06/26/07 Voice of the Horse

Voice of the Horse. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Dawn Adams speaks from the heart with great passion for helping people when she discusses her business, the Tapestry Institute. Tapestry is a non-profit research & learning organization. They are presenting the Voice of the Horse Conference, a joint live and webcast event beginning this weekend. ADAMS: The Voice of the Horse Conference is an event that is both for research and educational purposes where we are bringing together experts from professional realms as well as people who are experts by virtue of their own interactions with horses themselves to share information, to share what they have learned, what they know about the horse/human relationship through any of these means. The Voice of the Horse Conference is open to anyone but youth are especially encouraged to participate and Adams feels that there is great potential there. ADAMS: One of the things that's really important to me is to make sure that the voice of youth is included in this. It's kind of standard to say this but it's never the less true, they are the future. And youth have wonderful relationships with horses sometimes far more intense than those that adults have for all kinds of reasons. Adams founded Tapestry as a way to enlighten and enhance the learning experience. ADAMS: I founded Tapestry to operate within Native worldview and carry out research and education using the whole array of means available to human beings to know about things and learn about the natural world. So we look at intellectual ways, at scientific ways, we also look at the ways that people learn through cultural means including the arts. One important aspect to the conference is that each attendee bring their own story. ADAMS: We are inviting every person who attends to contribute to this body of knowledge, to bring their own stories of the experiences that they have had with horses in many different ways. There is an online forum in which people are going to contribute these stories, to post a photograph of the horse involved that they are telling the story about or a short video clip or something. According to Adams, if you are a member of 4-H there are scholarships available to attend. ADAMS: Someone who gets one of those scholarships can go to the conference as many times as they want during that period of time to access the presentations, the art show, the concert to contribute to this forum, to read other peoples stories in the forum and to comment on things. For more information on the Voice of the Horse Conference visit the Tapestry website at tapestryinstitute.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.