Hippocrene Spring--Epona

I am reminded once again of the mystical ways of the universe. After searching near and far for an addition to our herd for over a year, I found the horse that made his way into my heart and into the herd of Hippocrene Spring. A series of synchronicities and divine timing brought us together.

My search accompanied me on road trips to Montana, Wyoming, and Utah, and throughout the internet. In the end, I answered an ad without a picture, (which I had never done) for a gelding that ended up being almost in my back yard. He was born and raised about 25 minutes from the barn we now call home.  

Feeling that his new beginning included a new name, almost immediately, the word Moon came to mind. His white and golden yellow markings evoked images of the the new white moon and the harvest golden full moon. After more reflection the word Shadow came to me as I was brushing him and noticing the dark shadows where the white and golden colors overlapped. As I put the words together "Moon Shadow", I was reminded of the 70's song by Cat Steven's and I began to sing a few of the lines. It had been years since I had heard the song but I remembered that I liked it, and I liked the name for our newest herd member.

The afternoon passed and while driving home from the barn that evening, imagine my surprise when that song came on the radio. Out of the blue, as if confirming his name once and for all. As I listened to the words, I understood a deeper meaning to the song than I had ever previously understood. The song is about play, childlike fun, seeing the positive in everything, and living life through a joyful vision of possibilities. What could be more perfect?

Moon Shadow tugs at my heart strings daily....

We are currently offering a program from teen girls between the ages of 12 and 16. This program will be offered over a series of six 3 hour sessions. Through group and equine interactions the girls will explore new ways for accessing their inner strength and wisdom, and they will gain tools for building healthy relationships centering on clear communication. Please contact Cathryn for more information. 415 810 2740 

Horses Have A Few Tricks to Teach Us  Published in The Sonoma County Horse Journal

There is something remarkably magical about horses. For centuries, we have tried to tame and teach them how we would like them to behave. We have worked diligently to train them to perform moves, carry us around on their backs, and submit to our demands. Today, there is information that shifts the way we think about horses.  Imagine this:  As highly sentient, intelligent beings horses have a few ideas of their own and, if we allow them to, they can teach us a few things, such as to be more like them. Horses are highly intuitive beings who as prey animals have depended on their ability to determine the intentions of other animals in order to stay alive. The same skills that have enabled them to survive in the wild are evident in their relationships with us humans today. Horses are able to detect our hidden feelings and emotions, and they mirror our unspoken messages to us. In doing so, horses teach us to be more conscious of our feelings and emotions, and they offer invaluable feedback about how others perceive us.

At a recent workshop when my Paint mare interacted with one of the participants, she came out of the round pen a changed person. Fifteen minutes with Harley shifted years of self doubt and self loathing towards self acceptance and releasing long held negative self judgments. Although I had been around horses most of my life, I had not been aware of the uncanny ability of a horse to transform a person’s sense of herself. Eventually, I trained for two years with Linda Kohanov, author, lecturer, and horse trainer, and I melded my professional training and experience in psychotherapeutic counseling with my passions for people, horses, psychology, and nature into a practice where horses and people heal one another.

When we are more aware of what we are feeling, our entire quality of life is enhanced. Our emotions have the ability to communicate information to us about the rest of the world. If we shut down this connection, we lose touch with an important source of information. Unlike most of us, horses rely on their intuition for guidance and so their responses to the world are not clouded with judgments. They know when what we are feeling and what we are expressing are not aligned, and they mirror this dissonance to us. We have all heard the adage that horses can smell fear. It is not that the horse can smell fear, but that he senses something much more profound. The horse detects a lapse between the person’s external expression and his internal experience. Just like when a lion waiting to attack is still and calm, a horse knows the difference between the lion’s quiet physical state and internal intention of that lion. Horses can tell when that lion is looking for a meal or when he is just resting in the grass. Their very survival has depended on this instinct. 

When a person is frightened, his bodily functions differ from when he is truly relaxed and calm. While we may successfully hide our true emotional state from others and even from ourselves, we cannot fool a horse. When that same person acknowledges his sense of fear, the horse will respond differently. The psychological term, for a person’s aligned internal and external states of being, is congruent. Horses are masters at keeping us honest with ourselves. When we feel one thing and we express something else, we are incongruent; a state horses are uncomfortable with. A horse will often pin back its ears, nip at us, or ignore us when we are incongruent, and once we acknowledge the emotion we are suppressing and thereby become congruent, that same horse will begin to lick and chew. Horses teach us to be attuned to our emotions. They teach us that when we suppress our feelings, we are not trustworthy. This important lesson carries over into all of our relationships, equine and human, because repressed emotions seep out in unhealthy expressions.  

