Over the last 30 years, author and equine-facilitated learning pioneer Linda Kohanov has written five books on the transformational potential of the horse-human bond. Along the way, she researched history from the unique perspective that horses provide as socially intelligent, nonpredatory power animals.
“They were with us before the rise of conquest,” she says. “And although they eventually became ‘tools’ for looting and dominating large populations, they have always maintained connection to secret stores of life-enhancing wisdom that were uniformly outlawed in ‘civilized’ cultures. Resurrecting this long-suppressed wisdom is more important than ever as we see, once again, aggressive opportunists engaging in widespread intimidation and resource extraction with little or no regard for their fellow human beings, let alone the myriad species that share our planet.”
It is, in many ways, the same story we’ve witnessed repeatedly during 5000 years of brutal imperialistic campaigns. But this time, Linda emphasizes, we find ourselves at a unique crossroad.
“For millennia, horses helped us explore and exploit territories throughout the world. In recent decades, technological innovations have released these powerful yet uniquely sensitive animals from their status as beasts of burden. But they are far from obsolete. Now that we no longer need them to work in our fields and carry us to war, horses are available to do something much more important: work on us. The field of equine-facilitated therapy and experiential learning has shown them to be not just remarkable partners in healing trauma, but also steadfast teachers of advanced emotional/social intelligence and enlightened leadership skills. In this effort, horses are helping us mine vast depths of cultural sediment to access profound insights buried long before history began to record the dubious adventures of warriors, colonizers, and empire builders.”
Linda has been researching and codifying this hidden wisdom while developing practical ways to employ these ancient principles in the modern world. In July 2026, she will launch a series of half-day indoor seminars and multi-day equine-facilitated workshops to share the results. Previous experience with, or even interest in, horses is not necessary to benefit from this life-enhancing perspective.
Recovering the “Lost Keys of Paradise”
The theme of Chasing the Black Horse stems from an evocative dream that psychiatrist Carl Jung shared in his seminal work The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.
As Linda explained in her best-selling book The Tao of Equus, “Jung was particularly fascinated by a horse dream of mythical proportions that was troubling one of his clients, a scenario that also involved a magician and a dying king. It seems the sickly monarch was looking for the perfect burial place among a number of ancient tombs scattered throughout the countryside. He finally chose a grave belonging to a virgin princess from an ancestral clan, but when the tomb was opened and the young woman’s remains were exposed to the light of day, her bones suddenly changed into a black horse that galloped off into the desert. The magician immediately raced after the enchanted creature. Through a journey of many days and endless trials, he crossed the desert and came to the grasslands on the other side. There he discovered the rarest of treasures, for the mare had led him to the lost keys of paradise….
“In Jung’s estimation, the dream of the ailing king who inadvertently set the black horse free held significance far beyond the personal needs of his client. It was a new myth that had emerged fully formed from the archetypal realm, a vision that predicted the death of patriarchal systems of leadership and pointed to the resurrection of a long-buried feminine principle capable of leading future generations toward a more balanced existence. The fact that the redemptive image took the shape of a black horse immediately struck a chord in my own heart, and I began to wonder what trials might be involved in accompanying this night-haired mare across the desert.” (The Tao of Equus revised version, pages 26 to 27.)
Linda admits that she has been “chasing the black horse” since she began exploring the transformational power of the horse-human bond in the 1990s, inspired in large part through a series of adventures with her black Arabian mare Tabula Rasa. “Horses really do have the potential to lead us to the lost keys of paradise,” she says. “But we must step outside conventional training techniques and ideas about both human and animal behavior/intelligence to access the ancient wisdom horses hold. It’s taken me over 30 years to rescue some of these keys from historical obscurity.
“But there was one missing piece in understanding how we lost this knowledge to begin with. It has to do with a deeper, older, unspoken, prehistoric fear men experience that gave rise to the most destructive impulses of patriarchy when we learned to control the breeding of animals. Research has historians and anthropologists talking around it, but because many historians are male, they never access this insight directly, probably because it’s too distressing for the modern psyche to acknowledge. But there’s tremendous freedom in making it conscious. This single, long suppressed insight has the potential to turn unbalanced male power structures inside out and upside down, for the benefit of men as well as women.”
Primal Fear
“Once you finally glimpse the source of this ancient fear—hiding in plain sight to this day—you begin to understand why lying, projection, oppression, and aggression are interwoven into any and all male dominated societies around the world.”
Linda will debut this core insight during a half day indoor seminar in Sebastopol, CA, with an accompanying two-day introductory equine-facilitated workshop for a smaller group in Sebastopol. She will go into more depth during two, four-day Chasing the Black Horse equine-facilitated workshops at her own ranch this fall in southern Arizona.
