May 27, 2025 • 38 mins
Welcome to Season 2 of Educating to Be Human! In this premiere episode, host Lisa Petrides speaks with Wendy Millet— co-founder of Gallop Ventures, and Director of TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation.
Together, Lisa and Wendy explore what it means to learn in a way that engages both body and mind, restores connection with nature, and builds the kind of presence that can’t be faked. Informed by a deep connection with the natural world, Wendy seeks to share nature’s insights about complexity, interconnectedness, humility, and power. These lessons are central to the teamwork and leadership programs she offers with horses as well as her work running an educational ranch.
We learn how horses act as mirrors of our inner selves, the limits of conventional education, and what it means to reclaim embodied learning in an increasingly disembodied world. Whether you’re a teacher, a parent, a leader, or someone rethinking how we show up in the world—this episode will move you to reconsider what learning really means.
Wendy co-founded Gallop Ventures LLC, an equine leadership program to facilitate human/nature connections. She is also Director of TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation in Pescadero, CA where she and her team work to bring a paradigm shift to how people live in harmony with the planet. In addition, she offers her support, as board member and advisor, to nature-based organizations and individuals who are working to expand awareness about the power and potential of nature to heal and care for us.
In our podcast today, Wendy invites us to slow down, feel, and listen—not just with our ears, but with our whole bodies. And for learners of all ages, Wendy helps people reconnect to something essential: emotional, physical, and ecological wisdom.
Resources:
On Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/tomkat_ranch/
https://www.instagram.com/wendy.millet/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I believe in the power of horses and the power of
nature to really bring us back in touch with our
innate being,
you know,
our authentic self.
This is 'Educating to be Human',
and I'm your host,
Lisa Petrides,
(00:20):
founder of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge
Management in Education.
In each episode,
I sit down with ordinary people creating
extraordinary impact. People who are challenging
notions of how we learn,
why we learn,
and who controls what we learn. Thank you very
much for listening. Well,
(00:49):
Wendy,
thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so
glad you're here to speak with us about the work
you do. As many of you are doing,
and I am as well,
I've been thinking a lot about education. And it's
so clear to see that the focus on how we
traditionally learn really neglects that connection
(01:12):
to the body and nature as an essential source of
knowing and learning. And I think the work that
we'll talk about today that you do is such a
great example,
really sort of pushing the boundaries and showing
us how learning is deepened when it's embodied in
some way.
And how there's really a potential for deeper
(01:34):
understanding and learning when we reconnect
education with the physical and the emotional parts
of ourselves. You've been working on something
that's been just completely intriguing to me in
your company,
Gallup Ventures.
And I'd love to just hear a little bit about that.
You're working with education programs on a ranch, the
(01:56):
TomKat Ranch here in California. I've been the
fortunate participant in some of these,
so I've seen firsthand what some of this work is
that you do,
but I would love for our listeners to hear more
about it.
Sure,
absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. And I
love sharing the work that we do,
both at the ranch and with the horses. So maybe
(02:18):
starting with the horses,
the field of equine guided education has many
permutations,
I guess to say. I do it as a leadership coach.
A lot of people do it for therapeutic riding and
other ways of knowing and interacting with horses.
I got excited about doing this kind of work after
(02:40):
many years of teaching people riding and seeing how
much they connected with the horses and how much
they were learning from the horses. And it was,
you know,
certainly the skills of how to be a rider and
horsemanship skills. But what intrigued me was the
deeper content that they were learning about
themselves,
(03:01):
self-awareness,
sense of power,
sense of awareness of their self and their
boundaries and the way that they. Put energy out
into the world.
So there's a lot of different applications.
And I started my company years ago with two other
people,
one who was a therapist,
one who was a business person. And our goal was
(03:23):
to bring the horses to different people who came
to the programs. And we have been doing it for
years.
So you were teaching horse riding and you were
seeing how they were learning or how they were
interacting or sort of the power of the
relationship between the horse and the person. How
(03:45):
did you help people access that? Like when you
transitioned into the Gallop Ventures,
what did that look like?
I mean,
how do horses help people access this sort of
different kind of intelligence?
How the heck does it work? I've seen it,
so I know it works,
but I'd love to hear a little bit more about
that.
Sure.
Yeah.
Well,
the way that we do equine guided education is we
(04:07):
give people exercises. They're not complicated
exercises.
If you're familiar with ropes courses,
for example,
this is experiential learning. So we give people
exercises that might be leading a horse or it
might be brushing a horse or it might be picking
up a horse's foot or it might be navigating the
(04:27):
horse through a series of obstacles.
And we're not emphasizing horsemanship skills. We can
teach that along the way,
but we're emphasizing how do they go through the
process of that exercise.
And then as they navigate that,
we talk to them about what's showing up for them.
(04:48):
We call the horses the teachers,
and we call ourselves sort of the facilitators or
the interpreters,
because what I do is watch the horse's body
language,
as you've seen,
and I explain to the person. Hey,
I just saw the horse respond this way to what you
just did. And then I might ask you a question.
What does that mean to you? Or what does that
(05:08):
suggest to you? Or why do you think the horse did
that? And then we might have a conversation about
why you think that happened. And I might be able
to offer you some insights about why else I think
it might happen based on what I'm reading from the
horses.
That's obviously based a lot on your experience that
you've accumulated over the years. But I've heard
(05:29):
you refer to the horses as a thousand pound
biofeedback machine. And maybe you could talk a
little bit about,
you know,
is there science behind that? Like,
how is it that horses mirror what's going on
inside us?
Horses are herd animals and they are prey animals.
So out in the wild,
(05:51):
they would be very,
very,
very aware of their environment and of any change
in their environment.
And so when we take them into a setting where
they're interacting with us,
when there is a change in their environment,
which it could include the people who are in,
say,
that space with them,
they pay attention to that and they react to
(06:13):
that. The reason they do is because they are
historically wild animals and they still have a lot
of that innate wildness in them so that their
instinct is to stay safe.
And the way that a herd animal stays safe is two
things. One is being in groups and two,
running. So as soon as they would be afraid of
(06:34):
something,
they would move away. And so that's the kind of
dynamic that we pay attention to.
Horses that have now been domesticated,
they don't run away very often,
although I've seen cases where they do,
which is really interesting. But they more would
move away from a person if they didn't like the
(06:55):
vibe,
so to speak,
of that person or how that person showed up or
was talking about something. And so that's the kind
of thing that I would read to a person if they,
for example,
stated a goal. They perhaps stated their goal and
the horse has moved away from them. I would say
, 'Huh,
why do you think the horse moved away from them?'
(07:16):
Because a natural instinct from a horse might be to
move towards them because they are herd animals and
they like to be with other living beings.
They actually feel safer together.
You know,
that's so interesting when I think just about
people and how we act in groups or in the wild,
so to speak. In some ways,
(07:37):
people have the same kind of reaction,
right? We can work collaboratively in groups. Or we
can run away,
you know,
and it strikes me certainly in education when we're
learning,
we don't think of that,
right? Because we're not thinking about how,
I don't know,
emotions and physical experiences are shaping what
we learn. But it strikes me that we're,
(07:58):
you know,
we're so similar in that way.
