Episode 9 - Freehorse Arts: Inclusive Arts With Equine Healing

This episode of Hyp Talks features a panel from FreeHorse Arts, a nonprofit dedicated to integrative, trauma-informed healing through the arts, nature, and equine-assisted experiences. Together, these practitioners explore how creative and relational approaches can support growth, resilience, and connection across diverse communities.

Alex Ginsberg is the Creative Director of FreeHorse Arts, with over 25 years of experience in mental health, expressive arts, and trauma-informed care. She focuses on creating relational, creative spaces that support healing through connection with self, others, nature, and horses.

Nancy Munoz is Co-Founder and President of FreeHorse Arts and a certified PATH instructor. With a background in producing major music industry events, she now brings her passion for the arts and equine-assisted learning into inclusive programs that foster healing and community.

Kim Hallin is an equine-guided facilitator, author, and founder of Unbridled LLC. She supports individuals and groups through nature-based and herd-centered experiences that cultivate emotional awareness, connection, and more ethical relationships with horses.

www.freehorsearts.org
@freehorsearts
https://www.kimhallin.com/

Alex with Batamanas (Bata for short)
Weekly Yoga in the Pasture
Example of Programming

Transcript

Welcome And Mission Of Hip Talks

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to Hip Talks. I'm your host, Catherine Hinchy. I'm a certified hypnotherapist, NLP practitioner, and Sherman's Senior Certified Professional in Human Resources. After spending a decade working in the music industry, my path led me into the world of the healing arts, where science, energy, mindset, and transformation all meet. Each week, I sit down with a different healing practitioner to explore the many powerful modalities available to support our growth, well-being, and personal evolution. So come with me on this journey of discovery and learn about all the opportunities for healing and transformation that are available to all of us.

Meet The Free Horse Arts Team

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Hello and welcome back to Hip Talks. I'm your host, Catherine Hinchy. I am so excited today to have our guests, our first panel of guests, joining us today. We have folks from Free Horse Arts. We have Alex Ginsburg, Kim Hallen, and Nancy Munoz joining us. Free Horse Arts customizes inclusive and integrative arts education, nature-based programming, and equine experiential learning for people with diverse abilities. Joining us, we have Alex Ginsburg, creative director at Free Horse Arts, has mindfully and intentionally chosen to weave together her passion for the arts, mindful practices, and passion for growing healing within 25 years of practice and service. Across a broad spectrum of populations and environments, from intensive mental health crisis services to a private practice focused on both healing from traumatic experiences and wellness, and so much in between. Alex holds an unwavering belief in the potential for all beings to heal and grow through playful, creative, trauma-responsive spaces across populations and programs, guided by healthy principles and practices, especially through positive relational experiences facilitated through the arts, nature, and all she continues to learn about through and with the Aquine collaborators in the Freehorse Arts herd. Alex has education with a degree, a BFA in acting from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She studied at California Institute of Integral Studies with a master's in counseling psychology with a focus on drama therapy. Also studied at the Institute for Life Coaching, Conscious Uncoupling, Post-Traumatic Stress Center, Advanced Training in Drama Therapy Interventions for Acute Trauma and Attachment Disruptions. Also joining us today is Kim Hallon. Kim is the equine guided facilitator, author, and founder of Unbridled LLC, a small sanctuary farm where horses, humans, and the land co-create spaces of mutual healing. After a 20-year career in higher education fundraising and a nonprofit management, Kim followed a deeper calling to partner with horses and the natural world to facilitate paradigm-shifting experiences. Her work invites people into deeper connection with their animal bodies, emotional intelligence, and the wider field of interdependence that horses model so beautifully. Through online courses, community memberships, and immersive herd-based offerings, Kim supports individuals, families, groups, equine professionals, and a wide array of horse lovers who seek a more ethical, relational, and heart-centered way of being with horses. She is the author of Horse Wisdom, Life Lessons for Humanity, and the creator of innovative programs including the Conscious Co-Healing Collective and The Kinship of the Herd. As a creative collaborator with Free Horse Arts, Kim contributes both curricula development and fundraising expertise to further their shared commitment to cultivating conscious community, understanding beyond self, and a present connection to the natural world. Rooted in reverence for the horses who guide her, Kim's work honors both the inspiration and the responsibility inherited in the horse-human relationship, pointing toward a more compassionate and conscious way forward. Passionate about creating opportunities through the transformative power of art and equines, Nancy Munoz has produced events ranging from the One World Concert for Peace with the Dalai Lama and the Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year Awards honoring Gloria Stefan to decades of the Songwriters Hall of Fame Awards, honoring and preserving legacies and creating opportunities for the next generation of songwriters, composers, and producers, while fostering lasting relationships among crew and creatives has been the hallmark of her career to include her work at ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. While managing noted producer Phil Ramone, Nancy facilitated numerous recordings with artists including Barbara Streisand, Billy Joel, Bono, James Taylor, John Legend, Paul McCarthy, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Tony Bennett, and Van Morrison, among others. She's had the pleasure of working with many more to include the Muppets and Daft Punk while managing the legendary songwriter, actor, recovery advocate, and ASCAP president and chairman Paul Williams. A certified professional association of therapeutic horsemanship, or PATH, instructor, Nancy is also the co-founder and president of Free Horse Arts, a nonprofit organization customizing inclusive, innovative, and integrative arts education, nature-based programming, and equine experiential learning for people with diverse abilities. Welcome! Free Horse Arts and Unbridled model the principles of our programming, which include alignment, balance, exploration and play, honesty and congruency, individual responsibility and accountability, presence, safety, respect, and shared leadership. Through dynamic and inspiring courses by teaching artists and creative collaborators, participants can engage in four expansive online and in-person programs: Live, Interconnected, Healthy Heard, and Horse Sense, which allow them to engage in the experiential practice, develop executive function skills leading toward respective career pathways, and create original content through the production process. From concept to stage, subjects have range from songwriting, storytelling, recording and engineering, set and garden design, dance and choreography, puppetry, event production, podcasting, animation and videography to creating healthy ecosystems, herd integration, and the art of listening. Free Horse Arts classes and community choir includes families and caregivers. And over the last seven years, nearly 5,000 humans and horses have been impacted through the online, in-person, and songwriter series programs. Amazing. Okay. Thank you all for being here. Oh, it's such a pleasure.

