Welcome

Rhythms Of Hope is a new name for a well-respected organization that has provided nature-based, animal-assisted educational and therapeutic services to people from all walks of life since 2001. We chose to rename our organization to better represent the range of services we provide as most people have known us for our program, Healing Horsemanship; yet working with horses as partners in our programs is only a small aspect of what we do.

 

This new name combines our belief that there is healing power within the rhythms of nature as well as within the choice to live a hope-focused life. Our love and respect for the universal language of music bind these concepts.

 

"Once you choose hope, anything's possible." - Christopher Reeve

 

To people of our age group Christopher Reeve WAS Superman.

 

He spoke these words about the power of choosing hope after finding his way through some of the worst months of his life that followed a 1995 horseback riding accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He could have faded into the darkness inherent to such enormous loss. Yet his choice to focus on hope allowed him to use his Hollywood-era influence to found the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation in 1998 to promote research on spinal cord injuries. His legacy lives on beyond his 2004 death as researchers continue to make strides toward increasingly innovative treatments for such life-altering injuries.

 

Hope can be hard to hold onto when the darkness of life's challenges feels overwhelming. Choosing to not allow feelings of hopefulness is a natural way of protecting ourselves from the pain of being let down yet again. There is no shame in losing hope. Doing so is natural. Hope has a natural rhythm in our lives. It ebbs and flows; coming to us more easily at some times than during others.

 

With practice, hope can flourish even in our darkest moments. Yet, living a hope-focused life requires us to learn how to recognize and accept the natural rhythms of how hope exists within the human experience. Hope becomes more accessible to us during dark times once we accept that the loss of hope can be merely one aspect of our "Hope Rhythm,"  just as the loss of leaves in the fall is one aspect of the rhythms of nature.

 

Allow yourself to hope. Let us know if we can support you, or someone you care for, in a journey toward more hope.