| 8/9/2008 6:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Ranch teaches equine healing
By Melinda Green
Journal Staff Writer
Many horse owners feel close to their horses. The Buffalo Woman Ranch northeast of Dove Creek takes it a step further in a process called Equine Facilitated Integrative Healing.
The Way of the Horse is the name given by co-founder Robbie Nelson for a process of using horses to develop emotional fitness skills, verbal and nonverbal communication, energy systems awareness and assessment, stress management and spiritual growth.
At the 50-acre ranch recently, two holistic nurses were attending a four-day Module 1 workshop. Mary Johnson of Minnesota and Maggie McKivergin of Columbus, Ohio, had come to learn how to use horses in their nursing practices.
"This is incredible," said McKivergin. "This is world quality. It's amazing. It's a very individualized process that we can bring home to our own lives."
She said the techniques being learned could be applied for hospice patients, those with Attention Deficit Disorder, and autistic, schizophrenic or neurological patients.
"I can hardly wait to get home and use this," she said. "I have a patient, a boy who is out of balance. He's a little athlete, but a horrible vaccination whacked him. The horses will help him more than anything. It can be used for abused women, men, and everybody, really."
The workshop had begun with a "meeting of the herd", in which the humans met and were matched up with a horse.
"It just felt right," McKivergin said of the process of picking a horse partner. "It was very obvious if the horse wanted to work with us or not."
"There's an emotional resonance. The people are attracted to the horse and vice versa, if they've had the same life experiences. The horse is an awesome mirror reflecting what a person needs to see. They're brilliant," Nelson said.
"We use horses three years or older," she said. "They all have the ability to reflect what is going on emotionally with a person. They're the consummate partners in human growth and development."
This "sixth-sense" ability of horses was developed, she says, because they're prey animals, and have needed to know if a lion has eaten or if it's hungry, so they know whether they need to run or not.
"They have huge guts that resonate to whatever is vibrating from people, just like violins that are made from gut strings," she explained. "We use the horses' consciousness to support humans and take us to a new level. They've been used for hunting, for war, for exploring, so they've been important in humankind evolution."
That afternoon, Johnson was having her first session with the horse Belle. First Nelson helped Johnson do a "body scan" by asking her to pay attention to each part of the body and notice if there was tension or energy. Johnson reported she was feeling some pain in her right hip.
Then Belle was brought into a round pen without halter, free to move. She moved restlessly until Johnson entered the pen. After a brief inspection, Belle approached and stood quietly as Johnson stroked her and spoke quietly to her.
Belle stomped her back right hoof, and psychotherapist Joanie Trussel, who was helping with the training, said that it is the same area Johnson had identified as having some pain. Belle also repeatedly put her nose down toward Johnson's right hip and nibbled on her right foot.
After a while, Belle went to the fence around the pen and nibbled on a halter hanging there. Trussel interpreted that as meaning that Belle wanted Johnson to lead her around the pen "not that the horse wants to be led, but that the horse wants Mary (Johnson) to lead her, to be proactive."
A stop at the south side of the circle by the horse was interpreted to mean that Johnson needed to deal with something from her childhood and a stop in the west represented freedom, McKivergin said.
After the round pen session, McKivergin, Nelson, and Trussel talked to Johnson about her feelings, along with resident horse trainer Clark Aflogue, nicknamed Wind Eagle, and his wife Jessica Mollet from Raleigh, N.C.
"I feel good," Johnson reported. "I feel such a great love for what horses have meant to me, especially in my childhood. I felt she was telling me to be more assertive, to take charge of my life. We were having such a good conversation. I felt very acknowledged by her (the horse) and supported by her. I had the feeling she told me I worried too much about nothing. It was a very neat experience - very powerful."
Nelson has a background as an occupational therapist and Energy Kinesiology Practitioner. She has studied homeopathy and herbs as well as Chinese and Tibetan energy medicine, Celtic shamanism and expressive arts.
She and co-founder Charlie McGuire met Linda Kohanov, author of "The Tao of Equus" in Tucson in 2002, began the equine experiential learning and became certified as instructors through Kohanov's Epona Equestrian Services.
Each module costs $1,200 for a four-day session, which includes housing in a yurt and meals. After completing all three modules, participants can become certified instructors. Both Johnson and McKivergin plan to return to complete the next two modules.
Other workshops offered by Buffalo Woman Ranch are "The Shosoni-Kawaayo School of Horse Mysticism: Horses as Spiritual Masters", "Embracing the Truth of Who We Are Through 'The Way of the Horse'", "Women Who Run With Horses Sourcing Our Intuitive Power Through the Way of the Horse", and "Equine Experiential Learning Brain Integration Kinesiology Cranial Sacral/Equine Craniosacral Vision Quest."
On the net: www.buffalowomanranch.com
|
Article Comment Submission Form
|
|