Serving A Rainbow Of Abilities

SPEAKER_00 8:31

I would love to just put it out there first. We can go around Robin, just talking a little bit about free horse arts and what community it serves, and how is it saving the world in your corner of the world? Alex. So this is a great demonstration of shared leadership. So I will start and likely you will chime in and we'll collaborate. Yeah? And Kim as well. Okay, so your first question was who we serve. Yeah. I really uh appreciate what a colleague said to me when I really struggled with languaging this because I've had the experience over a couple decades that the terminology that we use for inclusive programming just isn't enough. It's not vast enough. People with and without disabilities. But then I'm like, actually, we all have challenges and we all have struggles. And what's a disability? What's not a disability? Who's defining? There's a lot of thought that goes into this. And so a friend of mine who works a lot within the disability community actually said, Well, it sounds like you all serve a rainbow. We are an inclusive community. We serve all ages from little littles to seniors. We serve people with all sorts of skills, all sorts of deficits, all sorts of challenges. I mean, we don't call them deficits, challenges, places to grow. And that's really important because at Free Horse Arts, we really focus on moving beyond the idea of moving beyond self in so many ways. And one way that really plays into programming and practice is that we really encourage one another as a team, as creative collaborators, as participants, to really grow beyond any perceived limitations that we carry, regardless of where they come from, whether it's external messaging, internal messaging, and we're constantly lifting each other up. This is a gesture we have in our online classes, to really grow beyond those perceptions for the benefit of a healthier, more interconnected planet. For the audio-only community, when she said the gesture, she was raising her arms up over her head. So just to clarify.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

And then the horses really model that.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

You said that beautifully, but I would say that another thing Free Horse Arts does is we strive to make horses more accessible or being with horses, spending time with horses more accessible to populations that don't typically have easy access to horses. There's a lot of traditional ways that might be riding and training and competition or sports, things like that. And so this is an opportunity for a wider array of people to be able to interact with horses and to interact with horses doing what they do naturally, being who they are naturally, not being who we have often decided we want horses to be, but just horses being horses. And so that's another piece I think that's unique about free horse arts. I'd also say that horses absolutely do model the spirit that we're talking about. And when they meet anyone new, whether it's another horse or human, their question always is, who are you? And it's not, they don't have language like we do. So we're not using labels like we do. They want to know who is the essence of you? What are you about? What energy do you have? What do you have to share with us today? Yeah. I think that's all I wanted to add to that.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

