It’s been a week since I landed back in California, in our new home. Post-conference blues are real. I’m still processing the joy of reuniting with friends, colleagues, and the Dreams on Horseback family whilst simultaneously missing them all over again. Our Senior Instructor, Brandie Millar, described her post-conference experience as being “emotionally hungover”, something I’m deeply resonating with. What’s also very real is the exhaustion after completing the mammoth task of bringing a conference to life amidst the chaos of personal upheaval. So, I’ve been taking time to rest and digest before sharing my reflections.
A year ago, when we announced that our 10th anniversary conference would return to Columbus, Ohio, I mused that homecoming often begins with disorientation. I didn’t know then just how true that would be this year. In the past few months especially, our team has supported me in navigating so many changes and challenges that have impacted all of us. In all honesty, I’m not sure what possessed me to organize a 3 day conference over 4 different venues – an ambition I’m adamant that we won’t attempt again. Between the last minute logistical and technical challenges brought about by the changing weather, facility limitations, and equine welfare considerations, the team worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that attendees would feel cared for throughout the experience. AND, I trusted that our community would meet us with grace for our imperfections. I’m so grateful to our HERD community for showing up with such authenticity and empathy, both in person and virtually, and for bringing so much joy and laughter to our 10th anniversary celebrations.
Throughout the conference, our speakers asked us to consider what “home” means, for both the humans and equines that we partner with in this work. For me, the word “home” brings a deep exhale; an embodied knowing that I can show up in that space authentically and without reservation. And I also know that that feeling is rare.
Listening to Abriana Johnson’s keynote on the role of empathy in business, I now also know that home is where I’m encouraged to learn with others in relationships that are aligned with my values. Because no matter what type of business you’re in, it all boils down to the values that you are building relationships on. From Martha Figueroa’s presentation on Living as a Global Herd, I know that I want to continue to critically examine who I am including in my herd and why. Miyako Kinoshita’s keynote on how to create “home” for our animal partners based on species specific needs also leaves me with more questions about how we can all take action to create more ethologically centered spaces for our animal partners. Ultimately, whose voices need to be amplified and how do we build a community that actively seeks out and listens to those voices?
We chose Columbus because that’s where The HERD Institute was born. Origin stories live in the body. This embodied nostalgia shows up every time I re-tell ours as warmth in my chest, an expansion of breath, and my eyes tearing up. I’m flooded by waves of gratitude through these memories.
Almost fourteen years ago, my husband and I were preparing to move from Northern Virginia to Ohio. I went online looking for barns offering equine-assisted services and emailed a handful of them to introduce myself. I was about to be certified as a therapeutic riding instructor, and I’d been incorporating horses into my psychotherapy practice, so I was looking for a facility to partner with and a place to board my horse, Reba, to continue my work.
Within ten minutes of sending that email, my phone rang. It was Jennifer Hansen, the founder of Dreams on Horseback. She said, “I just got your email and I think you’re just who we’ve been looking for.”
When I walked through that open door, I knew I’d found a special place to call home. I was welcomed into the Dreams family with such warmth and excitement, and over the years I watched the organization grow from a small program of six therapeutic riding students a week with two volunteers, to a PATH International Premier center offering over 35,000 hours of programming a year. The HERD Institute was born into that supportive community. Our first cohorts always included at least one member of Dreams staff, and ten years later, our most recent cohort did too. I feel privileged to have “grown up” with the organization in this way, with Dreams on Horseback providing me with a secure attachment base to call home as I ventured out into the world with The HERD.
Someone asked me the day before the conference started who I was most looking forward to seeing. I think they expected me to answer with names, and there were plenty to choose from: faculty I have taught beside for a decade, graduates I hadn’t hugged in years, keynote speakers I had only ever seen on a screen. But I realized that it wasn’t a specific person I was most excited about. I was most eager to witness the gathering itself.
Anyone who works with horses will recognize what I mean. A herd is something different from the individual horses that make it up. Watch a group of horses settle into a shared pasture and you see it: the arrangement of bodies, the synchronized grazing, the way one lifted head ripples through all of them. You can know each horse individually and still be unprepared for what they become. Together. As a herd.
That is what I wanted to see in Columbus. Not just the reunions, though the reunions were sweet. I wanted to watch a student from our newest cohort fall into conversation with someone from our very first one. I wanted to see which strangers would find each other over coffee, who would end up sitting together, dancing together, or singing karaoke together. I wanted to witness what would ripple through the room when one person’s story resonated with everyone else present.
And then I got to watch it happen. At our Homecoming Dinner, we asked attendees to share their favorite HERD memories on post-it notes. Witnessing HERD members sharing their stories, hearing the laughter and seeing the connections made through these stories brought more tears to my eyes. Collecting the post-it notes at the end of the evening, I played a game with myself to see if I could identify the person and the context of the memory shared. I laughed and cried some more. From the story of our EFL Foundation 2 cohort when Brandie Millar re-wrote our safety agreement to include the protection of “all creatures great and small, whether they walk, swim, fly, or crawl”, to people sharing their memories of the giant pine cones on the farm in Florida, and playing hide-and-seek with Arrow, every memory filled my heart and reminded me of why we do the work we do. Most precious of all was the note that said “Laughing until it hurts, every time we’re together,” signed by the HERD team.
As Diana Bezdedeanu captured so beautifully in her reflection afterwards: “Home is the physical spaces we occupy. Home is the people and animals we love. Home is familiar food and traditions from our childhood. For our animals, home is the routine and agency we offer them. And for so many of us in the equine-assisted services industry, home is the profound sense of belonging we feel when we gather in a like-minded community. Having experienced this community as a student, graduate, staff member, and now as part of the conference planning team, seeing many years of hard work come together was a treat. What a joy it was to reconnect with old friends, meet internet friends IRL, hear from incredible presenters, and of course, spend time with some fabulous horses (thanks to Taco Bella Farm & Dreams on Horseback).”
For some, it was their first-time attending a HERD event. Martha Figueroa, whose keynote topic gave voice to members of the Gaza equestrian community experiencing untold horrors of war, moved me to tears with her reflections: “Your herd is unlike any group of humans I have ever met. I felt so ‘at home’. I have never been surrounded by so many social workers, psychologists and healers who are changing the world. Each attendee and the horses I met are a gift to the planet.” She closed with a hope I’ll be carrying with me: “Here’s to the day we are all sitting with horses nearby, watching a sunrise, free and feeling right at home.”
Selina Pennie Brown, one of our Advanced Level EFL Practitioners, shared: “The HERD Institute has been more than a place to learn, it has been a place to belong. It is a community where people are seen, respected, valued, and encouraged to grow with authenticity and purpose… I returned inspired, recharged, and even more committed to bringing the transformative power of horses to the communities we serve.”
Ten years changes things. The institute that began with a phone call in Ohio now has graduates practicing around the world. Students from our earliest cohorts have become mentors and faculty. A model we once taught to a handful of people at a time is now a shared language between hundreds of graduates. And I have changed too. The woman who emailed a handful of Ohio barns hoping someone would take a chance on her, got to celebrate this weekend with a community of colleagues and friends who have become family.
I don’t know what the next ten years will bring. The field is growing and changing, and the conversations we had during the conference give me real hope about where it’s heading. Our community will keep adapting to new challenges, the way every healthy herd does: new members finding their way in, familiar faces stepping into new roles, the configuration shifting while the bonds hold. And if our first ten years were about building a home, the next ten are about increasing access to it.
Because home is found in the relationships we carry with us from place to place, and in the stories we tell each other about how we got there. Ten years from now, some of those stories will be about the weekend where we found our way home together. I am, as always, forever grateful.
