Time: 9:30 to 5:30 daily

Cost: $1800 — includes lunch and workshop materials.

This is a special workshop for women ages 60 and above.

In between the unrealistic images of 104-year-old women running competitive hundred-yard dashes and the ageist stereotype of the frail old lady, there are rich, unexplored and rarely talked about experiences of women getting older: Women searching for meaning in the “last act’, women looking back and assessing inevitable regrets or lost opportunities, women facing their fears and forging ahead with creativity, women grieving for what might have been, women seeking inner peace, women rejoicing in their children and grandchildren, women assessing their worth, their legacy, women fighting for our planet and women stemming the tide on species extinction. Women full of hope, rage, peace, humility, courage, resignation. Some of us seek release, others eternal youth, some retreat, some move outward. Some of us rage, rage against the darkness of the night, others sit in quiet, sunlit contemplation. Some find peace, others do not.

In this workshop we will explore and share what it means to grow older and to grow old. Through experiential activities with members of the Eponaquest herd, intuition-expanding journeys with archetypes of renewal and transformation, and empowering approaches to accessing vision and calling later in life, we will shape our experience together in the desert, inviting the wisdom of the horse and the wisdom of the crone to inform, reframe and enhance our relationship with our authentic selves and, consequently, with friends, colleagues and family. We will listen for the hooves of the great ancestral horse herd. We may converse with archetypes, contemporary thinkers, grandmothers, heroes, witches, the divine – we may talk about the ordinary and how it is so often, extraordinary. We will draw, write, reflect, talk, break bread, laugh, sing and cry. We will, for a few short days, weave threads into cloth and cloth into tapestry, becoming the heroes of our own journey – under the desert sky in the warmth and healing of the sun.

This workshop will be led by Eponaquest founder Linda Kohanov, author of five books on the transformational power of the horse-human bond, and Carole Estabrooks, an expert in issues related to older adults. Carole is a PhD prepared nurse scientist whose work focuses on people living in long term care homes (i.e., nursing homes). She is a senior scientist working full time at the University of Alberta in Alberta, Canada. Carole holds Eponaquest certifications as an Eponaquest instructor and instructor in the Master Herder, Power of the Herd and Connection Focused Therapy-based programs. Together with Linda, Carole and her team are currently implementing Eponaquest principles and tools for managers in Alberta, Canada nursing homes.

“I’m so excited to be able to explore the practical and mystical sides of growing older,” Linda says. “Many of us are at the crossroads, faced with so many memories, choices, and decisions. What is the potential of truly living the rest of our lives with consciousness, compassion, discernment, grace, and creativity? As we embrace our role as seasoned, self-actualized role models in a culture that often focuses only on the challenges of aging, the wisdom of the crone can lead us to new dimensions of life, love, and service.”

The following excerpt from Linda’s book Way of the Horse, addresses the potency of the crone archetype.

The crossroads represents those places where the unknown intersects with the known, where unconscious, undefined potential rises up to challenge and eventually transform a bright and comfortable state of consciousness. Here you’re asked to surrender your ego to a higher calling, one that involves a certain amount of trust in a future you cannot fully predict or comprehend.

The crossroads is all about letting go of a situation you’re ready to evolve beyond while staying present with and supportive of those you will someday leave behind. When you’re no longer invested in the status quo, you become detached from the day-to-day dramas your associates find so engrossing and confusing. And with this detachment comes the ability to mentor others through that unique combination of compassion and discernment associated with the Crone.

The Crone’s “detachment doesn’t mean indifference,” insisted the Jungian analyst Marion Woodman in a 1989 Common Ground article. “It means she has been there. She has suffered, but she can draw back from the suffering. A conscious person in the presence of an unconscious person’s pain may suffer more than the unconscious person. . . . It’s not that she’s indifferent or withdrawn. She’s right there, totally present. She’s got nothing to lose. She can be who she is and live with the straight, flat-out, naked truth. Therefore the Crone acts as a tuning fork in an environment because she is so real herself. . . . She has no reason to persuade you to do anything or be anything other than who you are.”

While the dark side of the Crone manifests as someone who uses her elder status to selfishly manipulate others, the enlightened Crone has a well-developed balance of nurturing feminine and discriminating masculine qualities. Woodman, herself an accomplished wise old woman, had both male and female mentors who functioned as Crones by this definition: “I would think of her masculinity as being very discerning with no sentimentality. She would be able to cut with a well-honed sword. She would be able to see what is no longer essential to life—a relationship, for example, that has become destructive. She would perceive it, see through to the heart of it, and cut where necessary, but cut with love.”

We’ve all been told that life is filled with many little deaths, transitions in which something sacrificed allows something greater to emerge. But few of us consider that fertile time between letting go of the old and embracing the new, the crossroads where knowledge gained can be passed on to the children of the future. If we call forth the Crone’s detachment in the face of our own discomfort, old age ultimately becomes an opportunity to reap and share the fruits of a life well lived.

Copyright 2023 from Way of the Horse: Equine Archetypes of Self-Discovery, by Linda Kohanov with artwork by Kim McElroy