About Equuality

How Equuality Came to Be

In late 2008 I was in the midst of living one of those stories they tend to cut out of books and movies because they don't move the plot along.

It was fall, a season of change. I had been laid off by a long-time employer. My wife and I had recently finished a year of service with a 100+ horse rescue where we'd built a 60+ volunteer training program from scratch. For the first time in my life, I was the steward of my own horse, whom I had adopted from the same rescue. I was in the midst of training to be a yoga teacher without really understanding why I was there.

In short: I didn't know where I was going or what I was doing.

Narrative Confusion

Equuality was born from this time of narrative confusion. All of the ideas that were flowing into me through practicing my yoga, spending time with my horse, listening to Dharma talks and reflecting on life began to coalesce. As they grew together, they took on a life of their own and I began to write them down, fist as a book, then as a blog. Quotes, ruminations, anecdotes... linking up to form new and curious structures.

What I see now is that I was metamorphosing. The narrative confusion was like a cocoon that gave me a space to grow and change. I was learning a new way to be the teller of my own story.

Horseman as Storyteller

For me, horses were an integral part of this process. The relationships of my horsemanship practice gave me a window onto myself that naturally cultivated reflection, analysis, and understanding.

I think the desire to tell our stories a different way is something that draws many people to horses. When we're with our horses we can be a cowboy or show-jumper, an explorer or a healer, a dancer or a sage teacher. When we're playing ponies we can be something so much removed from the story of our daily lives as to feel gloriously fictitious.

These kind of stories are only the surface. Blow them, the tales we are spinning are much deeper and closer to our core.

Core Stories

When we're in the presence of a horse we feel a freedom to be the perfect partner we long to be. We can be comfortable enough to let another read our vulnerabilities without judgement. We can be creative enough to define the relationships we desire and brave enough to seek them openly. We can be a great empath, listening with an openness of heart that feels dangerous in the "real" world.

In these ways and so many more, learning to be a horseman is learning to hear and to tell powerful stories about ourselves.

Shared Growth and Offerings

Starting as my practice of personal storytelling, Equuality has grown into a vehicle for helping others learn to grain power through telling their own stories and to share those stories openly. In this way, we grown together by interweaving our thoughts, dreams, ideas, and relationships into a shared narrative.

To this end, I offer Equuality as an open forum for interaction and discussion. If you read something that peaks your interest, please leave your comments or send me an email.

A big part of what I do with Equuality is to share the teachings that have helped me to develop as a horseman. To this end, I teach others about horse-focused behaviorism(including natural horsemanship and clicker training), horse agility, and classical dressage, both online and in person.

I offer personal one-on-one coaching in Central Oregon and worldwide via the internet for those who would like some help in discovering how they can change themselves and their lives by learning to tell their stories differently through horsemanship.

Additionally, in 2011 I am hosting a limited number of Equuality Experiences. Part yoga retreat, part horsemanship clinic, with a dash of writers workshop and pinch of artist's atelier.

If you want to stay up to day up to date with Equuality, please sign up for the mailing list, join me on the Equuality Facebook Page, or just drop me an email.