Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / From Horse Theft to Horse-Facilitated Healing: Carolina Lockwood's 30-Year Evolution in Patagonia | Carolina Lockwood of Alquimia Equina, Bariloche, Argentina | EAW 53

Transcript

From Horse Theft to Horse-Facilitated Healing: Carolina Lockwood's 30-Year Evolution in Patagonia | Carolina Lockwood of Alquimia Equina, Bariloche, Argentina | EAW 53 · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

0:00
Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
0:02
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
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author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
0:08
Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
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thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
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I have a request.
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If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
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It really helps us get this work done.
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As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
0:27
And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
0:31
equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
0:35
If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
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com.
0:41
So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
0:44
Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
0:46
With me today is Carolina Lockwood, who despite that very English sounding
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name and her English sounding voice as you'll sound, is not really English.
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She is joining us from Argentina where she has been running an equine assisted
1:03
practice in the mountain region of Patagonia, Bariloche for a long, long
1:10
time, and has gone through many, many evolutions doing this in an environment
1:16
that many of us, I think, in the West would find quite challenging, and has
1:22
much to share with us on, gosh, how to, how to do this perhaps a little closer
1:29
to nature than a lot of other people in Europe or North America might be doing it.
1:36
So there's many, many dimensions to Carolina's work, and what's one of the
1:40
nicest things about doing this show is that I get to talk to very interesting
1:44
people, some of whom I've known for a long time, like Carolina, and have
1:47
watched go through many evolutions.
1:49
So there's so much to learn from you, Carolina.
1:51
Thank you for coming on the show all the way from Argentina.
1:55
Can you tell us who you are, how you got into this?
1:59
Let's start at the beginning.
2:02
Carolina Lockwood: Okay.
2:02
Well, thank you for inviting me to start with.
2:05
Hi, really honored to be here.
2:08
Well, as you said, I live in, in Argentina.
2:10
I was born here.
2:11
I've been living in Bariloche since, which is in Patagonia, since 1974.
2:17
Raising a family, doing all sorts of different jobs, different
2:20
things, you know, just life really.
2:23
And then I started working with special needs and art 'cause I'm an artist, too.
2:28
So at one point I thought, you know, what's art got to do with the world
2:34
if it's not not gonna help somebody?
2:36
You know, it's not just making a piece for somebody to see.
2:39
So anyway, that got me into special needs and art.
2:43
I went to Montana on, Montana, USA, on a, on an exchange thing,
2:50
which was called Partners of America, and there I learnt a lot.
2:54
And then a person from there came here, and we started huge workshops
2:59
with art and with, with handicapped people, kids, all sorts of things.
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Anyway, that went on for about, gosh, I have no idea actually how long it
3:10
took, how long it went on for, but at least 10 years maybe working with that.
3:15
And then I, I s- I studied Touch for Health, and I studied Brain Gym,
3:19
and I did all sorts of things that helped to connect neurons and neural
3:24
pathways and all sorts of things.
3:26
And then one day, this is crazy 'cause I was, I was out in the fields and it had
3:33
got a little bit heavy all this artwork.
3:36
I do ceramics and sculpture, and I thought, "I need to switch to
3:39
something that's lighter, something that doesn't involve all this-
3:44
carrying heavy things and everything.
3:46
I mean, it was really good, the program, but anyway.
3:49
And I had this sort of vision of doing things with horses and never
3:53
knowing that horses was gonna be, in a way, much heavier than this.
3:58
Rupert Isaacson: Well, yeah, it's, are you sort of thinking,
4:00
"I don't wanna carry heavy stuff.
4:01
I want the heavy thing to carry me."
4:03
Yeah.
4:03
And it's got four legs.
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Carolina Lockwood: Well.
4:05
Yeah.
4:05
Yeah.
4:05
Not knowing how much this would entail.
4:08
But anyway, that sort of started me off on that, on this, on this, on this path.
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You know, I'd always loved horses since I was a four-year-old.
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I'd had contact with horses, but on- but through my own sort of ventures.
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My family were not horse people at all And, and I thought, well,
4:28
let's learn about horse therapy.
4:30
And I'd thought about let's bring them together, art and horses and, and therapy.
4:35
So anyway to cut a long story short, I started doing different courses.
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There was no actual training as such in Argentina at the time for this.
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So I went to Buenos Aires, and I dif- did different courses in different centers.
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And then I went to a, a horse training a natural horsemanship
4:59
training course you would say.
5:01
And that really flipped me over.
5:04
That, that, that was sort of something else 'cause there was this guy from
5:09
Chile, Paul Walker, who's in Ireland at the moment, excellent with horses, and
5:15
he, he was showing how to train a horse, how to, what do you say in English?
5:20
Domar when youâ¦
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It's notâ¦
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Well, it would be like break, but in the natural way, so you're not
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actually break- To start or to
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Rupert Isaacson: form.
5:25
Yeah.
5:27
Yeah.
5:27
Yeah.
5:27
Carolina Lockwood: Start, yeah.
5:28
Rupert Isaacson: Domar is almost like to style, in domar your hair, yeah.
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Yeah.
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To dress.
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Carolina Lockwood: Domar.
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Yeah.
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And, you know, like, the, the, the word breaking a horse, which I hate.
5:37
Mm.
5:37
Anyway, it was complete the- to that.
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And I'd never seen anything like that, and I was really sort of impressed
5:43
that in two days he got a horse that was absolutely wild just coming
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to him, putting the saddle on, and riding him around, like, with nothing.
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And, and it wasâ¦
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I mean, I even got on the horse.
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It was, like, amazing, in two days.
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And all the gauchos who were sort of looking on were
6:02
thinking, "Wow, this isn't true."
6:04
At first, they're very skeptical, and thenâ¦
6:07
Anyway, that sort of changed my perspective on, on horses
6:11
and what I wanted to be able to actually transmit and do with them.
6:16
So anyway, I, I carried on these different trainings.
6:21
I went to Greece for a couple of months and did a, a sort
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of internship voluntary thing.
6:27
And then I was watching a film, and I heard about Horse Boy.
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So I saw the Horse Boy film, and I thought, wow.
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'Cause I, I was doing so many things that came out in the film,
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you know, sort of just getting the horses and the people to be calm, so
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to be able to connect and express.
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And so I wrote to you.
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And here we are many, many years.
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And, and you said, "Yeah, come."
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So I did.
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So I went to Texas, and well, that started a whole different, a, a whole different
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sort of piece I would say in the story.
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'Cause then I had, I had this sort of- I mean, I'd already bought
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my horse, my first horse, myâ¦
7:15
'Cause I kept saying to my brother, "How do I start this?"
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And he said, "Well, you have to start with a horse.
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If you don't have a horse, you're not gonna start anything."
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And I'd already had about six horses and they'd all been stolen and
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killed and it was like I thought I'm never gonna have a horse again.
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So anyway, I got my horse, who's still with me today, a curly who's absolutelyâ¦
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I just adore him.
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And so I had this one horse and I started doing sessions with horses from what
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I'd learned with, I started off with the kids that were al- already doing
7:50
art therapy with me and brain gym.
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So I, I already had this sort of These people who knew, knew me
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and, and wanted to see, okay, let's see what the horse has to offer.
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So it was pretty intuitive the whole thing.
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You know, I had been trained in a way, and then with you, with you guys, I sort
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of found that, that what I was doing had a sort of much more solid sustainability
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than what I was actually doing.
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It was like, okay, this is, this is okay.
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I'm on the right path here.
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So it was really interesting to, to, to do that and sort of mix what you
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were doing with what was I was doing, and it all sort of grew from there.
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So I started off with one horse.
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Couple of years later we had two horses, then three, four, five.
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We even had six.
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And we started with â¦ I mean, I started with one girl who was a volunteer, and
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then down the road, I don't know, eight years later maybe, we had a team of
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six people working and 10 volunteers and about 30 kids a week coming.
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It was huge.
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I mean, it was huge.
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I didn't even realize it was huge at the moment.
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But now when I think of it, it was, it was, it was huge in the way that
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it was big to sustain all that.
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So and it was really interesting.
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It was a, it was a different way for people to actually do this kind of work
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with horses, 'cause it wasn't just, you know, have the horse saddled, get
9:28
on and, and do a little ride around.
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Although lots of times that does happen, but there was all
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the rest that was thrown in.
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You know, what, what you do, what I was doing on top of it, and
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what we learned together and, and it, and it was really good.
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So people, people loved it.
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People thrived on it.
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The, you know, the people that k- that were the team loved it too.
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They said, "This is so different from what, you know, what
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we can see in other places."
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So that's basically how that all started.
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Rupert Isaacson: Right.
10:01
And now I know that now you've sort of also evolved into you were
10:04
always doing coaching with horses as well, and now healing through
10:08
horses for people and for horses.
10:10
So I'm gonna want you to go there, but right now I just wanna dial back two, two
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obvious questions, which I know are the questions that anyone who was listening
10:17
in the last few minutes will have.
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The first one what was the name again of the bloke who's now in
10:22
Ireland who you met from Chile?
10:24
Carolina Lockwood: Paul Walker
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Rupert Isaacson: Paul Walker Paul Walker And is he Irish or is he
10:28
English or is he, where's he from?
10:31
Carolina Lockwood: He's from Chile.
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His father was English.
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Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
10:34
Carolina Lockwood: Paul passed away about two years ago.
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So I'm gonna- And Paul, yeah, at the moment he's not working
10:40
with horses, but he's training Border Collie dogs for sheeps.
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Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
10:44
Sheeps.
10:45
Sorry.
10:45
So he's worth looking into.
10:46
I'm always, I'm always, you know, intrigued by whose people, who people's
10:50
mentors are because they're- Yeah,
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Carolina Lockwood: he's-
10:52
Rupert Isaacson: worth checking out â¦ he's yeah, he's on
10:53
Carolina Lockwood: Facebook, so you can- Okay â¦ find him there.
10:56
Yeah.
10:57
Rupert Isaacson: I shall look him up.
10:58
Now, the second question is, is, is the stories attached, and I
11:00
remember you talking to me about this when you first came to Texas.
11:04
You say, "Oh, it's so heartbreaking, Rupert.
11:06
You know, my horses get stolen, killed."
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I remember you even saying eaten.
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You know?
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And, and- Yeah â¦ I was going, "Wow."
11:13
Now, as you know, my background is partly African, and that's the kind
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of thing you'd expect to hear down in- Yeah â¦ some parts of Africa.
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Why were horses getting stolen?
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Why were they getting killed?
11:30
Talk us through that because we, we think, we think of Argentina as a very
11:35
horse-friendly equestrian culture.
11:38
As you, you mentioned the gauchos.
11:40
We know that racing is huge.
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Polo comes.
11:42
You know, blah, blah, blah.
11:43
So, you know, presumably not all of those horses are getting
11:47
stolen and eaten and killed.
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But you were having this problem up in the mountains where you are.
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Talk us through this.
11:53
Why?
11:54
What was going on?
11:56
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, well, yeah, there's, there's various things here.
12:00
There's a culture of, like you say, this horse world which
12:03
is really big in Argentina.
12:05
Really big.
12:07
And then, and then there's this part of social differences, I would say.
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So p- horses get stolen all over Argentina, not o- not only here.
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And usually they steal them to eat them.
12:24
To eat them or to sell the meat.
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Yeah, that's what usually happens.
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And when they- Who is
12:28
Rupert Isaacson: they?
12:29
Who are the people who are doing this?
12:31
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, well, it's difficult to say, but I would say,
12:36
ugh, gosh, it's so difficult this, 'cause it's not, I wouldn't say it's
12:39
people who are hungry, 'cause I think hungry people would go a different way.
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Mm.
12:43
It's, it's people have different values, I would say.
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You know, that they don't think of a horse, they just
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think of it as like a cow.
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"Okay, let's get a cow and, and eat it."
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I mean, where, which happens so often.
12:57
But in another way, it, or at least, I mean, I can speak from where I
13:02
live, which is obviously different to other parts of Argentina.
13:05
We have different social realities in small places.
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So in Bariloche where I live, you have on one side of the mountain, I
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mean, in literally you have sort of, you know, the buoyant Bariloche with
13:20
lots of differences too, but then on the other side you have a really poor,
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poor in, in the sense of, of, of maybe not having jobs, maybe not having, you
13:32
know, work to, to do or things to eat.
13:37
And so, I mean, th- that's huge the amount of people, and not everybody's
13:41
gonna steal a horse obviously.
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So you, I, I can't generalize.
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But yes, there are lots of groups and people who do, and when I
13:52
found out when they stole two of our horses at the time, that the
13:58
police knew exactly who they were.
14:00
They were all tied up.
14:01
You know, everybody protects everybody.
14:03
There were clandestine, I think you say it like that in English-
14:08
Mm-hmm â¦ meat, like meat factories where they, where they- Okay â¦ you
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know, cut the meat and they sell it.
14:14
Rupert Isaacson: And they sell it to?
14:16
Carolina Lockwood: They sell it to other people in that sort of area usually.
14:19
They, they won't-
14:20
Rupert Isaacson: So there's organization behind this.
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It's effectively organized crime.
14:23
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
14:24
But n- yeah, yeah, and not always.
14:26
Not always.
14:27
So I mean, just near my, where I live, about three kilometers, there's
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a, there's an area which is all land that was occupied, and probably
14:38
90% of it is fine, but a 10% of the people there are not fine, and
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they are famous for getting horses.
14:45
And, and, and you know, I'm really careful as who to comes into my spot
14:52
and who sees how the horses live and where they live, 'cause I've gone
14:56
through this so many times that I said I'm not gonna have a horse again.
15:00
And then I, well, now I live in a different area of Bariloche,
15:03
because the other house where I had all these horses was literally
15:06
the other side of the mountain, so people would come over the mountain.
15:10
I mean, I, to this extent, once I had a horse tied up with a chain
15:14
to the tree, and they cut the tree.
15:16
You know, it was like, yeah.
15:18
And some I found, and some unfortunately I didn't.
15:21
So-
15:22
Rupert Isaacson: When you found them, how did you find them?
15:25
Carolina Lockwood: I didn't actually see them.
15:26
I was told that they'd been, that they'd been, that they found
15:29
the head in a something and-
15:31
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, okay.
15:32
You didn't find the live animal again?
15:34
Carolina Lockwood: I found one live animal 'cause, because he was
15:37
the eldest and he was really thin.
15:39
He was my son's horse.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
15:41
Carolina Lockwood: We gave it bait, so he must have been about, my
15:45
son must have been about 13 this.