For example, the parent who loses her temper when her toddler spills milk is an example of repressed anger. Perhaps the mother’s boss unloaded her wrath on her earlier in the day and, unable to respond, the mother repressed her anger until she found a scenario that allowed her feelings to present. The problem with this type of expression is that the anger she is feeling towards her boss has been displaced onto her child. Unable to understand her true feelings in the moment with her boss, she has unknowingly hurt her innocent child. The mother is still clueless to the messages behind her emotions. Had she been able to sense her response to her boss, she would know that she was angry because her boss behaved unacceptably in transferring her own anger onto her.  

For most of us, we begin shutting down our expression of so called negative emotions such as anger, frustration, fear, vulnerability, sadness and grief when we notice that the people around us respond unfavorably to our emotions. It's true that most of us would rather be around happy, pleasant people and we would rather feel happy and pleasant ourselves. What we don’t realize is that emotions, even negative ones, are just sources of information, and when we ignore them we are setting ourselves up for long term negative feelings that can lead to rage or depression. Horses teach us that no emotion is bad. When another herd member steps into his space, a horse feels the sensation, responds, makes adjustments, and returns to grazing.

Unlike most humans, horses live in the moment so they don’t second guess their responses. They just express their emotion before it escalates and therefore they don’t overreact as we do when we repress our feelings. Like horses, when we allow ourselves to feel our emotions and when we get the message behind our emotions, we can make necessary steps to move through the feeling and then return to grazing, so to speak. In this way horses model the benefit of listening to our bodies and honoring our feelings so that we may live and love more fully and experience the joy we are all searching for. 

So, the next time you go out to the barn, honor the horses for the sentient beings they are. Be open to what they can teach you and revel in being in the moment with whatever comes up. You may be surprised to learn that your horse has a few tricks to teach you. Engaging with horses from this perspective allows for a deep heartfelt connection based on a sense of mutuality: a true partnership based on equality of significance.  

To learn more about this work, contact Cathryn Clerc, M.A., founder of Hippocrene Spring, where horses and humans heal one another.  Sonoma, CA 415 810 2740 HIPPOCRENESPRING.COM

Hippocrene Spring spent time at Epona, Apache Springs, Arizona where we offered four workshops, co-facilitating with Linda Kohanov, and the herd entered extended training with Shelly Rosenberg. It was a very special opportunity filled with growth, wonderful lessons, and exciting experiences. During this time Linda was writing her lastest book, Archetypes-The Way of the Horse. As it turned out, the Hippocrene Spring herd offered inspiration once again, and you can read about it in the exerpt below.

"One of the most fascinating interruptions and renegotiations in leadership I've witnessed happened when we turned a visiting trio of mares out with an established trio of geldings. .......

Imagine our surprise when, in a moment of romantic fervor, Callie completely took over. Epona approved instructor Cathryn Clerc brought her mares to Epona for extended training. After a period of orientation, we decided to let them run one of the multiacre pastures with our smallest resdident herd. It was like watching a group of supermodels crash a bachelor party. The tall, shapely, flaxen-maned Belgian mare Bella stopped Timey, Sage, and Callie in their tracks. Then the stricking blue-eyed, black-and-white paint Harley trotted by with the petite chesnut mare Nikita in tow. Timey, who had never been turned out with females before, had no idea what to do. Five-year-old Sage shook with excitement. But Callie, nicknamed "Fred Astaire" for his uniquely graceful and inventive ability to dance with humans, had a few tricks no one knew about. Claiming the mares as his own, he suddenly seemed like a new man. Within hours, Timey and Sage were treating him like the man."

These were not shy, retiring, easily subdued mares, however. No one could order the Amazon Bella around. Stunned and confused, Timey withdrew from the herd, standing dejectedly at the gate for days. Yet eventually out of compassion or pure animal attraction, Bella drew Timey back, reaching out to him, encouraging him to nibbled her legs and massage her massive back when she came into heat. Over time, the others paired off as well, Callie wooing Harley and Sage engaging Nikita. The herd dynamics continue to evolve."