Witness to a Miracle

Editor’s Note: Trish Lemke is the founder of Joy Rides. She leads horse riding excursions around the world and is a certified Martha Beck life coach. Lemke lives in Durango, Colorado, with her family and horses. She is part of  Camp Cayuse, a program in development.

Lemke writes:

Daisy

I had the privilege this weekend to witness a great healing.

I’ve been working with people and horses for most of my adult life and even though I’ve seen countless moments of connection, transformation, and healing, I’ve never seen anything quite like this before.

It was an incredible moment between my horse, Daisy, and a new client.  He’s a combat veteran who served in the Iraq war for six years.  He’s done a lot of work on his healing journey, but there is still a lot of trauma and old wounds to be tended to.  I say ‘tended to,’ because these wounds go deep and they can’t be “fixed,” at least not by me. But I can help with the tending so the healing can take place from within.

So, I am the catalyst for the deeper work to be done by the horses.  I truly believe that the horses CAN and DO actually heal because they know how to access the deep spiritual, psychological, and heart wounds of people.  Maybe you believe this. Maybe you don’t. But if you have a deep wound that hasn’t been able to be resolved by traditional methods, I can guarantee that you’ll be a believer if you start doing this work with horses.

It was a simple exercise, slow and quiet on a Sunday morning:

My client was blindfolded, sitting in the round pen in a chair.  I do sometimes (with permission of course) to take away the sense of sight, so people can access other senses more easily.  I bring the horses in one at a time and let them interact in their own way with no guidance from me.  Apart from keeping the horses’ feet away from the peoples’ feet, I simply hold the line, let the horse lead and observe.

Trish Lemke runs Joy Rides Coaching

This time, Daisy went up to the back of my client, dropped her huge head down to his head and rested her muzzle gently on his face, right around his eyes.  She stood like this for at least five minutes, barely moving a muscle, going into a space of deep calm and peace.

I know this was a healing.  I know she was doing her work.  My human mind came up with the idea that Daisy, as she was placing her muzzle on his eyes, was healing all the atrocities that this client had seen and in doing so, was starting to heal the mind as well.

What a blessing it was for me to witness.

If anything about this resonates with you, it may mean that you have a deep wound that needs help healing.  If so, come to the horses and let them do their work.  I’ll be here too. There are many ways to experience it – a retreat, a trip, an in-person session, so when you’re ready for some healing, give me a call or send me an email.

Or if you want some honest fun, joy and adventure, come to Scotland with me!

 

Posted in Camp Cayuse, Horsemen & Women, Partners and tagged , , .

3 Comments

  1. Trish, you are a gal of my own work! I love hearing other practitioners EFL stories, especially because I am restively new in this field of work. My newness makes it sometime s difficult to articulate the power of this work. I sure hope you and I will have the opportunity to connect sometime at a summit!

  2. Trish, you are a gal of my own work! I love hearing other practitioners EFL stories, especially because I am relatively new in this field of work. My newness makes it sometime s difficult to articulate the power of this work. I sure hope you and I will have the opportunity to connect sometime at a summit!

  3. That is so lovely! How did the veteran feel afterwards? Horses make exceptional therapists and I’m so glad you were able to bring this about.

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