Mountain Horse School
7370 Harrow Road V0N 2L0 Pemberton, BC, Canada

Skyshow: riding the light codes From the first photo, where it looks like I'm riding Besa above the clouds, the the last blue barn shot in the fading light, these pics were shot over about 30 minutes. No editing and no filters. Look at how much the light changes in each of these shots. Now imagine if I had an indoor arena. What I would have missed! @snakeberryjam, thanks for joining me for a slow motion trail plow ride today. It's tough going in wet-cement snow right now, an...d too icy and scary to do much on the roads. So we wait. And look at blue lined snow clouds from between pricked ears #mountainhorseachool #pembertonbc #lightcodes #morethanhumanworld #winterriding

I'm gifting you a few moments of a snowy ride Dublin shared with me a few days ago. We're doing fine through all this crazy weather, but have reduced our days to the necesities: food. Water. A little movement when there's extra capacity.

Aaannnddd that's a wrap on our 2021 season!! Not only did we survive the darkest and COLDEST day we've ever ran camp... some of the kids said it was THEIR FAVOURITE CAMP EVER!! (Even if we spent most of it cosied up around the fire with our feathers all poofed out like little birds) Thanks to each and every one of you who helped make 2021 so beautiful. We can't wait to make magic with you in 2022! But before then, we must rest. ;)

Whoo! We got a big dump of snow yesterday!

Softly, Softly. Hold the reins loosely, now. Let the line you're riding lead. Set your intention-- and your attention-- ahead of you, as if you're riding an invisible horse in front of the horse you are riding. Let that invisible horse lead. Pour your desire-- for movement, for lightness, for direction-- into that invisible horse. Let that horse lead. Then you can ride from energy, from flow, effortlessly, the same as breathing. This is how the oneness happens. We get so fix...ated on what the head and the neck is doing because it is what we can see. If we put our intention-- and our attention-- ahead of us then we can ride all the things we cannot see. Feel opens the door and speaks in soft somatics. Stop trying so hard for control, shape, form, all the mechanations of that old training scale. Ride the invisibles. Then the rest will follow. #mountainhorseachool #horsemanship #ridingtheinvisibles #centerofthemovingworld #wings #lightcodes

It's true!! December 15 at 12pm. We can't wait to have you join us for our upcoming season.

Here's my snowy slushy Saturday crew! Love these girls and their ponies. :)

Postcard anyone?? I love this time of year-- waking up to whiteness, the quality of silence that descends. And the beauty. When the ordinary is no longer ordinary; even our daily routines have the potency to shock us alive. Want to come play in the snow with us? We have spots left in our holiday camps Dec 20, 21 and 22. Let me know in the comments if you'd like me to send you details!... #winter #4seasons #farmlife #pembertonbc #mountainhorseachool

Holiday Camps Dec 20, 21, 22, 2022 Memberships, Camp Registration and Gift Certificates, + Kera's line of Herbal Medicine

When I first started trying to work around Tina in a stall (as part of the process of teaching her another way to be with humans) she would freeze or panic. Being shut in a small area with me was still too much. So I made a round pen, and we figured out some things about each other in there, where we had more room to move around and away from each other. Now we're back to trying to be together in a smaller space again. At first I tried to pull my energy in when I entered the... stall to not trigger her but that just made things worse. Today I faced her and asked her to turn and face me, like we'd done in the round pen. There was an almost tangible snap as our energy fields connected. I let mine expand in intensity to match the intensity of her fear. I let myself be whatever I was today: ungrounded, exhausted, not really in my feet. That didn't matter, because it was my heart field that held her, once I stopped trying to be smaller, and pretend that I didn't exist, as if I could enter her awareness without making a ripple. As if. This is when everything changed. Immediately she licked and chewed. If I matched her intensity and moved slow enough, we could move around the stall together without her going into freeze or panic. She kept making these little releases as we went, eye blinks and head turns and chews. This is what told me to keep going, that we were on the road to something holy together. I picked up her feed bucket, and hung her hay net all without moving my attention or center from her, and then we (slowly and one step at a time) rotated around so I could open the door of the stall, and instead of letting her rush out, I held her and let her breathe in that for a while, before slowly and one step at a time letting her move to the door and walk out. And even when she did I stayed in the connection, kept my gaze soft and my awareness focused on her, and she stopped just outside the door. When I finally broke our connection and left the stall it was like walking away from a mountain after gazing at it for a long time. Like my cells were forever changed, singing with newness.