I agree with that. No,
and I often talk with a group when they come and
I'll say,
okay,
well.
Horses work as herds and humans work as teams or
family units.
We do rely on each other as do herd animals.
And then just getting to the science that you asked
(08:19):
about,
there's quite a lot of research that's been done
and it includes things like studying cortisol
levels.
It includes things like heart rate variability,
brainwave activity. There's a lot of biofeedback.
That's what you mentioned,
though,
is the 1,
000-pound biofeedback mechanism. There's a lot of our
(08:41):
body language that a horse is reading.
And to humans body languages,
did I cross my arms or did I frown? But to
horses,
it's much more subtle because,
again,
they are a prey animal,
so they need to really— Out in the wild,
they've got to know the difference between if
there's caution or safety if,
(09:03):
for example,
a threat is nearby. So they can read our moods
and they can read if we're happy.
Are they reading our body language in ways that we
don't even really see from each other? Or are they
almost reading,
you know,
when we have a thought or an emotion,
it is a biochemical release in our body.
(09:26):
And it may well be that they're that sensitive to
us.
In the same way that they use animals like dogs,
it can recognize physical ailments in people and
they're being used for those early detection.
The horse is the same thing.
I mean,
animals,
even my domestic horses,
I'm looking out on the field right now.
If all of a sudden a predator came near,
(09:47):
one horse's head would go up very quickly and that
would tell the whole rest of the herd,
watch out. And if that horse went back to eating
grass again and relaxed,
then the rest of the herd would relax.
But they're watching the other's body language. To
your point,
in the same way we do,
you know,
there's a new person who comes into somebody's
workplace. Everyone's watching the cues from each
(10:09):
other about,
is this somebody who's already,
you know,
known to the company,
known to the team,
or is this somebody we're all going to check out?
And we do that because we are mammals and we are
biologically programmed to make sure we are safe.
And so these are the ways that we read our
environment to know if we're safer.
Are there studies that are actually showing this?
(10:32):
Like if somebody is really looking to see,
you know,
how you navigate that tension between what's
measurable and what's felt,
can you prove that?
Yeah,
there's a bunch of studies. I mean,
Google it and you'll see,
but one that I especially am interested in,
and we've looked into it in some depth because
we've done a program for healthcare practitioners
(10:54):
before,
and it had to be approved by their corporate
headquarters as a recognized training program. And
so all the curriculum had to be science-based. And
so the research program that was referenced was a
program that looks at heart rate variability. And
what they did was connect an EKG monitor with both
(11:16):
the horse and the human. And they saw that,
for example,
if the person was stressed,
cortisol level would go up. So that's the
biochemical reaction. And the horse's reaction,
whether they were reading that cortisol level or
whether that person was acting stressed,
the horse's reaction would elevate. What was
(11:37):
actually especially neat about the research is that
the horses are able to bring down people's stress
reaction. They're actually able to activate
brainwaves like theta that is a slower,
quieter brainwave for us rather than like the,
you know,
kind of static feeling about us. They bring us to
(11:58):
a calmer,
quieter internal space. They change heart rate
variability. And then the amazing thing too is
people who were in the study and they continued to
study them when they left the horses and then
anticipation of going back to the horses already
like biophysically,
(12:20):
they knew that feeling. And I believe in the power
of horses and the power of nature to really bring
us back in touch with our innate being,
you know,
our authentic self. I think that's why in
anticipation of going back to the horses,
once they'd already had that experience of calmness,
(12:40):
they felt that calmness and that was activated
before they'd even gone back to see the horses.
What's so interesting about that to me,
so of course,
as an educator,
this is how I'm thinking about how this applies to
learning. And we know that whether it's children or
adults,
that we learn at a deeper level. Maybe we're not
(13:04):
always connected to EKGs,
but we know that we can learn at a deeper level
when we're calmer,
when we're more in touch with what's happening with
our body,
with the environment around us.
It's just so interesting to think about how this
can be applied. And I would love to hear,
(13:25):
I know you've done a lot of group work. Both
around,
all around education,
but around leadership and work with schools.
And I'd love to hear a couple of examples. I
remember you had,
you had done a seminar,
I think it was with women entrepreneurs. I want to
hear something about the workshop and how that kind
(13:45):
of equates to the learning that took place in
that.
Yeah,
I'll gladly share a story of the way it sort of
plays out. So we were working on a program,
a three-day program for women entrepreneurs about
building their business,
and might sound kind of cute,
but we'd have them work on their business and
(14:05):
then,
for example,
work on their mission statement, gave them time,
they wrote it down,
they practiced the words with each other,
and then they were ready to go out and talk about
it. And so the exercise was pretty simple.
It was to go catch a horse with a halter,
which is a normal thing for horses.
That doesn't necessarily sound simple if you're not
a horse person,
(14:25):
but okay,
I'm with you. Go catch a horse.
And these are very calm horses. And so the first
woman went in and she stated her goal. And she
went over to go put the you know,
harness,
we call it a halter,
but basically a rope around the horse and then
lead it and tell it what the mission statement
(14:47):
was.
And what that's doing is when you name,
you know,
words have power and words have energy and a
statement of intention about something that
presumably means something to you,
allow your mission statement. When you say that,
it's alive in your body.
It's energetic. Connection to what you said,
(15:07):
so she said this to the horse,
and the horse came along with her and walked
following her rope. And he was so pokey slow,
slow,
slow,
so we talked to her,
we said, 'How much energy are do you have about
this goal that you've set your mission statement?'
And she said, 'Well,
(15:28):
you know I think it's what I want to do,
but I'm not sure,
maybe you want to do.' Anyway,
we get the picture. She's got to go home and do
some homework on her mission statement because the
horse wasn't that excited about what she was doing
. 'And when I say excited,
when you figure it out,
this something that really resonates deeply within
yourself,
(15:48):
you know,
is very authentic to who you are,
the horse will come right up. They love that
feeling of authenticity. It feels very safe to
them. It feels very safe to us,
you know,
as humans too,
when someone's being very true. So,
same exact pokey horse. The next lady goes in,
she states her goal,
and the horse takes one look at her and runs
(16:11):
away,
all the way to the other end of the pasture where
we have them,
and stops and stares at her. So,
that's interesting,
right?
Same pokey horse.
Now,
this one's having a huge reaction. He doesn't want
to go anywhere near her. She goes after him to
try to halter him. She's holding this mission
statement that she said,
(16:31):
her goal,
and she walks towards him and he comes running
away from her and she couldn't get near him. So
the point is not to chase the horse. I said,
well,
come on back and let's talk about your goal
because something's got the horse really activated.
So what is he doing? He's just picking up on
some vibration some vibe,
(16:52):
I call it like the static inner force field,
you know? And so she comes and she tells us why
she has set her goal and how she deserves it and
she's worked really hard and she sounds just mad
the whole time and I'm just listening as a human,
I don't know this person,
and she-I'm just thinking she just seems mad,
no wonder he doesn't want to go near her.
