Talking to Animals

I have tons of news that I'm going to save for my next post. In a nutshell, I'm horseshopping, looking for a horse I can show. As most of you know I've struggled with whether or not to continue to ride dressage. Anyway, I'll let you know how I came to this decision next time.

Yesterday, I attended a class on animal communication at a local community college. Here's the blurb from this 4-hour class: Animals want to talk to us.We just have to tune in and listen. Learn to intuitively communicate with them in this fun interactive class. You will be sending and receiving messages by the end of the workshop. Whether you wish to enhance your relationship with your own pets or go on to work in this field, this class will provide you with the basics.

When I found out about this class, I had to go. For one, I've always been fascinated by intuitive communication with animals. Also, my heroine in my current book is an animal communcator. This couldn't have come at a better time.

The class was taught by Lisa Holm, a local psychic, clairvoyant intuitive counselor, Reiki master & animal communicator. In the class we were given hands-on practice communicating with animals via pictures and live animals. It was fascinating, to say the least, and anyone can do it if you believe you can.

I'm going to present you with the facts from my class. It's up to you whether or not you believe such a thing is possible.

First of all, you need to get in a quiet place to communicate and the following needs to be true:

1. You need to believe telepathic communication exists.
2. You need to believe it exists for you and be in a calm place inwardly and outwardly.
3. You need to practice.
4. You need to trust what you hear and the impression you get. Go with your first impressions. Go from your heart.

For starters, we did a meditation exercise. Lisa turned off the lights in the room and played soft music. She had us close our eyes and imagine we were walking through a forest to a stream. At the stream we opened a backpack we had been carrying. In the backpack were stones. Each stone had something written on it representing a burden we carried. We were to throw the stones one by one into the steam and watch them disentegrate when they hit the water, the remains being carried away. Then we threw the backpack into the water. Once we were freed of our burdens, we were to picture an animal coming out of the woods and what the animal was trying to tell us.

When we opened our eyes, we shared our experiences. The animal who came to me was the doe that eats our roses. She wondered why we had roses if she wasn't supposed to eat them.

Next Lisa handed out a picture of Nala, a dog she was familiar with, and gave us a technique for communicating with Nala.

1. Get quiet.
2. Look at a picture of the animal (or the real animal).
3. Close your eyes and focus on the animal.
4. Picture a warm, glowing light in your heart.
5. Picture the animal with same light in his heart.
6. Send a beam of light and love to the animal's heart.
7. Feel the light expand until it surrounds both of you.
8. Feel the animal's presence, even if you don't feel the animal, go with it anyway.
9. Ask the animal if he has anything to say to you?
10. You may see pictures in your mind, hear words, smell something, hear a song, or feel something in your body. Your first impression is probably the accurate one. Don't over think it.

Even if you don't get a message, make it up. Giving yourself permission to make it up, often frees your mind and allows you to communicate. Often, what you make up is truly what you're receiving from the animal, you just don't realize it.

Once we got a sense of her, we wrote down 5 questions to ask her.


The messages I received from Nala were a small gray stuffed toy and creaky hips. Later I found she'd had a serious injury to her hip in which she'd almost had to be put down. She also loves to play with stuffed animals.

I found my mind would wander, and Lisa said that's OK. Just bring it back. Staying focused takes practice. Work on breathing deeply, in through your nose, out through your mouth. Suspend your disbelief. Don't focus on pain and negativity because that's what you'll get in return.

If you'd like to find out where an animal might be hurting physically, picture a scanner of light running across the animal's body from head to tail. Wherever the scanner pauses or shows a different type of light or even a pinpoint of light is the problem area. You may also feel it in your own body.

We also communicated with two pets who were in the classroom and a horse via a picture brought in by the owner.

Regarding the horse, the owner asked us to find out why the horse stands for hours and stares. She wants to know what she's staring at. One of us said a ghost, and I had the words "something you can't see" enter my mind. Come to find out, the area the mare stared at was the area where her father was buried near the woods.

