Today I am speaking with two dynamic women. Dulce Garcia-Morman and Jan Wakefield. Both have a rich background in academia but are grounded in spiritual truths and holistic practices.
They each have unique gifts and talents centered around working with animals and energy. They now collaborate to offer life-changing growth and healing opportunities. They use the idea of the Cowgirl Archetype as a means to transformation. Their workshop/retreat experiences are named A Cowgirl’s Guide to Emotional Fitness. We are going to learn about several breathtaking destination vacation retreats that are upcoming and much more about this unique pairing.
Dulce- Garcia Morman – www.life-is-art.us and Jan Wakefield – www.jan-wakefield.com
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Please tell us how did you two meet?
Jan: Dulce and I were both working at a university together. It was clear that we had a lot in common within a few days of getting to know each other. Not only did we have the academic piece, but we had a spiritual component we connected on. We both had been working with Buddhist teachers. We had meditation practices.
Every day we had more new and interesting things to share. It became obvious to us and the people around us that we were best friends. It was so funny because people would say, “You guys have known each other forever, haven’t you?” I would say, “Actually, we just met two weeks ago.”
And what about you, Dulce? How was it for you?
I think that sometimes we have a karmic connection with others. What is interesting about our journey is that, in many ways, we have lived parallel lives. We have both been on healing journeys through joys and biting the dust. We fall off the saddle and get back on. There have been times we have said,” Oh, my God, this is almost a parallel experience.” I think that has given us the ability to understand one another. We have shared similar things. Often, we can have conversations we probably could not have with anyone else. That rapport is an amazing foundation for our work. Jan knows what I am talking about, and I know what she is talking about because we both lived it.
At what point in the relationship did you decide to collaborate?
Dulce: When I moved to New Mexico. We began collaborating with the horse workshops. Jan was still in Prescott, Arizona, before moving to Hawaii. She would commute and help me out. What we have been doing more recently is a long time in the making.
What did it look like in the beginning?
Jan: We had established that my strengths were in the energy world and doing shamanic work. I had a sweat lodge built on my property. I did ceremonies with teen girls, mostly for moms of our generation who wanted to help their girls transition. Then it developed into many other fun things. Dulce and I did a lot of ceremonies. That piece connected her with what she wanted to offer and her larger vision. We married the two ideas together. It was truly putting our gifts together in this collaborative effort.
Why Cowgirl, Cowgirl archetype? Why that name?
Cowgirl can be a persona, but it is more of an inner quality. What we try to do for women in this aspect is get in touch with their inner cowgirl. It is more about qualities we embody, such as resilience, perseverance, commitment, courage, strength, and grit.
Do we need to get dirty?
We need to be able to bite the dust and get up and get back in the saddle. Most women were amazing cowgirls, especially when I look at my grandmother and those in my lineage. It is about connecting to those cowgirl qualities and how we can apply those qualities to be in the world in our everyday life. We work with the qualities of the cowgirl archetype.
Jan: In another example, in Bali, we may not have live horses, but we are going to work with horses in a different way, in a more archetypal or mythological way. There are many ways to connect to the principle of horse and woman as cowgirl.
There is a highly capable, tenacious woman in every person. When we lose connection to that, sometimes things go haywire in our lives. When we reconnect to the strength within us, the power and wisdom of the cowgirl archetype, transformation occur quickly.
Dulce, You said in your doctoral dissertation that horses are highly attuned to humans’ emotional states. What does that mean for people who attend your retreats?
A horse’s prey mechanism has been highly refined over millions of years. It is almost like a biofeedback machine. If you are the leader in a herd and there is a mountain lion two miles away, you have to be able to detect it in a nanosecond. That herd leader has to detect whether the mountain lion is on the prowl or he was just hunting and is now just walking it out. Horses are wired by evolution to detect all these emotions and feelings. Many of us have disconnected from our gut and heart, where our feelings and emotions are stored. Horses can recognize these signals not only in the animal world but they can recognize them in humans. When we are in the presence of horses, we are forced to be authentic because horses will react to anything that feels incongruent.
Jan, You have developed a unique system called Hack Your Biofield. Explain what that is and how it works.
