I was one of the horse crazy little girls. I painted horses, I collected horse statues, I pretended that I was a horse, I wrote down the names of the horses I owned in my imaginary stables, and I read every horse book written for children and some that were not. I did everything I could to try to ride or be around horses. 

 “One of the earliest religious disappointments in a young girl’s life devolves aroung her answered prayer for a horse.”  Unknown

 As life went on, I put my horse dreams aside. I was busy with nursing school, working and then graduate school in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing.

I enjoyed my work as a nurse but was finding it more and more stressful.  When I started working full time as an AIDS clinician I found things to be extremely difficult.  I loved my work and my patients but I was finding the work emotionally exhausting.  This was in the early days of the AIDS epidemic when there were not good treatments and so many patients died.  There was much stigma back then, many nurses and other providers would not care for patients and I found that I was always fighting to get patients the care that they needed.  I needed to find a way to manage my own mental health.  Traditional therapy didn’t seem to help. I had reiki treatments which helped but were emotionally exhausting.  I saw an ad (for a car, I think) that said “It’s better to realize your dreams than have them analyzed.”   I decided to pursue my dream of riding and horses.  And the journey began.....

Horses have saved my life and allowed me to work for so many years as a nurse and as a nursing professor. It has been quite a journey and I have learned so much about myself and about the healing power of horses. I have reached a time in my life when I want to share this with others.