15:48
And, and they took him and another mare I had.
15:52
They took them both, and so I mean, I, w- by then we knew
15:55
exactly where to start looking.
15:57
I mean, we did.
15:58
So we went with the police 'cause they're really, they're
16:01
really heavy people, these.
16:02
They could be armed.
16:03
Yeah.
16:04
So off we went, and we found the old one tied to a tree in a, in a, an area which
16:12
is the university, and it's reallyâ¦
16:15
And now it's much more grown up, but this, we're talking about 20 years ago.
16:19
No, more.
16:20
Gosh.
16:21
We're talking about 1990, so, wow.
16:24
Yeah, 30 years ago, 40.
16:27
Mm.
16:27
Something like that.
16:28
It was much more "Descampado" we say here, which is much more
16:32
sort of not, not constructed.
16:34
It was just the university and lots of forest and stuff.
16:37
And we found him tied there, and obviously they left him, and we
16:39
found him and he was, he was whining.
16:42
Wh- whining?
16:42
Whining?
16:42
Whining?
16:42
Whining, yeah.
16:43
Whining, wanting his mate.
16:46
And obviously they left him 'cause there was no meat.
16:48
He was too thin.
16:50
He was old.
16:51
So anyway, then we loaded him onto a truck and I, I spoke to some friends
16:56
who had a, a farm at that time, and I said, "Please, can you take this horse?"
17:01
And they did, and he died there.
17:02
I didn't bring him back.
17:04
Mm.
17:04
Yeah.
17:04
It was just, I just couldn't bear it anymore.
17:07
So- Y-
17:08
Rupert Isaacson: but what's interesting to me about this is that, you know, well,
17:12
A, it was very brave of you to go into those areas because, you know, there
17:16
could have been, I presume, reprisals.
17:18
Maybe not- Yeah â¦ on the day that you go in there with the police, but
17:22
then maybe they come over the mountain later and burn your house, you know?
17:24
Yeah.
17:24
Yeah, exactly.
17:25
Were you, were you not afraid of that?
17:27
Carolina Lockwood: I was, but I went with my ex-husband.
17:29
I didn't go my own own.
17:31
Mm.
17:31
And I, I can't remember if the police were with us at that point.
17:34
I don't think so, 'cause at theâ¦
17:36
Because also you say, you know, you go to the police and usually
17:39
the police are friends with the guys who are taking the horses.
17:42
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
17:43
Carolina Lockwood: So, yeah, I mean, that, that literally happens.
17:46
And, and I, you knowâ¦
17:48
Yeah, but you're, you are afraid, yeah.
17:50
And also the reprisals, you know.
17:52
Once I found, once- The first horse that they took, we found him.
17:56
Found him tied up on the main road at sort of the back part and, and, and we went and
18:00
we said to this guy, "That's our horse."
18:02
He said, "Oh, yes, I found him walking around, so I tied him up."
18:06
This was about 20 kilometers from where I live, so that wasn't happening.
18:10
So he gave it back, but I mean, that was, that was lucky for that horse.
18:13
But usually it wasn't that lucky.
18:15
I mean, they, they have a really quick way of covering up the tracks.
18:20
Usually it happens on a rainy day when, or snowing, when the tracks get covered.
18:25
I mean, and, you know, usually in the winter when it gets dark early.
18:30
The, yeah.
18:32
And then-
18:32
Rupert Isaacson: Right Okay.
18:35
So let's- Well, but- Le- so, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
18:36
Please go on.
18:38
Carolina Lockwood: No, just a s- short extra thing.
18:41
Not a horse of mine, but a, another equine therapy group that was here
18:45
about, yeah, very near this area that I'm telling you that's near me.
18:51
They had this beautiful mare who was pregnant actually, and they had her in
18:56
a, in a hipÃ³dromo, which is like a place where they do races and stuff here.
19:01
Very small, but anyway.
19:03
And they stole her from there, and they found her.
19:05
They found her quartered up.
19:07
So it was like, you know, they, no scruples at all.
19:10
It doesn't matter if it's a horse therapy horse.
19:12
It doesn't matter.
19:15
Yeah.
19:15
Rupert Isaacson: So, so- Yeah â¦ the gauchos who are relying on
19:19
their horses to do their work, Yeah â¦ racehorse people polo people,
19:24
if they're all dealing with this- Yeah â¦ how do they stay in business?
19:29
Carolina Lockwood: How do they?
19:30
Rupert Isaacson: Stay in business.
19:30
I mean, if, if you, if you are- Yeah, the, the-
19:33
potentially gonna lose your herd, you know, any moment.
19:37
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, the gauchos usually don't have their horses stolen
19:40
because the, the people who would steal a horse know that the gaucho would go
19:45
after them with a knife and kill them.
19:46
So it was, they, you know, they, they know who they mess with and who they don't.
19:52
Rupert Isaacson: I see.
19:52
Carolina Lockwood: And the same, and the same goes for the polo industry.
19:55
I mean, polo horses who are, you know, thousands and I don't know how many
20:00
dollars worth, they're not gonna be out in a field just, you know, pasturing.
20:05
They're gonna be in boxes, and they're gonna have a
20:08
completely different security.
20:10
It's not gonna happen.
20:12
Yeah.
20:12
But then there are all sorts of equine therapy centers and, and
20:16
people who just have horses as, as, you know, just to have a horse.
20:22
Those are the ones that get stolen, yeah.
20:24
Rupert Isaacson: Got it.
20:25
Yeah.
20:25
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
20:25
Rupert Isaacson: But obviously that's what anyone who's gonna
20:28
be in the equine assisted world is gonna be having to deal with.
20:30
And- Yeah, yeah â¦ I, I remember when you told me this thinking, "Well, gosh,
20:36
you know, w- if, if they are stealing them from the campo, if they're stealing them
20:43
from the, the field," and that meaning- Yeah â¦ the wild mountainside where the
20:47
horses are being turned out on which, you know, great in some ways, but not
20:51
great if people are gonna come eat them.
20:52
Then why, why turn them out there?
20:54
Why not just have them living- Yeah â¦ in boxes right around the house?
20:59
Carolina Lockwood: Something wasn't understood there.
21:00
They, they won't, they won't steal them from a campo
21:03
usually because that's too big.
21:06
They'll steal them from places that are near cities.
21:09
Yeah.
21:09
So Bariloche is, like, the perfect place 'cause I mean, there's the city, but
21:14
then there's a huge amount of, of- Yeah
21:17
nature and fields and mountains and things and p- where â¦ Just last month
21:22
in Bolson, which is a, a town, it's about 80 kilometer from here, this
21:27
beautiful white horse for equine therapy was stolen and, and they found him.
21:33
They found him dead.
21:35
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
21:35
Carolina Lockwood: Cut up.
21:36
And, and so it's the same.
21:38
It's near a center.
21:39
It's not a
21:40
I mean, my horse is out in the field on their own.
21:43
I mean, always with somebody l- looking after that farm.
21:47
They couldn't be on their own.
21:48
No.
21:49
Somebody who rides around every day and sees the cattle and sees the horses.
21:53
They're much safer there than they are here.
21:55
Yeah.
21:56
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
21:56
Carolina Lockwood: Much.
21:57
Rupert Isaacson: How did â¦ That was gonna be my question.
21:59
I- so at a certain point, things clearly stabilized, otherwise you wouldn't
22:03
have been able to run a program.
22:05
Yeah â¦ how did you end up being able to stabilize it?
22:08
How did you find the s- necessary security?
22:11
Carolina Lockwood: Well, yeah, I moved to where I live now, which
22:14
is- Mm-hmm â¦ not the mountain.
22:17
The, I mean, this horse that I was telling you that was stolen from the polo, it's
22:20
very near here, so it could happen.
22:23
But I think that the- I don't know, it's like a sort of protection.
22:28
There's a, the, in this open field that I have which is next
22:32
to my house, which can'tâ¦
22:33
I don't know how big it is.
22:34
It must be about 10 hectar- hectares or something like that.
22:38
Not bigger.
22:39
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
22:40
But the- So that's 20, 30 acres.
22:41
Yeah.
22:41
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, probably.
22:43
S- some of it's lots of trees, but anyway, when I started this, the guy
22:48
who lives the other side of the field is a vet, and he was doing a lot with
22:53
horses, and so were his daughters, and they had all their horses in the
22:58
field, and he was offering the field for pasture for other people, which
23:04
is a bit crazy because it wasn't his.
23:05
But anyway, that's a thing aside.
23:08
But all the people who would potentially have been able to come in and take a
23:16
horse, they knew him, and they knew they didn't mess with him either.
23:21
So, 'cause he knew everybody.
23:24
So I think in that way, I don't know, I mean, this is just thinking.
23:29
It's like I've had a, a protection from another source.
23:33
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
23:33
Mm-hmm.
23:34
Carolina Lockwood: But, you know, it's, it's something I think about all the time.
23:38
Just the day before yesterday, it was raining solid, not sunny like it is today,
23:43
and I took the two horses that are here to a, to a little field which is across
23:48
this marshland, and it was, I don't know, 7:00, and they hadn't come back.
23:53
And I thought, "Oh, my God, where are," you know, "They've, they've taken them.
23:56
They've got them."
23:58
I mean, my heart just jumps to my throat.
24:00
It does.
24:01
And they weren't.
24:01
They were there.
24:02
They were fine.
24:03
But it's something that, that's permanently, yeah, there.
24:08
Rupert Isaacson: So this is really interesting because I think, I think
24:10
anyone listening to this, you know- It's unlikely that most of the people who are
24:15
listening to or watching this are dealing with that anxiety, that particular one.
24:19
You know, in the UK, for example anyone who keeps horses close to cities knows
24:24
that their horses are at risk from being either sexually abused or mutilated.
24:28
There is unfortunately a weird sickness in the British.
24:34
Really?
24:34
Yeah.
24:35
So people living sometimes in liminal areas on the edges of
24:39
towns, this is a thing, right?
24:41
And then shooting at them, gouging an eye, you know, worse.
24:45
And then not all the time, but enough that people have to think about this.
24:50
I was doing a training in a large equine therapy place outside Bristol,
24:56
which backs sort of onto Bristol.
24:59
Beautiful hills, beautiful countryside, but the guy, you know, who was the
25:02
sort of stable manager said, "Yeah, Roo, we get everything into the box at
25:07
night, and we lock them up, and weâ¦
25:09
There's a big door, and no one can getâ¦"
25:11
You know, and in other areas, of course, people deal with tack theft.
25:13
And Ireland, you know, sometimes is a little bit prone to horse theft.
25:18
England, a little bit sometimes.
25:20
But, you know, it's not by any means a story that you're hearing all the
25:25
time from, you know, therapy centers.
25:28
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
25:28
Rupert Isaacson: And certainly not horses being taken for slaughter
25:31
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
25:32
I just want to say it doesn't happen every day, this.
25:34
Yeah.
25:34
You know, it's happened to m- enough to be really wary, you know?
25:39
I know people who it's never happened to, but- Exactly â¦ for
25:41
me, you know, I lost five horses.
25:44
It, it's too much.
25:46
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
25:46
So for me- And just the fact that you we- you were having to deal with that
25:49
anxiety at the same time as trying to put together a credible program,
25:54
I think f- for a lot of people, if they lost one horse or even just- Yeah
25:58
knew that they were living under the threat of that kind of thing-
26:01
Yeah â¦ it would be too much for them.
26:03
And so the fact that you managed to persevere really
26:05
speaks to your dedication.
26:08
Carolina Lockwood: Yep
26:09
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: and I think we just need to sort of take our hats off to you in
26:12
respect coming from- Yeah â¦ working in more secure environments that, you
26:16
know, it just shows that you should never take for granted what you have.
26:20
So all the, all of you who are listening and watching, I want you to go out and say
26:24
thank you to the area that you are in to the spirits of that area for affording you
26:32
a certain security where you don't even have to think about the kind of security
26:36
problems that, say, Carolina has to think about, while at the same time trying to
26:40
deliver, you know, healing for people.
26:42
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
26:43
It's been, what, 30 years, touch wood- Yeah â¦ that I haven't had a horse
26:47
stolen, but it, it has happened to me.
26:50
I'm not, you know, I'm notâ¦
26:51
But it happens all around, but not every day, but it is
26:54
something that's there, you know?
26:55
Yeah.
26:55
I don't want people think, you know, that we have to be out with guns every
26:59
day in the garden, 'cause we don't.
27:01
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
27:02
Carolina Lockwood: But, but it is a possibility.
27:04
Yeah, it definitely is.
27:05
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
27:06
And as you say, if, if just not seeing your horses for half, you know, part of
27:10
an afternoon in a massive pasture means that that's- Yeah â¦ you know, where
27:13
your mind goes, well, it, it goes there because it's been the reality before.
27:17
Yeah.
27:18
And it's, it's- Yeah
27:19
wonderful if oneâ¦
27:20
It's always a good day if you don't have to worry about your horse being
27:23
nicked and k- and slaughtered, you know?
27:25
Yeah.
27:25
I mean, it's a good day if you're not worried about that.
27:27
Yeah.
27:28
Yeah.
27:28
Okay.
27:29
So this, y- you're, you're dealing with-
27:35
A rough and difficult situation as you're getting your, your practice together.
27:40
And interestingly, I'm, I'm hearing also in your story, you're not,
27:44
you know, a lifelong horsewoman, so you're, you're also learning horses
27:49
as you go, to a certain degree.
27:51
And learning how to create reliable but also feeling good in their minds
27:58
and bodies, not just quiet therapy horses for your clients without- Mm
28:05
you know, 30 years of having grown up with horses under your belt.
28:09
What do you think were the, if you break it down, everyone evolves their own
28:14
system, everyone evolves their own way of sort of ensuring that the horse is good
28:20
in the body, that the horse is good in the mind, that the horse is good in the heart.
28:24
You learned from a number of people us included.
28:27
What did you sort of ended up, end up with as your sort of one, two, three structure?
28:36
Carolina Lockwood: Gosh, I don't know.
28:36
I've never thought about it- Mm â¦ quite like that.
28:39
I really haven't.
28:40
Rupert Isaacson: I know.
28:40
Until someone asks you, it's often- Yeah.
28:43
So for example- Yeah â¦ let, let me, let me help you.
28:45
So, if it's Horse Boy.
28:47
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
28:48
Rupert Isaacson: Us.
28:49
Then as you know- Yeah â¦ it's about we like our horses
28:51
to live outside, if we can.
28:53
We like our horses to live in herds.
28:55
We like our horses to have access to forage, free forage.
