Reflections

Returning Home

I am so filled up after spending a day last weekend with the Student Leadership Committee of local nonprofit, English In Action.

For those of you who don’t know, English In Action holds a special place in my heart. I worked there as Program Director for seven years, and the participants and staff feel like family. Returning in a new professional capacity felt a bit like coming home.

The Student Leadership Committee is deeply dedicated to their personal, professional, and leadership development. Over the last couple of years, they’ve participated in my offerings, How to Lead a Transformative Life and the EQUUS Experience®, and this time they welcomed me back to facilitate The Wisdom of Thriving.

Normally, The Wisdom of Thriving, an EQUUS curriculum, is an 8-week online class, but I adapted it into a day-long workshop in Spanish. It had been a while since I had really put my Spanish to work, so it was definitely a stretch for me personally, but I left feeling incredibly grateful and inspired.

It was so meaningful to see how this EQUUS-based work builds on itself and the impact it continues to have on the people who engage with it.

I feel so lucky to bring the EQUUS work together with my work in our community. English In Action’s adult student leaders are an extraordinary group of people making a real difference within the organization and throughout the broader community.

Full Circle

I had one of those full-circle moments at the barn the other day.

I was there to ride my horse, Drifter, with my friend Violet, a 16-year-old who has been helping me with EQUUS Experience® sessions and is now a working student. After our ride, we stayed to help with vaccinations and worming alongside my friend Heidi, who manages the barn—and who gave me my start teaching riding at her school, H2J, when I was 20.

As we sat together outside the barn at Crystal Spring Ranch, where I do my EQUUS Experience® sessions, the owner Kathy, joined us, followed by an unexpected visit from Holly, another longtime local horsewoman and owner of Rumble Ridge. As we caught up, it hit me—I was sitting with three of the women who helped shape me as a horsewoman (and there are a few more who weren’t there).

I started riding at Kathy’s barn when I was 10 and became a working student as a teen. I began teaching for Heidi at 20, and we’ve now shared over 30 years of friendship and partnership with horses. And Holly—whose barn I rode, taught, and learned at through my 20s and 30s—welcomed me back again in my late 40s as I stepped into this new chapter of equine-facilitated work.

When I realized all of this, I got emotional. These women didn’t just teach me about horses—they taught me about people, commitment, and what it means to dedicate yourself to a passion over a lifetime. And they are all still doing that, every day.

What made it even more meaningful was that Violet—the next generation, the one I now have the privilege of mentoring—was sitting right there with us.