Soggy day legs. While we're super wet here at Mountain Horse, everyone is holding up fine so far in the deludge. Our fingers and hooves are crossed that all our friends get through the night ok... and the days to come.

Against the sky their bodies appear dark: As if their inverse were their image; And all that can be captured is shadow While their true selves, the White winged ones with honky tonk calls like bells turned inside out... Fly always away from us Every day there are more swans Believing themselves safe For the night/ inside The orchard fence When we ride by Our horses' hooves shattering puddles made of cloud and mountain/ they rise in circles above us. A honky tonk army, Their bodies stretched lean and calling, Necks flung ahead of their flight like javelins as if their souls were held in their beaks Is this how we give up freedom? Circling little By little back to safety Turning from the sky back To ground, our voices becoming quiet, Our eyes watching the riders as they walk across the field, every day There are more swans In the fence and in the sky They circle over our heads and land again And the horses snort the Water out of their nostrils Scatter drops of rain back into The sky

We can't get enough dandelions these days. The horses come back from rides with their feet covered in yellow pollen. Students are suddenly camoflauged in yellow rainjackets. I know this profusion of earthly brilliance will go to seed soon enough-- but every spring I'm struck absolutely and completely by the power of life coming alive again. Like a river running out to sea it simply moves, rushes, bursts, blooms. #flowerpower #mountainhorseschool #proddaycamp #pemberdise #naturesmedicine #lifeforce #bloom #wearethechangewevebeenwaitingfor #madeforthesetimes

Saying YES: A Mule, a May Workshop, and two White Horses - https://mailchi.mp//saying-yes-a-mule-a-workshop-and-two-w

Inspiration for summer camps... :)

Catching snowflakes. #mountainhorseschool #horsesofpemberton #firstsnow #naturemedicine

Well, that turned out to be a beauty day after all! I love the mist creeping in from the trees...

Pigs know how to do rainy days right. #minipigsofinstagram #charlottethevikingprincess #rosiethewonderpig #mountainhorseschool #rainydaysnuggles

Because today's heavy rainfall warning made me think it was a good idea to cancel lessons, I got to ride up the Green River FSR (where I've been wanting to go all summer but just haven't had time to go bery far). The water was too high to access the little trail I was after, but we had a good bushwack to make up for it (through grass that was taller than Mouse!)

Happy Hallows eve day from all of us at Mountain Horse School. #betterlatethannever #pemberdise #horsesofpemberton #mountainhorseschool

Mountain Horse is on vacation until Sept 18! See you all soon!

Wow, I can't believe it... we just taught our last day of summer camp!!!!!! Whooo, and giant bareback hugs and thank yous to everyone who came along for the ride. Ps: keep an eye out for our fall schedule... booking's going live this weekend! #mountainhorseschool #pemberdise #horsecamp #horsedreamerscamps #horselistenerscamp #summer2020 #thatsawrap

Miss Mouse has joined in on the lessons this week! Thanks for joining the team, my wee gray friend. #mousethepony #mountainhorseschool #horsedreamers #horsedreamerscamps

"What do you think horse heaven looks like?" "It looks like freedom." I answered the girl's question quickly, without thinking. So much of this dialogue comes from somewhere else. If not from the horse directly then from the space between us, the time and the relationship we've created across species lines, the way the threads of our lives bind together. It makes me think of when I sat with David Abram years ago, and someone asked him about whether he thought it was dangerou...s to project our own emotions and constructs onto animals. "Why not?" He replied. "We have to get out of ourselves somehow." We have to get out of ourselves somehow, in order to know where and what and who we are. This is some of the unspoken, unlanguagable magic that happens when we spend time wandering around on the back of a horse. A part of ourselves we couldn't see, a song we couldn't hear, comes into focus somehow and moves to the front of the frame.