28:59
We- Yeah â¦ make sure that our horses are physically fit, so
29:03
they get trail ridden a lot.
29:05
We make sure that the horses have top line.
29:07
They get lunged a lot for top line.
29:09
We make sure that the horses are worked in hand a lot so that they have balance, so
29:13
that they have collection, and yoga, and just feel kind of good in their bodies.
29:17
And then we train them in specific techniques, you know, like a canter
29:21
in place and that sort of thing so they can deliver oxytocin.
29:24
But we can't even think about doing something like that unless
29:26
those other things are all in place as building blocks, right?
29:29
W- y- you know, we evolved into that because we realized, oh,
29:33
we need horses that can collect enough to produce oxytocin.
29:37
So what does a horse need to have as a platform?
29:41
It starts with the living outside with their friends.
29:44
It starts with the free forage.
29:46
It starts with the respect for what they need.
29:48
Then it starts with the fitness.
29:49
Then, then you have to go to the muscle building, then you have to
29:52
go to the suppling, then youâ¦
29:53
But each one of those steps means nothing without the steps before
29:56
it, if you know what I mean.
29:57
Yeah.
29:58
I, I'm, I'm always curious to know how people do it, you know?
30:00
So, so, so yeah, what's been your, your structure?
30:04
Carolina Lockwood: Well, well I think the structure comes a lot from, from all
30:08
these things that we were talking about.
30:10
You know, this anxiety of horses being stolen and stuff.
30:13
So when I started this next herd, it was like they have to have a
30:18
place that they can roam around free and they don't have to be tied up.
30:22
The- that has to be number one.
30:24
So, and, and they have to be happy.
30:27
They have to be happy that they have, you know, their friends and
30:30
they can come and go, and they have to trust me, and me trust them 100%.
30:39
Because as you know, and I, I mean you've just said it too, you know,
30:44
I'm not a horse woman from day one, although I've always loved them, and
30:48
I've never got to the level that you have at Horse Boy, and I don't think
30:52
I ever will, because it hasn't been, for me, the, the number one priority.
30:58
The, the, it'sâ¦
30:59
I mean, I can see it as a priority, and I've always said I love it and everything,
31:04
but I've never got there actually.
31:06
I mean, I've, I've done a lot, I think.
31:08
I've done a lot, but I haven't got to all this, you know, really top
31:13
line top line in, in, in s- true sense of the word, you know- Yeah.
31:18
I-
31:18
training and stuff.
31:20
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
31:20
Carolina Lockwood: But yeah, I've, I've- I've come to, to see that what I
31:26
was looking for was a horse coming in a natural way that would come to me without
31:33
having me to actually do that much.
31:37
I don't know if that makes sense.
31:38
And I think
31:39
Rupert Isaacson: everything- G- g- yeah, can you explain that a little more?
31:41
Yeah.
31:42
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
31:42
Well, I think it started with Paul Walker in this round pen or what he
31:46
showed us, and then I went on to learn more with him of how, how you can
31:51
connect with a horse without putting anything on him, and how he will come
31:56
and he will respond when he, he or she obviously, feels secure in your presence.
32:03
So I mean, all your horses are completely secure in, in yourâ¦
32:08
But I'm not s- I'm not comparing anything, I'm just saying what I was looking
32:11
for- Mm â¦ was that, was a horse that wasn't just a horse that was gonna be
32:16
put a saddle on, like what, what I used to do, and go out for a trail ride.
32:20
It was gonna be- Yeah
32:20
a lot more than that.
32:22
It was gonna be a horse that could, could come freely, who could see body movement,
32:28
body language, who could come and go.
32:30
I mean, it was like a sort of dance in a way.
32:32
Mm-hmm.
32:33
So that wasâ¦
32:34
It was from that basis because then I could see, 'cause I could see a
32:39
similarity too with autistic people and horses in the way that theyâ¦
32:46
And we can go into that later, but they do have, for me at,
32:49
at least, some similarities.
32:50
So I was looking at horses in, in all ways that wouldn't
32:55
produce any stress to their life.
32:59
It was like Temple Grandin when she s- she think, does this thing for the cows,
33:03
that she doesn't want to have stress when they're gonna be slaughtered.
33:07
W- I mean, not in that- Right â¦ not in that sense, but, but I
33:11
wanted a horse- I understand.
33:11
Yeah â¦ yeah.
33:13
And I, I was thinking today, it was funny you asked this, 'cause I was
33:16
thinking today when I was driving home when I used to take them to another
33:21
farm, the, the guy who used to run it died a few years ago, and, and the
33:27
horses, you know, I would go and I would say, "Don't round them up for me.
33:30
I wanna go out and find them wherever they are."
33:32
It was 4,000 acres, so they could be anywhere.
33:34
Mm-hmm.
33:34
But I b- knew where they would be, and he said, "Okay."
33:37
So nobody used to round them up, and then I would call them and they,
33:42
they would used to come galloping.
33:43
And once we filmed it, and various times, we filmed it- And I showed it
33:49
to him, and he said, "I don't know what you're doing with your horses,
33:53
but you must be doing something right."
33:55
'Cause I mean, th- there was these six horses galloping down the mountain
34:00
and coming to, to us, to, to me.
34:02
It was likeâ¦
34:03
And at the moment, at the camp that they're in I was just talking to the guy
34:08
who's in charge of the camp at the moment, and I left three there, and he rang me-
34:13
Rupert Isaacson: Camp meaning large area of- Yeah
34:14
of, of pasturage, right?
34:15
Yeah.
34:16
3,000
34:20
Carolina Lockwood: acres I think.
34:21
Yeah.
34:21
3,000 hectares it is.
34:23
And he was saying yesterday, 'cause he called, 'cause it's
34:26
been snowing and raining, "Do you want me to give them extra grass?"
34:29
And I said, "Yes, please do, because I can't get there in my car
34:31
'cause of the mud and everything."
34:33
And he said, "Your horses are something else because they see
34:36
us and they run a mile, but you come and they come galloping."
34:39
And it was like, okay.
34:41
So it's the same sort of thing.
34:43
So I don't know what I've done actually and it, you know, but, but I think that's
34:48
where I was aiming all the time s- for horses to want to be with the people,
34:54
and with the kids, and with the, what I'm doing now, that the horses can choose.
34:59
So that's probably the structure that, which is a non-structure
35:04
structure if you like.
35:05
I
35:05
Rupert Isaacson: don't know.
35:05
No, absolutely.
35:06
It, it makes sense.
35:08
And then of course when you are, a family comes, you know, and their child, let's
35:15
say it's a mounted session or they're gon- the child is gonna work with a
35:17
horse in whatever way, then of course you do need your horse there, and you
35:20
do need your horse to, that you need to be able to say to your horse, "Okay, now
35:23
listen, you know, for this time period, I need you to be my colleague here.
35:28
So yes, you have agency.
35:30
Yes, you can come and go, but not in this 45 minutes please."
35:34
So talk to us about the transition from that kind of free
35:38
roaming- Yeah â¦ thing to that.
35:39
Okay.
35:40
Yeah.
35:41
Carolina Lockwood: Well, that's when, when I started the horse therapy,
35:43
there wasn't free, free roaming with the horses with the kids.
35:46
I mean, that didn't happen.
35:47
They always had, you know, either a halter or a bridle if they're riding or whatever.
35:51
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
35:51
Carolina Lockwood: They weren't free around.
35:53
I mean, we'd, we'd have maybe three horses outside a pen and, and the horse
35:59
that was actually with the kid in.
36:01
I mean, security was number one always.
36:03
Mm-hmm.
36:06
So that was fine, and, you know, safety, yes, okay, good, fine.
36:12
But I was feeling that the horse wasn't being able to show exactly
36:16
what he was because the, the, the child or the adult, doesn't
36:22
matter, on the horse was one energy.
36:25
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
36:25
Carolina Lockwood: The side workers were two more energies, and sometimes
36:30
even a leader was another energy.
36:32
So I was thinking, "Who's the horse responding to?"
36:35
I mean, we know, everybody knows it's great and all that we get for it, and
36:40
sometimes you don't have side workers and you just have back riding, and that's
36:43
good, perfect, but sometimes you do.
36:46
And Iâ¦
36:46
It was sort of like making a noise in- inside of me.
36:49
Like, "Okay, this is great, but is the horseâ¦
36:53
I mean, if the horse was on his own with nothing, would he be doing this?"
36:58
Probably not.
36:59
So, so I think that was the beginning of the end of, of this program.
37:03
It was like, in a way, I wanted to respect the horse for all that he wanted or, or
37:10
what, or what I was imagining, because I don't know exactly what the horse wanted.
37:14
And, and in no way was the horse showing signs of being badly treated.
37:21
Yes, sometimes they looked a little bit bored, which was worrying me.
37:26
And then, and then one, well, two horses actually, one was my mistake completely.
37:32
It was the biggest horse that we have had, and, and I was putting people
37:38
that were too heavy on him, and I realized that that was not good for him.
37:43
So I spoke to the family and I said, "I'm sorry, but your kid or your
37:47
son can't ride this horse because it, the horse can't take him.
37:50
I'm
37:50
Rupert Isaacson: sorry."
37:51
Carolina Lockwood: And they were a little bit upset, but I thought, "Well, no."
37:54
And then that, you know, was like, okay, I've got toâ¦
37:58
Number one, the horse has to be 100% cared for because it's no
38:02
good for a huge guy getting on a horse if the horse is not good.
38:06
And then another thing that started happening, which was really- It w-
38:11
it was really eye-opening for me.
38:13
W- we have this horse called People, who at the moment is
38:16
with me now in the winter here.
38:19
Amazing horse.
38:20
I mean, gentle as gentleâ¦
38:22
I've got pictures with him with kids and, you know, they're holding his mouth and
38:27
he's doing like this, and he's just the be- it's a horse that you could put a
38:30
two-year-old on and say, "Go," and you'd be fine, 'cause he's not gon- I mean,
38:35
I know, unless, I don't know, maybe I don't know 100%, but 99 that it's okay.
38:42
Anyway, that horse suddenly started biting the person that was beside
38:49
him getting the person on him, or the person that was leading him.
38:54
Turning around and literally tryingâ¦
38:55
I mean, he's done it to me, trying to bite.
38:58
I mean, he doesn't actually bite because you, you stop, but you've gotâ¦
39:01
If you're notâ¦
39:02
You can't correct him when you've got a kid on.
39:04
And there was something there that, okay, something's going on here.
39:07
And it wasn't, it wasn't a back problem, problem, because if I got on him to just
39:12
ride him normally, that didn't happen.
39:15
It was like he didn't want to be led around anymore.
39:18
Rupert Isaacson: And it's- He was just saying, "I'm done with this."
39:20
Carolina Lockwood: I'm done with this.
39:21
And it, it, the amazing thing is it came at the same time
39:25
that I was done with it, too.
39:26
Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.
39:27
Carolina Lockwood: So it's likeâ¦
39:28
Yeah, very.
39:29
Very.
39:30
And even today, you know, if my grandkid comes and, and I, you know, I, I put
39:34
her on him, he turns round sort of saying, "We're not doing this anymore."
39:38
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
39:39
Carolina Lockwood: And but, but he's fine if I get on and ride him.
39:42
Hisâ¦
39:42
Yeah, it is.
39:43
It's in-
39:43
Rupert Isaacson: Well, I, I guess it shows that, that any animal,
39:46
any w- and which includes us, we're animals- Yeah â¦ we all need to grow.
39:50
We all need variety.
39:52
We all need- Yeah â¦ purpose.
39:53
We all need- But we do need growth.
39:56
We need, you know, we don't want to feel we're stagnant.
40:00
And-
40:00
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah
40:01
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: we're, I think we're all happy, humans, horses, dogs, we're
40:05
actually all happy being in service.
40:07
What we don't want to be is in servitude.
40:10
Yeah â¦ we, we want to have some agency in that service.
40:13
So one of the things which I learned a lot with Horse Boy, because we rely
40:19
so much on the goodwill of our horses with some of the really difficult kids
40:24
that we've had where I will have to take my hands off the reins completely
40:27
if I'm up there with the child, or I need to trust that this horse is solid.
40:32
And touch wood, touch wood, we never had accidents because as you know we're
40:35
so extraordinarily obsessive about the preparation we put into our horses, but
40:41
for a very good reason, because we are going to do battle with human unhappiness.
40:46
And sometimes, you know, that's going to present one with
40:49
situations that are not orthodox.
40:51
And I often find that it's in those situations that the horses really shine,
40:55
because then they have this sense of, "Oh, I do have, I have agency here, but I
41:03
choose- Right â¦ to look after your ass because there's precious cargo up here."
41:10
Yeah â¦ and I've never known one of our horses, what we
41:14
say in England, take the piss.
41:16
However, I'm very, like, I'm very careful to look for any sign of
41:24
sourness long before a horse would, say, turn its head and show its teeth,
41:31
because you- Yeah â¦ see this a lot, a lot, a lot in therapeutic riding
41:35
places, horses biting the handlers.
41:37
They often won't do it to the kid or the client, but they'll often
41:41
do it to the, to the handler.
41:43
And it's a clear, loud and clear thing saying, "I don't want to be doing this."
41:46
But what we found was that the trick is in rotation.
41:50
So a little bit, i- if you think of, say, a horse in therapy work
41:54
is really a special forces horse.
41:56
You know, how long can they spend on that front line without burning out?
42:01
You've got to rotate them out.
42:04
So we never do more than a certain number of sessions with any one horse,
42:09
and then that horse will go out and do other things for half a week.
42:14
So that by the time we bring them back with the clients, the horse
42:18
is like, "Yeah, I'm, I'm good.
42:19
Yeah, let's, let's go."
42:20
But I, I learned this early with Betsy in the very, very early days before there
42:24
was Horse Boy, before anything, that there were certain times I think I only
42:29
remember like three times, but three times she was like, "No, not today."
42:34
And those three times I didn't listen, and there was a bit of a negative outcome.
42:40
And I learned more about horsemanship, oddly enough, through h- those reactions
42:45
of hers, and then thinking, "Okay, how do I not trespass upon Betsy's goodwill?"
42:53
And I realized that it was about, it was all about resting, variety,
42:57
going off and doing other, taking a break coming back later.
43:00
And I said, "Well, that makes sense.
43:01
That would be me."
43:02
But also, it's interesting you say, "Well, do, do horses wanna do it?"
43:06
As you say, some, 'cause some people say, "Do horses even wanna be ridden?"
43:09
And then you say, oh, well, your horse, who's now sour with the therapy
43:13
work, still wants to be ridden by you.
