Articles - Stand InBalance

Why Equines

thundering hooves

The horse “flies across the landscape with thundering hooves as if to run out of its own skin for the love of freedom.” (The Book of Symbols)

Equines* have an evolutionary history dating back 50 million years, and ancient cave paintings indicate that these magnificent beings have been important to humans ever since the Stone Age. Through our travels, wars, adventures, and conquests, they have been alongside us each step of the way. Today, they not only partner with us in sport and recreation, they are also our partners in emotional growth and healing. In fact, horses and donkeys have a great deal to teach us about modern living and how we can become our best selves.

Horse Wisdom – Learning Renewal

Learning Renewal in the Year of the Fire Horse!

The 2026 Year of the Fire Horse represents a powerful, once-in-60-years cycle focused on intense renewal, rapid transformation, and bold, forward-moving energy. This year merges the Horse’s energy of freedom with Fire’s passion, which helps to drive change in projects, personal growth, and societal structures. The last year of the Fire Horse was in 1966!

According to the Chinese zodiac, we we have shifted from the reflective year of the Wood Snake [yin], a year of shedding and releasing into this year’s Fire Horse [yang] a year of intense renewal, transformation and moving forward. Fire acts as a purifier, burning away the old to make room for innovation and new beginnings. There is intense energy for change and renewal — breaking from […]

Tapping into Renewal

How to use the energy of renewal to benefit your daily life.

Sometimes it can be hard to find the energy to move forward, especially when life gets challenging. We can feel stuck, overwhelmed, hopeless or simply tired of it all. When we’re lacking the inspiration and motivation that we might find naturally during happier or more exciting times, it can be disheartening, even stressful, to know what to do and to find a way through. What if the answers might be simpler than you realize? What if there were an infinite, constant source of energy that you could tap into at any time, anywhere, no matter what? Well, good news, there is. The energy of RENEWAL.

Life is always shifting, changing, moving and flowing. Just look […]

A Roadmap to Resilience

“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” ― Nelson Mandela

Life can be tough. There are so many levels and layers of the human experience that we go through as individuals and as a collective society, and all of it is constantly changing and evolving. We go through so many ups and downs, eras and chapters of existence – the triumphs, the disappointments, the surprises, the mistakes, the “failures”, the lessons, the joys, the beauty, the love, the hurt, the hopes, the fears and the dreams. This duality is what makes up our lives – the light and the dark, the “good” and the “bad”. With all of the fullness and opportunities […]

Horse Wisdom – Resilience

Horses and donkeys are remarkably resilient. We have witnessed this first hand with our incredible herd of elder equines. They have all been through a lot of life both during and before their time with us. Most of them came from traumatic pasts of neglect or abuse and have a history of injury, illness or other challenges. And of course, as all living beings do, they face more and more health complications as they get older. We are incredibly grateful and astounded at the way that they manage to continue to adapt and thrive when faced with all of this, especially when given the right tools and support to do so.

Those of you who have kept up with our herd and […]

Horse Wisdom – Let Go

Lisa* had felt drawn to working with horses for a long time. Now three years post divorce and with her youngest child starting high school she felt ready to “move on” with her life.

After a few sessions, Lisa chose to connect with the large dark horse. After spending some time with him, she was able to walk him to several different areas in the arena. Lisa had identified “courage to try new things” as something she wanted more of in life. After setting up some cones to weave through, Lisa named her end goal “joy”. Lisa and her horse started off fine, but just before making it through the cones he began pulling her to the other side of the arena, where the rest of the […]

Stay Connected