First, it should be said I have been a teacher my entire life, from a teenager, elementary school teacher, and higher education teacher to where I now teach people about personal transformation. Along the way, I have had to expand my own insights and education. I trained as a shaman about 20 years ago, and I worked with Indigenous people from the Andes. It was a wonderful way of experiencing my life from the perspective of having different types of gifts. The shaman’s perspective was fabulous. We all inherently have the power to look into the energy world and perceive what is happening. From there, we can understand why we have experiences in our lives based on the biofield.
In terms of energy work, I use “Hack Your Biofield,” which essentially is the energy field that surrounds the body. It goes out the top of the head around the physical body and the width of the outstretched arms down into the earth, and it circles back up through the spine and the central nervous system.
As a shaman, I realized people were coming to me for one item at a time. I thought if we did not speed up this process, it would take four hundred years to work through every tiny detail. As an academic, I started doing research. I discovered the term biofield is what is used in science. As our world is science-oriented, I started calling the work the biofield to bridge the gap between the mind and the spirit.
Wonderful You have an upcoming workshop/retreat – The Cowgirls Guide to Emotional Fitness.
Dulce: Our next workshop is September 27 through October 1 here in New Mexico, and it is five days. We will have horse activities. We are going to do reflective and active work with the horses. We will do yoga, breath work, and a lot of embodiment practices. We want to really explore the world of emotion and how our body is so important in that process. Also, how to get movement and flow back into the body, we will work and play and connect with the horses to help guide us in how to do that. They are experts at that.
For whom is this workshop/retreat designed? Is it a workshop?
Dulce: It is more of an experience. It is a bit of a retreat.
Jan: I would say it is designed for women. We are open to both men and women being at the workshop. It is for people who want to have a new experience. We find a lot of women reach out who have horse experience, but that is absolutely not necessary. There is no riding involved. Your feet are firmly on the ground, and the horses are essentially our partners.
For whom is this workshop/retreat designed? Is it a workshop?
Dulce: It is more of an experience. It is a bit of a retreat.
Jan: I would say it is designed for women. We are open to both men and women being at the workshop. It is for people who want to have a new experience. We find a lot of women reach out who have horse experience, but that is absolutely not necessary. There is no riding involved. Your feet are firmly on the ground, and the horses are essentially our partners.
People come because they are curious about horses or they have done other healing work, and they need or want different results. It is a lot of different things. New Mexico has a lot to offer. There is a vacation component in there too. People can come and have fun, play with the horses, and do the things we do to have a transformational experience. Then they can go to Santa Fe for the day and hit the hot springs.
How many days is this experience?
Dulce: It is for five days. It starts on a Wednesday afternoon and ends on Sunday.
Where is the lodging? How do people get there?
Dulce: They would fly in. If they are flying, it would be Albuquerque. We are 20 minutes from the airport, just south of Albuquerque. The retreat does not cover accommodations, but plenty of accommodations are nearby and Airbnb’s. It is a smaller town. It has a small-town rural feel to it. Santa Fe is an hour and 15 minutes north, and it is a beautiful time of year to visit the high desert in the fall. It is just beautiful.
The Cowgirls’ Guide to Emotional. This is from September 27 to October 1 in Los Lunas. And where is the best place for them to sign up or get more information?
www.life-is-art.us or www.jan-wakefield.com
What else do we need to know that we did not cover?
It is important to register sooner than later because we fill up quickly in the horse retreat. We take a small group. It is a maximum of eight. We make this a highly personal and very intimate experience. We have to build a lot of trust to work in a group situation. We intentionally keep it to eight women.
What about the Bali Retreat that is happening later?
Bali is also an intimate retreat. It is limited to eight people. We rent an entire villa for the experience. We have a private space. There is only room for eight people. It also fills up quickly. Our June retreat is already full for Bali, and the next open one is December 10 through the 17th, December 2023. And we have another booking for June of next year in, 2024. A lot of people who want to come to New Mexico also want to go to Bali in December. So, we would love to hear from any new people who are interested in experiencing the Dynamic Duo.
Interview by Phyllis King