“For two years, I’ve been actively working to understand the ramifications of this long-lost insight, and I can’t wait to finally share it publicly.” she says. “We see the results of this prehistoric fear daily, but again the core issue that boosted the darker side of patriarchy is not accessed because it is so ancient you need to understand the rise of animal domestication to glimpse it. However, once you see it, it’s like shining a spotlight into an ancient cave where a single truth has been buried for thousands of years, the missing piece in understanding why men in particular are frightened at the deepest possible level, and why humans in general engage in all kinds of aggressive and manipulative behavior to keep this single paradigm-busting insight at bay.”
All Chasing the Black Horse workshops (indoor seminars, introductory workshops and advanced intensives) will include Linda’s new original research on the primal fear men experience at the heart of patriarchy, how it affects the behavior of men and women in our culture, and what we can do to change these dysfunctional patterns to create social and educational structures that more effectively support and uplift all members of the human race, as well as the animals with whom we share our homes, barns and planet.
Linda held these new insights back until she was able to develop practical tools, multi-step processes and experiential activities (with, and without, horses) that not only lead us to the “lost keys of paradise,” but also show us how to use them in daily life to change destructive patterns that cause both men and women to suffer needlessly in the modern world.
New Moon Rising
In her 2013 book, The Power of the Herd: A Nonpredatory Approach to Social Intelligence, Leadership and Innovation, Linda asked a thought-provoking question:
“What happens after we remove fear, shame, blame, objectification, projection, revenge, and predatory dominance from the equation? What does power look like when the shackles are removed?
“Here’s where an all too often ignored dimension of history foreshadows an unexpected answer: Among Alexander the Great, the Buddha, Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, George Washington, Katherine the Great, Geronimo, Winston Churchill, and many other influential leaders, a pattern emerges. For thousands of years, the invisible forces of charisma, bravery, poise, focus, endurance, and conviction have been most reliably bolstered by a silent, nonpredatory tutor. Recognizing the horse’s multicultural importance, not just as a beast of burden, or even a companion of kings, but as a teacher of kings, conquerors, heroes, and pioneers, is an essential first step in wresting this wisdom from obscurity and purposefully exercising it in the future.
“The horse stands at the place where all trails come together, and a new moon shines upon us. To retrace the steps of sorrow and injustice, courage, compassion, and innovation – elevated by a being that has been used for both conquest and freedom – is to know the dark and light of power. To become a student of the horse – rather than a calculating, disconnected master – is to master our own predatory tendencies, reclaiming our original calling to move beyond instinct in partnership with nature, tapping our potential to become visionary leaders capable of rallying the endlessly evolving, fully conscious forces of a truly empowered herd.”
Linda’s new program Chasing the Black Horse offers life changing insights and practical tools to do just that.
Chasing the Black Horse: Upcoming Events
Friday, July 17: Indoor Seminar, noon to 5 pm (up to 50 participants) at Subud California, 234 Hutchins Ave., Sebastopol, CA. 95472. Cost $120 (includes drinks and light snacks) For more information on what this seminar will cover: https://eponaquest.com/workshop/chasing-the-black-horse-indoor-seminar/
Friday, Saturday and Sunday, July 17 through 19: Indoor seminar, followed by two-day introductory equine facilitated workshop (8 participants). This workshop begins with attendance at the Subud California event noon to 5 pm, July 17, and two full days of equine-facilitated work at Tabula Rasa Ranch in Sebastopol (exact address given to participants upon registration). Cost $950 (includes indoor seminar, followed by two days of equine-facilitated work with lunch and materials) For more information on what this seminar will cover: https://eponaquest.com/workshop/chasing-the-black-horse-introductory-workshop-with-indoor-seminar/
Friday, September 25 through Monday, September 28: Four-day introductory equine-facilitated workshop (8 participants) at Eponaquest ranch in Amado, AZ. This workshop is for people who have NOT attended a workshop with Linda Kohanov in the past five years. Cost $1800 (includes lunch, materials, and the Connections 101 online course, a $587 value in itself) For more information on what this seminar will cover: https://eponaquest.com/workshop/chasing-the-black-horse-four-day-introductory-workshop/
Friday, November 6 through Monday, November 9: Four-day advanced equine-facilitated intensive (8 participants) at Eponaquest ranch in Amado, AZ. This workshop is for people who HAVE attended a workshop with Linda Kohanov within the past eight years. Cost $1800 (includes lunch, materials, and The Five Roles of a Master Herder online course, a $549 value in itself) For more information on what this seminar will cover: https://eponaquest.com/workshop/chasing-the-black-horse-advanced-intensive/
All artistic images in this edition of Eponaquest News were created by Claire Boyd and Linda Kohanov, copyright 2026 by Eponaquest LLC.
For additional questions, contact info@eponaquest.com or 520-205-1107.