2022 Season Recap
In every age, there is a call for introspection.
As I sit down to pen this letter as I do every year, I use the time to reflect on the lessons that have been gifted to me - lessons to navigate as an individual and leader. At times the gifts appear disguised as nightmares, but it's up to us to give them the value that they were intended to have.
As we close out our 7th full season, it is remarkable how far we have come, and what we have learned about human development, trauma, and the state of the American veteran. We have become students of the ruling industrial complex that has led to the horrific number of veteran suicides, now underreported by 37%*, while hundreds of billions feed the cancer. And this is separate from the mass drugging of the mind, body, and spirit that we are witnessing.
We have grown and adapted through understanding and embracing change, always taking the hard right and everything that comes with it. Standing in truth because Truth has no agenda. Our goal is not to sell people's pain or put them on a pedestal, cycling over the past to generate donations by tugging on emotions. Our sole purpose is to restore the dignity of the human experience so an individual can once again participate in creativity and move forward.
It has not been easy. Today we live in an epoch where we have lost all reverence and wonder for the great mystery of the Hero's Journey - living on the surface of our own potential. Slowly we have fallen into identity consciousness ruled by labels and marketed to in a way that reinforces our ignorance of ourselves which is what we should be trying to free ourselves from. Instead, we rip and tear at each other, participating in the wrong side of creativity, and perpetuating a world based in degradation.
This year 24 students came from all walks of life to the Double H Ranch. Over 41 days, students re-membered themselves, bringing all experiences together, but without the emotional charge. Thank you for making this opportunity possible for individuals whom you may never know, but will change the course of history because they changed themselves, choosing the path less traveled.
Our work is advancing, and in part, because of the progress, we have made in the One-Eighty Out Capital Campaign and the program infrastructure that it has granted us. This year, despite material challenges, we built the rock house with an outdoor sauna, a cold plunge pool, and an indoor riding arena.
We made program effective changes by creating a cookbook and meal program called the Anti-Inflammatory Farmacy while refining our fitness program and adding a series of new rituals to the 41-day experience. The investment into the individual at H&H is the most comprehensive and involved process in the United States today and I can honestly say I have the most real and committed, hardworking, selfless team in the space.
The message of Heroes and Horses has grown and is inspiring people all over the world to form a community and create a wave of change in the lives of those who are facing hardships. Learning to stand in the current truth of who you are is the most difficult task I have ever faced. When the shields are down and identities are blown away only then can we get a clear view of where we are in our life path, adopting truth as an identity.
Looking ahead, we will be adding a 4th class in the coming year to welcome 32 individuals from all walks of life to Montana, brought here by your support and love. Love for complete and total strangers who are battered, hurting, and broken from experience. Fathers, sons, brothers, and uncles are applying by the hundreds - lives hanging on in survival mode but willing to follow the path less traveled.
We are grateful for all of the creative ways our community has shown their support in the last year to make this vision a reality - from traveling from all over the world to volunteer, to buying sleeping bags, making bracelets, making monetary contributions, donating saddles, hosting dinners, making introductions, and running hundreds of miles to raise awareness. Thank you hardly sums it up.
But our journey is far from over. As we close out the final months of 2022, there are priorities that remain front of mind. Construction on our new volunteer cabins has begun, final touches need to be made on the indoor arena, and the $400,000 balance on our $1M matching grant from the Ackerman Estate needs to be fulfilled.
We are confident that we will accomplish these goals, and more, with the generous support from our community because what we are doing matters. We're not here to feel good, we're here to transcend. Living from the inside out rather than from the outside in.
-Micah Fink