And for, and we may use arts education or arts in general, all aspects of the arts and nature-based learning to help individuals answer the question for themselves and reconnect and reintegrate for themselves. We say that we have integrative education, which we do. We in and that means we integrate where that person is at, try to customize learning accordingly, but integrate programming. So our online programming is learning alongside those in our live programs, because we have some people that cannot. We have individuals from around the country on our online programming. And if anyone listening to this has people who either feel disconnected or want to have want to check out what we're doing and want to have access to it, we try to make our programming as accessible as possible. We offer scholarships who can't afford to pay for the programming. We try to customize it accordingly and really find out what will help people grow, heal. And a lot of that, I know, Kat, you have your own healing arts that you're involved in. And the beautiful thing is, so many people are healed in different ways by different modalities through so many different areas. We're really happy that there are so many offerings to people these days, sometimes overwhelming. But for us, it's very important that we integrate what we do within the context of the natural world, and the horses are intimately connected in their natural state, not stalled and kept inside all day and not treated, not allowed, as Kim said to be horses. But the horses are so in touch with what the air is bringing, what is carried through the wind, what is growing in the ground, how healthy are the ecosystems that we're all tied to. And the horses really help with that. But then beyond that, we have programming at an apiary. We have an organic community garden for those that are shut in and housebound. We've sent them organic soil so that they can grow their own herbs or learn how to grow. So there's a way of outreach so that they can learn about composting and within their own household, so that they can share that within their community. There's so many different levels to what might just be considered an arts and nature-based equine experiential learning organization, but we really try to integrate all of it so that things aren't done in a vacuum.

Online Access And Healing The Horses

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

And I have a question about that. So your online programming, which is great for people who aren't, you're based in Richmond, Virginia. For people who aren't there and do want to take advantage of the online programming, do they have an experience with the horses that way as well? And can you describe that? Kim. Yes, they can have an experience with the horses. And we've gone, Nancy and I have worked a lot on creating some video footage that we share. We have shared in some of the courses, where we will together we'll watch the video live and we'll talk about the horse behavior. We'll talk about what the horses are experiencing. We also tie in the principles of the healthy herd into everything that we do at Free Horse Arts, and we talk about how those principles come from the horses, that they were modeled by the horses, and we adopted them from there. We didn't come up with these. These are based in the things that we witnessed and have noticed over the years of how horses behave and relate in their communities. It's a perfect way to step outside of just a lot of the things that we have learned in the domestic world that isn't necessarily natural, isn't necessarily healthy. And another piece to this, the tying to what Nancy said earlier, and this doesn't so much maybe apply to the online, but the in-person for sure, is that a lot of horses that live in the domestic world, even though ours are living as naturally as possible, they come from various backgrounds and they have been impacted by the domestic world in various ways. They all have different histories. And so it's the things that we, the activities that we do, the programs that we offer aren't only healing for people, they're actually very healing for the horses too, because they get to experience being a relationship with people and humans in a different way. And so it heals some wounds that they may have carried um from before. Amazing. And talking about in Alex's background with the background in in trauma healing, I didn't even occur to me to think about horse trauma, but of course that makes uh a lot of sense to be able to have that healing happening together. Sounds pretty powerful. Yeah. All

How Each Founder Found The Work

SPEAKER_00 19:51

right. So talk to me a little bit next about your like what brought you to this type of work, to working with this with arts and with horses and what's been your passion, what grew you? And we can start. I don't know. Should we start with you, Nancy?

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Okay. I'm gonna attempt to keep this brief. I think there's an there was an element for me of carry it over lifetimes. And no one else in my family was into horses, actually. There's trauma associated with horses in my family. And the natural world in many different forms made sense to me. It brought a sense of balance and clarity that I often felt was missing in me when I interacted with many humans. And so there I've always really loved horses and honored horses, but to Kim's point about access, the only access I had as a child, like I wasn't raised in in a family that had horses. I didn't have, you know, I had to earn money as a child to have access to horses, which was very helpful from a work ethic perspective, but it created a certain kind of access that was formal. So there was a training mindset. There wasn't a I'm amongst equals access. It wasn't I am here to learn from these sacred beings. It wasn't that kind of situation back then. And so there were a I was guilty a lot. Along with many of my peers, in using harsh methods with horses. And it's only when I and my but my most healing moments, my moments that were beyond self and connected to the natural world were those where all of that got stripped away and I was, without knowing it, in the presence, deep in presence, deep in clarity, deep in awareness, and really aligned both within myself and within a larger environment. Fast forward many years through work and service to other beings, missed it terribly, got back into it, and then there was this entirely, there were sub-industries created around the horse world, natural horsemanship and therapeutic horsemanship and all of it. And I got into it, started getting credentialed, but found even within those quote unquote more progressive fields, there was very often an element of disintegration, lack of harmony. There was a lot of conversation about it. There, people were very good at elucidating how very good they were with horses. But I often, when I met horses, that's not the story I was getting from the horses. That's not what I was feeling from the horses. It was just really important for me to help create an environment where healing without it being clinical. That's the only way I guess I'll put it right now, was possible for the horses. And then the humans were invited to participate in that. We tried to not have the element of force involved in our programming. It's really an invitation, but there are incredibly high standards relative to an expectations that people come in as a herd member, whether they're a crew member on a show or a participant. There is not this feeling, oh, you have X disability, then you're automatically not. We're assuming you can't play and explore, you can't have shared leadership, you're not able to respect others, you're unable to be present. And Alex can probably talk more to this, but it's been there's a very open yet very high integrity bar set for participation in a healthy herd, because for horses, when a herd member is unbalanced, the horses let them know about it right away. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Coming to you full circle, right? I think in creating this terms of having that community. Yes? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

