Post by Sowelu on Oct 13, 2009 0:23:39 GMT -5
Animals as Healers and Teachers
By Phoenix Rising Star
[/b][/size]By Phoenix Rising Star
Ma'at Magazines
The Inner Light Issue
October 2009
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In our healing training, we teach how to help get the 'issues out of the tissues' whether it's with two leggeds or four.
As we were preparing to teach this next training for cats, dogs and horses, I was wondering where we would go this time to have the most access for animals and people. Mentally I asked the angels to connect us to the perfect place and let it go.
Two hours later, an email crossed my computer about a place called Hacienda de los Milagros (House of Miracles), a lifetime sanctuary for horses, burros, and virtually any other animal.
Curious, I called the Director, Wynne Zaugg and asked if we could bring students there, offering healing to the animals through our teaching.
He agreed and ended the conversation by saying, "Don't be surprised if you feel you're much more healed by the experience."
A bit taken aback by his statement, I also wasn't totally surprised. When you give a healing, you always receive a healing. But what puzzled me is that most of these animals were in this lifetime sanctuary because they were injured or saved from the meat wagon. How could they be in any condition to return healing? How could they be more than receivers of our teaching?
We caravanned the one and a half hour trip to Chino Valley on the other side of the Mingus Mountains from Sedona.
Following Wynne's detailed directions, we drove up to an immaculate eight acre property where at least one hundred burros and thirty plus horses were kept. Plus a few llamas, cats, dogs, rabbits, and mules.
As we were a bit puzzled by the difference in the animals, Wynne defined them on our tour of Hacienda de los Milagros.
"A mule is the product of a horse and a donkey and cannot reproduce. Burros on the other hand are a wild species and unless castrated are able to reproduce. Most of them are rounded up by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and auctioned off. The ones we have here weren't sold for a variety of reasons and were headed to be euthanized. I couldn't bear that, so I took as many as I could."
Wynne's heart is obviously as big as Montana.
"I initially got into this with just one horse. That was in the '90's and that horse is still with us. I had resisted for a very long time because I knew it wouldn't stay at just one. And it didn't. In '95, we got our first burros and found out about the situation in Death Valley where the park service had been shooting them. A group from Washington arranged for live capture and rescue costs if the park service would quit shooting them. The first year they did that, I went over to get two burros, came home with eight and three of them were pregnant. So that's the point where we became official.
"The first several years we collected burros they were either BLM or Death Valley. You can tell by their brands."
We commented on how some of the animals wore fly masks and others didn't. Wynne's response to that was, "Most of them need them, but won't wear them. We have one horse that has to wear his because he has a bullet hole in his head. We got him at the livestock auction, and it's obvious that someone was a bad shot."
He pointed out Braveheart, a Spanish mustang, rescued from a guy trying to beat him to death. The people who saved him, didn't know what to do with him, so Wynn took him.
A 501c3 charitable organization, Wynne's decision to create a lifetime sanctuary actually began with an animal communicator who talked to all of the animals as they came to HDLM. "They all said they chose to be here. Some of them have been through so much! And to think they braved what they did so they could then come to a place that would help them heal, just breaks my heart." Wynne said.
Robyn feeling very comfortable with the burros.
"The animals' intent is to stay here. HDLM was never intended to be a rescue/adoption. So many of those don't work out anyway. The animals have been crystal clear-'we don't want to go anywhere else'. They are trying to magnify their energy so they can reach more people. If someone comes here, and has a little opening, it becomes a big opening. They don't ignore anyone, but they size people up quickly. If there's no opening, why bother? The ones that need healing, all they have to do is walk out there." (I wasn't sure if he meant people or animals.)
"We've got a large group from BLM, and one of them had her leg broken in two or three places in the wild. From the knee down, it turns out and the hoof sticks up in the air. She'll never walk on the hoof unless you do surgery. She's in her twenties and gets around fine. If you did surgery on her, you'd have to break her leg and virtually teach her how to walk again. She runs and gets around fine. She doesn't want any pity. Her friend had four small caliber bullet holes and a bunch of broken bones in her face. You can't mess with that-she'd die from the surgery. So they're here.
