You might be wondering why an integrative holistic healthcare practitioner who helps people with chronic illness and a myriad of symptoms from A to Z including extreme cases that doctors haven’t been able to solve would plan a retreat with horses. One thing that I have discovered over the years as an integrative holistic practitioner is that nothing that manifests within our bodies exists only on a physical level. You might say, “oh well I tripped and fell and broke my arm. It was an accident…” but why your arm? Actually, let’s get even more specific, why your right arm and not your left? Why now and not in 2 weeks? Our body, mind, and soul are all connected and there’s dynamic aspects to each one of these parts of our being. Animals and nature contribute to healing in ways that we have yet to discover. As a practitioner, I like to share healing experiences that I have had with others, which is why it is so important to me to continue learning and growing myself, my knowledge, and my practice. Always! You’ll never see me without a self-help book or taking a course on something or another to continue to expand my knowledge.
This last year I fell stepping down off of a ladder and injured my right knee. In actuality, I believe this was a spiritual injury that needed to manifest itself in physical form to bring awareness to what was going on in my life and how I needed to change. The injury rendered me unable to walk for weeks at a time. I actually had to stay at friends houses or have friends come over to help me eat, bring me water and help me with tasks around the house. It has been a slow process coming out of this. I did see an orthopedic surgeon and had an MRI and despite some small injuries, no surgery was needed. I couldn’t exercise, however, which was very challenging for my mental health. My physical body and my mind excel with exercise and I have a feeling of limberness, calm, and a physical, mental, and emotional sense of ease after I exercise. When you experience severe pain when you move, it also makes it very difficult to have the energy to even do other types of activities. I suppose I could have lifted weights from my upper body, but the fatigue from the pain and the inability to move around really drained me. I knew I needed to rest so that I could continue to support the practice and individuals coming to me for support. A friend who lived nearby offered for me to go and spend time with a horse that needed some companions. So I would limp my way to the pasture and feed her and brush her, and we would just spend some alone time together. When I returned from these trips, I experienced the same physiological sensations that I felt after a good workout. I did not understand at that time that it is because of the healing frequency of the heart of the horse. The energetic field produced by a horse’s heart is 5 times larger than a human’s heart, and when you are in the presence of this amazingly massive and majestic animal, its heart frequency actually syncs with yours and helps to bring your heart back into coherence when it is out of balance.
My mom was a horse person from birth! For those of you who know horse people, they are a breed of their own. Her first word was horse and she saved up her own money so she could buy a pony when she was a young girl. They actually had to load the pony in the back of the family van to take it home. All of her toys were plastic Breyer horses, she couldn’t care less about Barbies. I did not have the same experience growing up. I always loved cats and loved animals, but didn’t really get to have an experience with horses until I was older. For my 14th birthday my mom bought me riding lessons and I started my journey with horses. Riding hunt seat equitation means that you are judged on your position and how you ride with the horse. I entered a few shows in high school and then went on to ride with one of the top equestrian teams in the country at Mount Holyoke College. Of course as fate would have it, during my freshman year we hosted the national championships. My horse’s name was Eve and she was absolutely beautiful. I was so nervous but when I sat on her back I thought, “I’ve made it this far, at this point it doesn’t matter if I come in last place because I made it to nationals, so I’m just going to have fun with this beautiful horse.” So we rode together. It was a very large class of maybe 12 or 13 people and as they called out the numbers 6th place, 5th place, 4th place, I thought, “oh well, not this time, Eve.” 3rd place, 2nd place.. “oh yeah, okay…well, we had a great ride, it felt so good” and then they announced 1st place, Amber Summers. I nearly fell off the horse! Her heart carried me through that ride. She taught me to appreciate each step and each moment of the journey, and know that that’s what it’s about. Not the outcome, not the destination.
