Hello All and Happy New Year,
Life is good and full, it is always full!!! When I last wrote we were mid way through the September 4 week module. That has long finished with much good feedback and lots of positive changes in horses and people. It seems a long time ago now, since having done quite a few more courses in between now and then, but we have a little report and some pics from that course further on in the newsletter. The long term courses are such learning acclerators and they are becoming more and more popular as people realize their value. There are 4 opportunities for longer stints of learning this year. March/April, the Easter Retreat, and September at “Alchemy Place” Moonbi, NSW and June at “Banyandah” Howlong, NSW. So if you are really looking to accelerate your learning and gain great depth in your learning check out the dates because you might need to book early to get a spot.
2013 has been a year of expansion and growth for me in many areas and how much my horsemanship continues to evolve excites me. It all just keeps getting better and better and easier and easier to work with the horses, whether they be troubled horses that come or my own horses. The horses just keep improving more and more in lots of ways, physically and athletically but also they become softer and more open, expressive and connected. Aikido (martial arts) has continued to be a great area for learning and for challenging myself mentally, emotionally and physically and the new addition to my herd, 12 year old stallion Arumi, has been a great teacher testing me, challenging me and taking all my horsemanship to another level along with all my other very special horses, in particular Helium and Alchemist, but there is 12 of them in total, for whom I am the perpetual student.
Expanding my knowledge and experience in using horses for personal and spiritual development, equine assisted learning, life coaching and team building have been other areas of learning this year along with renewing and deepening my knowledge of Feldenkrais (body awareness through movement) by having the opportunity to have physio and feldenkrais teacher Kate Bose come and teach classes in my horsemanship courses at “Alchemy Place”. So it has been another year full of adventure, experience and ever deepening and broadening knowledge.
I am trying to better balance my time between being away teaching and spending time at home and working with my horses. I have been making my horses more of a priority, as they always seem to keep being put on the back burner, as I am so often away teaching and in the past when I have been home, I have had other people’s horses here for training and had to make those a priority. So I have had a break from taking other people’s horses for a while, although I did succumb and took in an ex-racehorse that my sister inlaw rescued as she was going to be sent to the doggers. She has had a lot of problems but is making amazing prgoress now. I will tell you more about her and her story later on. I will most likely take another intake of horses for starting/training in July/August and there could be opportunites for those expereinced enough and interested in doing so, to start their horses themselves and be coached through the process.
There are lots of courses planned for 2014 but also next year I am really going to focus and put more time into video coaching and webinars so that I can make the information more accessible and affordable to any one that is interested – so we’ll see how that unfolds.
Wishing you all the very best for the New Year and may you live, dream and create all that your heart desires and may the Spirit of the Horse be with you,
Mel