September 7 – 9, 2012: Earthwalk, Shapeshifting for the 21st Century, Gaston, OR

July 16, 2012 by Kathleen 

Featuring Kathleen Barry Ingram, Co-founder of the Epona Approach™ & Holli Lyons, Advanced Instructor

Spend 3 days surrounded by trees, nature, horses and the silence.

Some cultures believe every species was given Original Instructions; how to be what they are, not something else. Original Instructions on what it is to be a horse, rock, or plant. Horses know how to be a horse; they don’t try to be a rock or a plant.

Many human beings have forgotten what it is they are here to do, how to walk as a human. They have forgotten their Original Instructions.

Our time on Mother Earth is our Earthwalk™; our time to walk the human path, to remember what it is to be human and live a GOOD human story.

It was once common thought that we were our past and our future was predetermined by the experiences of that past. We now understand through the Science of Neuroplasticity that we can change, direct and intentionally create our future. We are no longer prisoners of our past.

Using Merging Epona™ basic and advanced material with nature based traditional wisdom, creative/somatic expression, the latest in neuroscience and the most ancient of animal behavior, Kathleen, Holli and the horses facilitate an opportunity for you to understand, experience, explore and integrate universal wisdom into your everyday life.

Horses facilitate awareness, change, growth, intentional creation, love, play and joy. Shapeshift Walk a Good Earthwalk™. Remember your Original Instructions. 

9:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Friday
10:00 a.m. – 5 p.m. Saturday & Sunday

Cost: $ 695.00 includes lunch, snacks & all materials

For information or to register, contact Holli Lyons 503-662-3213 or holliswarmblood@aol.com.

Workshop held at Lyons Gait, Gaston, Oregon.

September 17-21, 2012: Equine Assisted Qualifications: Facilitator Training Programme with Kathleen Ingram, United Kingdom

July 16, 2012 by Kathleen 

IFEAL Qualifications and Facilitator Training Pathway

The IFEAL Qualifications Training Programme offers a new, cutting edge and exciting approach, challenging us all as aspiring educators and practitioners in this field to verify and ground our work in solid research and years of case experience.

The IFEAL training programmes are based upon ethical Authentic Horsemanship/Horse Management specific to horses who take part in Equine Facilitated Learning work. This is an important aspect because the horses are regarded as part of the Faculty at IFEAL.

The methodology of IFEAL incorporating Epona Approach™ ensures Horses and Humans work in non-coercive environments. The work is consensual in every aspect and, as such, the emotional, mental and welfare needs of the horse are fully taken into account.

If you have completed Step 1: Basic Training and Step 2: Advanced Training then you are ready for Step 3: Specialisms.

Step 3 Specialisms: IFEAL Specialist Training (FTP 03)
Training to continually innovate and adapt the horse-work in depth with your own professional background, such as:

• Business (FTP 03.1) e.g. coaching, mentoring, staff development
• Psychotherapy (FTP 03.2) e.g. using specific modalities
• Spirituality (FTP 03.3) e.g. spiritual growth and practice
• Healing Practices (FTP 03.4) e.g. bodywork, alternative approaches
• Transition Trauma (FTP 03.5) e.g. military and other specific trauma arenas

Step 3: Specialism is a pre-requisite for Step 4: IFEAL Master Facilitator and Programme Training.

For more information or to register, visit: www.IFEAL.me

September 22 – October 2, 2012: Connecting the Pieces: Private Sessions with Kathleen Barry Ingram and Sun Tui: United Kingdom

July 16, 2012 by Kathleen 

The researched evidence is that in order for any therapeutic technique to be effective, it is essential that the person is fully present, empathetic and congruent.Private day/days Intensives affords the opportunity for an individual (or partnership; either personal relationship or professional) to deepen awareness of personal issues, core feelings and areas of bodily tension that inhibit the ability to reach your fullest true potential.   Elemental horse related activities, that could include a sweat lodge set with in the IFEAL herd’s woodland environment and swimming, are designed to explore and integrate an expansive, yet grounded mind set, capable of endless compassion, innovation, energetic adaptability and creativity.Our work will include experiencing the spiritual and scientific biology of emotions to integrate them with the Mind and Body. Doing so elicits Working Relationship in all areas of personal and professional life. Tai Chi with the Herd starts the day at 9 am and the day closes at 5 pm. A bio dynamic organic lunch and nutritious snacks are tailored and served to your tastes. Kathleen Barry Ingram, co-founder of The Epona Approach™ is a Tucson-based life coach, consultant, lecturer and educator specializing in Equine Facilitated Experiential Learning. Sun Tui is the founder and director of IFEAL and is an Advanced Epona Approach Instructor. She teaches Horse Way Tai Chi and Integral Body Mind Therapy. To book a private session: www.IFEAL.me

Mustangs

July 16, 2012 by Kathleen 

Mustang : The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West By Deanne Stillman[1]

Deanne’s excellent book is heralded by numerous authors and environmentalists as a tribute to the land and the horse.  This excerpt from the introduction will make you want to learn more about the Mustang and the many blessings of the horse/human bond. Many of us practicing Equine Facilitated Learning speak about this partnership, and I believe that Deanne speaks eloquently for the horse by exploring our relationships, our origins, and the compelling need to save the horses and ourselves.

From Introduction:     

Deanne Stillman and Bugz, Photo by Betty Lee Kelly

How and when did the moment of partnership first occur?  No one knows for sure, and there is much speculation on this subject.  But however it happened, it’s clearthat the horses’ ability to provide flight was universally desired, and nowhere is this desire more pronounced, more extreme, than in America, where escape and the chance to start over is not a pipe dream but a birthright.  We may not think of ourselves as part of a horse culture, like the nomads of Mongolia, for instance, but in our own way, we are; we worship cowboys and we’re jacked on freedom and we love moving fast through wide-open space, preferably on a cactus-lines highway in our most iconic car, the Mustang, whose grille features a galloping pony.  Yet as we ply the road, many of us do not realize that the real thing is fighting for its life on the rocky playas just over yonder, staking our the dream, being wild and free for the rest of us…

As you follow the tracks of the wild horse, perhaps you’ll agree that it deserves a safe haven in the country it helped to build, deserves the protections it once had and were only recently unraveled; perhaps you may have a greater understanding of the forces that are contriving to wipe out our loyal partner, the one in whose hoof sparks this country was born.  We may be fighting wars around the world, but in the West, to paraphrase the great environmental writer Bernard DeVoto[2], we are at war with ourselves.  To me, there is no greater snapshot of that war than what we have done and continue to do to the wild horse.  As it goes, so goes a piece of America, and one of these days, bereft of heritage, we may all find ourselves moving on down the road.”

~Deanne Stillman

 So, it is not only the Mustang and wild horses in America whose freedom is endangered, but all of us who try to restrain and limit others and in the process also limit ourselves.  The horses’ ability to be in the present moment, to serve as our loyal friends, and to run like the wind reminds us of our own authenticity while they hold the sacred space of possibility for us to reconnect with our hearts and souls.