Epona Equestrian Services' advanced events include innovative approaches to the equestrian arts, and human-development workshops exploring creativity, intuition, emotional fitness and authentic community-building skills.
Participation in an introductory-level workshop, either at Epona or with one of the Approved Instructors, is required before advanced work.
- February 26-March 1, 2010 — Black Horse Wisdom
- April 14-17, 2010 — Rasa Dance: The Energy of Connection
- Epona Advanced Study Experience (EASE)
Black Horse Wisdom
February 26-March 1, 2010
Facilitator: Linda Kohanov
Cost: $2000
Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily, includes lunch. Enrollment limited to four people.
This powerful workshop is for people who would like to exercise their intuitive abilities through reflective and active engagement with horses, journeying, and interactions with mythic equine images and archetypes. Linda Kohanov will coach participants in multiple intuitive/creative techniques, including accessing the Horse Ancestors (the collective wisdom of horses), simple yet profound animal communication techniques with members of the Epona herd, visionary/journeying experiences with music, and ways of using Linda’s Way of the Horse wisdom cards (art by Kim McElroy) and guidebook for personal reflection and guidance.
This is an advanced seminar requiring previous attendance at a basic workshop facilitated by any of our Epona Approved Instructors worldwide. To apply, please email rasa@theeponacenter.com with a brief statement of interest in this particular workshop, including the date (month/year is fine), place, and name of the Approved Instructor who facilitated the workshop you attended, as well as why you would like to attend this particular seminar. Upon acceptance, you will receive registration, directions, and lodging suggestions.
"I highly recommend Black Horse Wisdom. This was my third workshop with Linda Kohanov, and I was again changed by my experiences with her and her horses as my teachers. In this intimate setting, Linda shared with us the essence of the wisdom the horses have to teach us. She facilitated interactions with members of her herd that allowed us to access our heart's desire, convey that image to the horse, and to interact in ways that defy description. She guided us through journeys to meet the horse ancestors, helped us call in horse spirits with whom we each shared communication, and she helped us access myths from a separate, ancient realm that inform our lives today. In my work with Linda over the past five years, I have come to appreciate her as an intuitive teacher, a passionate writer, and a wise guide in learning the way of the horse. I am grateful for her patience, grace, and eloquence in helping me on each new step of my journey."
--M. Ruth Davenport, PhD.
For more information please email booking@theeponacenter.com or call 520-394-2777.
Cancellation Policy: Cancellation up to 30 days prior to the event start date results in a credit of one-half the workshop tuition. There is no tuition credit for a cancellation 30 days or less before the event start date.
Rasa Dance: The Energy of Connection
April 14-17, 2010
Facilitator: Linda Kohanov
Cost: $2,000
Workshop runs from 9:30 - 5:30 p.m. daily; cost includes lunch. Enrollment is limited to four people.
Join Linda Kohanov for an advanced retreat exploring authenticity in action. Through interactions with the Epona herd and awareness-expanding musical experiences, participants will learn to dance with horses, exercising the ability to improvise with the ever-changing rhythms of relationships—and life.
As Linda observes in her latest book The Way of the Horse: Equine Archetypes for Self Discovery, “Horses spend a lot of time milling around in rarefied states of being, but they also connect through movement. They keep to the yin, but they definitely know the yang. The Way of the Horse can open our conditioned bodies and minds to a whole new world of sensory and extra-sensory awareness. To make it all worthwhile, however, we must ultimately live in this expanded universe, learning to act and feel, assert and respond, all at the same time. Dancing becomes the metaphor for leading without dominating, learning to follow someone else without losing your balance or your boundaries—and, at some point, upping the ante to fluidly trade leads in true partnership.”
"Throughout the animal kingdom,” Linda writes, “mating is often characterized as a dance. Cultivating relationship, it seems, is more art than science, the language of love more musical than verbal….In human relationships, however, we often become impatient with the natural rhythms of engagement. Yet if we treat our significant partnerships with the same sense of discovery and delight we experience with music, we might actually revel in the ebbs and flows, harmonies and dissonances of our daily improvisations.”
This is an advanced workshop for people who have previously explored the Epona Approach to emotional fitness and authentic community building skills, and conscious interactions with horses, through a private intensive or workshop with one of our Approved Instructors worldwide.
If you would like to attend please email booking@theeponacenter.com or call 520-394-2777.
Cancellation Policy: Cancellation up to 30 days prior to the event start date results in a credit of one-half the workshop tuition. There is no tuition credit for a cancellation 30 days or less before the event start date.
Epona Advanced Study Experience (EASE)
AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE THROUGH THE WAY OF THE HORSE
For more information and to begin the application process, contact booking@theeponacenter.com.
Facilitated by Epona Approved Advanced Instructors Carol Roush and Mary-Louise Gould, with special presentations by Linda Kohanov
This two-part advanced intensive program is an in-depth exploration of the Way of the Horse as a profound journey of self-discovery and transformation. With horses as your inspiration and guides, you will learn skills for increasing self-awareness, accessing inner peace, and developing an approach to life that enables you to live deeply and awaken to your life’s purpose.