I thoroughly enjoyed this class, and the four hours went quickly. Yet by the time it was done, I was tired. Lisa pointed out such work was exhausting. Also, she did give some tips for altering behavior, but the animal needed to be open to it.

I hope you've enjoyed my recount of my class, and it's given you some food for thought.

Claustrophobia and My Mare

I really enjoyed Michele's post and your comments on animal communicators. In fact, I've been planning a book in which the heroine is an animal communicator. I think it would be a hoot to write.

One really good book I read on the subject is called "Spoken in Whispers" by Nicci Mackay.

For those of you who've asked, my mare, Gailey, is finally getting over her cellulitus. This weekend was her first turnout weekend. The picture above shows my hubbie hand walking her Thanksgiving weekend. As you can see, she's lost a lot of weight.

On a personal note, I did have the misfortune of tripping across an animal communicator whom I didn't consider legitimate. I went to her for acupressure on my horse, not for her opinion on my horse's mental state and didn't appreciate her grandstanding at my expense in front of a bunch of spectators.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe there are people who are in tune with animals and can communicate with them. I also believe there are plenty who take advantage of the human owners. This particular person was quite arrogant and made me feel about 2 inches small. She treated me like I didn't know my mare, while she had her figured out. It didn't set well with me, but I gritted my teeth and kept my mouth shut. People who truly have these gifts are usually much more humble.

I do know this horse. I've owned her for 11 years. We've been through hell and back together. Many of you have read my old posts on her, including our trailering issues.

So this woman proceeded to tell me the mare was being belligerant, and she could get her to load in the trailer frontwards (I load and haul her backwards).  She also said she could "fix" her because the mare was a bully (she can be) had my number (only when I let her). She volunteered to have her husband assist me as he was a disciple of a well-known horse whisperer. The minute she said that, I knew I had her. You see, the man who told me to NEVER load my girl frontwards because of her extreme phobia regarding hitting her head happened to be her husband's mentor. I informed her of such, which rendered her speechless and her spectators in shock. I politely thanked her and left.

Which brings up the real subject of my post this month. My mare is claustrophobic to the point of it being a severe phobia. I've learned over the years to work around it. Unfortunately, not everyone who handles her understands her like I do.

If you knew her history, you'd understand where all this originated. As a youngster, she grew fast. As a result, I don't think she realized how big she was. At a few years old, she was being led into her stall. The barnworker didn't bother to open the stall door completely, and he left the latch sticking out. The latch embedded itself between two ribs and almost punctured a lung. She still carries the scars. Six months later, she was caught in a fence at the same boarding stable. She still has those scars, too. Add to that, a trainer who wenched her into a too-small trailer a year later and a broken nose from hitting it on the trailer.

I worked for years with natural horsemanship trainers to cure her issues to a point. I've outlined most of those experiences in past posts, so I won't bore you with any of those details.

Here's the problem. During her recent two-month convalescence and confinement to a stall, her claustrophobia issues have come back. It's really odd, as I'm the only one handling her. She balks coming in and out of the stall. Normally, I don't have problems with her unless someone else has scared her by yanking on her lead rope until she throws her head and hits it on the stall door.

Currently, she has been leaping in and out of her stall, after balking in the doorway. Not exactly a safe thing to have a 1500-pound horse going in and out of a stall like a horse breaking from a starting gate.

To handle her fear of stall doors, I don't turn and face her and pull on the lead rope when she balks like most people would do. I've learned that I need to stand at her head facing the same direction and walk out with her. I repeat until she follows me calmly. I've been working on this for the past month, yet she still leaps in and out of the stall door. It as if she believes a troll is hiding on top of the door to smash her on her head. I'm puzzled because she hasn't had any episodes that I know of what would have triggered this reaction. I don't understand what's going on.

So I, too, have been entertaining calling a animal communicator. Michele's post was quite timely for me. I'd be most interested in hearing anyone's theories as to what may have dredged up this old behavior.