So I ask her like, 'Is this really truly your
(17:15):
goal? Is this really what you want to be doing
with your life And she got really quiet. I said
, 'How about close your eyes for a second.
I want you to really be true to yourself.'And so
she took a second and she took a deep breath. And
then she got pretty choked up and teary. And she
started talking about how,
(17:36):
well,
that wasn't actually really what she wanted to do.
It was what she thought she should do. And the
whole time that she was telling us-what she.
Why she was doing this and why it wasn't really
her thing,
he walked across the whole arena and came and sat,
put his head right at her shoulder. Why did he do
(17:56):
that?
I've seen it a million times,
so lots of people could say,
well,
it sounds like a coincidence and maybe she had a
carrot or all the things that people like to
discount until you see this happen again and again
and again and again.
Anytime the person is authentic and true to
themselves,
the horse will come back in. And want to be with
them. Because again,
(18:17):
he'd rather be in herd,
in community,
safe in a group of other living beings than to be
alone. Being alone to him is a really scary place.
Kind of true sometimes for humans as well.
It's authenticity that she worked through.
It's,
you know,
leaderships,
but you know,
(18:37):
leadership can look a lot of different ways.
And we make sure when we talk to people about
leadership that like I've had somebody before who
came in,
he was a hard-charging lawyer and he came in to
go grab the horse,
or I guess he was trying to pat the horse,
but his energy was quite unwelcoming to the horse.
(18:57):
So the horse pulled away very strongly.
And I said,
you know,
if you want to be close to the horse,
why don't you just,
could you just take a deep breath and be a little
bit more present with your your approach would the
horse read his energy when it's softer,
(19:19):
different,
and it's not a judgment from the horse about
whether you're soft or aggressive,
but it just was inauthentic.
And he was like,
oh yeah,
I thought I needed to be like a strong guy when
I went to go approach the horse. And I said,
you know what ?
Actually,
you are a strong guy,
but it didn't mean that you had to come off like
(19:40):
overamped. You can just be strong by being who you
are. Often times with horses,
and even when we watch a herd of horses'
leadership,
we'll ask people, 'What's looking at a group of
horses? 'Which one you think is the leader? And
sometimes they think the one that looks like,
you know,
the misbehaving black stallion is a leader because
he's got a lot of fire. To him and in fact,
(20:01):
in a herd,
and this is true,
you know I'm on a cattle ranch; we have cattle,
we have goats,
we have horses,
and the leader isn't usually the flashy one.
It's usually the one who's looking out for the
herd. It's the wise one.
It's the one who cares.
It's the one who makes time for looking out for
the whole.
It's such an authentic way of knowing,
(20:24):
whereas so often the way we're teaching things,
again,
whether it's in a school or in a training,
it's a much more detached way of knowing,
right? We're prioritizing just the cognitive side of
learning. I'm wondering about how we could translate
that more you know into something that people
(20:46):
understand and can do,
and how we can like embody our learning not all
of us are going to be able to come out to you
know the ranch there or in other places that have
this kind of work take place. Is there some way
we can think about how we bring that back into
education?
I definitely think so. I mean,
(21:07):
one of the lessons from working with animals on
the ranch and working with my team who are people
working on the land and in nature is we are
mammals also. And we're evolutionarily adapted to
moving our bodies a lot,
you know,
walking around for food,
(21:28):
growing food,
like that's what we did for so many,
many,
many thousands of years.
And so even just the simple nature of being in our
body,
you know,
giving kids exercises to do,
you know,
hopefully they could get outside.
Also,
because there's so many benefits of being in
contact with nature,
(21:49):
but even just to work with our hands and giving
people an exercise to do,
or,
you know,
sometimes when we have kids'programs here,
I think about how many people who grew up in an
urban area or even grew up and didn't get outside
to play. They might not really understand gravity.
You know,
they might not really understand how water moves.
(22:11):
Like you miss some very fundamental things if you
don't have a live physical experience of how the
world works.
And we are teaching everybody to learn things in
their brain,
but we're not activating somatically our body or
our heart or our instinct. Like so many people
call me and say,
well,
what should I do with my career? And I say,
well,
what do you want to do? What calls you? Do they
(22:34):
have any instinct for what calls them,
what their heart wants to do,
what their being wants to do? This thought that
our brain is the only smart thing,
smart part of us,
I think puts us down a track that's unfortunate
because people will follow that track and do what
their brain,
they think they should do.
(22:55):
And at some point in their lives or in their
careers,
they go, 'Geez,
why am I doing this?
I have no joy in this.
And I did it because I was supposed to. 'It's
kind of like the lady when the horse ran away
from her. That was her story. She did it because
she was supposed to.
She thought it was what was expected of her.
So that's part of what I would say.
(23:18):
Also,
thinking about where do people go after they finish
school? They need to work in teams. They need to
lead teams. It's kind of like we're not an island
no matter where we are. So just because we teach
people how to think about ideas,
if we haven't taught young people.
In schools,
also how to work together. We haven't prepared them
(23:42):
for the world.
You had also mentioned before,
I think you had some young high school students
come to the ranch and do some kind of activity.
Yeah,
we had an interesting situation. One of our farmer
friends out here in the community,
their partner is a teacher in the school and so
(24:02):
knew about the horse work.
And she asked,
do you think you could help the high school
students with some of the challenges around bullying
and setting boundaries? And I said,
absolutely. So we had a group of students come in
and they were pretty shy at first. None of them
(24:24):
had ever been around a horse.
It was a big animal.
They were really cautious about getting involved with
the horses,
but we worked on you know a series of exercises,
which first was just touching the horse at all,
getting that close to touch it. And then talked
about like how do you approach something new? How
(24:44):
do you challenge yourself?
What does it feel like? How do you you know reach
out to a friend and ask for support,
so that was a simple exercise but it was really,
really meaningful for them.
Then we built an exercise,
which was (24:58):
could they ask the horse to back up?
Well,
that exercise to well-trained horses,
which our horses are,
can mean as little as putting a finger,
like if I were to do it,
on their shoulder and saying 'back',
and they would do that.
But I have to do it and really be clear in my
(25:19):
body and with my intention,
that I'm setting a boundary. And when I say it,
I mean it. And that was a big lesson. And we
talked a lot about bullying,
and came up as we were doing this exercise,
and how do these people in school assert
themselves. They don't have to be loud,
but they have to be assertive. They have to set a
(25:40):
boundary.
And so by the end of it,
they'd all asked the horse to back up. They'd all
got to that. They could do it. You know,
first they were leaning in really hard with all
their weight.
And I was like,
you don't have to do it like that,
but there's an energy of,
you know,
asking versus telling and asking while you push is
(26:01):
a very confusing energy for the horse. Telling the
horse by pushing so that the you know your action
mirrors your words and your intentions,
that means everything to the horse. The students
really understood that the teacher watched them all.
By the time they left,
everyone was giggling and having a blast. They kept
wanting to do more things with the horses.
(26:24):
And I saw the teacher a week later at the farmer's
market,
and she said that she had mentioned a few times
during the week about,
you know,
how did you do that with the horses when one of
the kids was struggling?
