I have recently seen a post introducing the idea of Equine Assisted Services, particularly in the context the ground-based activities that are often engaged to facilitate learning and therapeutic interactions. The wording of that post has challenged me to consider the foundations of this work. When I first learned of […]
somatics
21 posts
How many times does this question come up when I have been training learners with Athena team or delivering Equine Assisted Services sessions? And how many different ways are there to answer it? Our understanding of horses has thankfully moved on from the view of them as mindless automaton, the […]
Yesterday morning my usually smooth and gentle Qi Gong routine was difficult, it was clunky and clumsy. At first, I wondered why. Why was my body behaving so insensitively? There was no sense, I knew this routine inside out, I was well practiced. What was going on? Then I realised […]
As an introvert that has lived a life that would have much more suited an extravert, I was profoundly moved to come across Susan Cain’s book “Quiet.” In fact I am just about to commence my third listen. One of the most meaningful personal learnings that came to me from […]
I came across an inspiring opening to a chapter recently in Erik Jampa Andersson's book "Unseen Beings" (Hay House, 2023) which I wanted to quote in full to kick off this reflection "Nature is not a place. We often speak of it as if it were a kind of stage […]
This week I was lucky enough to spend an incredibly inspiring day at a conference on "Neurodiversity in the Workplace" with the Athena® team. I was struck by the Chair's (Dan Harris) prescient parting words, they were a powerful reflection on the future of the workplace, they paraphrase as best […]
I first read of Plato’s “the allegory of the cave” in The Republic, when I was in my 20’s. To be frank it was a stretch to comprehend. Now increasingly close to 60 it is beginning to make a little more sense to me. Without trying to recreate the detail […]
Trees are everywhere. Or perhaps at least they once were. Yet trees are so often invisible, or at least frequently unseen. Yet the tree is an anchor of memory – sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. It might not necessarily be the first thing recall, but ultimately how many of the images […]
This blog is about curiosity. We will get to the great scientist a bit later. There is more to learning than being taught. Learning is not simply an exercise in logic or linguistics, even if societally we tend to elevate these ones above all others. Our capacity to learn did […]
In 1656 Christiaan Huygens invented the pendulum clock. In this electrical and digital age we easily forget how important this was. A means by which the clock's mechanism will keep itself working. And as such means by which we were able to mechanically measure the passing of time. I spent this […]