About
First image lefthand side, Me with Village Chieftan
While I sit and wait for the photo to render, I'm an animal person, always have been. I was born with a strong love for all critters great and small. Mom swears my second word uttered was 'horse'.
I've been raised with dogs and cats, and much to my parents' dismay, I looped in horses as quickly as I could. They held firm on the 'No Horses Rule', so instead I did stable work for various barns, riding and caring for many different breeds.
Later teens meant a ton of shadowing my local vets as I aimed to become a veterinarian. In truth, I'd already stumbled onto my greatest joy, which was massage for horses. I already had clients who wanted me to work on their horses, but in order to help completely, I wanted to add chiropractic abilities and that meant having to become a vet first.
Along the way the goals of being a vet and I diverged. Instead I branched out to do a lot more in the animal industry. I worked in a pet shop specializing in fish and exotic birds. At one point, I was caring for 48 fish tanks in coldwater, brackish and tropical freshwater, plus 8 koi ponds. For the birds, I handled everything from finches and canaries through macaws. I learned how to handfeed the babies and had a lot of fun with them.
In my teens I was very active with obedience training, and dog showing. I spent a ton of time with my Irish Setter and a nearby Kennel Club. I turned to my knowledge of various dog breeds as I apprenticed for 6 months to be a dog and cat groomer. My teacher was tops in her field and my training was thorough. I had my own dog and cat grooming shop for over 6 years. When I retired, I'd groomed over 136 different AKC breeds, and countless mixed breeds. In my heydey, I was grooming 16 dogs a day, four days a week.
Being stuck in an apartment meant I couldn't easily have dogs and cats for awhile. I stressed and turned to small animals, finding great delight in my axoltyls (water dogs), and indoor koi pond complete with tadpoles. In time a baby coatimunde found her way into our heart and home and our beautiful, super sweet Birman kitty followed soon after.
I've had pet rats, ferrets and bunnies I've cared for small mammals as part of my job and I've had some lovely pet laying hens. In college I played with snakes,owning one for a brief time as well. I learned enough about reptiles to leave their specialty care to others. In short, if you name an animal, I've probably cared for, raised, or trained it.
Picture
As for the massage? I found to my great delight over time people FINALLY created massage methods for helping my equine friends. It only took 12 years for the industry to catch up.
Although I'd heard of chakras before going to class, I'd never heard of meridians. I was delighted and amazed at the idea of rivers of energy flowing in and around bodies. It made perfect sense of some thing things I'd already witnessed, but couldn't explain scientifically. Things like why a horse was incessantly colicking, but there was no reason for them to be (turned out they had an abcess on a stomach meridian point).
Shiatsu Massage for Horse and Rider was the specific course I learned. Shiatsu is based on acupressure and the meridians and acupressure/acupuncture points have been around for over 3,000 years.
Shiatsu is hands on, and unlike the nasty, mechanical corkscrew type chairs I've seen offered in the big box stores, real Shiatsu only uses as much pressure as is needed or desired by the horse. I don't have to use a ton of pressure to get results, and they tell me how much is needed. I typically massage an owner's forearm (partly because you wouldn't believe how good it feels to have those tendons at the elbow massaged!) but mostly so they understand just how much/how little pressure I'm using.
Image right side of me with Gill's Dan
By my very nature, I'm a Communicator. I'm pretty sure my head would explode if I couldn't talk, or at least write. Communicating with animals without my mouth going was something I did from very early on after being made to 'hush'. I'm told it's a gift, and it's pretty fun to interact with an animal silently, having them hear me and vice versa.
As I did my hands on Shiatsu massage, I began noticing the energy more and more. I don't physically see it, but with my mind's eye, I found I can see the meridians I was working with, which was a good thing because the more I did my hands on Shiatsu massage, the more frustrated I became.
My clients and their ponies and horses were hours and at times half a world away from me! They were so in need, if only I could get my hands on them! I had so many horses and ponies, and all this distance and time constraints. What to do?!?
The solution evolved. Crow image, rainbow bar above.