Because it was that somatic experience. They
understood in their body now how to ask for what
(26:46):
they wanted. And I felt very we were really
excited that we could do that.
We've had them back a few times now and we've
built into,
you know,
next level exercises.
But I think that was a really powerful experience.
We've also done,
you know,
like a next level exercise was navigating an
obstacle and working as a team to do that.
(27:07):
And how do they communicate and how do they share
leadership? So there's a lot of ways that we can
use. Can work with the horses. They're incredibly
patient. But the happy thing is that when the kids
or when a group is really animated and the energy
is very authentic,
it doesn't feel like effort to the horses when you
(27:27):
watch them. They're just kind of joining in. I had
one group before,
their version of how to get the team cohesiveness
together. They struggled for a while. They're like,
well,
how are we going to tell the horse a consistent
message together? So that it would cross over this
step that it had to step over. And they tried
four or five different things. And finally,
(27:47):
somebody said,
well,
let's just sing the instruction to the horse.
Well,
that's an amazing thing because singing and you
think about like the energy of singing and that
harmony,
kind of like when you sing 'Happy Birthday' and at
first it starts out all divergent,
you know,
sounding maybe not so great,
but then by the end of the song,
somehow usually finds a common harmony.
(28:09):
That's so true.
And that is the power of the collective. And as
soon as that common chord came together,
the horse stepped right over the step. It's not. I
mean,
it looks kind of like magic.
It sounds kind of like a coincidence. But to me,
because I'm tracking the flow of the bioenergetic
(28:32):
feedback,
it just makes absolute sense to me that that
consistency of mind,
body,
intention comes together and the horse just feels
called to be in that space. Again,
the herd animal pull.
Right,
right. That's so powerful. When you when you talked
about that exercise and around bullying,
(28:54):
because it's one thing to be,
you know,
to say,
you know,
what does it mean to talk about,
you know,
we there's this webinars and trainings about,
you know,
talking about boundaries and bullying and how not
to be subject to that,
but then to feel. What a boundary is,
right?
When they're there touching the horse,
(29:16):
it's just,
I'm not sure if you can,
I can feel it. I'm not sure if you can explain
like. What is happening in that moment when you're
feeling the boundary?
You know,
you're talking about it,
but then you feel it and how that embodies the
learning even more deeply into us,
(29:37):
into a person.
Well,
you are right.
It is a feeling. And I would say maybe just
re-stating some of what you said,
because I think you said it well. If we had just
talked to them in their head about having a
boundary,
they wouldn't know what that felt like in their
body.
And so they're still wondering,
(30:00):
well,
what does that mean and how do I do it? Because
I'm a human being.
I have a body that has to follow that head. But
when we put the movement that matches the thought
together,
which was then a chance to try that out in
different dimensions with the horse.
And then they feel that feeling of,
(30:22):
okay,
I've taken that thought and I brought it into my
body and I practiced it and I breathed in that
energy of intention.
You could see it in their faces,
how enlivened they felt and how empowered they
felt. And I don't know how I would do that with
just speaking words to them,
(30:43):
honestly.
It just brings me great joy to be able to do
that.
And I feel like once people feel that inner sense
of power,
you can't un-know that. You can take it with you
again. And that's what I encourage them to do.
It was primarily girls in this particular class who
(31:04):
were dealing with this bullying situation.
And I said, 'Feel that power in your body. That is
your power. You can take that with you back to
school.
And you can tap into that if you need to close
your eyes for a second.
But once you've felt that feeling,
how do you make that trigger then for them to
find that again in a complicated situation? I guess
(31:25):
that's the next level.
Well,
of course,
we can study for a test and then not be able to
recall the fact. Right? When we're sitting there in
that situation. Yet,
when we have that feeling and it's in our body,
it's much harder to forget it once you can tap
into your body and feel that again.
There are a few things that I can think of that
(31:47):
are more or less apropos about when we say, 'you
know,
what is educating to be human?'This really is
such an example when we talk about,
you know,
the body and the emotion and you're in nature. And
I mean,
one thing,
of course,
I think about is you know,
how could a more or less human education look like
(32:11):
today?
And let's talk about traditional education.
So schools,
you know,
universities,
is there some way,
I mean,
you're a longtime educator. Can you imagine how we
can bring this kind of sense or sensibility into
what we do more traditionally? Or do we just
really have to be out there,
(32:32):
you know,
in nature,
doing this kind of work? How can we embody
learning in,
in maybe in more of a traditional,
traditional way? I know it's not a completely
answerable question,
but I,
I'm just kind of,
I'm sure you've thought about it and I'm kind of
curious what you,
what you thought.
Yeah,
well,
I would say,
(32:53):
you know,
many things that come to mind is if I'm thinking
about how do I bring nature to a classroom or how
do I bring physical exercises to the classroom? Can
I give people hands-on exercises to do rather than
just writing answers? Can I give them chemistry
(33:16):
experiments or biology experiments? And you know,
there are schools that do a lot of this more
hands-on kind of learning as their methodology.
Could you go out to hopefully I understand not all
schools are so lucky to have a safe or nice place
to go outside nearby,
(33:37):
but if they could,
could they do a garden? And they could talk about
biology and all the things in the garden,
planting,
working with their hands.
You could talk about water quality.
You could talk about a lot of lessons just from
that little garden there.
You could walk around the neighborhood. And learn
those things,
so really I mean,
nature is all around us,
(33:57):
and those lessons,
teachable moments are everywhere,
so that's the kind of school I would have liked
to have gone to,
and that's I guess the school that I get to be
in now at the ranch when we have you know
education programs about soil health in the garden,
when we have programs with the horses,
when we serve a meal and we talk about where the
(34:19):
food came from and what,
how does food grow? We're trying to connect people
with nature and connect people with the real world
around them,
so that they have that familiarity and comfort with
that,
but also so that activates the body and the heart
(34:40):
and the mind.
Wendy,
this has been so illustrative. Again,
thank you so much. I just,
in this world today that really undermines what we
intuitively know,
The importance of being able to reclaim these
physical and emotional ways of knowing and
reconnecting with nature,
it just seems so essential to learning. And I
(35:02):
think there's a lot we can learn from you in this
work as we try to reimagine what educating and
what educating to be human could look like. Before
we finish,
I always like to leave space for one final
question,
something I ask all my guests.
Can you make up the title of the book that you
(35:25):
wish more people would read?
If we care for nature,
it will care for us.
How's that?
I like it. I love it. Wendy,
I wonder if you want to tell us just a little
bit more about your work and the context of Tomcat
Ranch or where people can find out more about this
(35:45):
work and you that they do if they want to learn
more.
Yeah,
absolutely. Um,
Gallop Ventures has got a website so they can
check that out. Um,
also,
uh,
I support a group called Bay Area Equine
Facilitators which is people who do equine
facilitation across the bay area.
Um,
all different ways and people can Google there's
(36:08):
horse people doing stuff like this all over the
country and the world. We recently had somebody
visiting from Ireland who's doing an equine
program. And then with Tomcat Ranch,
we do educational programming and science around
regenerative agriculture. Basically,
the goal of the ranch is to be a learning lab to
(36:30):
demonstrate practices and principles of how you can
restore,
nurture,
and put the science to that. We also work in food
systems change and climate and sort of the whole
world of how do we care more for nature and how
(36:54):
then does it care for us?