In the programs currently available, a maximum sixteen (16) carefully chosen individuals will meet for a week on two occasions. Prior to acceptance in the program, applicants must complete an introductory level Epona Approach workshop. Please see the listings on the Epona website of Introductory Workshops at Epona and Introductory Workshops Worldwide for qualifying workshops. Preference will be give to participants who resonate deeply with the Epona Approach, who have understood and begun integrating in their personal lives the information taught in the Emotional Message Chart, the False Self/Authentic Self metaphor, and the insights gleaned from their own personal reflective round pen experience at an Epona Introductory workshop. The EASE program will further define and integrate the Nine Essential Skills for Authentic Community Building through reflective, active, and mounted work with horses and through group process work with two-legged herd members.
The sixteen (16) individuals accepted into the program will be divided into smaller groups, and each group will be assigned a facilitator who will act as a guide and advisor, both at Epona and during the months between sessions. (Group facilitators are Epona Approved Instructors who have successfully completed the Apprenticeship Program and are actively engaged in their own practice of assisting individuals through the Way of the Horse.)
The overall theme of the program is beautifully described by Sue Monk Kidd in her book, When the Heart Waits:
“Is it possible, I asked myself, that I am being summoned from some deep and holy place within? Am I being asked to enter a passage in the Spiritual life, the journey from false self to true self? Am I being asked to dismantle old masks and patterns and unfold a deeper, more authentic self, the one I intended to be? Am I being compelled to disturb my inner universe in quest of the undiscovered being who clamors from within?”
In response to those questions, The EASE program will focus on teaching you how to take new tools and expanded self-awareness back into your life, family, relationships, and community. You will learn how to be more authentic, set healthy boundaries, and actually live from a larger perspective of who you are and what’s possible for you. You will learn how to apply Epona principals to everyday life: congruency over conformity, authenticity over perfection, and adaptability and inquisitiveness over methodology.
The program will offer experiences in the following areas:
- Distinguishing False Self from Authentic Self Beliefs and Behaviors
- Advanced Reflective Round Pen Work
- Energy Boundary Work
- Active Round Pen Work
- Mindfulness Practices
- Intuitive Communication
- Horse Dancing
- Consensual Leadership Techniques
- Reflective Riding
- Holotropic Breathwork
In the end, what horses know is that everything changes...constantly. They teach us to be mindful of the present moment, free of preoccupation and judgment. It is then that we are automatically imbued with lightheartedness; it is then that we can step far enough from our old survival beliefs and behaviors to make room for a sense of humor, self-acceptance, and loving kindness that are at the core of our authentic selves. It is from this connected place within that we discover the true nature of who we are, create authentic relationships, and live in peace. In the safe and congruent environment of EASE you will have the opportunity to explore what feels emotionally, physically, spiritually, and intellectually expansive for you and become truly awake to your life’s purpose!
We will take as our texts for the program all three of Linda Kohonov’s books; The Tao of Equus, Riding Between the Worlds, and Way of the Horse, as well as Eckhart Tolle’s, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, and from the Institute of Noetic Science, Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life.
SCHEDULE AND FEES
Week 1:
August 23-29, 2010
Week 2:
November 8-14, 2010
Tuition: $6560 (USD)
Payment Schedule
$80 (USD) non-refundable application fee
$500 (USD) deposit due upon program acceptance
$2740 (USD) due July 10, 2010
$3240 (USD) due October 10, 2010
APPLICATION AND SELECTION PROCESS
Please take the time to thoughtfully answer the following questions and return your application as an attached Microsoft Word document to Carol Roush at booking@theeponacenter.com.
Applicants will receive email notification as to whether or not they passed the paper-screening phase. Phone interviews for those passing will then be scheduled. The application process will continue until the program is full and a waiting list is established.
APPLICATION FORMAT:
Date application and include name, address, phone number, and email address.
- What was your initial experience with Epona? Indicate nature of experience (workshop, private sessions, or an intensive), the name(s) of facilitator(s) and of workshop(s), and dates.
- How has your initial experience with Epona influenced your life?
- How has this influenced your relationship with your horses?
- Which of the Epona concepts or activities were difficult to integrate when you returned home? For example, the concept of emotion as information, authentic community building skills, and the false self/authentic self metaphor.
- Which of the concepts were most useful?
- What area of interest appeals to you most during the year of the advanced study program?
- A significant emphasis in the EASE program will be on building authentic interspecies communities. Do you feel ready to participate in an intensive group experience which will require you to be able to sit with uncomfortable emotions, identify your own triggers, and hold the sacred space of possibility for others to allow them to move through their own process?
- Describe the role that intuitive insights and/or shamanic states of consciousness play in your life.
- Do you have an idea or a desire to integrate this experience with your career or life’s work?
For more information contact booking@theeponacenter.com or 520-455-5058.
Qualified EASE participants interested in becoming Epona Approved Instructors may apply for the Apprenticeship Training program that will be scheduled in 2011. Please indicate if you have a desire to continue with Epona in an apprenticeship program.