43:16
So in my experience, horses actually do enjoy being ridden, provided it's
43:20
not an unpleasant experience for them.
43:22
And they do like the, to, to meet the challenge of a job in
43:29
just the same way that we do.
43:31
They love to work cows.
43:33
They love the therapy work.
43:34
They, they love to jump if, if it's, if, if, if it's right.
43:38
And if it's not right- Mm â¦ they don't.
43:40
And-
43:41
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah
43:41
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: how is it right and how is it not right?
43:45
The only way one can know this is by the clear signals the horses give,
43:48
give us, and putting certain structures in place like we are just not gonna
43:54
do too many sessions with each horse.
43:55
We are always gonna make sure that they get a break.
43:58
We are always gonna make sure that X, Y, and Z.
44:02
But I think what you're talking about there, interestingly, could be, you
44:07
know, horses being mirrors and all that, possibly less equine burnout and possibly
44:14
human burnout reflected in the horse.
44:17
I'm, I'm saying- Mm
44:18
I'm not, I'm not saying that is, I'm, I'm, I'm asking the question.
44:22
Could- But I, I'm speculating- Yeah â¦ let's say that.
44:24
Yeah.
44:24
Because I've, I've seen this happen many times.
44:27
Let's talk about that.
44:28
So you, you ran this program for, for many years.
44:34
Yeah.
44:34
And y- you weren't just doing it with purely horses.
44:38
You were always mixing art and ceramics and amazingly you know, I,
44:43
I re- I remember all the photographs and, and, and videos that would come
44:46
through to us of, of the amazing work you were doing, and it really, really
44:49
was amazing work, and I could see the healing happening in these families.
44:55
And at the same time as doing that, you're up there on the mountain.
44:58
You're a one-man show.
44:58
You're, you're, you're putting all this together, and you're worried about
45:01
people stealing and eating your horses.
45:04
Yeah, not surprising that you might burn out.
45:07
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
45:08
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah â¦ in retrospect, do you feel- If you had come at it from
45:15
a different cultural perspective in which burnout was allowed, 'cause, you know,
45:20
you and I are old school, and when we were growing up, burnout just, you know, no.
45:23
No, you don't, you don't burn out.
45:24
Yeah.
45:24
You keep going, always, you know.
45:26
Yeah.
45:26
But sometimes to the detriment of yourself and the project.
45:29
Do you think that if you hadâ¦
45:32
There's that structure word again.
45:33
If you had structured in the breaks and pauses for you and your horses
45:41
that you might not have burned out?
45:43
And do you even think that perhaps you, your burnout might only be temporary,
45:46
and you might go back to this again in some other way later when- I
45:52
Carolina Lockwood: don't know
45:52
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: your nervous system has done what it needs to do?
45:57
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47:16
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47:23
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47:41
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, interesting question.
47:42
I think gosh, the, the horses just, just to sort of get in context, they wereâ¦
47:51
We only worked twice a week-
47:54
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
47:55
â¦ Carolina Lockwood: with the horses.
47:56
And no horse did more than, I don't know, three sessions a day
48:01
maybe- Mm-hmm â¦ in those two.
48:03
So there wasn't really a, a hugeâ¦
48:07
And sometimes less, maybe one, you know.
48:11
Mm-hmm.
48:11
We had the three main horses took the brunt of everything 'cause
48:15
the other- Yeah â¦ two much.
48:17
So we hadâ¦
48:18
And then we had another one who died.
48:19
He did a lot too.
48:21
But anyway, this horse, it wasn't like he wasâ¦
48:25
I think, I think he was bored, and I think maybe that was- Yeah â¦ my f-
48:29
fault or whatever you like to call it, of not being able to give him more
48:35
different things to do, you know, on the days off, 'cause they were just pasture.
48:39
Or maybe, yeah, he'd go to the river and we'd have a ride or we'd,
48:42
you know, have fun with them all.
48:43
But he was the least, he was the least sort of energetic of the horses.
48:48
He's a horse who's just sort of, "Okay."
48:51
Now actually he's coming into his own, 'cause I'm giving him such
48:54
special attention that he's comingâ¦
48:56
He's sort of rising up, which is interesting too.
49:00
He was a horse that used to belong to a guy on an island in the lake,
49:04
and the guy died, and he was then shipped to different, different places.
49:09
And anyway, I think he, he sort of needed a little bit of TLC more.
49:15
And he,
49:15
Rupert Isaacson: yeah- Yeah.
49:16
He ne- maybe he needed to be somebody's pony again.
49:19
Carolina Lockwood: Exactly.
49:20
Exactly.
49:21
And the, and the, the strain, the funny thingâ¦
49:23
Well, not funny.
49:24
Funny, peculiar my dad would say thing, was that he was given to, to me because
49:30
he was abandoned by these other centers.
49:32
Anyway, long story.
49:34
And I said, "Gosh, I don't know really if I want another horse."
49:37
And I had these two girls working with me and I said,
49:41
"We've been offered this horse.
49:42
He's worked in therapy before.
49:45
Do you want to sort of adopt him, have him here?
49:48
But the conditions are that you take care of him 100%.
49:52
You train him, you bomb-proof him, you do this, you do that,
49:57
you take him, you have fun," blah.
49:59
"Oh, yes, yes, yes."
50:00
Well, they never did a thing literally.
50:04
I mean, I hope they don't hear this.
50:06
But anyway.
50:06
I
50:09
don't think they will.
50:09
They did, they did very little.
50:11
It's not a thing.
50:13
And, and so in the end I said, "You know what?
50:15
This horse is coming back to the foundation.
50:17
It's not yours anymore 'cause thatâ¦"
50:19
And, and he wasn't a, a, a person's pony.
50:22
I think, I think maybe that's the crux of the, of the matter.
50:26
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
50:27
But,
50:27
Carolina Lockwood: but now-
50:27
Rupert Isaacson: Go ahead, sorry.
50:28
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
50:29
Yeah.
50:30
So I don't know if my burnout was a bit of- Doing a one-man
50:36
show in lots of things.
50:37
I, you know, had people helping and everything, but I was sort of the-
50:40
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
50:41
â¦ Carolina Lockwood: like manager, if you like to say it that way.
50:43
And then, you know, people were rebelling 'cause they wanted to be
50:47
horizontal and they didn't want a leader.
50:49
And I said, "But somebody has to be the leader, and this is my space."
50:52
And you know, and I, I just, I, I don't know, I was getting
50:56
older, my back was hurting.
50:58
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
50:58
Carolina Lockwood: And I, but I need something calmer.
51:01
I need something where I can just be with the people and the horses and not
51:05
have to deal with all this structure, with this, you know, the, the bills- Yeah
51:10
the debt, the, the invoices, the families- That's, yeah â¦ all, well,
51:15
you know what I'm talking about.
51:16
It's huge.
51:17
I,
51:17
Rupert Isaacson: I think every single person listening to
51:19
this show will go, "Uh-huh."
51:21
Yeah.
51:23
Carolina Lockwood: And I, it's not that I gave up.
51:25
I switched.
51:26
And, and- Yeah â¦ you know, it took a, it took a, it took a really hard decision
51:31
inside to say, "Okay, this is done."
51:34
And I tried to carry it on for a season with one of the girls who used to work
51:38
for us, and, and it didn't work out.
51:41
And then I thought, "I'm done.
51:43
I'm done."
51:43
Mm.
51:44
"I'm done withâ¦"
51:45
And I, and I'm gonna go onto the next stage, and I feel and I felt, and I
51:50
still feel, that sometimes you have to close one stage for another to open.
51:55
So when you ask if you hadn't burnt out, would you go back to this?
51:59
No, I doubt it very much.
52:01
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
52:01
Carolina Lockwood: You know, I can, I can, I can explain to people how to do it.
52:06
In, in fact, I've, I've sort of trained a, a lady in Chile, the one I talked
52:10
to you about, and she started her own place, and she's doing really well.
52:15
I mean, not up to your standards, but she's still doing really well.
52:19
And you know, I can do that sort of thing, but I wouldn't run a
52:22
place like that again, at least not
52:24
Rupert Isaacson: in the- Right, but, but what I, what I mean by coming
52:25
back to it is ex- i- is exactly that.
52:27
I'm not talking those extremes.
52:29
And because you and I both know that you actually haven't really stopped.
52:31
You've, you've, as in your own words from just a couple of
52:35
minutes ago, you've switched now.
52:37
And you, you're, you're now continuing to do equine-assisted work.
52:41
It's just not in that- intensive way.
52:44
Gotcha.
52:45
And I think that everybody does have a certain time limit on that, frankly.
52:50
You know, I myself I don't think would want to go back to running the
52:56
type of intensive program we ran at New Trails when we came to, in Texas.
53:02
Then we came to, to Tex- to Germany, and we changed how we were running.
53:08
And I did much less work that was sort of center-based, and I did much more
53:14
work where I'd say to families, "Meet me in this car park in the forest.
53:19
Meet me in this-" Wow â¦ "playground, and I'm gonna- Wow â¦ I'm gonna meet
53:23
you and your kid there, and we're gonna go out into the forest, or
53:26
we're gonna start in this playground."
53:27
And I, I, I, and I found that that was much more joyful.
53:32
Great.
53:32
And then it developed again to where we had groups from the local
53:38
international school, where all manner of different things from,
53:42
from, you know, very low cognition right up to sort of problem geniuses.
53:47
And doing something much more nature-based in which the horse was there and available
53:54
usually accompanying us with a saddle on because, but usually more than by the time
54:00
the kids were tired from running around in the forest, then they would take turns.
54:04
We'd have one or two horses riding home, and then we'd get our oxytocin
54:08
effects going, and sometimes we'd ride with them or sometimes we'd
54:11
walk next to them or, you know.
54:12
And we'd work the horses in hand and give them a little piaffe and a little passage.
54:15
But the majority of what we were doing was wading in the creek
54:19
and chasing songbirds to find out what they were and, you know, Yeah
54:23
identifying trees, so in French or whatever, or German.
54:28
So it, it evolved, it evolved, it evolved.
54:31
And now ob- obviously I train a lot of people.
54:34
And that's one of the things which we are, as you, you know, with Horse
54:39
Boy Movement Method, it's, it's not about saying, "There is this
54:42
rigid thing that you have to do."
54:44
Apart from the basic thing of learning how to really follow the child's interests
54:49
and a certain base horse welfare.
54:53
Yeah.
54:54
These are really just toolkits that we give to people and say, "Use these
54:58
toolkits in the way that seems right for you and this person in, in, in this
55:02
way because you need that creativity, and anyway, we don't know your context."
55:06
And we find that that prevents burnout.
55:09
But running centers, it's tough, and I think everybody has a certain time limit.
55:15
So, so tell, so you say you've switched.
55:17
Tell us how you've switched.
55:18
What have you switched to?
55:20
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
55:21
Well, I've switched, I switched starting with the coaching.
55:24
I, I trained in Colorado.
55:26
The, the times that I went to you in Texas, I usually added on a
55:29
bit and went there too and sort of trained there And where did
55:31
Rupert Isaacson: you go in Colorado?
55:32
What were you learning?
55:33
Who did you learn from?
55:35
Carolina Lockwood: I learned from Kathy Pike.
55:36
She'd learned with Linda Kohanov.
55:39
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
55:39
Which
55:40
Carolina Lockwood: you've probably, probably heard of.
55:41
And,
55:42
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, yeah, sh- we- weâ¦
55:43
In fact, to listeners, go to our Live Free, Ride Free podcast and look for
55:48
our interview with Linda Kohanov there.
55:50
Yeah.
55:50
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
55:51
Thank you.
55:51
I didn't realize that one.
55:53
Good.
55:53
Great.
55:53
Anyway, so I trained with her.
55:55
It was about, I think it was about two years.
55:58
I traveled, gosh, I can't remember now, three, four times.
56:02
We did a lot of online and then, and then- Mm-hmm â¦ had presence.
56:07
And, and as, as, as I said to you, I think before we started the call,
56:11
I usually take quite a time to sort of actually start something
56:14
new, you know, once I've learnt it.
56:16
So anyway, I learnt that, I trained in that, and then I
56:19
started doing sessions here.
56:21
And they, they went really well and I, and but then the pandemic came, so
56:25
then I really said, "Okay, I'm done with this the, the way that I know the
56:31
horse therapy with the, you know, what, what, what we've just been talking
56:34
about and I'm gonna start this."
56:37
So I put more energy into that, and people started coming.
56:41
And it was, it was so great 'cause it, it just felt so easy, the whole thing.
56:46
I mean, it was, it was a one-man show, but it was literally a oneâ¦
56:50
It was me, the horses, or the horses, me, and the, and the client, and that was it.
56:55
So then, you know, there was noâ¦
56:57
I didn't evenâ¦
56:57
Well, Kathy always said you had to have helpers, but I didn't because I knew
57:01
my horses and I, you know, I didn't feel it was nec- sometimes I did.
57:05
Somebody wanted to listen in or look on or whatever, so we did that.
57:09
And that, that grew and grew, and it was really good.
57:12
So sometimes we had group sessions, sometimes individuals, and I was called
57:17
to do The same thing in a, in a place here called, it's a really, really
57:24
beautiful place called Penmaenmawr where they have people to do what you
57:30
call in English, retiros, when you go somewhere and you take a retreat.
57:34
Rupert Isaacson: Retreat.
57:34
Yeah.
57:34
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
57:35
Yeah, sort of healing retreats.
57:37
Rupert Isaacson: So they would go- Although retiro sounds so much better.
57:39
Yeah.
57:40
Carolina Lockwood: It does, actually.
57:43
And so I was called in and I would do, say, a morning or morning and afternoon,
57:48
or one or the other with, with the people, with the horses doing this
57:53
coaching but sort of group coaching, which is a little bit different.
57:56
But it was really amazing what went on.
57:59
It was, like, mind-blowing and, and the same was happening in, in my space.
58:04
So that's when I really thought, "Okay, this is â¦ I, I just feel
58:08
so much more relaxed with this."
58:10
The horses are, are there.
58:12
I mean, they're, they're completely there whether you choose one horse
58:17
and, and, and it's in the round pen with a person, or if the person's
58:21
out in the field with 10 horses.
58:24
You're always looking after the safety if it's â¦ If they're out in the field, I
58:28
have to know the horses, that they're all gonna be okay and all that sort of thing.
58:32
And but that was really good.
58:34
And then so that was continuing, so that's how the s- actual switch happened.
