"Kjrsos is for those who are or wish to become something more than just a rider. Those who value their responsibility to become something more. A responsibility to help heal the horse, to help the horse find a full expression of his power, and the freedom and joy that can be found in that. "

From Volume 1  The Healer

"First of all let me make clear that there is no doubt in my mind that horses are incredible wise creatures and every day, I approach each horse, each new image ,with an open heart and hopefully an open mind, knowing that they have so  much to teach me, and I need to keep as many preconceived notions as I can from interfering with the learning and the lessons that they have been patiently waiting for years for me to open my eyes and heart to. They do have all the answers but sometimes those answers can surprise you."

From The Mistakes of Training in Freedom 

Before Kjrsos was Horses For LIFE.  An online horse magazine that worked hard on bringing the best in the world together.  Exciting that so many instructors had a subscription, it seems they felt like they found the magazine of some value.  But one day it was there... and then it stopped publishing. Sadly with no explanation.

First I want to apologize, to say I am sorry for disappearing to those who were once registered to the magazine Horses for LIFE.

I am sure you are wondering what happened. Two things collided. One, I had what I call a Crisis of Faith, where I truly felt that I had failed. That all of my efforts, all the work that I was doing was absolutely useless. That somehow I failed in what the magazine was always meant to do and that was to help the horses. And if that was the only thing maybe I could have kept going but as I mentioned there were two things that collided. The other that I couldn't escape from, was that unbeknownst to me at the time, I was beginning to experience the effects of what strangely turned out to be one of two great blessings in my life,... my mind was becoming compromised. And truthfully unfortunately in many ways it still is. Which limits what I can promise for the future.

I've been at the burning bush...
I've walked through the desert...

I've had a Crisis of Faith.

In Volume 1 of our new Kjrsos Magazine, I talk about how after decades of teaching, training, studying full time, I honestly thought I had the answers. I had started an equestrian magazine, and delightfully got to spend time talking one on one with some of the top instructors and trainers from all around the globe. It was a treat to receive the latest books and DVDs sent to us for review.

I thought I knew what I was doing.

I honestly believed that I was making a difference. I thought I was helping the horses by sharing the best of what was out there. People loved their horses, I could see that. They just didn't know, didn't have the facts, and once they did, all would be fixed. At least, that is what I thought. So I continued on to provide the best-detailed answers, the whys and the how's. So sure that this was the answer. And ten years in, and I had to finally admit it wasn't working.

Some... a little... but not really. I came to believe that I had failed.

And unbeknownst to me at the time something in my brain was struggling. It came and went, and I had no idea that it was even happening. Looking back I actually have no idea how long it had been going on for because for so long I had no idea that it was even happening.

I did notice it was getting harder and harder to get the next issue out, and I was falling further and further behind. I thought I was just tired. Ten years working eighty hours a week I thought was catching up to me. With only a few souls helping out, the workload was intense. And of course, I just made it worse because I am an idiot, and I was always trying to add new things, expanding on what was already there.

Writer, interviewer, photographer, filmmaker, editor, publisher, the list just got longer and longer, and I thought after 10 years I was just tired, maybe bored??? I mean, I just didn't seem to have the energy, the enthusiasm I once seemed to be able to maintain and handle the work load day after day, week after week. And I missed what was really happening.

Funny looking back that I didn't see it. Wasn't aware of it.

It hit hard and sudden, and it snuck up on me. It did both at the same time. My mind no longer capable of stringing together a sentence that made any sense. But through it all, I was trying.. trying to get out that next issue, trying to write that next article. In my fog at the time, I kept working towards it, thinking it will come... it had to get better. And a day, a week, a month and on time passed and then it just never happened.

It got better, it would get worse, then more recently I spent two years where it was awful, really awful, and I couldn't really do anything for anyone, let alone myself. My mind was truly broken.

And then one day I woke up and I had a brain again and this time two years had passed, but I knew I owed those from when I first disappeared. So I got to work. But now, I had a new dilemma because now I knew something had to change. What I had done before wasn't working, not in the way that I thought it would.

And knowing that, I had to figure out what was the answer. Something was missing, but I just didn't know what.

So I got busy asking what could we do differently?

If knowledge on its own was not enough, what was it that was missing??

And while I was trying to figure that part out, I got to work.

At the same time, I started the project that the original magazine was always meant to become long-term. To put together a resource filled with information and knowledge for those who wanted to be the best riders, the most knowledgeable of all instructors.