Thank you everybody for listening to the show this
week. This has been Lisa Petrides with Educating to
be Human.
If you enjoy our show,
please rate and review us on Apple,
Spotify,
or wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can
access our show notes for links and information on
(37:15):
our guests.
And don't forget to follow us on Instagram,
Blue Sky,
at EdutoBeHuman.
That is E-D-U to be human. This podcast was created
by Lisa Petrides and produced by Helene Theros.
Educating to be Human is recorded by Nathan Sherman
and edited by Ty Mayer with music by Orestes
(37:37):
Koletsos.
I believe in the power of horses and the power of
nature to really bring us back in touch with our
innate being,
you know,
our authentic self.
This is 'Educating to be Human',
and I'm your host,
Lisa Petrides,
(00:20):
founder of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge
Management in Education.
In each episode,
I sit down with ordinary people creating
extraordinary impact. People who are challenging
notions of how we learn,
why we learn,
and who controls what we learn. Thank you very
much for listening. Well,
(00:49):
Wendy,
thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so
glad you're here to speak with us about the work
you do. As many of you are doing,
and I am as well,
I've been thinking a lot about education. And it's
so clear to see that the focus on how we
traditionally learn really neglects that connection
(01:12):
to the body and nature as an essential source of
knowing and learning. And I think the work that
we'll talk about today that you do is such a
great example,
really sort of pushing the boundaries and showing
us how learning is deepened when it's embodied in
some way.
And how there's really a potential for deeper
(01:34):
understanding and learning when we reconnect
education with the physical and the emotional parts
of ourselves. You've been working on something
that's been just completely intriguing to me in
your company,
Gallup Ventures.
And I'd love to just hear a little bit about that.
You're working with education programs on a ranch, the
(01:56):
TomKat Ranch here in California. I've been the
fortunate participant in some of these,
so I've seen firsthand what some of this work is
that you do,
but I would love for our listeners to hear more
about it.
Sure,
absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. And I
love sharing the work that we do,
both at the ranch and with the horses. So maybe
(02:18):
starting with the horses,
the field of equine guided education has many
permutations,
I guess to say. I do it as a leadership coach.
A lot of people do it for therapeutic riding and
other ways of knowing and interacting with horses.
I got excited about doing this kind of work after
(02:40):
many years of teaching people riding and seeing how
much they connected with the horses and how much
they were learning from the horses. And it was,
you know,
certainly the skills of how to be a rider and
horsemanship skills. But what intrigued me was the
deeper content that they were learning about
themselves,
(03:01):
self-awareness,
sense of power,
sense of awareness of their self and their
boundaries and the way that they. Put energy out
into the world.
So there's a lot of different applications.
And I started my company years ago with two other
people,
one who was a therapist,
one who was a business person. And our goal was
(03:23):
to bring the horses to different people who came
to the programs. And we have been doing it for
years.
So you were teaching horse riding and you were
seeing how they were learning or how they were
interacting or sort of the power of the
relationship between the horse and the person. How
(03:45):
did you help people access that? Like when you
transitioned into the Gallop Ventures,
what did that look like?
I mean,
how do horses help people access this sort of
different kind of intelligence?
How the heck does it work? I've seen it,
so I know it works,
but I'd love to hear a little bit more about
that.
Sure.
Yeah.
Well,
the way that we do equine guided education is we
(04:07):
give people exercises. They're not complicated
exercises.
If you're familiar with ropes courses,
for example,
this is experiential learning. So we give people
exercises that might be leading a horse or it
might be brushing a horse or it might be picking
up a horse's foot or it might be navigating the
(04:27):
horse through a series of obstacles.
And we're not emphasizing horsemanship skills. We can
teach that along the way,
but we're emphasizing how do they go through the
process of that exercise.
And then as they navigate that,
we talk to them about what's showing up for them.
(04:48):
We call the horses the teachers,
and we call ourselves sort of the facilitators or
the interpreters,
because what I do is watch the horse's body
language,
as you've seen,
and I explain to the person. Hey,
I just saw the horse respond this way to what you
just did. And then I might ask you a question.
What does that mean to you? Or what does that
(05:08):
suggest to you? Or why do you think the horse did
that? And then we might have a conversation about
why you think that happened. And I might be able
to offer you some insights about why else I think
it might happen based on what I'm reading from the
horses.
That's obviously based a lot on your experience that
you've accumulated over the years. But I've heard
(05:29):
you refer to the horses as a thousand pound
biofeedback machine. And maybe you could talk a
little bit about,
you know,
is there science behind that? Like,
how is it that horses mirror what's going on
inside us?
Horses are herd animals and they are prey animals.
So out in the wild,
(05:51):
they would be very,
very,
very aware of their environment and of any change
in their environment.
And so when we take them into a setting where
they're interacting with us,
when there is a change in their environment,
which it could include the people who are in,
say,
that space with them,
they pay attention to that and they react to
(06:13):
that. The reason they do is because they are
historically wild animals and they still have a lot
of that innate wildness in them so that their
instinct is to stay safe.
And the way that a herd animal stays safe is two
things. One is being in groups and two,
running. So as soon as they would be afraid of
(06:34):
something,
they would move away. And so that's the kind of
dynamic that we pay attention to.
Horses that have now been domesticated,
they don't run away very often,
although I've seen cases where they do,
which is really interesting. But they more would
move away from a person if they didn't like the
(06:55):
vibe,
so to speak,
of that person or how that person showed up or
was talking about something. And so that's the kind
of thing that I would read to a person if they,
for example,
stated a goal. They perhaps stated their goal and
the horse has moved away from them. I would say
, 'Huh,
why do you think the horse moved away from them?'
(07:16):
Because a natural instinct from a horse might be to
move towards them because they are herd animals and
they like to be with other living beings.
They actually feel safer together.
You know,
that's so interesting when I think just about
people and how we act in groups or in the wild,
so to speak. In some ways,
(07:37):
people have the same kind of reaction,
right? We can work collaboratively in groups. Or we
can run away,
you know,
and it strikes me certainly in education when we're
learning,
we don't think of that,
right? Because we're not thinking about how,
I don't know,
emotions and physical experiences are shaping what
we learn. But it strikes me that we're,
(07:58):
you know,
we're so similar in that way.
I agree with that. No,
and I often talk with a group when they come and
I'll say,
okay,
well.
Horses work as herds and humans work as teams or
family units.
We do rely on each other as do herd animals.
And then just getting to the science that you asked
(08:19):
about,
there's quite a lot of research that's been done
and it includes things like studying cortisol
levels.
It includes things like heart rate variability,
brainwave activity. There's a lot of biofeedback.
That's what you mentioned,
though,
is the 1,
000-pound biofeedback mechanism. There's a lot of our
(08:41):
body language that a horse is reading.
