t likely to see its completion, either.
At that moment, though I hadn’t yet encountered the term, a strange surge of energy turned my brain inside out and a mind-bending dose of “cathedral thinking” completely changed my perspective.
This sudden shift was not unlike being hit by a tram and blasted into eternity’s embrace, where I floated for a moment, or an hour, in a potent yet peaceful clarity, where everything suddenly made sense in
