Connecting with Class
I had just completed a two-week retreat in Hawaii, located on a cliff that jutted out over the sea, carved out of the rainforest of Maui’s north shore. On this tiny spit of land, where the waves crashed below and rainbows regularly graced the sky, I and my fellow retreat members studied drumming, dancing, healing, and meditation. And so I was feeling particularly centered and spiritually connected to this extraordinary place the day I made my way to the Maui Horse Center. The Center is tucked into the majestic slopes of Haleakala Volcano, overlooking the sweeping, Maui coastline. The volcano itself juts through rings of purple rain clouds that lend an otherworldly aura to this primeval, earthly paradise.

Owned by a wealthy family with long ties to Maui, the Center was created to teach children about animals. It includes an indoor arena, a veterinarian center, two large barns, and glorious pastures for boarding and training horses. I parked out front and walked in the big door to the boarding barn. To my back was the ocean and in front of me was the beautiful Haleakala towering above. I had no particular expectations, but I had the vague, long-shot thought that if I could somehow establish myself with the Center, I’d have a good reason to return to this heaven on earth.

I immediately spied two women sitting on bales of hay in the aisle. I approached them and told them I could hear horses speak. They looked at me, a small woman with bushels wild red hair who’d come in uninvited off the streets of Makawao Town. Robin, who I’d later learn was the stable manager, stood up, her clipboard falling off her lap.

“Uh, miss,” she said. “We’re not hir—”

“Let her try it,” said the woman wearing breeches and boots, Anne. “Can’t hurt.” What I hadn’t known was they’d just had a meeting to determine the fate of a chestnut gelding.

Robin’s eyes brightened. She picked her clipboard back up and walked towards one of the stalls.

“Alright then, red-headed woman who hears horses,” Robin said. “Why don’t you come over here and look at Class?”

I walked up to Class, a 16-hand chestnut-gelding thoroughbred, obviously bred to race. But his musculature showed his training had an emphasis towards dressage, a discipline similar to ballet in that it requires balance, poise, obedience, athleticism, and precision. His hair was nearly as red as mine. He looked directly through me and I through him. It was as though he was transparent in places.

The connection that allows the healing begins with me opening my heart, for it is only then that I can receive “secret” information from the animals in a language imperceptible to the everyday ear. My eyes softened, and my ears and heart widened, and from there I heard him. He shared with me a set of about ten pictures, like a snapshot gallery, one right after the other.

Anne, Class’s trainer as it turns out, approached the stall.

“He’s been lame on and off for several years and the vets have all given up on him,” she said, quietly. “We can’t seem to agree on where he’s lame or¬ why.”

I softly touched Class, and images flashed from his mind to mine. He transmitted a picture of his castration and a rope tied around his right hind leg, holding it high in the air. He had tried to fight, but quickly succumbed to the restraints. At the time, his mind and body were foggy from the drugs. He felt vulnerable, trapped and frightened of the humans standing over him.

“This horse was gelded?” I asked. I felt silly. He was a gelding. Of course he was gelded. But I knew better than to censure myself. I had a line, a path in, and needed to follow it as it unfolded.

“Yes.” This time it was Class who answered.

“Now, we’re getting somewhere. Good boy.” Here it was easy to soften my heart and flood this thought, encapsulated in a matching feeling, to Class. I love the heart of a horse, and always want to acknowledge that first hint of engagement with me.

“Is he proud?” I asked out loud. I was onto something. At first glance this horse seemed fragile, refined, more pretty-boy than studdish. But now he seemed to be telling me he remembered being a stallion, and that sometimes he still carried on like one.

“Yes,” said Anne. “As a matter of fact, he can act proud, like a stallion.”

“Was he gelded late?” I didn’t give either of them time to answer. I had a strong line now and wanted to stay with it.

“Yes, he was.” I answered my own question before they could.

With my arms wrapped around his right hindquarter, the connection between Class and myself coursed. I could feel the energy all bound up inside him, kind of the way premenstrual fullness feels. “He has energy restriction, like a traffic jam of energy, here in the floor of his pelvis, and down his right hind leg,” I told Anne. “He needs to discharge more, down into the earth. He is pulling his energy up and in, freezing, and constricting and contracting, which is the opposite of what we need him to do.”

Boom. That was it. Class was all business. He never wavered in his contact with me. The quick, efficient download of information told me this horse wanted to heal. His “story” came through in bits and pieces. In micro-flashes, I received pictures, feelings, words, impressions, smells, and background noise, all of which I experienced through my sensate organs. Bit by bit these flashes soon flow together to form a moving picture story. When there is a rush of emotion, such as I was receiving from Class, I know that there is something that has been held inside for a while and is only waiting for someone to come by and have a listen. I call it being “backed up in the printer queue.”

Now that Class had someone who could listen to him, his energy became unstuck, flowing like a hot river of lava, demanding movement and freedom. That’s when I know that the desire for wholeness is great.

Through our sessions together Class came forth. His etheric body — that place where the life force resides — softened and widened around his physical body, leaving him free, vital and resilient in my energetic hands. He continued to transmit in pictures and words. The wounds of the past and the misunderstandings unraveled, allowing them to release their hold, and together, we reshaped his present experience.

As he re-associated back into his body, he came back to a place that felt safe and good. And that’s when he surrendered, giving up all the old images and impressions that were burned deeply in his body tissue, his deep visceral organs, his soft connective tissue. As one layer let go, his breath found the next, until he reached down into the floor of his pelvis, where he hadn't dared go for a long time. Finally, he had come fully home into his physical body. He was no longer lame.

Class became my calling card to the stable full of horses at the Maui Horse Center, my home away from home every January. Through the years I’ve come to know Class pretty well. He wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s all business, eagerly anticipating his next encounter with someone. On my last trip to Maui, Class’s stall door was wall-to-wall blue ribbons!

Although each experience is different, Class is typical of many of my healing encounters with animals, including humans. The connection that fosters healing begins when I open my heart. It is only then that I can receive essential information from animals in a language that is otherwise unintelligible.

Mother nature offers us all a unique way to recover from our wounds and traumas. Often, there can be an emotional component associated with a physical problem. As we trap that dreadful experience away from view, we build armor in our bodies to hold it at bay. This armor acts as a defense structure, blocking the free flow of energy. We become cut off from our internal healing compass, and everything that makes us who we are — our posture, breathing, metabolism, emotions, perceptions, interpretations, and belief systems — is affected. As the armor melts, we re-establish access to our own internal compass, which keeps us pointed to our true north.

Class suffered from a “freeze.” His fear, his trauma from the surgery when he was “half asleep and half awake” and unable to fight or flee, “froze” the energy from the trauma into his body. The body couldn’t fully recover until the leg that had been restrained could complete its energetic need to discharge, be it to fight or flee.

We humans are far more “at cross purposes” than our animals. Our incongruities have oftentimes led us to not even knowing what we want, in the name of shaping ourselves to the rules of the culture. We may be angry with our boss, yet we also want his approval. Since neither can be fully expressed, or denied, there is an energetic block. This is a common state for humans, and this book leads us through coming to terms how this is so and how re-claiming our personal power, and our desires, we free up the energy for physical, emotional and spiritual thriving.

CONSULTATIONS: ANIMAL
Private Consultations - Session Overview Animal - Session Overview Horse - Request for Consultation - Connect with Class

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