It's an evolving process. We it is a really challenging time in the world. And so disconnection from nature, the disconnection from individuals through families, through communities, there is so much fragmentation and disconnection and whatever you want to call it, that reintegration, creating conscious community, and being conscious and having conscious awareness as much as we can bring to our life in general, our work, our service to me is essential these days.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

I'm sort of tingling. I'd love to go next. Yes, go, go. I just resonate so much with what Nancy has shared. And I too will try to keep it brief. But I think that my story of finding this work and of finding free horse arts, I think is very much. This is gonna sound kind of hokey, but it's really true, like a blessed search for spiritual truth and congruence around why we do what we do and how we do it being the most important part of what we make. My passion for the arts, for music, for creating and telling stories, holding as twer the mirror up to nature, as Shakespeare says, was very much about connection and the striving for connecting more deeply in honesty with humanity and making that an offering. I always I think I came to to theater making from almost like a shamanic perspective, always, which was really hard when I graduated from conservatory. I was blessed to engage in a training that really led me to believe in a lot of ways there wasn't always congruence here, and it wasn't always honest. But the core of it was that it is a sacred act and it is a it is an to be an artist is an offering. Then I went out into the world and tried to make it my profession and tried to make a living at it. And the level of incongruence, both in theory and in practice, and what I was seeing and who I just had to be in the world didn't work for me. It works for some people. Some people can walk into world. I just couldn't. So I left it in a pretty successful moment, achieving the things that I thought I was striving for, and went on a very interesting journey and lived on an oyster farm on a bay and had no idea the place really spoke to me spiritually. I've always been driven by that. Long story short, it's where I found my graduate school, right? I wanted to be a drama therapist. That's where I was able to blend the desires for healing and connection and growth with practice. But I didn't even know drama therapy existed, which is really strange because my undergraduate school has a program that teaches it in a way that isn't interesting to me. So I was able to go to the California Institute for Integral Studies, which is a which is ironic, because then I studied integral yoga and it's the same, I didn't make the connection. But again, it's a program that focuses very much on Eastern philosophy, non-pathologizing, the human's ability to self-actualize, a lot of sematic work, a lot of creative arts therapies, and also traditional, pretty hardcore psych theory, pharmacology, all those things. And I was trained by really amazing, intense people in hospitals working from littles to geriatric. And the practice of drama therapy was very much about flow and jazz. That's at least the mod the practice that I was most drawn to. And it's about always noticing the other. It's notice, feel, feel it inside, animate it. So you're giving it back to them and express it. You're offering it, and then the improvisation begins. So the eye is always in being in service of the other and taking the awareness away from the self to the best of one's ability. Otherwise, it's not a helpful practice. And I just thought it was magic and ended up practicing everything I do in that way, and was very much spiritually aligned. There was congruence, there was care, there was listen, deep listening, and lived in the world of trauma work, severe abuse neglect, really intense environments for about 20 years, which I loved. But there was always a balance of using the instrument for and service in that way. But I also knew that I needed to use it in wellness practices. Otherwise, it just wasn't in balance. And so it kind of saved my life as a clinician to find programs and to create programs, bridging working with therapeutic day schools and bringing in arts organizations or the serial collaborator. And I think that's the jazz analogy. And finding Nancy was it was just another one of those weird spirit. It's like when I found the place, like I found the person. Oddly, we dropped into each other's world, and it was like, oh my God. And spoke very similar languages, Nancy with horses and me with humans. It's the same, it's the same thing. Trauma is trauma, energy is energy. How we approach, it's the same thing. If we're noticing what the other is expressing and meeting, and we accommodate and we all the things. So there's just a common shared language there. So Ned's mentioned the space that we create. It's the gestalt of why the work works. And it actually is a practice that I've learned through drama therapy, which are called the conditions of the play space. And it's, you know, of course, doing no harm. So nobody's allowed to be hurt, to be harmed. It's joyful, it's welcoming that dialogue. And what I've noticed is that when that is brought to any space with anybody or any being, that's where what feels like magic happens, but it's actually a very mindful practice of how we energetically show up with one another. And coming from the belief of yes, you can and yes, you will. And yes, we have all these things, and also we are, and also we can. I hope I answered your question. It's a really big question. Yeah, it is fascinating to hear the yin and the yang between the two of you. So thank you. Kim, I want to hear about your story and how you came to this work. Yeah, I'll say that free horse arts resonated with me from the beginning because as a child, horses and art and writing were my safe places, right? They were where I felt like I was my most authentic self. So I'll start with that with the end, which like connecting with free horse arts was in many ways coming home for me. It just feels like a place to be, the right place to be. My journey into doing this work with horses specifically, which is primarily how I'm engaged with free horse arts, was a journey, a very personal journey for me. So I've always loved horses. I grew up in a very suburban family. We did not have horses. I didn't, like Nancy didn't have much access to horses. My access to horses was limited to reading the Black Stallion books and my friend Flicka and Missy of Chinkotique, all the horse books I could get to when I was a kid. And I could watch horse racing on TV, of all things, right? Those are really the only outlets I had when I was very young to horses. But for whatever reason, I was one of those kids that just loved horses for there was no logical explanation for why. And then when I got old enough, I was able to go to Girl Scout camp. And it was a horse camp, and that's where I first started learning how to ride. And it was wonderful. I loved every minute of it because it was my only access to horses, but it was also an introduction right off the bat to like, as Nancy said, work ethic, get up before breakfast and clean stalls. And there were so many rigid rules about how to do the horses and how not to. And we learned the formalities of riding. And this was where I went from a very sensitive, empathic child who just wanted to be around the horses to being told to kick the horse harder to make it go. And you had to