58:40
And I still got calls from people saying, "I've got, you know,
58:43
this kid and this kid, and he
58:45
We want him to ride."
58:46
And I said, "Sorry, I'm not doing this anymore."
58:48
And it was really hard to say, "I'm not doing this anymore."
58:52
So sometimes I would say, "Well, come and we'll do work from the
58:57
ground, you know, communication."
59:00
And I did that for, for various people, too.
59:03
And then that sort of fizzled out.
59:05
You know, when you don't put your energy into something it just sort of-
59:08
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
59:09
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
59:10
And then another girl here opened a center doing horse therapy, and I think
59:14
lots of people must have gone there.
59:16
I don't even know.
59:17
But so I was really happy that I had made this sw- I mean, it was tough
59:22
at the beginning to go into the space and, you know, where all this
59:26
huge thing had been happening, and suddenly it was the horses and me
59:29
and saying, "Oh, what do we do now?"
59:32
It was like, you know, w- but in the same time it was growing into something else.
59:37
And then we had â¦ I think you, you met Frederic Pignon.
59:42
Rupert Isaacson: Y- yes, yes I have.
59:44
Yes
59:45
â¦ Carolina Lockwood: Well, we had his brother here,
59:46
Jean-Francois Pignon, and he- Who
59:47
Rupert Isaacson: I've also met.
59:48
He's also very good, yes
59:50
â¦ Carolina Lockwood: W- amazing.
59:51
And he came- Yeah â¦ and he did a, a sort of liberty training course.
59:56
Rupert Isaacson: Wonderful.
59:57
Carolina Lockwood: And I was â¦ Yeah, and I was like, "Wow, this is so amazing."
1:00:01
I mean, it was like Paul Walker to the 100%.
1:00:05
It was like, "Wow, this is what I wanna do with horses."
1:00:08
And then so when he was there, so I really practiced all
1:00:12
that he showed us what to do.
1:00:13
Mm-hmm.
1:00:13
And then a disciple of his called Celeste gosh, I can't remember her surname.
1:00:18
She's French, really amazing.
1:00:19
She came and she carried on here.
1:00:23
And that for me was even, was even richer because she, I don't know, it
1:00:28
was just like I, I, we jumped forth with the horses so much with that.
1:00:34
The, you know, how to communicate, how to train, and so simple
1:00:39
and can be done with any horse.
1:00:40
So then I started offering sessions for people.
1:00:43
You know, they could either choose with coaching or they could choose
1:00:46
this liberty work, which is very basic.
1:00:49
It wasn't getting to Pignon's level, no way, neither them nor me.
1:00:54
No.
1:00:55
But it, but yes, we were able to show how to connect with horses, which I
1:01:00
was finding more and more that was what people were looking for, is how
1:01:04
to actually connect with the horse.
1:01:06
And who were
1:01:06
Rupert Isaacson: the people who were coming out to you at this point?
1:01:09
Carolina Lockwood: Just people from around here, you know, word of mouth saying, "You
1:01:12
Rupert Isaacson: know I-" Yeah, but what, what were they coming with?
1:01:14
Were they coming with just, "I want to learn how to work a horse," or
1:01:16
were they coming with, "I'm depressed because I have postpartum depression,"
1:01:20
or were they coming with- Well-
1:01:21
"I, I have an eating disorder"?
1:01:23
Like, what, what were they coming with?
1:01:25
Carolina Lockwood: All, all sorts of things.
1:01:27
"I'm depressed.
1:01:27
I've justâ¦
1:01:28
I wantâ¦
1:01:28
I need a divorce and I can't get one.
1:01:31
You know, I don't know where to go in life.
1:01:33
I've got no job.
1:01:34
I've, you know, I, I don't know how to put limits with my kids."
1:01:37
There was
1:01:38
Rupert Isaacson: just huge- Right.
1:01:39
The, the, the whole gamut.
1:01:41
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, whole gamut, and also what I could see is they're just-
1:01:44
Rupert Isaacson: But no longer, at this point, say nonverbal autistic kids.
1:01:48
Carolina Lockwood: No, no.
1:01:49
Sometimes, yes.
1:01:51
Sometimes somebody would come.
1:01:52
Last summer one came for something completely different.
1:01:56
Mm-hmm.
1:01:56
You know, I never say no.
1:01:58
In, in the way that you want to come try this out, that's fine, but
1:02:01
I'm not offering a program- Yeah
1:02:03
you know, with helmets and riding.
1:02:05
That'sâ¦
1:02:06
I'm not doing that anymore.
1:02:07
And itâ¦
1:02:08
Y- you know, I, I love it, but I- I'm,
1:02:09
Rupert Isaacson: I'm curious.
1:02:10
When, when you have someone who's coming at that more challenging level
1:02:14
of cognition, say nonverbal, to do something like- Yeah â¦ liberty
1:02:17
with you, how does that play out?
1:02:20
Carolina Lockwood: Well, actually it plays out really well because I mean,
1:02:24
you can show a non-verbal kid all what you're doing just by showing, you know.
1:02:29
And dif- it would be maybe more difficult to do a blind kid in that
1:02:34
because if they can't see, it's very difficult to actually show.
1:02:37
You could explain.
1:02:38
Well, you can always do something.
1:02:40
But anyway, showing them non-verbal or maybe not non-verbal, but really autistic,
1:02:46
you know, showing if you, if you stand like this with a horse and y- and you
1:02:51
do like that, the horse will go back.
1:02:52
And then if you go this way, the horse will come to you.
1:02:55
And if you have a rope, or not even a rope, if you sort of in the roundâ¦
1:03:00
This would always happen probably in the round pen, not, not further than that.
1:03:03
Mm-hmm.
1:03:04
And, and you ask a horse to walk that way, they will, and it sort of empowered them.
1:03:11
It w- it, it really empowered them.
1:03:12
The same as we used to do lunging with, with kids in the program.
1:03:16
Mm-hmm.
1:03:17
And it really empowered the kids because they realized that if their
1:03:21
attention wasn't 100% on what they were doing, it really worked with kids
1:03:25
who were all over there at school.
1:03:27
Mm-hmm.
1:03:27
If, you know, if they weren't really focused, the horse would just ignore them
1:03:31
and do something completely different.
1:03:32
So then you would say, "Hey, look at the horse.
1:03:35
You know, look at the, theâ¦"
1:03:36
And then, and then they were there.
1:03:38
So in a way it was the same with the liberty, not to the extent probably, and
1:03:45
I didn't actually pursue it that much.
1:03:47
It wasn't something that I was asking to come in.
1:03:51
Mm-hmm.
1:03:51
But if it came, I did.
1:03:53
Yeah, it was okay.
1:03:54
It was okay.
1:03:55
Yeah.
1:03:55
Yeah.
1:03:56
So then what I really saw too, which was interesting, is that
1:03:59
sometimes, you know, people would say, "W- what are you offering?"
1:04:03
So I would say, "Well, you can do this or this.
1:04:05
You can do liberty work.
1:04:07
I can show you, you know, how to connect with a horse and how
1:04:10
to ask it to walk around you or come towards you or whatever.
1:04:14
And, or coaching, or we can just sit and meditate.
1:04:18
We can do whatever you like really."
1:04:20
And what, what I was seeing is that when you were doing the liberty
1:04:23
work, all the rest came in as well.
1:04:26
Because if somebody wanted a horse to walk away from them, but they would say,
1:04:31
"Oh no, but poor thing, I don't want them to walk away, you know, I feel bad."
1:04:36
Well, then the horse wasn't gonna walk away.
1:04:38
So then it would be exploring, well, what's happening inside you that you
1:04:42
can't feel the energy to ask somebody something, somebody or some animal
1:04:47
or whatever, something that you need.
1:04:50
So it really tied up and that was really interesting.
1:04:53
It, it still is.
1:04:54
It's amazing.
1:04:55
Yeah.
1:04:57
Rupert Isaacson: And now to this day, that's the work you're mostly doing?
1:05:01
Carolina Lockwood: Well, that and now I started the energy healing.
1:05:04
Rupert Isaacson: Tell us
1:05:05
Carolina Lockwood: about that.
1:05:06
Yeah, so I've just finished a year and a half, no, a year and three month
1:05:11
course of energy healing with horses.
1:05:14
It was online with a girl- Who
1:05:16
Rupert Isaacson: through?
1:05:16
Where, who was offering this?
1:05:18
Carolina Lockwood: She's called Saskia Marroquin.
1:05:22
Where is she based?
1:05:24
At the moment liv- she, at the moment she's in Italy.
1:05:25
She moved.
1:05:26
She was in Cordoba, which is north of Buenos Aires in Argentina.
1:05:30
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:05:30
Carolina Lockwood: And, and she'd been doing this work for about, I
1:05:33
don't know, eight years I think.
1:05:35
Saskia- And so â¦ Marroquin.
1:05:36
I'll, I'll write it-
1:05:38
Rupert Isaacson: Marroquin.
1:05:39
Yeah.
1:05:39
I'll, I'll, I'll look her up.
1:05:41
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
1:05:42
Well, I'll, I'll send you to in a, in a message later with the spelling.
1:05:45
Great.
1:05:46
And she's got a a center called Caballo Cosmico, which like cosmic horse.
1:05:50
Mm-hmm.
1:05:51
And anyway, she â¦ It sort of â¦ I'd, I'd read about this, I'd seen about
1:05:55
this online, you know, with our, all our connections now on Instagrams and stuff.
1:06:01
I could see things that were happening and I thought, "Wow, this looks so amazing.
1:06:06
How â¦ You know, what's happening?
1:06:08
How can I learn this?"
1:06:09
So anyway, you know, I could have just tried it out and see what
1:06:13
happened, but I really thought there was a lot more to it than that.
1:06:18
So I, I signed up for the course, and at first it was a three-month
1:06:23
course, which was a little bit basic, and then we, we went on for
1:06:27
another year to do a sort of mastery.
1:06:29
Really interesting.
1:06:31
All about energy work, you know, the chakra- Tell us how it
1:06:34
Rupert Isaacson: works.
1:06:35
I mean, energy work is a hugely broad term.
1:06:38
Carolina Lockwood: It's a huge thing.
1:06:39
Yeah, it's
1:06:39
Rupert Isaacson: huge.
1:06:40
Carolina Lockwood: I-
1:06:40
Rupert Isaacson: So, so what, what does it, what does that mean to you?
1:06:42
What does that mean within this system?
1:06:49
Carolina Lockwood: I don't know if I can explain it sort
1:06:50
of really synthesized, but-
1:06:52
Rupert Isaacson: Give it a try
1:06:53
â¦ Carolina Lockwood: but ba- Okay, I'll give it a try.
1:06:57
So basically, I mean, we know that everything's energy, right?
1:07:00
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:07:00
Carolina Lockwood: Inside us, outside us.
1:07:02
The, the whole universe is made out of energy.
1:07:04
Mm-hmm.
1:07:04
So it can, it can flow and it can not flow.
1:07:07
I mean, I think we can feel it.
1:07:09
You know, if suddenly you get all tied up in knots 'cause I don't know, you
1:07:12
can't manage to do something or I don't know, whatever it is, you, you sort of,
1:07:18
at least I do, y- sort of feel blocked.
1:07:21
Wh- when that unblocks, then you can say, "Oh, okay, I can relax now.
1:07:25
I can, you know, can look at the sky and everything's fine."
1:07:27
That would be a really basic way of, of, of saying it, but energy, as it's
1:07:34
everywhere, it's also through our body, and so we might have all sorts of things
1:07:39
that block our energy, the horses as well.
1:07:43
But there's an interesting thing between horses and humans there, but humans,
1:07:48
we might block our energy through trauma, we might have had an accident,
1:07:54
which is also traumatic, or we mightâ¦
1:07:57
It's not even traumatic.
1:07:58
We might have a block because we don't feel good enough in the world
1:08:02
or because we've been sh- Acquired
1:08:03
Rupert Isaacson: beliefs, prejudices- Yeah, exactly â¦ software put
1:08:06
into us as children culturally.
1:08:07
Yeah.
1:08:08
Yeah.
1:08:08
Carolina Lockwood: Ex- limiting beliefs, all that.
1:08:11
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:08:11
Carolina Lockwood: All that sort of produces different blocks in
1:08:14
different areas in the, in the body and in, in our energy system.
1:08:18
So, I mean, there's allâ¦
1:08:20
millions, I don't know if millions, but anyway, lots and lots and lots
1:08:24
of ways to unblock energy centers.
1:08:27
I mean- Mm-hmm â¦ you can find it anywhere, you know, online.
1:08:29
You can do meditations.
1:08:31
You can use a gong.
1:08:32
You can go up the mountain.
1:08:34
Youâ¦
1:08:35
I mean, there's ever any amount of ways to, to work on oneself and others.
1:08:42
Work in the good sense of the word.
1:08:45
Where the horses come in there is that their energy system is the same as ours
1:08:52
in the sense that energy runs through them as well, but they at least seemâ¦
1:08:58
I mean, we're not a horse.
1:08:59
We don't actually know.
1:09:01
This is what I feel.
1:09:02
This is from my point of view.
1:09:04
But they seem to be able to realign very much more easily than we do.
1:09:11
You know, like the famous they go back to grazing.
1:09:13
I mean, a horse can have a really traumatic thing in the, in the round
1:09:18
pen, you know, and somebody hitting with a whip, probably not in your way,
1:09:24
way of the world, but anyway, it does happen, and then they let them out to
1:09:27
graze, and they just go up with the herd, and they go back to grazing.
1:09:31
But that trauma will be installed, so the next time they get into a round
1:09:35
pen with somebody like that, they'll, you know, they'll all tense up again.
1:09:40
But they- Yeah â¦ do tendâ¦
1:09:42
They're so authentic- That they, they tend to be able to, to realign and,
1:09:48
and sort of, sort of get, get sort of-
1:09:52
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, they're, they're, they're massively resilient.
1:09:54
They have to be- Yeah â¦ because if you think about in the natural, in the wild,
1:09:58
they're hunted by predators all the time.
1:10:00
And I've, I've, you know, spent time in Mongolia where wolves
1:10:03
were coming around to try to eat our horses when we were camping.
1:10:07
Some, some horses get hunted by wolves.
1:10:09
Yeah â¦ the ones that get away, get away, and do not require 10 years of therapy.
1:10:14
They just- Mm â¦ rejoin with the herd and- Yeah â¦ go back toâ¦
1:10:18
Now, they're looking out, they're vigilant, they're looking out for
1:10:20
wolves, but they're not, it doesn't impair their quality of life, no.
