12:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Location: Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine: 1502 E Mabel St., Tucson, AZ 85719

Cost: $50 (includes drinks and light snacks)

This afternoon seminar marks the Arizona debut of key insights that will change your perspective on the history of civilization, organized violence, authoritarian impulses, and effective alternatives to the current system. The presentation will include experiential activities and tools that not only offer hope for the future, but also introduce practical ways to change the tide. Previous experience with, or even interest in, horses is not necessary to benefit from this life-enhancing perspective. In this context, the Black Horse is both a powerful metaphor, and a real-life guide, capable of leading us to hidden knowledge that was lost when humanity moved toward aggressive hierarchical systems thousands of years ago.

Those who work in the healing arts, including conventional and integrative medicine, trauma informed therapy and energy work, will gain new insights into how and why our current system undermines the ability to achieve and maintain physical and psychological health. Participants will also discover why equine-facilitated learning and therapy is so effective in enhancing the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being of their patients.

Those who advocate for social and political change will gain deeper understanding of the ancient fears and long-unspoken traumas that underlie our current system, while gaining new perspectives on how to work more effectively with people from all walks of life, including those who are fearful or aggressive.

Those who work in the fields of animal-assisted therapy and equine-facilitated learning will gain new ideas and a focused vocabulary for describing how and why their work is so effective.

Equestrians and people who work in animal rescue organizations will also benefit from the historical perspectives and innovative tools this seminar provides.

“Linda never fails to weave myth, research, psychology, history, and personal story seamlessly,” says Amanda Ball, a Nashville, Tennessee-based clinical mental health professional and Eponaquest equine-facilitated learning and therapy practitioner who attended the July 2026 Chasing the Black Horse seminar in Sebastopol, CA. “Our group became captivated, engaged, and excited to join in — sharing our own spontaneous insights, experiences, books, and podcast references. Her reframe of patriarchy encompasses the domestication and control of animals and their reproduction, the systemic devaluation of animals and humans, primal fears generated from this system, the injustices committed against women, and the often-forgotten brutality and horrific injustices committed by men toward other men throughout its 11,000-year history. This framing reinforces how, today, the keys to what horses have to teach us are urgently relevant. After years of studying and teaching this work myself, I left with a renewed sense of determination and a feeling that I’m on my path toward creating a much-needed oasis in the profound heart of America — in my little corner of the heart of Tennessee.”

You will learn:

Why the same destructive patterns repeat themselves and always lead to the collapse of complex societies, leaving the toxic by-products of trauma in their wake

How to recognize the three ingredients that must be present for oppressive regimes to take hold

Why the development of this persistent yet unsustainable system is escalating in the modern world

Why the primal fear men experienced at the dawn of animal domestication gave rise to the most destructive aspects of patriarchy

How this fear emerged when humans learned to control the breeding of large herbivores

How this long-hidden fear continues to inspire the rampant projection, lies, and abuse of both men and women in male dominated cultures and religions

Why widespread understanding of this primal fear is essential to productive cultural change

How early humans employed counter-dominance strategies to rein in aggressive individuals and groups

How associations with diverse cultures insured human survival during the Ice Age

Why egalitarianism was a choice that our distant ancestors actively and repeatedly made

How human physiology reflects our egalitarian roots

How scientific evidence shows that there was a collapse in male genetic diversity between 8000 and 4000 years ago, coinciding with the intensification of agriculture and hierarchical social structures

How the vast majority of men are disempowered and exploited in conquest-oriented civilizations around the world 

Why the counter-dominance techniques used by early cultures eventually contributed to the rise of aggressive leaders, and why many of these same strategies in use today are ineffective

What new, in many cases counter-intuitive, techniques must be employed to ensure that men and women experience safety, fulfillment, mutual respect, and cooperation in life

Why horses are particularly effective in modeling—and teaching—a nonpredatory approach to power, leadership and social engagement

How we can translate this nonverbal “horse wisdom” to purely human interactions

How new scientific theories and related peer reviewed research confirm that safe, mutually supportive connections between humans are essential to healing personal and epigenetic traumas that hold us all in a state of arrested development

Why horses and other animals are helpful in jump starting healing circuitry in people who do not trust other humans

Renee Wade, who attended the California Chasing the Black Horse seminar in July, was especially impressed with the ways this engaging program helped her renegotiate her relationship with challenges she faces in our unbalanced culture:

 “I loved spending half a day chasing the black horse through the labyrinth of lies and deceptions surrounding our experience of patriarchy to land in the oasis of feminine wisdom, tapping into the knowledge of our hearts and bodies, moving closer to a remembrance of who we really are as humans. For me, looking at those lies head on, in order to see the truth behind them, released much of the anger and fear that arises from living in the day-to-day world of patriarchy and oligarchy. My boundaries are clearer and my compassion, for men especially, is stronger as a result of this workshop. I am still digging through the layers of lies embedded in so many facets of our culture, but the black horse is with me, guiding.”

For an in-depth overview of the history and inspiration behind the Chasing the Black Horse model, see https://eponaquest.com/chasing-the-black-horse-keys-for-personal-and-cultural-transformation/.