What does it mean to want something? To want it badly enough that you'll travel beyond the edges of what you perceive as yourself in order to find it and ring it back to the person you want to shre it with? All of my life I've wanted to share the magic I feel in the world with others. This week is tough. It's taking everything I have just to keep the kids in the space, both literally and on an energetic plane. They need this: this kind of engagement with the world, this slow ...mendering, time in the sun, in mosquitos, nothing happening but the movement of feet. Wait, don't get frustrated. Feel. Do you feel the horses' back moving under you? Do you feel how it rocks your pelvis in exactly the same way as if you were doing the walking? This is how therpeutic riding works for people in wheelchairs. If you stop thinking and start feeling and really sink into it, eventually it will feel as if you're walking through this field on your own two legs. You'll feel every unevenness of ground as if the horses' feel are your feet. You'll begin to feel their body as if it was your own. Eventually you'll feel your horses' fear when a deer startles up out of the grass, and and just how quickly it leaves. You'll feel your horses' pleasure of moving somewhere together too. That's my favourite kind of magic in the whole entire world; that shift. The moment when you become the other being you're in relationship with. #horselistenerscamp #horsedreamerscamp #relationalhorsemanship #shapeshift #transmutation #stillpointofthemovingworld #realitycheck #mountainhorseschool

Meet Mouse! She's a super sweet pony mare who just joined our herd on Sunday. She's recovering from a tendon injury so will be ridden by only our lightest riders for the time being. We've been enjoying grooming, leading and loving on her with the Horse Listeners camp this week. #mountainhorseschool #horselistenerscamp #goldenoldies #mousethepony #newbeginnings #

Slow Time part 2: "I'm bored." The boy said to me. He came over and sat beside me in the shade of the plum tree, and started peeling the bark off a stick he was carrying. "I know," I told him. "And pretty soon we're going to do something else. But do you know what I wish someone had told me about boredom when I was a kid?"... "What?" I'm watching what his fingers are doing to the stick, how he's removed some of the bark and is rubbing his thumb over the smooth place he's made, the part that's smooth and feels like driftwood. "When you get to be an adult, you realize just how precious boredom is. We're so eager to fill every secong of our lives with something productive. We never have a chance to be bored. It's really the most delicious thing. What if what you're doing with that stick is the most important thing in the world right now?" "Oh," he says and looks down at the stick. "Ok." And something in him lands and quiets down. Relaxes. Comes to roost. #slowtime #unlearnrewild #horsedreamerscamp #mountainhorseschool #downtime #boredomissacred #natureawareness #natureinspiredmindfulness #heartoftheworld

There's so much love and joy in this photo, we had to pause our lesson this morning to be part of it. I think that if someone rubs Andy's forehead (he's the bigger pony in the pic) in just the right way, one day a genie will come out of his ears. You can melt any horse with a good forehead rub. With Andy, it's one of the ways we won each other over and began our relationship in earnest. The secret for a good horse forehead rub is you have to become perfectly still and let th...e palm of your hand melt there for a few moments. Then you move your palm clockwise between the eyes, where all the cranial sacral plates meet, keeping your palm melty but firm enough to ruffle the hair coat a little. Then you move up under the forelock and rub the little muscle buldges on either side of the forelock with the heel of your hand, keeping that melty soft feeling in your hand the whole time. If you imagine putting your heart in the palm of your hand-- all the warm lovely feelings of connection-- then that makes it extra delicious. What about you? Do you have a favourite way you share love and joy with your animals? #horsemedicine #horsedreamers #mountainhorseschool #ponylove #lovelanguage #ttouch #equineempathy

Mountain Horse family photo.

Aren't these beautiful?

*edit: the spots are now filled! Thanks, MHS community! What is this craziness? We have camp spots available!! Please note, these are all single days. Thursday Aug 6 (ages 6-12-- tomorrow!)... Thursday Aug 13 (ages 6-12) Thursday August 27 (ages 6-12) Please go to www.bookwhen.com/mhs to book Www.mountainhorseschool.com for more info.