And to humans body languages,
did I cross my arms or did I frown? But to
horses,
it's much more subtle because,
again,
they are a prey animal,
so they need to really— Out in the wild,
they've got to know the difference between if
there's caution or safety if,
(09:03):
for example,
a threat is nearby. So they can read our moods
and they can read if we're happy.
Are they reading our body language in ways that we
don't even really see from each other? Or are they
almost reading,
you know,
when we have a thought or an emotion,
it is a biochemical release in our body.
(09:26):
And it may well be that they're that sensitive to
us.
In the same way that they use animals like dogs,
it can recognize physical ailments in people and
they're being used for those early detection.
The horse is the same thing.
I mean,
animals,
even my domestic horses,
I'm looking out on the field right now.
If all of a sudden a predator came near,
(09:47):
one horse's head would go up very quickly and that
would tell the whole rest of the herd,
watch out. And if that horse went back to eating
grass again and relaxed,
then the rest of the herd would relax.
But they're watching the other's body language. To
your point,
in the same way we do,
you know,
there's a new person who comes into somebody's
workplace. Everyone's watching the cues from each
(10:09):
other about,
is this somebody who's already,
you know,
known to the company,
known to the team,
or is this somebody we're all going to check out?
And we do that because we are mammals and we are
biologically programmed to make sure we are safe.
And so these are the ways that we read our
environment to know if we're safer.
Are there studies that are actually showing this?
(10:32):
Like if somebody is really looking to see,
you know,
how you navigate that tension between what's
measurable and what's felt,
can you prove that?
Yeah,
there's a bunch of studies. I mean,
Google it and you'll see,
but one that I especially am interested in,
and we've looked into it in some depth because
we've done a program for healthcare practitioners
(10:54):
before,
and it had to be approved by their corporate
headquarters as a recognized training program. And
so all the curriculum had to be science-based. And
so the research program that was referenced was a
program that looks at heart rate variability. And
what they did was connect an EKG monitor with both
(11:16):
the horse and the human. And they saw that,
for example,
if the person was stressed,
cortisol level would go up. So that's the
biochemical reaction. And the horse's reaction,
whether they were reading that cortisol level or
whether that person was acting stressed,
the horse's reaction would elevate. What was
(11:37):
actually especially neat about the research is that
the horses are able to bring down people's stress
reaction. They're actually able to activate
brainwaves like theta that is a slower,
quieter brainwave for us rather than like the,
you know,
kind of static feeling about us. They bring us to
(11:58):
a calmer,
quieter internal space. They change heart rate
variability. And then the amazing thing too is
people who were in the study and they continued to
study them when they left the horses and then
anticipation of going back to the horses already
like biophysically,
(12:20):
they knew that feeling. And I believe in the power
of horses and the power of nature to really bring
us back in touch with our innate being,
you know,
our authentic self. I think that's why in
anticipation of going back to the horses,
once they'd already had that experience of calmness,
(12:40):
they felt that calmness and that was activated
before they'd even gone back to see the horses.
What's so interesting about that to me,
so of course,
as an educator,
this is how I'm thinking about how this applies to
learning. And we know that whether it's children or
adults,
that we learn at a deeper level. Maybe we're not
(13:04):
always connected to EKGs,
but we know that we can learn at a deeper level
when we're calmer,
when we're more in touch with what's happening with
our body,
with the environment around us.
It's just so interesting to think about how this
can be applied. And I would love to hear,
(13:25):
I know you've done a lot of group work. Both
around,
all around education,
but around leadership and work with schools.
And I'd love to hear a couple of examples. I
remember you had,
you had done a seminar,
I think it was with women entrepreneurs. I want to
hear something about the workshop and how that kind
(13:45):
of equates to the learning that took place in
that.
Yeah,
I'll gladly share a story of the way it sort of
plays out. So we were working on a program,
a three-day program for women entrepreneurs about
building their business,
and might sound kind of cute,
but we'd have them work on their business and
(14:05):
then,
for example,
work on their mission statement, gave them time,
they wrote it down,
they practiced the words with each other,
and then they were ready to go out and talk about
it. And so the exercise was pretty simple.
It was to go catch a horse with a halter,
which is a normal thing for horses.
That doesn't necessarily sound simple if you're not
a horse person,
(14:25):
but okay,
I'm with you. Go catch a horse.
And these are very calm horses. And so the first
woman went in and she stated her goal. And she
went over to go put the you know,
harness,
we call it a halter,
but basically a rope around the horse and then
lead it and tell it what the mission statement
(14:47):
was.
And what that's doing is when you name,
you know,
words have power and words have energy and a
statement of intention about something that
presumably means something to you,
allow your mission statement. When you say that,
it's alive in your body.
It's energetic. Connection to what you said,
(15:07):
so she said this to the horse,
and the horse came along with her and walked
following her rope. And he was so pokey slow,
slow,
slow,
so we talked to her,
we said, 'How much energy are do you have about
this goal that you've set your mission statement?'
And she said, 'Well,
(15:28):
you know I think it's what I want to do,
but I'm not sure,
maybe you want to do.' Anyway,
we get the picture. She's got to go home and do
some homework on her mission statement because the
horse wasn't that excited about what she was doing
. 'And when I say excited,
when you figure it out,
this something that really resonates deeply within
yourself,
(15:48):
you know,
is very authentic to who you are,
the horse will come right up. They love that
feeling of authenticity. It feels very safe to
them. It feels very safe to us,
you know,
as humans too,
when someone's being very true. So,
same exact pokey horse. The next lady goes in,
she states her goal,
and the horse takes one look at her and runs
(16:11):
away,
all the way to the other end of the pasture where
we have them,
and stops and stares at her. So,
that's interesting,
right?
Same pokey horse.
Now,
this one's having a huge reaction. He doesn't want
to go anywhere near her. She goes after him to
try to halter him. She's holding this mission
statement that she said,
(16:31):
her goal,
and she walks towards him and he comes running
away from her and she couldn't get near him. So
the point is not to chase the horse. I said,
well,
come on back and let's talk about your goal
because something's got the horse really activated.
So what is he doing? He's just picking up on
some vibration some vibe,
(16:52):
I call it like the static inner force field,
you know? And so she comes and she tells us why
she has set her goal and how she deserves it and
she's worked really hard and she sounds just mad
the whole time and I'm just listening as a human,
I don't know this person,
and she-I'm just thinking she just seems mad,
no wonder he doesn't want to go near her.
So I ask her like, 'Is this really truly your
(17:15):
goal? Is this really what you want to be doing
with your life And she got really quiet. I said
, 'How about close your eyes for a second.
I want you to really be true to yourself.'And so
she took a second and she took a deep breath. And
then she got pretty choked up and teary. And she
started talking about how,
(17:36):
well,
that wasn't actually really what she wanted to do.
It was what she thought she should do. And the
whole time that she was telling us-what she.
Why she was doing this and why it wasn't really
her thing,
he walked across the whole arena and came and sat,
put his head right at her shoulder. Why did he do
(17:56):
that?
I've seen it a million times,
so lots of people could say,
well,
it sounds like a coincidence and maybe she had a
carrot or all the things that people like to
discount until you see this happen again and again
and again and again.