1:10:24
Exactly.
1:10:24
Yeah.
1:10:25
if you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast, I'm guessing you are, then
1:10:30
you've probably also always wondered a little bit about the old master system.
1:10:36
of dressage training.
1:10:37
If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
1:10:46
exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
1:10:52
of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
1:10:59
well being of the horse and the rider.
1:11:01
Intrigued?
1:11:02
Like to know more?
1:11:04
Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
1:11:09
Check out the free introduction course.
1:11:11
Take it from there.
1:11:12
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, I think that's, that's probably the crus- crux of it.
1:11:15
And as they're so authentic, you know, a horse is not gonna do anything that
1:11:19
he doesn't want, and if he does do something he doesn't want, it's because
1:11:22
he's probably been submitted to do it.
1:11:24
I mean, I've seen this, you s- at least in this part of the world, you see it a lot.
1:11:29
You know, horses are sort of tied up to a post, and they leave them there whenâ¦
1:11:33
luckily, hopefully not anymore hardly, but they leave them there
1:11:37
for two days without water so they can, you know, give in sort of thing.
1:11:41
And, and luckily that's not happening hardly anymore, at least where I saw.
1:11:45
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I'd, I'd say you'd be hard put to
1:11:46
find that in Europe anymore.
1:11:47
I'm sure it goes on somewhere, but it's, it's dark corners.
1:11:50
You wouldn't be running into it, yeah.
1:11:52
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
1:11:53
Yeah.
1:11:53
I think less and less here, but it does happen.
1:11:55
I mean- Mm â¦ it, it's called æ¿ ä»·, and it's a pole in the middle,
1:11:59
and a horse will get tied to it and, yeah, or beaten or whatever.
1:12:03
So but anyway- Yeah â¦ they, they, unless they're submitted to that,
1:12:07
they will be authentic in showing, you know, "I don't like this.
1:12:11
Don't wantâ¦"
1:12:11
I mean, w- what we were talking about before with a horse-
1:12:14
Yeah â¦ that bite, yeah.
1:12:15
And, and a, and a p- a human, even a dog maybe, you know, a human, a, a
1:12:21
human pleases in a way, so, so they sometimes they don't say exactly
1:12:27
what they're feeling or thinking.
1:12:29
Yeah, I mean, we, I think we all do it, you know, and, and not always to please
1:12:34
somebody, but sometimes you think, "Oh gosh, I can't stand this, but I better
1:12:37
not say anything 'cause it's won't go down well," something like that.
1:12:42
But, but a horse won't do that.
1:12:44
He'll, he'll just either ignore you or go away or, or he
1:12:48
won't, he won't be cooperative.
1:12:51
I, I don't know if that's clear, but, but it does-
1:12:54
Rupert Isaacson: No, it is.
1:12:54
But but I, I, I think I'm asking a different question.
1:12:57
So energy work I'm, you know, I'm no stranger to.
1:12:59
Yeah.
1:12:59
But I don't tend to call it that only because those two words carry a
1:13:04
certain stigma that- Yeah â¦ blocks people from being able to engage with
1:13:09
the subject matter because it, it will just press buttons of prejudice.
1:13:14
But with the amount of time I've spent, say, with shamans, I know
1:13:18
that one can actually explain these things relatively straightforwardly.
1:13:23
Like one can explain the neuroscience of why movement affects the brain.
1:13:27
You know, you've got this thing called BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
1:13:30
It's an amino acid that is a protein that causes you to create more brain
1:13:35
cells, and you do this when you do novel movement where the body's not expectâ¦
1:13:39
can't predict what's gonna happen later.
1:13:40
Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.
1:13:41
That's how you get neuroplasticity.
1:13:43
That's â¦ One can explain these things, and now obviously there are complexities
1:13:48
to that, but let's say they generalize it.
1:13:49
So f- the generalization of, of energy work or healing, as I understand it from
1:13:55
the mentors that I've had in the Kalahari, for example, with the Bushmen, is there
1:13:59
is a, a life force in the body, which is a
1:14:01
It's, it's your sexual life force, but it's also your,
1:14:04
just your general life force.
1:14:05
And people have different names for this in different cultures.
1:14:08
So in Asia it might be called qi or chi or kundalini.
1:14:12
But in this particular part of Africa where I've had most of
1:14:16
my experience, it's called !num.
1:14:18
And !num
1:14:18
is an, a word that has a number of ambiguous meanings, but it really means
1:14:24
sort of life force, power, wisdom, but specifically this f- And they say that
1:14:28
this resides at the base of the spine, and you, you'll hear the same thing said
1:14:31
in Asia, and you'll hear the same thing said, you know, in, by jungle shamans in
1:14:36
South America, and you'll hear the same thing said in the Arctic, and you'll hear
1:14:38
the same thing said in Native America.
1:14:40
And you would hear the same thing said in, you know, pre, pre-Christian
1:14:44
Europe before we put to death everybody that had a background with this.
1:14:48
But there's actually still a few of them knocking around up in Lapland and so on.
1:14:52
And with a certain training process, you can learn to harness this.
1:14:56
So if you were, say, in the jungles of South America, you
1:14:59
could use a plant like ayahuasca or a, a conglomeration of plants.
1:15:03
Or if you were in Native America, you could use cacti, you could use
1:15:06
peyote, you could use San Pedro.
1:15:08
But if you're in the Kalahari where these things don't grow, you
1:15:11
have to use physical dance And a system of training to go through.
1:15:15
But whichever way you use, the result is the same.
1:15:18
You, you harness this energy, you make it go up the spine, and y- once it
1:15:24
goes up the spine you can then begin to pull bad things out of people or
1:15:29
put good things into people- Yeah
1:15:30
and go off and talk to ancestor spirits and get answers for dilemmas.
1:15:33
Go and talk to nature spirits, get answers for dilemmas.
1:15:36
Come out of the trance, and the person who's come to you with a dilemma,
1:15:41
bad back, divorce, whatever, you can say, "Okay, here is a series of
1:15:45
instructions that I, I have for you."
1:15:47
And that is basically how it pans out in any indigenous setting.
1:15:51
Mm-hmm.
1:15:51
Whether they are wearing furs, feathers, completely naked, or
1:15:56
herding reindeer or whatever.
1:15:58
You could even argue that when you go to a doctor it's the same thing.
1:16:02
You go to a doctor with a story and this is going on in my body,
1:16:06
this is going on in my, my mind.
1:16:08
The doctor goes into their store of knowledge, perhaps into
1:16:11
their little magic box that they have sitting in front of them.
1:16:14
Yeah.
1:16:15
And they come out with a set of instructions, and they give those set
1:16:17
of instructions to you that are usually based on getting a plant-based thing
1:16:22
that is now synthetic that was probably based on something that they got from
1:16:26
the Amazon that the pharmaceutical company has, you know, put a pa-
1:16:29
patent on, and h- went through- Yeah
1:16:31
a drug trial and only got on the market when more people got better
1:16:36
through the drug than the placebo.
1:16:40
And in the first- Yeah â¦ few rounds of the drug trial, more people would've
1:16:43
gotten better on the placebo, thinking, trance, the mind, the heart thinking
1:16:50
that they were taking the drug, and it's not until more people get better
1:16:53
off the drug than off the placebo that the drug goes on the market.
1:16:56
So you could even argue that in allopathic medicine it's the same thing.
1:16:59
So when I, when I'm asking you for this kind of clarity, it, the reasonâ¦
1:17:04
it's the journalist in me.
1:17:05
I'm not, I won't let you get, be vague, because I don't think that's useful.
1:17:10
I think what's useful- No â¦ is clarity, because, you know, when one is coming
1:17:14
with a dilemma to have a bunch of mystery and, and vagueness thrown is,
1:17:19
it just adds to the confusion, you know?
1:17:21
Right.
1:17:21
But if one can say, "Well, you know, it's relatively straightforward.
1:17:24
We do this, we do this, and then we do this."
1:17:26
And that doesn't take away from the magic, because there's an awful lot of nuances
1:17:30
to the this, the this, and the this.
1:17:32
But one can say- Yeah â¦ there is this thing called Well, it's not activating
1:17:40
kundalini or
1:17:43
anything like
1:17:57
Carolina Lockwood: it to- Okay â¦ to start.
1:17:59
Yeah, it's, it's not.
1:18:00
I, I'm, I'm familiar with that and it's, it's not.
1:18:03
Whether that happens-
1:18:04
Rupert Isaacson: Now we know what it's not.
1:18:05
What is it?
1:18:07
Carolina Lockwood: Okay.
1:18:07
Well, just to, to clarify that-
1:18:10
Rupert Isaacson: Stop hedging â¦ I'm, I'm,
1:18:12
Carolina Lockwood: I'm not
1:18:12
Rupert Isaacson: He'll chase you out with a broom from under the table,
1:18:16
Carolina Lockwood: eh?
1:18:17
No.
1:18:17
What it is is the horses seem, I, I've tried to be clear, seem to have an
1:18:23
ability to go to the, to the person, to the body and stand there and, and, and
1:18:30
sort of breathe into them whatever it is they're breathing in because I can't
1:18:35
be clearer than that because I'm, I'm not the horse, so I would be inventing.
1:18:40
And the person feels aligned.
1:18:43
So whether the horse is unblocking something in the heart chakra or the,
1:18:48
or the plex or whatever we think, I, I still have argued about this.
1:18:55
We don't actually know but we think.
1:18:57
But, but yes, I've seen it happen with people.
1:19:00
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:19:00
Carolina Lockwood: And I can give you a, a couple of examples but- Please do, yeah
1:19:04
but just to put them â¦ Yeah, but to put you in context, I mean, you
1:19:06
can do this with a person lying on a, on a, what you call it in English?
1:19:11
Not, not a Like a massage table
1:19:13
Rupert Isaacson: or something?
1:19:14
Carolina Lockwood: Oh.
1:19:15
Massage table.
1:19:16
You could be sitting in a chair.
1:19:17
You could be standing There's no, there's no â¦ It's not like coaching where
1:19:24
you say, "Okay, I've got this problem.
1:19:26
How can I solve it, or what can I do?"
1:19:28
It, it's not â¦ It's, it's sort of you might have this problem,
1:19:31
but it, you don't actually â¦ It doesn't go through the mind.
1:19:34
So you might be laying there and the horses, I don't know, in my
1:19:38
case five horses of free to come and go, and they can stand nearby.
1:19:45
They can hold the energy.
1:19:46
But it, the amazing thing is, is that they seem to organize themselves, and
1:19:52
one will come up and will stand near the person, over the person, touching
1:19:59
the person, whatever that horse chooses, and maybe change the place where they're
1:20:05
standing and where they're putting their muzzle, and if they're blowing
1:20:09
or if they're pushing or what- I mean, you have to have horses that are, that
1:20:14
you're 100% sure are okay with this.
1:20:17
Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't put a, a wild horse in.
1:20:19
I mean, that's number one.
1:20:21
So the person's laying there, and the person might start having a vision,
1:20:28
sh- might start having shaking.
1:20:31
I mean, all sorts of things happen.
1:20:33
I can give you two examples which for me are really powerful.
1:20:37
O- of one â¦ The first session I ever did was a girl who gave me her
1:20:41
massage table 'cause she was terminal.
1:20:43
She was dying of cancer, and she knew I wanted to work into
1:20:47
this, to, to look into this.
1:20:48
And she said, "I'm gonna give you my table while I'm alive, so just take it."
1:20:53
So that sort of pushed me onto the level of saying, "Okay, now I've gotta
1:20:57
do the course 'cause I can't do this."
1:21:01
Right.
1:21:01
So anyway, I said, "Well, I've started the course, so you come and
1:21:04
be my guinea pig whenever you like."
1:21:06
So she did.
1:21:08
She came, and for me it was all new.
1:21:11
I mean, I do Reiki, but â¦ And I do touch for health and all that sort of
1:21:15
thing, but literally I hadn't, I hadn't.
1:21:18
I mean, I was just sort of looking into this.
1:21:20
I, I'm, I'm familiar with energy work, not, not in the style that you were
1:21:24
talking about, but I am familiar with it.
1:21:27
So anyway, she was laying there and the, the were â¦ the horses all pos-
1:21:31
positioned themselves in sort of different places which were like the cardinal
1:21:37
points, like north, south, east, west.
1:21:39
It was like, wow.
1:21:40
And one horse who was looking there, he waited for one, another horse to
1:21:45
move, and then he walked in and he st- touched her feet, and then he touched
1:21:51
her knees, and then he stayed over her heart, and then he went to her head.
1:21:56
And I was standing at the head 'cause I didn't really know where to stand.
1:21:59
I mean, that's why I was there.
1:22:01
I mean, being honest here.
1:22:03
And he literally pushed me out of the way.
1:22:05
He said, "No, you go."
1:22:06
I said, "Okay."
1:22:08
And so he went on sort of â¦ It was like he was circling her and- Anyway,
1:22:15
this went on for about an hour, I guess.
1:22:18
And when it ended, I mean, you could see it ended because they
1:22:22
all sort of walked away in a way.
1:22:25
So she opened her eyes and I said, "Well, do you want to
1:22:27
share anything that you felt?"
1:22:30
And she said, "It was amazing.
1:22:32
I've never, ever, ever felt so much peace in my life.
1:22:35
It was like this gold something.
1:22:38
It was amazing."
1:22:40
And to cut a long story short, she had another session two days
1:22:44
later, which wasn't the same.
1:22:46
And the funny thing was me and my inexperience, I said, "Well,
1:22:49
I'll invite this horse in again."
1:22:51
And he definitely said no.
1:22:52
He, I mean, he wouldn't come.
1:22:54
I put a halter on him and he, nope.
1:22:56
And then, and another ca- horse came in and did more or less the same thing.
1:23:00
Anyway, two months later, sadly she died.
1:23:03
She passed And when I went to the â¦ I mean, this is really, wow.
1:23:08
I went to the funeral, and all her friends, she- young, 55,
1:23:12
all her friends were there.
1:23:13
Everybody, you know, really emotional.
1:23:16
And, and lots came up to me and said, "You're the w- the lady with the horses."
1:23:20
And I said, "Yes."
1:23:21
"Ah, she loved being so much with your horses," and that.
1:23:24
And apparently she'd chosen â¦ I don't know if this can go online, but anyway,
1:23:29
I'm telling it and you can edit it out.
1:23:32
I, I think so.
1:23:33
It's okay.
1:23:34
She chose with her psycho-oncologist this image, this sequence with the
1:23:40
horses for someone to retell it to her the moment she was passing.