On this retreat, we will be spending time with three different amazing groups of horses. The first group is cared for and led by Sylvia at CR Beach Barn. Sylvia believes in a philosophy of gentle signals and using gentle tack when riding the horse. Her horses are so very loved! We’re going to experience some time with them on our first morning together on the beach in the gorgeous Pacific Ocean of Costa Rica. The next group of horses are up in the mountains at Hacienda Las Colinas. Here we will ride with a real Costa Rican cowboy, a caballero, Gustavo. We’ll start in one of the closed corrals to meet and connect with your horse (and the horse will learn about you too!) During the ride, we will cross through Cacao and banana plantations, visit the vanilla greenhouse and pass through a plantation of fruit trees. We will then cross the Rio Chires River which flows all year round and meet their young cows before climbing the hills of Hacienda Las Colinas. This property is about 200 hectares of pastures of primary forest, a few creeks, and natural pools. We’ll be able to see a variety of birds like vultures, eagles, scarlet macaws, and toucans, all of which our lovely guide will point out to us! At the top of the hills is the highest point between the Hacienda and the Pacific Ocean, where the view comes with a refreshing breeze. Finally, we will be spending time with the rescued herd of horses with Nancy Zintsmaster. Nancy is co-founder of The Resnick Method of Horsemanship, a technique that shares with you the secret language of horses and how to interact with horses in partnership for your own healing and self-discovery. The herd is very gentle and we will spend time in the arena with them, sitting on the ground, laying around, lounging and meditating with them. Nancy will guide us through a 2-day clinic called The Power of Connection with Horses. This will be a time of much inner reflection and contemplation, as well as time to be near these very special and beautiful animals in an intimate setting on the ground, face to face. Through this time with these amazing animals, I hope for the retreat attendees to experience a compounding healing effect within their bodies through the synergistic work of the holistic modalities that they will be receiving and the heart coherence with the horses, along with nutrition that is made with love in the highest frequency from locally sourced and organic ingredients so that the body can feel clean and nourished, as well as being energized by nature, beginning with the ocean and the sand in Esterillos to the immense and powerful Volcano Arenal in the mountains of El Castillo.
The first night that we spend together as a group, we will come together to experience the healing medicine of Cacao, a medicinal plant with many healing properties, which you know as chocolate! Cacao has the capacity to open our heart chakras and bring us ancestral healing and awareness and help us to ground into our intentions for the week ahead. Every morning will begin with a guided meditation and gentle yoga. We will also get to experience a Dragon Flow Yoga class at a local boutique hotel. The excursions are meant to offer opportunities for more healing, whether it’s ziplining and paragliding where you’re facing your fears and feeling the sensation of flying through the air, or hiking and immersing yourself in the waterfalls of Costa Rica to heal and cleanse your body, or participating in a sacred Temescal ceremony to experience the elements of fire, earth, breath and water to heal and transform blockages that have been holding you back. This can be either blocks from this lifetime or from ancestral lifetimes to help you transform into your next iteration of self. Or there is also surfing, which I believe is an incredible spiritual experience of connecting with the medicine of the ocean, communicating with her, and allowing her to heal the wounds of your soul. You can also choose to spend more time with horses, receiving energy healing from them while you lay on a table and they come to scan your body and transmute their healing energy with you. And if you would like, the horse will even choose an oracle card for you! I chose all of these excursions specifically so that the retreater can customize their retreat experience with what is calling to them the most right now on their journey.
I also want to share some local experiences including enjoying a lunch at a roadside Soda (diner) to get to really have a sense of the food culture and enjoy a traditional Costa Rican dish as well as a night excursion to a secret hot springs location, where locals go to sit in the mineral waters coming off of Volcano Arenal. We will end the week with a sunset meditation with the herd at Dances With Horses Ranch and Volcano Arenal which holds enough potential energy to probably take out all of Central America. So we can draw on that potential energy for ourselves and our hearts and our souls, and to help us heal in all the ways that we need to right now for the highest good of all.
This is the first time I’m running this retreat so I’m sure there will be some fun and exciting bumps in the road, but they’ll be good ones and ones that all of those who have signed up for this experience were meant to have together. I look forward to being with you here in Costa Rica, one of the most magical places I’ve ever been to in the world, with healing energy that can only be felt to truly understand it. We are waiting here for your arrival!