Anytime the person is authentic and true to
themselves,
the horse will come back in. And want to be with
them. Because again,
(18:17):
he'd rather be in herd,
in community,
safe in a group of other living beings than to be
alone. Being alone to him is a really scary place.
Kind of true sometimes for humans as well.
It's authenticity that she worked through.
It's,
you know,
leaderships,
but you know,
(18:37):
leadership can look a lot of different ways.
And we make sure when we talk to people about
leadership that like I've had somebody before who
came in,
he was a hard-charging lawyer and he came in to
go grab the horse,
or I guess he was trying to pat the horse,
but his energy was quite unwelcoming to the horse.
(18:57):
So the horse pulled away very strongly.
And I said,
you know,
if you want to be close to the horse,
why don't you just,
could you just take a deep breath and be a little
bit more present with your your approach would the
horse read his energy when it's softer,
(19:19):
different,
and it's not a judgment from the horse about
whether you're soft or aggressive,
but it just was inauthentic.
And he was like,
oh yeah,
I thought I needed to be like a strong guy when
I went to go approach the horse. And I said,
you know what ?
Actually,
you are a strong guy,
but it didn't mean that you had to come off like
(19:40):
overamped. You can just be strong by being who you
are. Often times with horses,
and even when we watch a herd of horses'
leadership,
we'll ask people, 'What's looking at a group of
horses? 'Which one you think is the leader? And
sometimes they think the one that looks like,
you know,
the misbehaving black stallion is a leader because
he's got a lot of fire. To him and in fact,
(20:01):
in a herd,
and this is true,
you know I'm on a cattle ranch; we have cattle,
we have goats,
we have horses,
and the leader isn't usually the flashy one.
It's usually the one who's looking out for the
herd. It's the wise one.
It's the one who cares.
It's the one who makes time for looking out for
the whole.
It's such an authentic way of knowing,
(20:24):
whereas so often the way we're teaching things,
again,
whether it's in a school or in a training,
it's a much more detached way of knowing,
right? We're prioritizing just the cognitive side of
learning. I'm wondering about how we could translate
that more you know into something that people
(20:46):
understand and can do,
and how we can like embody our learning not all
of us are going to be able to come out to you
know the ranch there or in other places that have
this kind of work take place. Is there some way
we can think about how we bring that back into
education?
I definitely think so. I mean,
(21:07):
one of the lessons from working with animals on
the ranch and working with my team who are people
working on the land and in nature is we are
mammals also. And we're evolutionarily adapted to
moving our bodies a lot,
you know,
walking around for food,
(21:28):
growing food,
like that's what we did for so many,
many,
many thousands of years.
And so even just the simple nature of being in our
body,
you know,
giving kids exercises to do,
you know,
hopefully they could get outside.
Also,
because there's so many benefits of being in
contact with nature,
(21:49):
but even just to work with our hands and giving
people an exercise to do,
or,
you know,
sometimes when we have kids'programs here,
I think about how many people who grew up in an
urban area or even grew up and didn't get outside
to play. They might not really understand gravity.
You know,
they might not really understand how water moves.
(22:11):
Like you miss some very fundamental things if you
don't have a live physical experience of how the
world works.
And we are teaching everybody to learn things in
their brain,
but we're not activating somatically our body or
our heart or our instinct. Like so many people
call me and say,
well,
what should I do with my career? And I say,
well,
what do you want to do? What calls you? Do they
(22:34):
have any instinct for what calls them,
what their heart wants to do,
what their being wants to do? This thought that
our brain is the only smart thing,
smart part of us,
I think puts us down a track that's unfortunate
because people will follow that track and do what
their brain,
they think they should do.
(22:55):
And at some point in their lives or in their
careers,
they go, 'Geez,
why am I doing this?
I have no joy in this.
And I did it because I was supposed to. 'It's
kind of like the lady when the horse ran away
from her. That was her story. She did it because
she was supposed to.
She thought it was what was expected of her.
So that's part of what I would say.
(23:18):
Also,
thinking about where do people go after they finish
school? They need to work in teams. They need to
lead teams. It's kind of like we're not an island
no matter where we are. So just because we teach
people how to think about ideas,
if we haven't taught young people.
In schools,
also how to work together. We haven't prepared them
(23:42):
for the world.
You had also mentioned before,
I think you had some young high school students
come to the ranch and do some kind of activity.
Yeah,
we had an interesting situation. One of our farmer
friends out here in the community,
their partner is a teacher in the school and so
(24:02):
knew about the horse work.
And she asked,
do you think you could help the high school
students with some of the challenges around bullying
and setting boundaries? And I said,
absolutely. So we had a group of students come in
and they were pretty shy at first. None of them
(24:24):
had ever been around a horse.
It was a big animal.
They were really cautious about getting involved with
the horses,
but we worked on you know a series of exercises,
which first was just touching the horse at all,
getting that close to touch it. And then talked
about like how do you approach something new? How
(24:44):
do you challenge yourself?
What does it feel like? How do you you know reach
out to a friend and ask for support,
so that was a simple exercise but it was really,
really meaningful for them.
Then we built an exercise,
which was (24:58):
could they ask the horse to back up?
Well,
that exercise to well-trained horses,
which our horses are,
can mean as little as putting a finger,
like if I were to do it,
on their shoulder and saying 'back',
and they would do that.
But I have to do it and really be clear in my
(25:19):
body and with my intention,
that I'm setting a boundary. And when I say it,
I mean it. And that was a big lesson. And we
talked a lot about bullying,
and came up as we were doing this exercise,
and how do these people in school assert
themselves. They don't have to be loud,
but they have to be assertive. They have to set a
(25:40):
boundary.
And so by the end of it,
they'd all asked the horse to back up. They'd all
got to that. They could do it. You know,
first they were leaning in really hard with all
their weight.
And I was like,
you don't have to do it like that,
but there's an energy of,
you know,
asking versus telling and asking while you push is
(26:01):
a very confusing energy for the horse. Telling the
horse by pushing so that the you know your action
mirrors your words and your intentions,
that means everything to the horse. The students
really understood that the teacher watched them all.
By the time they left,
everyone was giggling and having a blast. They kept
wanting to do more things with the horses.
(26:24):
And I saw the teacher a week later at the farmer's
market,
and she said that she had mentioned a few times
during the week about,
you know,
how did you do that with the horses when one of
the kids was struggling?
Because it was that somatic experience. They
understood in their body now how to ask for what
(26:46):
they wanted. And I felt very we were really
excited that we could do that.
We've had them back a few times now and we've
built into,
you know,
next level exercises.
But I think that was a really powerful experience.
We've also done,
you know,
like a next level exercise was navigating an
obstacle and working as a team to do that.
(27:07):
And how do they communicate and how do they share
leadership? So there's a lot of ways that we can
use. Can work with the horses. They're incredibly
patient. But the happy thing is that when the kids
or when a group is really animated and the energy
is very authentic,
it doesn't feel like effort to the horses when you
(27:27):
watch them. They're just kind of joining in. I had
one group before,
their version of how to get the team cohesiveness
together. They struggled for a while. They're like,
well,
how are we going to tell the horse a consistent
message together? So that it would cross over this
step that it had to step over. And they tried
four or five different things. And finally,
(27:47):
somebody said,
well,
let's just sing the instruction to the horse.