be stronger to be a leader, and like all the things that started that were told through society too, but it started with the thing that I loved most, which was horses, which I was gonna do anything, right? To be able to be around them. So I just absorbed the mentality that there is in the horse industry. And I thought the only way I'm ever gonna have any kind of future with horses is I've got to embody these values. I've got to be strong, I've got to be a good leader, I've got to be able to keep the horse in line. And that that was confusing as a child, but you quickly just absorb what you think you need to be able to do. I went forward and picked my college because it had an equestrian program. And again, did a lot of riding, jumping, learning how to show, things like that. I didn't own my first horse until I was 30 and had to be able to pay for it myself and all of that. And that was the first time at 30 that I was able to say, huh, what kind of relationship do I want to have with this horse? This now that I own, and that's the sad thing. Ownership is the thing that gave me the right to be able to have the relationship I wanted with a horse, which owning another being, there's a lot tied up into that in itself, right? But still I had by that time, 30 years old, in embodied so much of what I was taught in the horse industry that then it's been a process of unlearning, right? From there. And the universe thankfully brought me some really challenging horses into my life. Horses that didn't really respond well to the traditional methods anyway. And so I had to start learning how to listen to them again. Anyway, there's a lot of that story about unwinding all the losing relationships because I wasn't doing it the way other people were. A lot of judgment, a lot of you're crazy, you don't know what you're doing. But the horses started working on me, right? And it they started noticing the incongruencies in me. They could feel that I'm doing these methods, but my heart's not in those methods, right? And they'll forces will a lot of times speak more clearly and loudly to people they believe might listen. Same as people. When you're in environments where this is just the way it's gonna be and nobody cares what my opinion is, nobody's gonna hear me anyway. I'm only gonna get judged or punished for what I say. I'm not gonna speak. So a lot of forces that are well behaved have just shut down. Not all of them, but there, there are, there's a good fair amount of that in the world. Same with people, right? So I had horses come into my life who were like, I think she might listen, right? And so then they start acting, acting out in their behavior because they can't speak in human language. So they speak through their behavior. So I was getting horses saying no a lot and loudly, and yeah, one in particular. It was very aggressive. And I had to learn how to listen to what they had to say, get out of my own self-interest, what my goals and agendas were with them, and say, What is it? What do you need from me? What do you need generally to feel safe in your body and your environment and everything here? And and doing that, they helped me see myself more clearly. So I was someone who grew up as a people pleaser, got into some unhealthy relationships, was in a very toxic 17-year marriage. And it was actually the most challenging horse in my life, the one who was so aggressive, who taught me how to not be a doormat. Who taught me how to have the self-respect to say if someone does not listen to you, if someone doesn't honor what you have to say or how you feel, that's not a relationship. That's not any kind of relationship you want to be in. I did many years of therapy and marriage therapy that were very helpful. I'm pro-therapy. It has its, you know, there are some things that we have to experience on an embodied level, at least I did, in order to really understand like what was going on there. So my horse helped me get out of a toxic marriage that many years of marriage therapy didn't quite get me there. Very personal for me. And after that happened, that was when I started looking at everything in my life and what was congruent and what wasn't, and how much of my life had I built around this like image of who I thought I should be instead of who I really am. I had gotten totally away from the way I loved horses as a kid and art and writing and all those things that were a big part of who I was. That all culminated then in me deciding to end a 20-year career. It was a beautiful career. I don't have any regrets of about that, but it was not where my heart needed to be. When I realized how much the horses impacted me and helped me find my way back to my true self, I wanted to share that with other people. So that's how I got into starting my business called Unbridled. And I think it was a year into my business that I met Nancy. And it's crazy. Yeah, I think she heard an interview of me talking online or something like that, and just contacted me out of the blue and was like, we chatted a bit. And then she said, I'm gonna be down that way. Can I visit you? And anyone who knows Nancy, she's she's kind of a force of nature and just was unlike anybody else I had met, and we aligned completely on our values related to the horses. And if we're gonna do this work with horses, it's not only gonna be helpful for the people, it's gotta be really therapeutic and healing for the horses as well. And their voices have to be honored, and they have as much to teach us and to contribute to this as we do. And so we just resonated. And so then Nancy and I, we've been connected ever since, and I've been a side part of Free Horse Arts. I'm not a staff member of a creative collaborator. I've done work with Free Horse Arts over the years. So yeah, that's how this came for me.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Kim just said, Oh, I'm not on this, but I'm just a creative collaborator. Kim is an essential member of our herd. And that's the beautiful thing about lack of hierarchy. Yes, I'm the co-founder and president, but there's a real shared leadership. And I was um just give you an example, a curricular example, out of everything that Alex said and Kim said about listening. This is where the integrative nature happens. So before we have, before our participants do any songwriting sessions together, both online and in person, we really focus on listening. That's just a tiny example. Before we record, if there's anyone that, you know, is gonna quote unquote solo or is gonna be like there's not so much a featured artist or performer or vocalist as much as valuing the bass player as much as the lead vocalist, as much as the background vocalist, as much as the drummer, as much as the guitarist that's shredding, right? Or not. There is an aspect to it, and it's different from a democratic approach, which I won't go into right now. But as they were both talking and thinking about our work together, Kat, and what a force of nature you are in your own way, I was thinking, I would love to see how Kat would approach hypnosis with the horses. Because where the horses are in their natural state, by natural state, I mean they're centered, they're embodied connectedness. There are elements and people who do their version of tapping and all these other kind of things with horses that people do too, right? But where you might end up with the horses, where you might end up with hypnosis with humans is where you might start with the horses. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 42:58

