Retreats
The Women and Horses Retreat Program is a unique way to explore the horse-woman relationship, whether you ride or not. Women aged 15 and over explore “women and horses” in an intimate, relaxed setting at your own barn or horse organization meeting place. Retreats are led by Anne Belasco, Esq., Director of Tapestry’s Horse-Human Relationship Program and Dawn Adrian, Ph.D., an award-winning educator with numerous national honors for developing fun, friendly, yet powerful and life-changing learning opportunities for adults.
That means these retreats are unlike any horse event you have ever experienced! Fun, interactive exercises, discussion, and unexpected surprises will expand your knowledge of the horse-woman relationship in a way that will leave you breathless and eager to know more. 
You’ll use all the different ways we know about, learn from, and respond to horses — intellectual, experiential, spiritual, and mythic — to create a powerful, new, integrated understanding of women and horses — one that will make you a better horsewoman, on or off horseback!
Each 3-hour retreat costs $50 a person. Your barn or horse organization can arrange to host a retreat on a weekday or weekend, daytime or evening, as fits your schedule. To explore the possibility of organizing a retreat for your group, email Anne or call Tapestry at 719-347-3090. Please leave a message if you call and get the machine, as we may be out with the horses.
And if you aren’t sure you’d learn anything you don’t already know at a retreat, ask yourself these questions, some of which relate to the pictures on this page: Why and how were horses important to women of America’s West in the late 1800s? How did riding influence everything from women’s clothing to the right to vote in those years? Who is the woman shown with horses in 5,000-year-old stone carving from Great Britain? Why did Roman soldiers adopt this woman and celebrate her feast day? What is the oldest archeological evidence of a special relationship between women and horses in Europe? What is the relationship between horses and the important mothers of several religions traditions? Set up a Women and Horses Retreat, and prepare to be astonished, delighted, and thrilled by the answers you’ll discover.
Picture credits, from the top: “Mrs. C. A. Bush and her Horse,” Robern N. Dennis, collection of stereoptican views of Southeast Michigan, Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs; “Belle Starr, A Wild Western Amazon,” wood engraving, 1886, National Police Gazette New York; “Musée Cernuschi,” (“Chinese Girl on Horse with Musical Instrument”) Paris, France; “In a Village, Peasant Woman with Horse,” Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov, 1898, The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia; A relief of the Gaulish horse goddess Epona from Salonica, Greek Macedonia, 4th century CE.