Category Archives: horses, dogs & more

Jul23

california

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DSC_0991.JPGDeAnna Pellecchia with Pony

I am thrilled to be presenting a Conscious Touch, Conscious Movement with Horses workshop at the University of California at Santa Barbara as part of the annual Body-Mind Centering Association conference.

Conscious Touch and Conscious Movement is way of improving and deepening our relationship horses through the shared languages of touch and movement. Learning to connect with horses in this way helps us become more comfortable in our own skin, confident, trustworthy to ourselves and the horse, as well as sensitive and skillful in our riding and training, regardless of the discipline.  In my experience, this work with horses translates pretty seamlessly to our relationships with our spouses, children, friends, and ourselves.

When I am working with a client and a horse, I never know just how that session will unfold.  It is what I love about the work – it is deeply improvisational, and allows the essential invitation of Authentic Movement to undergird the process:  “wait to be moved.”  That means that the human has the opportunity to go underneath the cognitive habits of language, interpretation, analysis, and planning.  To rest in the moment and to listen.  To speak when moved in the shared, primal, intimate, and unpredictable languages of the body: movement and touch.

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To arrange a session with Paula and a horse partner, contact me.

 

 

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Jun3

the invitation

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This is Mystical Mel, a Paint mare whose registered name is Mystical Finale. According to the description on The Mane Intent website, “her markings would suggest she is Medicine Hat Paint. The myth and mystery of the Medicine Hat Paint goes back many years. But it is known as a spirit animal with special powers, and is very rare.  Like many Medicine Hat Paints, Mel has a pink muzzle and two blue eyes, making her especially prized.”

Mel was our partner for the last part of the Expanding Body, Mind and Spirit wth Horses workshop that I recently taught at The Mane Intent.  Mel has a kind of light, floating attention that I find unusual – some confluence of her color, her mare-ness, and ethereal blue eyes.  Her presence feels expansive, yet vigilant and quietly discerning.

We entered the round pen with her two at a time, and let the experience of moving with her unfold in its own way, inviting her to connect in her own time.  The last dance was three humans and Mel.  One of the humans began to sing softly, as they linked arms, facing away from those of uis witnessing, and toward Mel. She approached slowly and then moved carefully into the circle of their bodies, looking at them and toward us with those astonishing eyes. The song ended and horse and humans moved slowly apart.

This work is always surprising, always moving – an experience that is beyond words – one that lives in the deep possibilities that live in our wordless connection with horses. The invitation to join is offered without limitation or expectation.  For us, the greatest gift is simply to breathe and to be in the presence of that embodied mystery.

 

May26

the mane intent

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To be  clear, it was not snowing in Indian River, Ontario today.  I did, however, have the great pleasure of working with these two beautiful girls, Belle and her daughter Blue this afternoon, and a group of nine generous and courageous women.  I am teaching Conscious Touch & Conscious Movement with Horses at The Mane Intent, run by Jennifer Garland, whom I had the pleasure of meeting last October when she visited me in Connecticut.

Being with horses always seems to take us where we need to go, often giving us the support that may have otherwise been missing or unacknowledged.  This way of working is grounded in the shared languages of movement and touch, and has little to do with conventional horsemanship or riding, although it may nourish both.  Rather, it invites to explore connection in unexpected and often surprising ways.

I am so privileged to be invited to share what I have been learning over the past 22 years.  It is always new, always deeply moving.  And I am so grateful to the horses, who allow us to approach, to touch, to dance, to be.

To learn more, contact me.

 

 

 

May21

Mountain Horse Farm

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I am at the beautiful Mountain Horse Farm in Naples, NY in the Finger Lakes region, teaching a Conscious Touch & Conscious Movement with Horses workshop.  The farm itself is beautiful, inviting, expansive.  Suzanne Vullers, the owner, is welcoming, wise and playful.

This morning I met the herd, and had the gift of an impromptu, improvisational dance with the lovely mare Cricket. Statsen, the Morgan gelding, formerly a breeding stallion, reminds me a bit of Nelson (above) and of my stallion, Capprichio.  Something about both the sensitivity and the confidence.

Teaching is never a display of what I know.  It is sharing questions, being open to what is unfamiliar, practicing what the brilliant Pauline Oliveros calls the “unique” strategy, meaning that every moment, every experience is new, subtly different from anything that has preceeded it.