For sure. Yeah, absolutely. And uh little side note, I have been trying to work on hypnotizing my cat. I am not there yet. Cats are different, but I'm not giving up yet.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

So I would love that you have an open invitation, Kat. If you want to feel what this might feel like and what the horses have to say to you through your modality and through your practice, that'd be interesting.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

Oh my gosh. Okay, you've got it. And that could be another podcast. We'll talk about that.

Blending Songwriting Dance And Herd Principles

SPEAKER_00 43:32

I want to go back a little bit. So, in terms of concept, it's very clear to me how horses and arts conceptually relate, but how do you like practically combine the two in like an art session, songwriting session, for example? Alex, that's the question. It is always the question. I was gonna say the horses don't dance with participants. Participants, but that is inaccurate. We have had nature-based programming sessions where we um engage.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Can I interrupt here for a second and help out? So, for instance, this is an example. The live classes were learning about Latin dance. Literally, there were creative collaborators and artists from the local dance company teaching. And then for our healthy herd programming, our monthly programming that is the nature-based programming, we took elements from our community garden and a few others, and folks learned how to make homemade salsa. And then on the horse sense session that month, one of our horses is an incredible dancer. I think Apache danced. So for that horse sense, there was a family that came out and several others, but there was a little boy, he was about three, came out with his mom, grandparents, and there were several others. And that family hadn't exposed their son to animals or nature-based situations because they thought he was going to be out of control and disruptive and had behavioral issues. Yes. And again, diverse populations. So we don't segregate our programming. There were people with and without diagnoses. But the beautiful thing is that we had Luca, one of our horses, that this three-year-old, she was on Sesame Street. So she is okay with almost whatever. And so he was able to groom and touch her and really explore her as long as she was able to graze while he was doing it. And Apache, when he approached, Apache was very hesitant about his energy. His grandfather, who had very different energy, and the grandson, the whole horse sun session was about them integrating. So they really had to find their unified energy. And then how to bring it to Apache. And then we danced with Apache. So Apache was able to, and it's horse's movement, especially a horse like Apache, is an amazing dance. So we worked with energy and movement with Apache as if it was a dance, but it was a complete approach relative to working with energies.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

