May I Introduce One Of My Mentors - Mark Lemke

I met Mark in the winter of 2005 at Petawawa´s annual Christmas market. Shawn and I went there for inspiration and to look at all that wonderful craftmanship.
Inspiration I truly found - in a different way than I was looking for and way more than I could ever imagine.
I guess you could say that was the birth of my Parelli journey.
I had heard about Parelli before but I guess I was just not ready for it. Like the quote says, "When the student is ready the teacher will appear".
Back to the Christmas market. Mark offered candlelight holders made out of horseshoes and everything horserelated I had to check out of course. On his displaytable he also had a Savvy magazine. While Shawn started to talk to Mark I frantically stared at that magazine and wondered what the heck SAVVY means. Of course I missed the whole conversation and was kind of baffled when I noticed both guys looking at me.
"Ha?"- was my typical response to their faces. Shawn explained that Mark had a bunch of horses and that he had told him that I was a rider. I don´t recall much of the rest of the conversation, only that Mark had invited me out to his farm to come riding.
Horses!! By that time I had been without horses for a year due to my move to Canada. I had sold Tjelver in Sweden befor my move and the man I was leaving Sweden and my horse for - my ex-fiance (I guess that´s the closest thing to marriage I ever was and will be), showed no interest in horses and wasn´t very supportive for my passion either. Living on a military base didn´t make my wish for another equine partner easier. I don´t think it would have been appropiate to have a horse in the PMQ´s.
Anyway, with Shawn the horses came back into my life. He arranged with Mark that I would come out on sunday to look at his horses.
There it was - in front of my nose, the opportunity I had been dreaming of in months - to touch and smell horses again!
Sunday came and Shawn drove me out to Mark´s farm. It was another cold winterday with alots of snow. Mark introduced me to his herd. I think it must have been around 12 horses back then. The first thing he explained to us was that the pasture is the horses home so he is not just entering it but knocking on their door instead and asking for permission to enter their home. Then he started to talk about Pat Parelli and his principles and their homeschooling program and their levels.
The more he explained the more I felt like home.
After talking and discussing for a while Mark must have found that we were on the same page and he offered me to ride any of his horses. I didn´t wear any appropiate ridingclothes nor any suitable clothes for being outside in the cold, -20 we are talking about, for several hours. But I didn´t had time to care about such small things cause I was going to ride.
Shawn left and I started to ride...after Mark had explained the 7 games to me. That day I rode 4 horses. When Shawn picked me up that evening I wouldn´t stop talking about Mark and his horses.
That winter I learned alot about Natural Horsemanship, about Parelli and about people who do Parelli. I spent alot of hours at Mark´s farm asking him questions - and he was never tired answering them but at the same time encouraging me to solve the puzzle. We had alot of discussions, watched many Savvy Club dvd´s, rode alot of trailrides in the snow by -25, played alot with his horses and drank alot of tea.
Another significant experience for me was meeting all the other Parellipeople. Coming from the competetive, english dressageriding world I wasn´t used to so much camraderie between horsepeople. It truly felt like being accepted in one big family.