From my journey before, I knew that people were desperate for good instructors who knew and understood the horse's body, how movement defined him. Who wanted to know not only how to ride but to heal the body of the horse. So I started to get to work on that as well. A project to train instructors who could excel in protecting the body of the horse. Who could excel in returning the horses back to health.

I was busy. At first, I thought, well, in a year, I could go public.. and the first year passed with me hard at work, working endless hours. Then I thought surely two would do.

I didn't realize how much I was taking on. And that was made worse because I still hadn't found the answer.

Why did so many of us struggle to figure out which riding methods, which training methods were healthy for our horses. Why did so many follow practices that were limiting their horses? Why could some see so clearly and others couldn't somehow? Who didn't seem to be able to take that in. Shouldn't information/knowledge shared change things?

But of course, if knowledge was the answer, why do we poison the earth? Why are we struggling with climate change? It seems that as a species, we can do some very stupid things even when we 'know' that they are wrong. And of course there are always those who can somehow deny or ignore just about anything.

And then, and I am not even sure I remember why I started, I began to write a book on my experiences when I started taking pictures for the magazine. I had some, let's call it unusual experiences that had left me totally baffled. Actually, that left me haunted and obsessed because I didn't understand, couldn't figure out what was happening let alone the reason why.

In my mind, at the time, the book was going to be the backbone of one of the new classes that I was already setting up for instructors. It wasn't going to take very long. I mean, a lot of it had already been written about before. And of course, one more time, I was completely wrong. But that certainly started something.

It also changed things. Actually it changed everything. Because I found answers. Somehow writing that book was the key to unlock what the horses had been showing us all along. Helped define the mysteries the horses had handed me.

Endless days, weeks, months, and still it went on—each new insight demanding a new chapter, demanding that something already written be rewritten once again.

They showed me why knowledge on its own is never enough. Why we are so goofy, and can't seem to apply ourselves to creating a healthier earth. How we can bury our heads in the sand and be so oblivious at times.

You know... life and the horses have surprised me. I have to admit I find it hard to understand how I have gotten here, and I am the one that has lived through it. But the book is finally done, and it does have answers but not easy ones. And the answers that were found just lead us to a new place to start because what comes next still has to be worked out.

The answers are not easy because it isn't just me telling you to put your hand here when you want your horse to turn. The answers require that we do some work. Actually a lot of work. And not on them... but us.

The answers the horses gave - demands a lot from us. These were not lessons on how to ride but lessons on how to live.

Who would have thought that the horses had that in them?

So the book has changed so much. Changed so much of what I thought I was going to do here. In the end it changed everything.

I also now know that these lessons apply even if you never ride or if you never want to teach someone else to ride. They apply to everyone because the truth and answers we are looking for is for everyone. Not sure why that is such a surprise. That truth can be universal and apply to many different things at the same time.

But interestingly, these are lessons they have been teaching us all along, and we didn't even realize it. Didn't even see what was going on. How wild is that?

And an interesting side factor is that if you ride, you will be delighted to discover that here are all the skills and knowledge and all the help that you would ever need to create an amazing relationship with your horse while creating a horse that is fully gloriously alive and beautiful to behold. If you want to become an incredible rider, you will find that here. But getting there is going to be very different. Because of what you need to accomplish first. Because this requires that we come at this from a completely different direction.

And I wonder. I wonder can we really do this?

Hard to go in a completely new direction. Hard to give up what you think is true. Hard to give up years of thinking this was the way to do things.

Because it turns out the lesson of the horse is about a transformation.

A transformation of us.

Because that is what the horses, life, and this planet needs from us. And because we need this too - for us, from each other - for each other, for them.

I feel like I was one person when I started this, and I am someone completely different now. That I have gone through a baptism of fire, walked across the desert and that I went in one person and come out the other side another.

I won't claim that just by reading the book, the same will be true for you. But Kjrsos, the horses, has defined itself -- with a new path to discover. A lot of work—a search for answers that never seems to end. And I think finding these answers will come from the best of us working together.

But you need to do the work. To be ready to examine your own heart. To try to figure out why you believe the things that you do. See if there are truths right in front of you that, for whatever reason, you walk right by every day, never seeing them for what they are.

I struggled for years. An entire lifetime. A journey that can only be sustained if you have the passion, the curiosity for the truth that the horses, that life can bring us to.

Welcome to Kjrsos