Making a Dream Come True

Peaceful Horses Around the World

As we head into the month that I’m anticipating opening my online private community space, I’m up for posting again this week. My latest post (from earlier this week) feels so important to this forthcoming space, that I’m motivated to link it later in this post, in case you missed seeing it.

It describes all that we are in a nutshell, the on-the-ground, slow format of change in me for my horses and their lives to improve. I’m creating something that doesn’t yet exist which is scary, daunting, thrilling and hopeful.

Every day I wake up with the familiar perplexed feeling of how do we move this forward? How do I share what I’ve been doing to achieve the peace in my horses? My thoughts always include “why me?” Why not someone else who has a long history with horses, someone who has acreage, degrees, riding clients, a truck and trailer, an event center, and backing to make this vision jump off the page with authority? Well, I suppose one reason is that I wasn’t taught or experienced any of those things, ever in my life, I don’t have the money or the connections to just “make it happen” with widespread connections. What I do have is a tenacious personality for supporting the downtrodden to get to the epicenter of the cause of the issue and be as direct and kind as I can to make some waves, wake up some hearts, and see what happens by coming from only that.

Dutchess and Erika (age 3)

I didn’t grow up with any animals bigger than a medium-sized dog. But starting from the age of 3, there has been an innate penchant for connecting in a heart-to-heart way without the riff-raff of judgment or status. It’s what has led my entire career as a medical massage therapist. The first massages I ever offered were to my pet dogs and cats when I was 3. In fact, I distinctly remember my mom taking a couple photos of me with our dog Dutchess on a chair. I asked her to take another one and I deliberately posed, putting my hand on her head and feeling that it would be a good way to show how to connect and touch her. I can’t explain why I thought that at such a young age, but I remember feeling it. I instinctively knew that there was this connection thing that was needing some light on it. It was missing and I could see that.

So life evolved with lots of twists and turns and here I am with several horses and a mission to make a difference, at age 60. I find it refreshing and relieving that social media has made it possible to witness a blossoming of this mindset of change for horses in-kind to the way that I’m producing with Peaceful Horse. Several years ago when I was first starting out with Maggie, my first rescued horse, there was virtually no one talking about what I was hoping to find help and guidance with: Change in the people’s mindset so that there would be change for the horses’ welfare. Maggie was my first poster child. She stood for all the despair and neglect and abuse that horses go through silently.

Sweet Maggie, 2017

Telling our story and the journey so far is vital, so the world can see what it takes, and to realise what inspiration came to me from finding Maggie, how the path was being shown to me years before I met her, as a kind of message to me “Get ready Erika, your life is going to change and you will have a new project with a big purpose on your hands!” It’s important to share our story too, so that my “authority” with horses, e.g. the life experience and my skills with them can be documented and show our community-to-be that we have something of great value and support for them to lean on as they grow and change for their horses’ wellbeing. And of course when that growth and change is the personal focus in a person, their whole world changes for the better too. How our thought patterns shape our view and therefore our choices is radically powerful. Once we see it, we can’t “unsee” it. Change is exciting.

So, I’m stoked and terrified to dive into starting this Peaceful Horse community online soon. I’ve never done anything like this before in my life, so there will be some learning on-the-fly. In my thoughts I’m hearing “so if the bumble bee can fly against all odds, you can do this.” I just have to take the steps. This is also the way of change being demonstrated. Going into the abyss not knowing what will happen but knowing absolutely that I have to, is the attitude that I encourage people to take as they are assessing their lives, looking to improve and feel at peace inside. That’s the key.

On our path, together

The structure of the community is going to be set upon something called Way of Council. I will go into more detail from personal experiences about it, but check out the website, and read my first public description written a few years ago on their website. And here is a video of Leon Berg talking about the Ojai Foundation where Way of Council first was created. Peaceful Horse online community as well as once we have a farm space for the public to visit in person, will have its roots in the four guiding pillars of Way of Council:

Speak from the heart. Listen from the heart. Be lean of speech. Speak spontaneously.

There are two additional guidelines for while in an active circle that I will share later.

As a community, the top two are Speak and Listen from the Heart. Horses ask us to do this anyway, so we are following their natural way of being in community. Added to this is the fun and horse-friendly practice of Improv stand-up comedy! The main guiding principle being that we engage in “Yes, and…” Which means to never really say “no” but to engage and go with the flow of sharing, contributing and engaging with each other/horses in such a way that it is absolutely inclusive and fun, light, and peaceful.

If you haven’t read the post Attending the Fire of Artemis yet, check it out here and I invite you to tap that “like” button and share, and, if inspired, to comment. The engagement is encouraging and helps other folks find my writing. Let me know you’re out there, and your thoughts, in these early months of our beginning the public offerings and writings. Thanks so much!

Artemis and Erika, Summer 2020