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The
Magical Elf: A Horse Fairy Tale
Jan Loveless
"Once upon a time there was a little
Texas girl with straight strawberry blonde hair who loved animals. She
loved cats and dogs and birds and cows and pigs and sheep and horses,
and she had a way of speaking with all of them. Her conversations with
them didn't require words. The little girl's greatest joy was following
her dad around the barns at Texas A&M University, especially the horse
barn. That barn smelled of sawdust and horse manure, a sweet perfume to
the little girl. The horses in the barn nibbled on and snuffled her
hair, maybe because it resembled the hay they enjoyed. Their muzzles
caressed the little girl's head and filled her with warm thoughts. She
learned to read very well by tracing the pedigrees on the stall doors
and devouring every book she could about horses.
....Then life happened. The little girl
grew up, married, produced two sons, became a Den Mother, taught
English, worked for corporations and school districts, quit sleeping
soundly, and lost the horses that snuffled her hair. Decades passed
when the horses galloped only through her dreams. Without their soft
muzzles touching her, she forgot the peace and wonder that the horses
had brought to her, and she became caught up in the busyness of life.
She gained weight. She developed debts. She forgot her self.
At last, when the little girl had
become an aging Baby Boomer, through a series of magical acts, the
horses returned. One of them, a line-backed dun filly named Elf with a
sparkle in her deep brown eyes, kicked the self-doubts and busyness
right out of the woman's head. Elf spoke for all the horses, for all
the animals. She hit the woman on her chest with her head, and said,
"Listen up, or you will die."
The woman listened. Just as they had
when the woman was little, the horses sniffed the woman with their soft
muzzles, and her connection with them sprouted again, a seedling at
first, but then like Jack's beanstalk. The woman began to hear new
voices, one of them from deep inside. She knew that if she quieted her
mind and stroked the horses, she could find the voices of all the
animals she had heard in her childhood. With those voices in her heart,
she would live fully and happily ever after, no matter how old she
became. If she walked slowly or sat still while she listened, she might
be able to share those voices with others."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jan Butler
Loveless, PhD
and Leigh Shambo,
MSW,
founder of HEAL
(Human-Equine Alliances for Learning), will co-facilitate a two-weekend
workshop called “Horse and Writer”, June 23-25 and August 3-6,
2006, at J-Bar Ranch, LLC, in Visalia, CA. Participants will work with
horses on the ground as inspiration for writing about their own lives.
They will complete an autobiographical narrative over the summer. The
workshop fee will be $1880, and will include use of J-Bar Ranch horses,
materials, snacks and daily lunches. No previous horse experience is
necessary. Continuing Education Units are available through the CA
Board of Behavioral Sciences; three elective graduate credits are
available through Chapman University, for an additional fee of $120.
Jan and Leigh believe
the workshop will be helpful for teachers, therapists, those who work
with youth, and anyone interested in doing productive introspection for
personal growth. More information about the workshop is available at
www.jbar.com
and
www.humanequinealliance.org.
Jan Butler Loveless,
PhD,
grew up loving horses and riding with her dad in College Station, TX.
She taught in the public schools of multiple states, worked in
industry, and eventually earned her doctorate in English. Her most
exciting growth, though, has been in The Epona Center’s program in
equine-assisted learning. Now Jan offers equine-assisted
therapy/learning workshops with Leigh Shambo, MSW, at J-Bar Ranch (www.jbar.com
) in Visalia, CA. Essential partners in this venture are Jan’s husband
Buzz and an intuitive family of horses that sprang from her dad’s mares.
Contact Jan at
jan@jbar.com
or visit
www.jbar.com
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