Well,
that's an amazing thing because singing and you
think about like the energy of singing and that
harmony,
kind of like when you sing 'Happy Birthday' and at
first it starts out all divergent,
you know,
sounding maybe not so great,
but then by the end of the song,
somehow usually finds a common harmony.
(28:09):
That's so true.
And that is the power of the collective. And as
soon as that common chord came together,
the horse stepped right over the step. It's not. I
mean,
it looks kind of like magic.
It sounds kind of like a coincidence. But to me,
because I'm tracking the flow of the bioenergetic
(28:32):
feedback,
it just makes absolute sense to me that that
consistency of mind,
body,
intention comes together and the horse just feels
called to be in that space. Again,
the herd animal pull.
Right,
right. That's so powerful. When you when you talked
about that exercise and around bullying,
(28:54):
because it's one thing to be,
you know,
to say,
you know,
what does it mean to talk about,
you know,
we there's this webinars and trainings about,
you know,
talking about boundaries and bullying and how not
to be subject to that,
but then to feel. What a boundary is,
right?
When they're there touching the horse,
(29:16):
it's just,
I'm not sure if you can,
I can feel it. I'm not sure if you can explain
like. What is happening in that moment when you're
feeling the boundary?
You know,
you're talking about it,
but then you feel it and how that embodies the
learning even more deeply into us,
(29:37):
into a person.
Well,
you are right.
It is a feeling. And I would say maybe just
re-stating some of what you said,
because I think you said it well. If we had just
talked to them in their head about having a
boundary,
they wouldn't know what that felt like in their
body.
And so they're still wondering,
(30:00):
well,
what does that mean and how do I do it? Because
I'm a human being.
I have a body that has to follow that head. But
when we put the movement that matches the thought
together,
which was then a chance to try that out in
different dimensions with the horse.
And then they feel that feeling of,
(30:22):
okay,
I've taken that thought and I brought it into my
body and I practiced it and I breathed in that
energy of intention.
You could see it in their faces,
how enlivened they felt and how empowered they
felt. And I don't know how I would do that with
just speaking words to them,
(30:43):
honestly.
It just brings me great joy to be able to do
that.
And I feel like once people feel that inner sense
of power,
you can't un-know that. You can take it with you
again. And that's what I encourage them to do.
It was primarily girls in this particular class who
(31:04):
were dealing with this bullying situation.
And I said, 'Feel that power in your body. That is
your power. You can take that with you back to
school.
And you can tap into that if you need to close
your eyes for a second.
But once you've felt that feeling,
how do you make that trigger then for them to
find that again in a complicated situation? I guess
(31:25):
that's the next level.
Well,
of course,
we can study for a test and then not be able to
recall the fact. Right? When we're sitting there in
that situation. Yet,
when we have that feeling and it's in our body,
it's much harder to forget it once you can tap
into your body and feel that again.
There are a few things that I can think of that
(31:47):
are more or less apropos about when we say, 'you
know,
what is educating to be human?'This really is
such an example when we talk about,
you know,
the body and the emotion and you're in nature. And
I mean,
one thing,
of course,
I think about is you know,
how could a more or less human education look like
(32:11):
today?
And let's talk about traditional education.
So schools,
you know,
universities,
is there some way,
I mean,
you're a longtime educator. Can you imagine how we
can bring this kind of sense or sensibility into
what we do more traditionally? Or do we just
really have to be out there,
(32:32):
you know,
in nature,
doing this kind of work? How can we embody
learning in,
in maybe in more of a traditional,
traditional way? I know it's not a completely
answerable question,
but I,
I'm just kind of,
I'm sure you've thought about it and I'm kind of
curious what you,
what you thought.
Yeah,
well,
I would say,
(32:53):
you know,
many things that come to mind is if I'm thinking
about how do I bring nature to a classroom or how
do I bring physical exercises to the classroom? Can
I give people hands-on exercises to do rather than
just writing answers? Can I give them chemistry
(33:16):
experiments or biology experiments? And you know,
there are schools that do a lot of this more
hands-on kind of learning as their methodology.
Could you go out to hopefully I understand not all
schools are so lucky to have a safe or nice place
to go outside nearby,
(33:37):
but if they could,
could they do a garden? And they could talk about
biology and all the things in the garden,
planting,
working with their hands.
You could talk about water quality.
You could talk about a lot of lessons just from
that little garden there.
You could walk around the neighborhood. And learn
those things,
so really I mean,
nature is all around us,
(33:57):
and those lessons,
teachable moments are everywhere,
so that's the kind of school I would have liked
to have gone to,
and that's I guess the school that I get to be
in now at the ranch when we have you know
education programs about soil health in the garden,
when we have programs with the horses,
when we serve a meal and we talk about where the
(34:19):
food came from and what,
how does food grow? We're trying to connect people
with nature and connect people with the real world
around them,
so that they have that familiarity and comfort with
that,
but also so that activates the body and the heart
(34:40):
and the mind.
Wendy,
this has been so illustrative. Again,
thank you so much. I just,
in this world today that really undermines what we
intuitively know,
The importance of being able to reclaim these
physical and emotional ways of knowing and
reconnecting with nature,
it just seems so essential to learning. And I
(35:02):
think there's a lot we can learn from you in this
work as we try to reimagine what educating and
what educating to be human could look like. Before
we finish,
I always like to leave space for one final
question,
something I ask all my guests.
Can you make up the title of the book that you
(35:25):
wish more people would read?
If we care for nature,
it will care for us.
How's that?
I like it. I love it. Wendy,
I wonder if you want to tell us just a little
bit more about your work and the context of Tomcat
Ranch or where people can find out more about this
(35:45):
work and you that they do if they want to learn
more.
Yeah,
absolutely. Um,
Gallop Ventures has got a website so they can
check that out. Um,
also,
uh,
I support a group called Bay Area Equine
Facilitators which is people who do equine
facilitation across the bay area.
Um,
all different ways and people can Google there's
(36:08):
horse people doing stuff like this all over the
country and the world. We recently had somebody
visiting from Ireland who's doing an equine
program. And then with Tomcat Ranch,
we do educational programming and science around
regenerative agriculture. Basically,
the goal of the ranch is to be a learning lab to
(36:30):
demonstrate practices and principles of how you can
restore,
nurture,
and put the science to that. We also work in food
systems change and climate and sort of the whole
world of how do we care more for nature and how
(36:54):
then does it care for us?
Thank you everybody for listening to the show this
week. This has been Lisa Petrides with Educating to
be Human.
If you enjoy our show,
please rate and review us on Apple,
Spotify,
or wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can
access our show notes for links and information on
(37:15):
our guests.
And don't forget to follow us on Instagram,
Blue Sky,
at EdutoBeHuman.
That is E-D-U to be human. This podcast was created
by Lisa Petrides and produced by Helene Theros.
Educating to be Human is recorded by Nathan Sherman
and edited by Ty Mayer with music by Orestes
(37:37):
Koletsos.
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