The Sophia Project

Yesterday I went for my second trail ride with my leased horse, Draco. Draco and I have been getting to know each other over the past few months and our relationship is being built slowly, brick by brick. Draco is a black Russian Arabian, handsome and high-spirited and smart and easily bored. He’s a big, [...]

A Dark Horse has entered my life. His name is Draco, and he’s a black Russian Arabian. If you were a little girl in the 1980′s like me, you watched the movie “The Black Stallion”. Draco looks just like that horse. Here’s a picture so you can imagine your own childhood fantasy about him:   [...]

In a herd of horses, there is a pecking order. There’s a leader. There’s a second-in-command. There’s often a trouble maker and a scapegoat. Each horse has a role. The herd is balanced, functional, an organism. Horses are happiest, calmest, when they know their place, their role, their job. Humans are a bit different than [...]

I’ve been spending a lot of time with horses lately. When I was a little girl, horses were my one true passion. This is true for a lot of little girls. Girls just get horses. I’m not sure what the connection is, or why it is so strong for certain people. But being around horses [...]

I spent the past few days in the mountains of North Carolina, training to use horses in counseling. Equine-assisted psychotherapy (EAP) puts horses on the ground and people together. The self-awareness and experiential learning that occurs for people when they encounter themselves with horses is profound. Horses are basically huge prey animals, so they are [...]