So it's it, if I could elaborate there, I wrote down it was the dance of relationship. So we work metaphorically and literally. We are governed by the principles of the healthy herd. So the horses really model for us the way to healthfully be together with one another in all of our dances, regardless of where we are. It's more relationship and how we move through the world. The horses don't paint yet, but it's not literal, it's more metaphorical. And also the metaphor of dance. What is dance? Dance is about relationship through energy and proximity. And that's where it's so beautiful because the horses are so clear. Also, always this like improvisation. If you're as present as you are and as authentic as you are with the horses, it's constant improvisation, right? You're responding and reacting and giving and taking and all at the same time. With mutuality, with respect. You've all mentioned a bit about the listening, and a couple have mentioned about the spirituality of the interaction with the horses.

Telepathy Trance And The Bhata Story

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Is the communication more than just the behavior? Is there is it intuitive? Is there telepathy? Is there communication that way? Talk to me about that.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

This might be a good time, Alex, for you just to talk about what it was like with Bata. And then for people that are listening, we can share the photo andor some videos so that they get a sense if they haven't experienced it. And then I'd love to hear an example from Kim too.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

So I'm new to horses. Before I met Nancy, I was afraid of horses because they're so big. And but I loved them. I love dogs. Like I'm very much an animal person and children, and you know, I'm very attuned to energy, but we were foreign to each other, really foreign to each other. And they are incredible teachers for me, for sure. If I could, Nance. I mean, I think that there are people who like Nancy, like Kim, who do communicate with horses specifically on another wavelength. I haven't necessarily reached it yet. I think, for example, Bata and I, Bata is this big boy and he's very playful and he's very, you know, we we we're buddies. But I, okay, so this experience was my first transcendent spirit connected experience with a horse. I was a really hard time in my life, and we were having a team meeting in the run-in, which we often do. So we'll sit in a semicircle, and horses, Bhata and Madhya, are invited to come and go as they please. Sometimes they choose to join us, sometimes they don't. And Bata came and sort of scanned the group and came right up to me and was really getting in my face from my human perspective in that moment. And I had learned from Nancy, and this is also the poetry and the nuances of relationship and moments, right? There are moments when I would say, Bata, back up. I need space, and that would have been okay too. But Nancy invited me to she heard what Bata was there for. And she said, Alex, close your eyes and meditate with Bata. And I did. And I closed my eyes. Felt like a good period of time, and I opened my eyes, and I think his eyes were closed while I was doing this. And our faces were very close. Nancy, of course, was there to observe and keep me safe. I do not recommend people close their eyes head to head with the horse without supervision. And I opened my eyes and I was like, okay, done. That was cool. And Bata was in this almost trance-like state. And he took his paw. He took his hoof and he pawed at my leg. And I was like, What, Nance, what is this? Like, what's what is it? And she said, He's asking you to dig deeper. He wants you to dig deeper. And I closed my eyes. And Bacha closed his eyes. I think. That's what the picture said. And we were like this close to each other. I'm not kidding. So close. I just wept and left. And Nancy said it's okay that he's here for you. That's why he came here, like, let it go. Let him let it. And which for me was such a huge learning. So control, you know, so afraid to be that vulnerable and publicly. And you know, I opened and it was I opened my eyes, and his eyes were still closed. I'm trying to remember. Yeah, he opened his eyes and he started to get antsy. And Nancy said, He took all of that energy in, and now he needs to release it. And so, you know, she like normally I would just take him out and we would run and play together. And I was like, it's a drama therapist. I was like, yes, like, and somatically, like that's how we release trauma and where animals are so brilliant. My instinct is hold hold, which is so unhealthy. And his is be with it, take it in, and then release it and just like let it go. Because he wasn't able to run it, you know, with her at that point. She went and she massaged him to help move the energy out. And it blew me away. It was just he was of such service and it was so generous. And I never in a million years would have imagined that possible. Wow, that's a powerful story. And he's big, he's not a little guy. Head to head, how much trust there was between both of us and just yeah. That's amazing. I'm so afraid we're gonna run out of time. Maybe we could schedule it a second. Yeah. But I have heard stories about horses, and I would love to hear more about Nancy's experience and being able to communicate that way.

