Welcome! – A Horse Leads Me to Water

I’m D.K.B. “Donna” Condrey-Miller. Welcome to A Horse Leads Me to Water, an educational resource dedicated to teaching how to relate to the horse in freedom. This is the place to be for learning how to relate to and coexist harmoniously with the horse through unbound stewardship. As a mantra for maintaining this way of being, “a horse leads me to water” aligns our perspective with the true nature of the horse, both actual horses and the metaphorical horse, nature itself. I share the way the horse leads us to water, the wisdom by which we understand the freedom that is the natural state of all beings and how to live by that wisdom in daily practice.

Please, make yourself at home. Allow me to show you around –

Work with Me is where you’ll find the teaching offerings. I offer courses and coaching on horse-human relationships , Self-inquiry and bare hoof care services and education . While some courses are in development and not yet posted, please sign up to join my email list (see note below*) so you can be the first to know when new opportunities to work with me are available. Can’t wait? Send me a message with a note about what you’re seeking and I’ll get back to you. *When you sign up for the email list you will recieve an email requiring you to verify your sign up. If you don’t verify, you will not receive future email from A Horser Leads Me to Water. Please add my email donna@ahorseleadsmetowater.com to your white list or contacts so it doesn’t go to your spam folder.

Additionally, I am available for panel discussions, podcasts, interviews and speaking engagements for your group. Please contact me with inquiries.

The blog is where I illustrate the principles and values embraced here to help you gain knowledge, stay inspired and motivated and hone practicle self-discipline . I’d love to hear from you with comments and questions.

The Glossary is where I feature words and phrases that have special meaning or importance for the principles and practices of relating to the horse in freedom. Feel free to drop me a line with words and phrases you’d like to see defined in the glossary.

Note well:

The information shared on this website and in the teaching and services offered in regard to horse-human relationships accepts the horse’s perspective and true nature and how he or she values life for his or her own sake. The principles taught are intended to be implemented in psychologically free relationships between humans and horses. It is expected that you will keep your horses bare foot (or transition to bare hooves) and that you will not subject them to punishment or coercion.

It is well known that humans can experience therapeutic effects as well as gain insight into their personal and spiritual development in the presence of horses. However, relating to the horse in freedom and unbound stewardship holds the position and teaches on principle that these effects are not the responsibility of the horse and that humans should not directly or indirectly interact with horses with expectations that they will attain a particular special experience. The horse does not owe us anything – not healing, teaching, comfort, friendship, respect or time of day.

Use and training of horses for pleasure riding, assisted learning or therapy, breeding for sale, entertainment, any other commercial use or equestrian discipline is not condoned. The knowledge and principles shared are not techniques meant to facilitate such uses. In fact, their effect is unreliable or negated without full commitment to a psychologically free horse.

It is understood that many (holistic) equine health and hoof care providers who share my position and implement the principles with their own horses may be working with horses who are living within the constraints of the above mentioned conventional equestrian and commercial enterprises. This is excusable in that all horses need health and hoof care and those things in and of themselves do not support use of horses. Besides – these practitioners have opportunities to educate their human clients who may be receptive to the idea of relating to horses in freedom!

If you are just at the beginning of leaving the conventional horse world behind, or at least thinking about it, I welcome you to explore the content here. Many, if not most, of us started our lives with horses in the system of the equestrian complex, so you will not be judged for your past. However, you will need to meet certain pre-requisites before you may participate in some programs. Having a horse is not required to benefit from the teaching here!

Turning things around to see a whole new world

When I decided to get involved with horses in the early 2000’s, becoming an equestrian was the way I had planned to reinvent myself out of a restless period of inner dissatisfaction with my life. I had romantic visions, adventurous dreams and definite expectations of my venture as a horsewoman. It didn’t occur to me that the horses would present adversity to this activity that required them. Yet, so it was.

The horses made it clear to me that they had their own ideas about their purpose in life! I couldn’t ignore the fact that the only way to my equestrian success was to deny them their freedom and suppress their self-expression which wasn’t something I could comfortably do, in spite of it being the standard of the industry. This brought me to a crossroads, questioning whether I should even have horses at all.

Simply giving up the horses like some kind of byproduct of my failed pursuits would have been to abandon them to the same suffering I was trying to eliminate for myself. Instead, I decided to find a way to relate to the horses by which they had liberty within the interaction. After a few erring experiments I was introduced to the seminal work of Alexander and Lydia Nevzorov. In the wake of their insights and frankness, my perspective on horses turned 180 degrees from where it had started and I eagerly explored an alternative culture of equanimity in horse – human relationships.

While Nevzorov Haute Ecole (NHE) seemed like an end in itself at first, I recognized that it was really only the beginning! The deep self-examination required to understand my motivation for wanting a cooperative relationship with a horse opened the gate to the sacred spiritual essence of all relationships. I had made the shift to another perspective by following the horse to his natural way of being. It was a whole new world and there I found their liberation and mine.

From the outset of my career with horses, I have devoted myself to the whole horse philosophy, art and science of barefoot hoof care and natural management. This was both instrumental in my seeing things from the horse’s point of view and grounding as I turned away from the status quo of exploitation of horses and toward an emotionally and spiritually restorative culture of holistic coexistence of non-humans and humans.

For over a decade – as a Representative of Nevzorov Haute Ecole since 2011 and now as the founder of A Horse Leads Me to Water since 2018 – I have been guiding people on this inner journey to understand the principles of relationship which embrace the true nature of the horse and engage the personal and spiritual growth of the humans who care for them.

It is my mission to share my practice and results with all of you so that freedom, peace and satisfaction for all beings prevail as the way things are and not only what we wish they would be.