1:23:45
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:23:46
Carolina Lockwood: It was so strong for her.
1:23:48
Now, a- and, and that's what happened, and it was like, wow, this is
1:23:53
so â¦ I mean, I can't â¦ I don't know exactly what was going on, but
1:23:58
something was going on really strong.
1:24:01
And it w- you know, you could say, you know, the skeptical
1:24:04
could say, "Okay, well, just
1:25:49
Rupert Isaacson: Sometimes put in stuff if it's good.
1:25:51
So it's, it's interesting these things, Yeah â¦ are-
1:25:56
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah
1:25:56
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: universal, I
1:25:57
Carolina Lockwood: think.
1:25:58
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:25:58
Carolina Lockwood: In a way it's like a universal language â¦ and
1:26:00
Rupert Isaacson: trans-mammalian perhaps.
1:26:01
Yeah.
1:26:01
Yeah.
1:26:03
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, something like that because I've seen, not with my
1:26:06
horses on people, but I have seen videos of when we were doing this learning of,
1:26:10
of horses getting and sort of pulling out, not actually biting, but- Mm-hmm
1:26:16
with their lips pulling something out of here, and that person
1:26:19
happened to be having some real mental thing that was worrying them.
1:26:24
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:26:26
Carolina Lockwood: Like, it's like, it's mystical in a way.
1:26:29
I mean, it is, or, or I don't know what you
1:26:31
Rupert Isaacson: would call it.
1:26:31
Yeah.
1:26:31
Well, it's mystical.
1:26:32
It, it is mystical I think in the, in the literal way, in that it is a mystery.
1:26:37
Yeah,
1:26:37
Carolina Lockwood: it isn't it?
1:26:37
Yeah
1:26:38
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: and one h- I, I think this is one of the great, this is what
1:26:41
makes life worthwhile is that if one is constantly having experiences where
1:26:46
one has to say, "I cannot explain what I have just- Yeah â¦ experienced,
1:26:52
however, I have experienced it."
1:26:54
Yeah.
1:26:54
And this is what is called- Yeah â¦ the miraculous, and this
1:26:58
is what is called a joyous life.
1:27:02
Yeah â¦ wh- when I was living, you know, when I was spending so much
1:27:04
time with the Bushmen, I realized that this type of experience is
1:27:11
more or less daily because it's tied up with hunting, it's tied up
1:27:15
with gathering, it's so tied up with contacting animals, it's ti- tied up
1:27:19
with contacting and speaking to plants.
1:27:21
You know, people say, "Oh, well, you know, people learn to concoct
1:27:25
ayahuasca by trial and error."
1:27:28
Really?
1:27:29
There's how many thousands of species down there in the Amazon, and to, to
1:27:35
narrow it down to these- Four â¦ two vines at this dose by trial and error,
1:27:41
you kill everybody in your community.
1:27:43
Or l- how do you learn, you know, which mushrooms are good and which ones- Exactly
1:27:49
are not because they look so similar?
1:27:51
At a certain point you have to be comfortable with saying some
1:27:53
people can talk to mushrooms.
1:27:55
You know?
1:27:55
Some people can talk to trees, and they just jolly well can.
1:27:58
And whether or not you want to accept it, it goes on.
1:28:04
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
1:28:04
It does
1:28:05
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: and you know, I've seen shape-shifting and all of that
1:28:08
stuff, so I mean, you know, we could go into that further, and perhaps we
1:28:11
should in another, another conversation.
1:28:14
But yes, I mean, I need no convincing.
1:28:17
But I think, and I also kn- need no convincing as to why people find it
1:28:21
difficult to be convinced because it's left our society to such a degree.
1:28:29
However, you know, through, through the church and all sorts of other
1:28:32
things, but however, it, it still goes on because people still have
1:28:37
intuition, people still have all sorts of premonitions, people still have-
1:28:42
All sorts of things they can't explain.
1:28:43
You, you can still go to certain farmers in Ireland who have the cure
1:28:47
for this or they have the cure for that, and they're devout Catholics often.
1:28:52
And they can jolly well put their hand on you and that thing that you had goes away,
1:28:55
and they've done that for 8,000 people and it's a bloke who farms potatoes.
1:28:59
So but it is still, as you say, mystical because life is.
1:29:06
Yeah â¦ you know, so, so that's why I wanted you to sort of delve
1:29:10
into it a bit because I think it's when you get away from the vague
1:29:13
that the real mystery comes forth.
1:29:15
Because when you, as you, as you just talked to us about, and, you know,
1:29:20
I think you could define what you're doing with energy as unblocking.
1:29:23
I think it-
1:29:24
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
1:29:26
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm, yeah â¦ you know, you're talking about finding
1:29:28
places where there's blocks in the electricity going around or whatever
1:29:31
we wanna call it, and- Somehow I'm blocking them through horses.
1:29:36
And people say, "Well, how can a horse do that?"
1:29:37
Well, my friends who, if you're skeptical, I've li- gone to
1:29:40
this place called Mongolia.
1:29:42
When you go to Mongolia, you will encounter people
1:29:44
who don't just ride horses.
1:29:47
The entire culture for millennia has depended upon horses in a really
1:29:55
extreme, harsh environment, where if you don't know how to keep horses
1:29:58
well in that environment, you die.
1:30:01
So, and you don't just ride them.
1:30:03
You live under their skins because you, tha- those are your tents.
1:30:07
You know, you live you li- you eat them, you drink them, you
1:30:10
wear them, you, every, there's nothing, and, and your spirituality
1:30:14
is entirely taken up with them.
1:30:15
And all the shamans are tapping into energies of what's called the wind horse.
1:30:21
Everyone has a wind horse.
1:30:22
It's your soul, your luck, your mojo, and they've been doing this for a
1:30:28
long time and getting sick and getting better out there with the horses
1:30:32
engaging in the medicine as well.
1:30:35
And you can be as skeptical as you wanna be, and you should.
1:30:38
Skepticism is healthy.
1:30:39
Cynicism is not healthy.
1:30:40
Cynicism is the coward's way out because that's just saying,
1:30:43
"Anything I can't understand I will dismiss 'cause I'm scared."
1:30:46
But skepticism, absolutely.
1:30:49
No, it's very healthy.
1:30:50
That's what I was saying to you.
1:30:51
I'm skeptical.
1:30:52
Please explain more.
1:30:53
But skepticism isn't dismissal.
1:30:55
Skepticism is saying, "Please be clearer.
1:30:58
And just describe your experience."
1:31:00
So this is how many, many, many millions of people on the
1:31:05
planet still live and thrive.
1:31:08
So yeah, I'm, I'm just, I'm, I'm fascinated by your trajectory of story,
1:31:13
and really what I was trying to do there was get the clarity so that people can
1:31:17
understand and sort of honor m- a bit more what you've done, because if, if we
1:31:20
recap, you know, from where you started, you're starting with this art therapy.
1:31:25
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
1:31:26
Rupert Isaacson: Then you're mixing, then you're learning horses.
1:31:28
Then you're mixing art therapy with horses, and then you go very much
1:31:31
into the kind of horse boy thing where you're riding, you're up there in
1:31:34
the saddle with autistic kids getting communication, kids becoming verbal.
1:31:38
I know that many kids did become verbal with you because we followed you for
1:31:42
such a long time, and some of our staff went down to spend time with you and
1:31:46
saw it all happening at first hand.
1:31:48
And then you graduated from that into the coaching, and now you've
1:31:53
graduated from that into the healing.
1:31:55
That is an equine-assisted life and career, which I think is an inspiration
1:32:03
for, you talked about burnout.
1:32:05
You know, if, if you're listening to this or watching this and you've been
1:32:09
listening to Karolina's story, you, perhaps you're feeling a bit burned out.
1:32:13
Perhaps you're feeling, "Oh, fuck," you know?
1:32:15
I, I said that word.
1:32:16
Yeah.
1:32:16
You know, maybe I'll â¦ H- can I, can I still be doing this in 10 years?
1:32:21
And the answer is, well, maybe you don't need to.
1:32:23
But that doesn't mean you have to abandon the whole endeavor.
1:32:28
The endeavor can evolve, right?
1:32:31
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
1:32:33
Yeah.
1:32:34
It can
1:32:36
Rupert Isaacson: And that you were dealing with so much of that basic
1:32:40
security anxiety for your horses through the whole thing, and still do.
1:32:46
I mean, hats off.
1:32:47
Yeah.
1:32:48
Carolina Lockwood: It's
1:32:48
Rupert Isaacson: my hat coming
1:32:50
Carolina Lockwood: off.
1:32:50
Yeah.
1:32:51
Rupert Isaacson: So where's it gonna go?
1:32:53
Yeah.
1:32:53
W- what's next for you?
1:32:55
Carolina Lockwood: Well, that's interesting question because theâ¦
1:32:57
When I just finished this mastery thing, I had to do a three,
1:33:01
a three bit sort of entrega.
1:33:04
It's would be like a thesis, but it isn't actually.
1:33:06
Mm-hmm.
1:33:07
I mean, it's oneself than to pass a grade.
1:33:09
It's, it's not for a degree.
1:33:11
It's to sort of really see where one's going, and it's really well laid out
1:33:16
because it brought, at least for me, it brought out so much in me of, of
1:33:22
what happened to me in this year that I was able to first listen to my own
1:33:27
intuition as basic and not al- always feeling, you know, that I wasn't good
1:33:33
enough or that I was comparing to other people, that I wasn't doing it
1:33:36
right and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
1:33:38
And this is the story of my life a little bit.
1:33:40
Although I have done a lot, but anyway, it was there, so
1:33:43
Rupert Isaacson: it really- I would say so, yes.
1:33:44
But
1:33:46
Carolina Lockwood: it really sort of brought the self value
1:33:50
up, self valorization, like.
1:33:52
Mm.
1:33:52
But even if I do it differently to what's in this course, or if I've done
1:33:57
it differently to what you've done, it's okay 'cause everybody- Absolutely.
1:34:01
It's okay â¦ their own way.
1:34:03
And, and so the last, there was the part on oneself, then it was the part on the
1:34:08
horses, and the last part was your dream.
1:34:11
And the interesting thing was, I think we all can relate to that one,
1:34:16
as you always say in your courses, when you h- you know, I have a
1:34:19
dream, and that dream opens doors.
1:34:23
I mean, it does.
1:34:24
We know that.
1:34:25
And so y- the more you sort of realize that dream as not only possible,
1:34:32
but already in the now happening, I mean, all the possibilities
1:34:36
are out there in some sense.
1:34:39
And so I was writing about this just three days ago.
1:34:42
I finished it.
1:34:44
Yeah.
1:34:45
And, and I dream of of another center.
1:34:49
Well, center, I wouldn't call it even a center.
1:34:52
I want to be able to have a, a camp of my own, a place where the horses can
1:34:57
live- Where they're secure, where people can go do retreats, go for one-day
1:35:04
sessions or â¦ I wouldn't live there whole year round, but I would come and
1:35:08
go, and have have o- have other people come in and offer their own thing too.
1:35:13
So I might have somebody like Celeste doing liberty training or another thing
1:35:18
that she's doing now which I love.
1:35:20
She takes risk, high-risk kids, I think you call it that to adolescence.
1:35:25
Mm-hmm.
1:35:26
And instead of going for a ride on the mountains for 10 days, they walk.
1:35:31
They take the horses with them.
1:35:32
They walk with the horses, and it, that's a whole different experience.
1:35:36
It's not a ride, it's a, it's a â¦ So I would invite her.
1:35:40
We've always said-
1:35:41
Rupert Isaacson: Tell us her name again.
1:35:42
I, I didn't quite catch it.
1:35:44
Carolina Lockwood: Oh, I've remembered the surname.
1:35:47
Celeste Solzonne in French.
1:35:49
S-O-L-Z-O-N-N-E.
1:35:54
Did you get that?
1:35:55
Rupert Isaacson: S-O-L Zed?
1:35:59
Carolina Lockwood: Z-E-N-N-E.
1:36:02
I'm gonna â¦ Don't know if it's double N, but something like that.
1:36:04
Rupert Isaacson: Solzenna.
1:36:05
Solzenna.
1:36:06
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, and if you put Le, Le Cheval Celeste- Celeste
1:36:09
â¦ the, the Blue Hor- the Blue Horses- I- â¦ you're gonna find her online.
1:36:15
Amazing what she's doing.
1:36:15
Rupert Isaacson: The Celestial Horses.
1:36:16
Yeah.
1:36:17
Celeste-
1:36:18
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah
1:36:20
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: Solzenna.
1:36:21
Le Che- Solzenna.
1:36:22
Okay, I'm gonna look her up along with Saskia Maroquine, which
1:36:26
by the way is with a Q-U-I-N.
1:36:29
Thank you.
1:36:29
And I'm going to be looking up Peter Walker as well.
1:36:31
It's great.
1:36:34
Yeah.
1:36:34
Or
1:36:34
Carolina Lockwood: Paul.
1:36:34
Rupert Isaacson: Paul.
1:36:34
So you, so, so the idea is that you would, you would, it would be like a-
1:36:39
Carolina Lockwood: L- like a sort of place- A sort of- â¦ where people
1:36:41
would come from different parts of the world, offer what they got to offer.
1:36:44
I would be there offering what I know.
1:36:46
And I don't know,
1:36:47
Rupert Isaacson: I just- A healing, a healing university of the horse
1:36:49
â¦ Carolina Lockwood: yeah, a healing retreat, and also get rescue horses-
1:36:53
Mm-hmm â¦ and reinsert them and, and have a space where horses
1:36:57
are â¦ It's like a sanctuary.
1:36:59
I mean, this is- Mm â¦ like huge, okay?
1:37:01
I don'tâ¦
1:37:02
No idea.
1:37:03
No idea, but if I don't put it out there, it's, that's the best
1:37:06
way of it not happening, so.
1:37:07
Rupert Isaacson: Well, there are people, there are people out there
1:37:09
right now who are doing this who are starting these, this very s- I
1:37:13
need to put you in touch with Iâ¦
1:37:14
Maybe she's even listening.
1:37:16
It's Triple H Ranch outside of Chicago, horse rescue, that then
1:37:21
got into doing Horse Boy Movement method and TEQUINE, which is, I,
1:37:24
you know, on the ground program.
1:37:26
And- Oh â¦ now working with at risk, and particularly
1:37:30
girls out of the foster system.
1:37:32
There you go â¦ are bringing in all sorts of other practitioners.
1:37:37
And that's, Yeah, so, so Triple H, I think I need to put you in touch with them.