SPEAKER_01 53:42

Well, Kim, sorry to introduce, but Kim has lots and lots of these examples and is a brilliant communicator in her own way.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

I think the takeaway really is just that horses do operate at that intuitive and spiritual and telepathic level, but they're also really embodied. And so it's not like there can be times when it's just telepathic messages, but as a facilitator, what I've learned is that we operate on all cylinders when I'm with them and they might be relaying something to me symbolically, they might be relaying something through their behavior. I also have found that they seem to know how each individual is going to receive information. How they know this, I don't know. But when I have clients here, they will reach the client how that client needs to hear it or needs to see it or experience it. And then I can be the bridge sometimes, but it's multidimensional happening all the time in real time. And we just, you just have to, once you realize it and you open your heart to it, you'll be blown away every single time by how profound it is. That's beautiful. That makes me think, Nancy, about what you were saying earlier about hypnotizing a horse and a horse being already where you might want to get to. And absolutely, because when you're doing hypnosis, you're trying to bypass that critical mind filter, right? To get into your subconscious mind. And if the horse is already operating without that critical mind filter, then it's really about when you're hypnotizing a horse, it's really about hypnotizing yourself to get with a level, I think. Ding ding ding ding. Yeah, we're done. Yeah. The mic. Oh my gosh. Okay, so do we have time, Nancy? It's 3:09 to do that thing. Okay, great. I'll leave it to you.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

And Alex and Kim, feel free to join

Breathing With The Rhythm Of Horses

SPEAKER_01 55:38

in. But we do this online and in person in different ways. And if we're in person and there are there's a slight wind blowing, we ask everyone to close their eyes and just feel the air on the skin and listen to what sounds might be close. And if it's anything that is wrankling someone, whether it's a mechanical sound or if someone has any particular sensitivities and it's a sound that triggers anything, we just welcome and ask that people allow it to be what it is and then let that concern go. And then come to the breath. So a horse is I know we're in the middle of a uh exercise, but a horse's respiration and heartbeat is much slower. Certainly their respirations are much slower than ours. So to create resonance, to enhance resonance, we just ask if they're live with horses, we watch a horse's flank and we ask people to connect their breathing with the horse's breath. But here, since we're not washing a horse's flank, we'll just ask everyone to inhale to a count of four, one, two, three, four, and then exhale for a count of four. One, two, three, four. And then this is a shortened version, but for those listening, I know that there's many different breathing exercises, whether it's formal yogic and pranayam, or there's box breathing breathing, and people hold their breath, people exhale for longer than they inhale. But when we're in a group, I'm very conscious, especially if they're different ages and if there are different people that have either respiratory illnesses or have attention challenges, that we just create congruence. So it's not so much about focusing on the numbers, it's really about focusing on one's breath so that in any circumstance people can just come back to their inhale and ex inhalations and exhalations without judgment, without feeling that they're breathing correctly or incorrectly, without attachment to any particular procedure. They can make it their own and they can come back to it at any time, at any place. And just that awareness, building that awareness from the breath to them back to the air around you, to the sounds around you, to all of the energies that are around within and without. And then back to the breath. So opening, then we uh invite people to open their eyes. Again, this is much longer typically if we're in person, but even in all of our quote unquote arts education, we have we tried to have each participant lead the group in their own way, with their own words in a mindful moment, because conscious awareness and what we bring to that is woven throughout everything we do.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:31

Wow, thank you. You are all such beautiful souls, and that was really great. I want to come and play with you and the horses.

Where To Find Free Horse Arts

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

Before we say goodbye, how can people find you?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:47

www.frehhorsearts.org. And we are also on Instagram and the name Freehorse Arts, F-R-E-E-Horse, H O R S E arts.org. We named it because free there's a free element to the learning and to the being. The horses are at the center of it, and the arts are a mode of expression, as Kim said, through which we can play and also practice the skills that the horses teach us as we play.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

So the modality and the thing that we make is sure the thing that we make, but the way that we engage with one another, that's really the key. And taking those principles into all of our interactions wherever we find ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:44

And then Kim's organization is Unbridled LLC. Kim, yes, we're we have live sessions in Richmond, Virginia. Kim's outside Charleston, South Carolina. And we are big on partnerships. We don't want to recreate the wheel. We at least I'll speak for myself. I love a beginner's mind. I feel like we're just beginning. There's so much that there's so much to share in this world of fractiousness. So we are very inclusive in that way. So thank you, Kat, for bringing us together and having us with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

Thank you all for doing this. I really I'm just so excited, and I will definitely have to do some uh another one follow-up, maybe one where we're actually recording with the horses. That could be interesting. That would be great. Wishing you well in the meantime, Kat. You've been listening to Hip Talks, original music by Tracy Moore and the Jazzy Fat Nasties, Podcast Editing and Sound Engineering by Zachary Trainer. If you like what you heard, please like and share and follow us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you make a comment, I promise I will respond. Give it would love to live your gifts again.