The name means House of Miracles. Have you witnessed many miracles?
"We've had two get rid of cancer. Another had a terrible overbite when he came here. His teeth lined up a few weeks after arriving. Even the vet said he'd never seen that. We had a quarter horse with terrible nosebleeds. That horse was here for 5 and a half years. The cancer and nosebleeds went away."
Why do there seem to be so many animals with bullet holes?
Wynne shrugged, "Well, the BLM just says they round them up. They don't say how, nor do they claim knowledge of any injuries."
It wasn't until our group began to enter the pen with the largest number of burros freely roaming around, that I understood we might have a problem.
Two of our students were deathly afraid of any four legged animals larger than a small dog. One had been thrown from a horse. The other, although we didn't know it at the time, had a lifelong fear of horses, burros, mules, etc.
They hung back from the pen entrance, hesitating.
Robyn had been using a cane after having a hip replacement and was concerned her stick would create anxiety in the animals. Yet she was concerned about NOT using it for balance.
Wynne assured her the animals would not react as long as she was not using it in a threatening manner.
She hesitated again to go in, and we encouraged her to follow her guidance.
"You can work with them from the fence if you like. Or come into the pen with or without your cane. It's up to you," we said.
Squaring her shoulders, she said, "I'll leave it here and come in."
Bravo!
Marie didn't voice any concerns and truly we were unaware of her fear until later.
Immediately as we entered the pen, we were surrounded by seven or so burros (I use the generic term burros to represent them as I truly couldn't tell much difference between burros, mules, etc.)
All the burros crowded close, wanting their ears rubbed or to be scratched, looking for loving. Robyn was understandably nervous, both from the intensity of the animals and from the lack of support without her cane.
As the animals felt complete with their attention, they moved off and another seven or eight came forward, rubbing against us, crowding, gently butting us, even giving us an occasional gentle nip. What an incredible experience to be in a pen with a hundred plus burros at the same time. No one was tied up. All were free to roam. No pecking order was evident. No animal taking an alpha stance of leadership. It was an amazing display of unity consciousness. Of knowing there was enough for all.
The HeartBeam with Burros.
We began our instruction with the creation of a heart beam, a permanent beam of love and light that strengthens whenever any being enters it and provides a mini-clearing to any resistance to living the soul's purpose.
As we began this technique, a mini whirlwind danced across the pen, stirring up dust and cleaning the atmosphere. All of us stood still with our eyes closed against the dust. As it passed, the burros came from all over the pen-pushing, crowding, nudging us as we created the heart beam with our breath and intentions. More and more surrounded us, sometimes even almost knocking us over in their eagerness to be a part of it. They all seemed to understand what we were doing and wanted, no needed, to be a part of it. It was simply amazing, the joy we were all experiencing.
I glanced at Robyn and she was grinning from ear to ear as burros gently pushed her around without her stick. Marie was hugging a white burro, also grinning from ear to ear.
That was just the beginning of a wonderful afternoon.
We interacted with almost everything with four legs. Moving from one pen to another, we never really sat down for three hours until the very last fifteen minutes when we also offered Wynne healing for his back.
Promising to be back, we left behind donations, a heart beam and our hearts….
It wasn't until about three weeks later that we understood the BIGGER picture of what happened that day.
We received an email from Robyn. She explained how HDLM had changed her life.
"I am no Dr Doolittle but when I am using (healing) on animals I am finding that I will in a lot of cases, not always, hear from the animal. While at the sanctuary I found that I was feeling the energy of those beautiful creatures and that when my energy flagged, I seemed to get a boost from no where, and was able to carry on without having to continually go and sit down, as is normal for me since the heart attack in November 2007. This energy boost could only have come from the animals.
