Horses getting furry, daylight waning, crisp leaves fluttering back to ground. With the weather change comes the end of Inner Freedom’s first season, and what a beautiful first season it has been! When I launched this heart offering in May of this year it was only a tiny seedling, and it still feels like that to me, slowly growing into its roots, trying new limbs of expression, and full of potential. Living in Michigan and being with people outside in the presence of free roaming horses means that we live with the seasons, and until a client really wants to be here in February (write me if so!) Inner Freedom will hibernate until spring. Time to fall inward, letting go of what was this summer, and be nourished by the depths of our connection to source.
The seasons remind me of the essential energetic movement of the universe: expansion of energy out, and then gathering or contracting of energy back into center. Opening, and closing. Growing out, and uniting back in. This flow of movement out and in we can be aware of in so much of what we are and do: breathing in and breathing out, waking and sleeping, living and dying, summer and winter, day and night, the creative cycle, the list goes on. Once I learned about this paradigm in my Wisdom Healing Qigong courses it shifted how I experience life. We often label expanding, opening, growing as “good” and desirable; contracting, gathering, and closing is often labeled as “bad” or undesirable. In other words, many of us experience summer as preferable to winter. Yet these “opposites” are intimately connected. As Lao-tzu writes in the Tao Te Ching (I have Stephen Mitchell’s translation):
Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.
The Tao. The way. The nature of the universe. Being with horses gives us a unique opportunity to observe what is, as horses live in their bodies, true to their nature. Connecting with our awareness, we can observe the labels and concepts we’ve put to life as we observe the horses. For example, “it’s ‘good’ that all the horses are getting along. It’s ‘bad’ that the flies are still out,” my thoughts say. Beyond right or wrong, these labels greatly influence how we experience life. Being with horses, connecting with our bodies, connecting with nature, connecting with our pure awareness, we have the opportunity to pause and observe the labels, concepts, and thoughts. Furthermore, observe what is beyond the labels. The flow that happens in the natural expansion and contraction of living, the flow around us and within us.
With the change in seasons I’ll be retreating, and by that I literally mean going to a ten day qigong retreat in New Mexico at the end of this month! After that I plan to spend the winter months shifting my offering to align with the learnings I have harvested from this first year. In fact, I’m really excited to share that I will be incorporating more about this energetic movement into my offerings – it relates so much to what we’re embodying in being with the horses. I am also thrilled about several collaborations I’ll be working on this winter for more retreats and group gatherings here at Inner Freedom next summer. Finally, I’ll be dropping in and deep listening with the herd, letting go of limiting ways I’ve related to having this business, and opening to being with myself and Inner Freedom in a more liberating way.
I want to express my profound gratitude to each brave soul who showed up to play with the horses and me this summer. It takes courage to sign up for something that is not explainable in words on a website. I am truly in awe of the beauty and openness of each person that chose to be here, and for that I want to say thank you. You inspire me during times when I feel like what I’m doing is just too weird for anyone to be curious about.
I’ve truly enjoyed writing these newsletters; I find it really supportive and fun to share through language what is bouncing around and formless inside of me. However, I’m not sure how often I’ll feel drawn to do that over the winter. We’ll see what unfolds. I have joined Instagram so please find me if you’re there (@innerfreedom_horses) and I’ll keep posting musings on my website.
Wishing each of you an abundant harvest season and a deeply nourishing and joyful fall and winter.
With gratitude and love,
Elizabeth and the herd