by Paula Josa-Jones

One of my teachers, the horseman Mark Rashid, is a black belt Aikido master and guides his students from the perspective that riding, like Aikido, is hard because you have to change yourself, and that it works well if you get yourself right. Through my life as a dancer and a choreographer—and a horsewoman—I’ve discovered how body-mind practices can help you get yourself right, so that when you are with your horse, you can listen to him and approach him from a place of generous and good intention, as well as an active awareness of what and how we are communicating from moment to moment.

Learning to connect with horses in this way teaches us how to develop our inner selves, become more comfortable in our own skin, be more trustworthy to ourselves and others, and gain greater skill, sensitivity, and resilience in social communication. This benefits our personal and work lives, sometimes in profound ways. Horses can help soften physical resistance and open wells of enthusiasm and creativity. Horses can help us learn that losing and finding balance is an integral part of life’s dance. That we can, like surfers, find, lose, and re-find balance on the crests and troughs of even the biggest waves, the most turbulent emotional and physical waters. They can help us to release our fears, our hesitancy, and become comfortable “on the edge,” where answers and inspiration arise spontaneously from an open, curious, and attentive mind and body.

Read more: How “Let’s Do It!” Can Change Your Horse Business…and Your Horse

By Marion E. Altieri for EIE

The National Science Foundation (NSF) doesn't give out grant money for research in the arena of animal health very often. Most of the millions of dollars that they distribute are allocated for studies in sciences, including medicine, that will benefit human health and welfare. Lexington equine veterinarian, Dr. David Nash, saw a need in horse health, and set forth to design and deliver PathTracker. The device has the potential to change not only equine health practice, but the future of human medicine, as well.

Dr. Nash and his team of scientists and engineers' PathTracker is a breakthrough so visionary, so insightful, that indeed the possibilities cross between the worlds of equine health and the future of allopathic medicine for humans. This is the sort of research and product that, 50 years ago, was envisioned only by Gene Roddenberry when first he conceived of the Universe through his own imagination via "Star Trek." (Tricorders in "Trek," used for communication and scanning patients for disease, became our smartphones and now—now have developed into Dr. Nash's PathTracker.)

The NSF received the grant application for PathTracker, and saw that this great work will move human medicine forward by leaps and bounds—and thereby granted the team a three-year grant in the amount of $999,950. The figure is astronomical—but the NSF recognizes that this project is not static, rather will advance science in ways that even the inventors may not realize yet. That which began as an advancement in equine medicine will one day become a lifesaver for thousands of humans, all around the world.

Read more: Dr. David Nash and NSF Grant Moves Equine Medicine into the Future, with Wide-Ranging Visions for...