"My fear of animals has been taken away and replaced with a deeper feeling of compassion and understanding, and an awe for them and their courage to overcome the situation they were in before coming to the sanctuary. At times, as you would have also felt, it was heart breaking, however, they have taught me to accept whatever is there that can't be changed BUT change what can. But don't hold grudges as they are just a waste of God given energy, and change nothing.
"Now I can accept myself and others just as they are, warts and all. Before, this was sometimes very hard for me to do and I did judge where I shouldn't have. This was very hard for me to understand, HOW COULD ANIMALS HAVE TAUGHT ME THIS.
"That we are all perfect in God's eyes, I knew this but didn't always act as if it was true. Now I give more thought to it, and I learned this from a donkey and a mule and a horse!.
I know that they have caused this change, because as I have said, I didn't always feel or act this way until we had been there to the sanctuary and interacted with those animals that I so feared at first sight.
"They also taught me not to look with Pity on anyone, without really looking into the person or animal first. Those animals wanted nothing to do with PITY, and self pity is really a destructive emotion as it drains away the energy to move out of the situation. Something I hadn't thought of before now.
"I am more confident in myself now, and I feel that nothing is beyond me and I can only think that facing the fears I had that day, and they were many and some almost overpowering and paralyzing. Those 4 legged wise ones taught me a greater lesson than I can realize or thank them for. I now face what is put before me and do with it whatever I must, in love and light and for the highest good of all, but where I might have, in 'Fear', shelved it for another day, I DEAL with it NOW.
"My greatest lesson I think was in opening my heart to everything in my pathway, and loving myself as I am and never turning away from anything without first giving it the love that God is giving to you. Making sure that all you meet know they are worthwhile and lovely inside, even if you can't really see it at that moment. A beautiful horse who cried and whose tears fell on my hands taught me that. I will never forget her, or her beautiful gallant heart, she thought she was unworthy, she didn't realize that she was pure gold, so precious.
"I went to that sanctuary to learn, to be a channel for the healing of animals. ( Yes, I was very hopeful they would be SMALL or we would be outside the area where they were-- I was a coward I know.) However now I look at animals in a different light and without fear. They taught me more than I can ever repay them, and they taught me that while I thought I was being kind to animals I wasn't. I was indifferent in a way to their plight because my eyes were closed. No one who ever spends time with those animals at that sanctuary will ever walk away feeling the same as when they first walked into the sanctuary. They will walk away much wiser and richer for the privilege of being with them for even a short time."
The Golden One with the broken leg.
When I shared that email with Marie, she smiled a little and said, "You didn't really know how afraid I was, did you?"
No, we didn't have a clue.
"I've been deathly afraid of horses all my life! When you offered me the opportunity to learn this and experience this with these animals, I knew it was my opportunity to heal myself. And I did! I was able to overcome my fears almost immediately! The love of those animals was amazing!"
And so Wynne was right. Expect to walk away with as much if not more healing than what we were providing.
The lifelong sanctuary has now transformed into a Teaching Sanctuary as the animals have magnified their energies enough to reach other people, and lack of funding has created an opportunity for some of the animals to move out into the world as teachers and healers.
The rest of the animals will stay there as long as they want, as teachers and healers.
If you are interested in learning more about Hacienda de los Milagros, in sponsoring a horse, burro, mule, etc. or donating money to support this project, visit www.haciendadelosmilagros.org.
Namaste,
Phoenix Rising Star
Found here
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View our YouTube Videos at www.youtube.com/sedonaheartwalk
Email me at sedonaheartwalk@yahoo.com for comments or ideas
Phoenix's Credentials:
M.S. Counseling
Clinical Hypnotherapist
Integrated Energy Therapist, Top Master Instructors, 2006-2008
Reiki/Seichem Master
Medicine for the Earth Facilitator
Angel Therapist
S.H.E.S. Minister (Spirit Helpers and Earth Stewards)
© 2009 Spirit of Maat
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