1:37:41
And then there's something similar happening in Michigan
1:37:48
and- Oh â¦ so on and so on.
1:37:50
So I, I, I think that a lot of people are going this way rather
1:37:54
than saying, "I do this program."
1:37:58
Yeah, and also- Which has always struck me as a little sad.
1:38:02
Carolina Lockwood: And also, I mean, I, I'm, I'm realistic, you
1:38:04
know, I don't have the, the means-
1:38:05
Rupert Isaacson: Christine Durand at Triple H Ranch.
1:38:07
That's right, yeah.
1:38:08
Go ahead, sorry.
1:38:09
Carolina Lockwood: Okay.
1:38:10
W- I don't have the means to go out and buy a, a farm.
1:38:13
I, I mean, I don't, but you never know where it could come from.
1:38:16
But what I do know is that meanwhile, I can carry on doing
1:38:20
this here where I am in my backyard.
1:38:22
But
1:38:22
Rupert Isaacson: what is the difference then between you buying
1:38:25
this place and doing it from the place that you're in currently?
1:38:28
Carolina Lockwood: Because the difference would be that it would be a much bigger
1:38:31
place f- to start with, a place where I could have people to come and stay.
1:38:36
Mm-hmm.
1:38:36
And a place where the horses could live all year round and be
1:38:39
safe, and have different ground.
1:38:40
So they
1:38:40
Rupert Isaacson: don't currently live all year round with you now?
1:38:43
Carolina Lockwood: No.
1:38:44
They go from May to end of November, they go to a farm.
1:38:48
So I've only got, I've only got the two old guys here,
1:38:51
because one literally can'tâ¦
1:38:52
He has no teeth, so he has all his food softened down.
1:38:56
So
1:38:56
Rupert Isaacson: in the wintertime, they, they go and they take
1:38:59
a, they take a season off.
1:39:00
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, yeah.
1:39:01
Okay.
1:39:02
So- And then they come
1:39:03
Rupert Isaacson: back for the summer â¦ I
1:39:04
Carolina Lockwood: don't know if â¦ Yeah, yeah.
1:39:05
So either it would be a space where they would be all year round,
1:39:09
or if that doesn't happen, they would carry on how it is now.
1:39:12
I mean, it's- Mm.
1:39:13
The thing is, it's not ideal.
1:39:15
If you go down to my back garden now, it's just literally knee-deep
1:39:19
in mud, so there's no way I could do anything with anybody.
1:39:22
Rupert Isaacson: And, Because that's the winter season where you are currently.
1:39:25
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
1:39:25
Rupert Isaacson: That's your local climate.
1:39:27
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, and the marsh is just water almost, or all water.
1:39:30
Yeah.
1:39:31
Rupert Isaacson: Got it.
1:39:31
Carolina Lockwood: Not that I can offer something, but out in the, where all
1:39:35
this farmland is, it's much drier.
1:39:37
Not, not- Yeah â¦ probably July 'cause it snows a lot, but, you
1:39:41
know, you can start maybe August, September, and you can carry on.
1:39:44
I don't know.
1:39:45
It, it, it is a dream.
1:39:47
Mm.
1:39:47
Okay.
1:39:47
But whether it goes there or not, I have no idea.
1:39:50
Mm.
1:39:50
But if it doesn't, I will, I'm sure, you know, to carry on with
1:39:55
this here, and I can also invite people to here to do things.
1:39:58
I mean, Celeste came here and did it here.
1:40:01
So, you know, she couldâ¦
1:40:02
The, the liberty training.
1:40:03
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:40:04
Carolina Lockwood: So she could come do something with kids or, you know.
1:40:07
I mean, I don't know where it's going.
1:40:09
I really don't.
1:40:10
But at the moment, where it is, it's okay.
1:40:13
Rupert Isaacson: Another
1:40:14
Carolina Lockwood: mystery.
1:40:14
And where it could be bigger or not, I don't know.
1:40:17
Yeah.
1:40:17
I don't know.
1:40:18
Rupert Isaacson: Well, I think that's a very healthy, it- You know, I'm always-
1:40:27
Sort of, what's the word here?
1:40:29
I'm, I'm, I'm, I'mâ¦
1:40:30
That one must dream- Mm-hmm â¦ and one must be unattached to outcome.
1:40:36
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, exactly.
1:40:37
Yeah.
1:40:37
Rupert Isaacson: And that is, it's- Yeah â¦ it's in that sweet spot, and
1:40:42
one can't always be there emotionally.
1:40:45
But- Yeah â¦ if that's where one ideally would like to be, then hopefully one
1:40:52
can spend less time in the extremes of, say, apathy on one end, and,
1:40:58
you know, urgency and anxiety- Yeah
1:41:00
and suffering because it hasn't happened yet on the other end,
1:41:03
and that sweet spot in the middle.
1:41:05
And we hope that over time we can spend less time on those extremes
1:41:10
and more time in that middle path.
1:41:12
Yeah.
1:41:12
And then things tend to pan out is what I've generally found.
1:41:17
Oh,
1:41:17
Carolina Lockwood: yeah.
1:41:18
And if, you know, and if th- this thing doesn't happen, well, it's
1:41:22
fine, I just will carry on here.
1:41:24
Yeah.
1:41:24
I can't have any more hope, yeah, that's for sure.
1:41:27
I justâ¦
1:41:28
No, it's notâ¦
1:41:29
You know, if I want to enlarge the herd, no, it's not gonna happen
1:41:33
here, because it's too difficult.
1:41:35
Yeah.
1:41:35
It, it really is.
1:41:36
Rupert Isaacson: Well, it sounds like too from what, from what
1:41:38
you're doing, you don't need to.
1:41:39
And, you know, we've gone through this ourselves, we've gone through
1:41:41
iterations where we've had herds of up to 23 horses, and now we're down
1:41:46
to a, a really streamlined seven.
1:41:50
Carolina Lockwood: There you go
1:41:51
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: and where you are, what you're offering is at different times.
1:41:57
Yeah.
1:41:58
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
1:41:58
Rupert Isaacson: Re- requires different things.
1:42:01
And I, I, I, what I love about this whole conversation is it, I think
1:42:05
it gives people permission to allow their practice to have an evolution.
1:42:11
Because in the, in the fields of equine assisted-ness, it's,
1:42:17
there can be a lot of rigidity.
1:42:19
You must do this, you must abide by these protocols, you
1:42:22
must da, da, da, da, da, da.
1:42:24
If you do- don't do this, we will kick you out of the organization, blah, blah, blah.
1:42:27
You lose your insurance, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
1:42:29
And I think there's more and more of a-
1:42:35
natural rebellion against this happening for people who've given
1:42:39
that a try, and done that for a good few years and said, "Well, you know,
1:42:43
honestly, it's just too limited."
1:42:45
If I'm really go- yes, of course, safety.
1:42:47
Yes, of course, proper pressur- preparation of horses.
1:42:50
Yes, of course, correct horse welfare.
1:42:52
Yes, of course, certain absolutely commonsensical protocols which
1:42:57
should be in place and one ought to be inspected, yes, and all of that.
1:43:00
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
1:43:02
And because every context is different, and because the humanâ¦
1:43:08
You know, if, if someone burns out and gets out of the game, then that's-
1:43:13
Yeah â¦ a whole lot of more families that just never get served, right?
1:43:17
Yeah.
1:43:17
Because someone might say, "Oh, well, you know, Carolina, you're not
1:43:20
doing the autism families anymore."
1:43:21
I say, "Well, maybe you are," because maybe that person that comes for
1:43:24
the unblocking of the energy is an autism mom or an autism- Yeah.
1:43:28
Carolina Lockwood: Mm-hmm
1:43:29
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: aunt or sister or has autism, or, you know.
1:43:31
And you're just serving them in a different way.
1:43:34
You're just part of the constellation of services.
1:43:37
But y- you have the right to evolve, and grow, and develop,
1:43:48
and deepen, and broaden.
1:43:51
Otherwise, as you say in Ireland, it's no crack at all.
1:43:57
And if it's no crack at all, then what, what weâ¦
1:43:59
why are we even doing anything, yeah?
1:44:02
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, yeah.
1:44:02
I think whe- when you went back to the, the mysticism of all
1:44:06
this, it's like being in awe.
1:44:08
I remember reading- Mm â¦ a book on, on this, and they, there was this whole
1:44:11
thing, you know, be in awe of the universe 'cause we can't explain everything.
1:44:15
It's like- Yeah â¦ I remember one of my spiritual teachers saying, "You can'tâ¦
1:44:20
If you look at the mirror and want to know what's at the back of it, then
1:44:23
you're losing the essence of the mirror."
1:44:25
I mean, yeah.
1:44:26
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:44:26
Well, that's one piece of information, and it's all right to want to know that.
1:44:29
Like, it's also w- all right to want to know what's the mineral
1:44:32
composition of the mountain.
1:44:35
Carolina Lockwood: Exactly.
1:44:35
Yeah.
1:44:35
Rupert Isaacson: But it's still a mountain.
1:44:37
Still a
1:44:37
Carolina Lockwood: mountain, and how did we actually get there?
1:44:40
Wow.
1:44:41
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:44:41
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
1:44:42
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
1:44:44
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
1:44:45
Rupert Isaacson: Well, mountain woman, there you are sitting in the Andes.
1:44:48
Thank you so much for this.
1:44:50
It's been a beautiful journey that you've taken us on.
1:44:53
Thank you â¦ it's been so good to reconnect too.
1:44:57
Yeah.
1:44:58
We are- Yeah â¦ we're approaching the two-hour mark.
1:45:01
Can you let people know how they can get in touch with you?
1:45:04
Because I think that- Yeah â¦ people have a lot to learn from you, and I would
1:45:07
really encourage listeners and viewers, by the way, if you are in an equine-assisted
1:45:13
practice, it's always a good idea to check in with people who have mentorship.
1:45:17
You know, so maybe some consultancy, maybe some guidance, you know, online.
1:45:22
You don't have to go down to Patagonia, although why not?
1:45:26
Or you can.
1:45:27
Yes.
1:45:27
So, so how do people contact you, Carolina?
1:45:30
Carolina Lockwood: Well, what would be the best way?
1:45:32
Email or â¦ Well, you can do email.
1:45:34
Rupert Isaacson: Up to you.
1:45:34
You tell us.
1:45:34
Okay.
1:45:34
Email.
1:45:34
Shall I
1:45:38
Carolina Lockwood: write, recite it out?
1:45:39
Just
1:45:39
Rupert Isaacson: spell it out, and we'll just go- Instagram â¦ letter by
1:45:43
Carolina Lockwood: letter.
1:45:43
Instagram.
1:45:44
Yeah, well, carowood9@gmail.com.
1:45:45
That's easy.
1:45:45
Caro or Carole?
1:45:45
Caro.
1:45:52
Caro.
1:45:53
C-A-R-O-W-O-O-D 9-
1:45:57
Rupert Isaacson: Caro Wood
1:45:57
Carolina Lockwood: 9
1:45:57
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: under nine,
1:45:58
Carolina Lockwood: yeah, @gmail.com.
1:46:00
@gmail.com.
1:46:01
Rupert Isaacson: Carowood9@gmail.com.
1:46:07
Yeah.
1:46:07
You say, "Dear Carolina, I'd like to learn how to run my program and
1:46:11
evolve, please, and I will pay you 150 bucks an hour to tell me, please."
1:46:15
Okay.
1:46:16
And because it's, it's, it's advice worth getting.
1:46:19
Instagram, tell us about your Instagram.
1:46:22
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah, Instagram.
1:46:22
Well, the one on horses is called Alquimia, like alchemy, but you
1:46:27
spell it A, Alquimia Equina.
1:46:29
A-L-Q-U-I-M-I-A.
1:46:36
This is too long
1:46:38
Rupert Isaacson: Ekina, like equina
1:46:40
Carolina Lockwood: And then Ekina, yeah, like equina.
1:46:43
Yeah Yeah,
1:46:44
Rupert Isaacson: equine, but with an A on the end instead of an E.
1:46:46
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
1:46:47
Alchemia Ekina
1:46:47
Rupert Isaacson: That's my Instagram.
1:46:47
Okay.
1:46:48
Yeah.
1:46:48
Alchemic, alchemic, alchemic equine.
1:46:52
Alchemical equine.
1:46:53
Yeah.
1:46:53
Okay.
1:46:56
Carolina Lockwood: And then there's Facebook, Caro- Carolina Lockwood,
1:46:57
or there's, Carolina Lockwood.
1:47:01
Yeah.
1:47:02
I think those three.
1:47:03
And then I've got another Instagram, which is my personal
1:47:06
one, which is- Okay â¦ Lockwood Carolina, which is the same thing.
1:47:09
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:47:11
And many of our, you know, many people that I know have gone
1:47:13
down to you and stayed with you, studied with you, worked with you-
1:47:17
Yeah â¦ in those beautiful mountains.
1:47:18
So i- if people get in contact with you, can they come for mentorship?
1:47:23
Can they come for-
1:47:25
Carolina Lockwood: Sure â¦ training?
1:47:25
Yeah, sure.
1:47:27
Yeah.
1:47:28
Yep.
1:47:29
Rupert Isaacson: Wonderful.
1:47:30
Carolina Lockwood: If I can offer what they're looking for, yeah, sure.
1:47:33
Rupert Isaacson: Even if you can't.
1:47:34
It'll be something- Okay â¦ it'll be something along the way.
1:47:36
Yeah.
1:47:38
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah,
1:47:38
Rupert Isaacson: it is.
1:47:38
It'll be a, a chapter in the book.
1:47:41
Carolina Lockwood: Yeah.
1:47:43
Rupert Isaacson: Well, my friend, thank you so much.
1:47:46
Carolina Lockwood: Thank you.
1:47:47
Beautiful, this.
1:47:47
Thank you very much, really.
1:47:49
Rupert Isaacson: My- Honored â¦ it's been my, the pleasure's been mine.
1:47:52
I would like to do this again.
1:47:53
Maybe we should check in next year and see where it's gone to.
1:47:56
Carolina Lockwood: Oh, see where it is.
1:47:57
Yeah, that would be great.
1:47:59
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:47:59
Carolina Lockwood: Okay.
1:48:00
Rupert Isaacson: In that case- Bye, Rupert
1:48:01
I shallâ¦
1:48:01
Goodbye, my friend.
1:48:02
Goodbye.
1:48:04
Carolina Lockwood: Goodbye.
1:48:04
Bye-bye.
1:48:04
Bye
1:48:05
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1:48:08
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