Kathy Pike - Life Lessons from the Heart of Horses: How Horses Teach Us About Relationships and Healing

Praise forLife Lessons from the Heart of Horses

Through enchanting storytelling, Kathy Pike immerses us in the magical relationship that humans can experience with horses. They reveal themselves as shamans and teachers who help us to build positive relations, become intelligent and compassionate leaders, and even bring healing, understanding, and clarity. This book is a rare and beautiful journey into Kathys artistry of coaching with horses; her storytelling transforms the reader into experiencing the opening of their hearts through the horses way.

Aldo Civico, PhD, anthropologist and executive coach

Praise to Kathy Pike! What a delightful book rich with stories of life lessons she has gleaned from her special horse herd, not only of her personal treasured adventures, but also of her profound work coaching with horses that changes peoples lives. I feel like I get a glimpse into her passionate life with horses and I am on the journey with her. Each chapter ends with self-reflective questions that you can journal about, making the book all the more powerful. From leadership to self-compassion, dancing with horses to living life fully, she offers so many inspirations. I highly recommend this important book that chronicles the horse as healer and teacher.

Ariana Strozzi Mazzucchi, founder of Equine Guided Education

What a beautiful book! From wild child to the direct, smart, and honest voice of the spirit of creation that she has become, Kathy Pike shares a lifetime of love for the giving and benevolent nature of horses as guides, healers, and teachers. They show us the way to the sustainable health, well-being, and vitality that are essential to solving the many problems facing our world. This book is a celebration of the path of mutual benefit that is now necessary for the sake of life itself, and an essential reading experience.

Francis Rico, author of A Shamans Guide to Deep Beauty
and founder of Applying Shamanism

Copyright 2021 by Kathy Pike

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Daniel Brount and Kathy Pike

Cover photograph by Tony Stromberg

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-6283-1

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-6284-8

Printed in the United States of America

I dedicate this book to all of the horses, those in captivity
and those who roam freemay you experience love, honor,
and respect from humankind.

Contents

Introduction

THE POWER OF NATURE

I grew up in the state of Maine. During the summer months, I tended to the family garden. I swam in the ocean and hiked in the woods to harvest fiddleheads. Late summer mornings were spent in the thick of wild blueberry bushes with instructions to fill my container with the deep purple-blue nuggets of sweetness that later would become pies or sprinkled over cereal. At night, I slept outside under the stars. The night skies would often close up with clouds, and the sprinkles of rain would send me onto the front porch.

Autumn was the time for picking, polishing, and bagging apples that I then sold at the roadside. The bruised or dropped apples became every imaginable sugar-sweetened dish, made with the best baking apple of all time, the MacIntosh. In the winter, I continued to seek time outside. After school, I would grab my ice skates and hike back to a pond in the woods. I would relish the solitude of the late winter day; the sun was dim and soft, the ice was hard and cold, and all I could hear were the sounds of my sharp blades slicing into the glass-like surface. My highly sensitive spirit needed the getaway. I found solace in nature, far away from human incongruences and the sounds of traffic. My first experiences with horses included feeding apples to the neighbors horse, riding bareback through apple orchards with my best friend on her old farm horse, and getting to go on an occasional group ride through 4-H, Americas largest young development organization.

As I grew older, my need for nature did not diminish; it was not an option for me but a needed experience. In my twenties, I spent a considerable amount of time climbing the mountains in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, exploring Northern Californias deep woods, and hiking and backpacking through Utahs and Arizonas deserts. Additionally, I loved running rivers in the wild and vast regions of southeast Alaska, and skiing anywhere I could find fresh powder.

Going into the wild from four days to three weeks at a time, completely disconnected from society, current events, and news removes all the conveniences of society. Entirely dependent on myself, or those I was with, my daily life-cycle aligned with nature: I rose at dawn, rested in the heat of the day, and slept shortly after nightfall. I became so connected to the rhythm and way of natural life and the freedom to allow my spirit to be expansive in the vast and inspiring landscapes that I found significant discomfort within any buildings four walls upon returning home. Feeling overwhelmed in small, tight gatherings with friends only highlighted how open my entire being had become from living outside for weeks.

The extended time I spent in Mother Nature built a strong foundation for my future connection and understanding of horses. When I lived at Jenny Lake Lodge in Teton National Park, I would hike to the lakes and sit in the trees in the early spring months. I would focus on the numerous bird songs, their voices bringing aliveness to the woods that had only recently lost the remaining winter snow layers into the deep, rich, and moist earth. During times like that, I would feel an indescribable peacefulness within my psyche and mental state of being; in those moments, time felt like it stood still, and my consciousness felt as if it merged with the plants and animals, sounds, and earth herself.

Simultaneously, as I felt less separate and more connected with all around me, I also felt more present in my body, often feeling a strong, steady pulse of life force energy moving through me. The edges of the plants, trees, mountains, streams, and flowers would soften and become much less defined to my naked eye. A sense of floating within the environment versus traveling through it would shift and alter my mind-space and bring me into a timeless expression of my existence. These moments were utterly delicious to my mind, body, and spirit. I had become more like a horse in my energy than like a human.