Rags is a mare owned by Susan and Jim Medley who hosted the recent Healing with Horses workshop, at their farm in Virginia. Rags came to join the Medley Farm herd, last fall. She was taken in by the Medley’s from a local woman who had two children and a third child on the way so she could not care for Rags anymore.
At the workshop Rags presented herself as wanting to have a healing. The Medley’s did not anticipate this, for they felt that Rags had resolved the initial conflicts she had with some of the horses and had acclimated herself into the herd.
The workshop participants gathered to do an exercise with Rags, to deepen their understanding of the horse and to discover what Rags needed for her healing. They asked Rags a series of questions as they arose spontaneously, and as they did the group’s connection with her deepened. The questions became more poignant and one in particular made a clear connection with everyone’s heart: Rags was asked if she missed the little boy from her previous home.
In response to this question, nearly everyone in the group felt deep pain in their heart from the truth it had awakened. Rags felt it too; she stopped eating her hay, raised her head and stared at the group with a look of stunned bewilderment. There was a silence as everyone waited for her further response. Rags suddenly stepped forward to physically connect with the group; then, as her energy flow increased, she turned and trotted to the gate at the other end of the paddock to be with her field mates.
When the group circled up to discuss and integrate what had happened, we observed that Rags had walked away from her pasture buddies to stand under a tree and was allowing the energy in her body to integrate, as well. The Medley’s then shared with us that there had been a little boy at Rag’s previous home that missed Rag’s. After his first visit to see Rags, his mother had decided it was too painful for the boy to allow him to visit Rag’s again.
After the healing Rags was glowing with the grace that follows a powerful opening of the heart and was tenderly touching other horses in the herd. Susan reported how, as a result of the healing, it feels like a wall between she and Rags is gone. She added that Rags has become more gentle with the other horses and that the herd overall is more cohesive as a result of the workshop.