IJHC (The International Journal of Healing and Caring) - Healing for Horses: The Essential Guide to Using Hands-on Healing Energy with Horses

Healing for Horses: The Essential Guide to Using Hands-on Healing Energy with Horses

by Margrit Coates

New York, NY: Sterling Publishing Co., 2002. 165pp HB $21.95

Margrit Coates has a gentle, yet thorough way of presenting her discussion on healing for horses. A gifted, natural healer from childhood, Coates was drawn to work with horses long before she had the means to do so. Her career in PR for a firm involved in equestrian products brought her into contact with many horses. Though she was successful in her work, and the primary wage earner in the family, she elected to study and practice healing and transitioned into this as her major occupation.

Coates found that she could mentally communicate with horses, who told her of their physical and emotional traumas and pains. She was able to relieve many of them through healing, with rapid - often immediate - changes in behaviours to validate that healing was effective.

Many people spent a lot of time training to meet a horse's physical needs but neglected the horse within. The horse had to earn its keep or do a job or perform and it was treated like a machine. I spent a lot of my time wandering around the stables laying my hands on these horses to help them have a better sense of wellbeing and find some peace... (p. 3)

Her descriptions and explanations of her healings are helpful in understanding healing as a treatment in general.

Although I believe that I am channeling healing from God you can believe that you are channeling healing from anywhere - the sun, the moon or the stars, for example - and the energy source is the same. An important thing to remember is that you can't just force healing on to any person or any animal - you need to have permission from the horse for the healing to be accepted and the horse will judge you by what is in your heart. Healing should be offered to the horse with love. The most important thing for someone to believe when they give healing is that they are going to help. It is the intent to heal which the leader must have in his or her heart. The intent becomes in itself a very important source of energy linking to the horse. Attuning to the healing energy requires a mixture of empathy, compassion and intent and the more strongly we can direct these feelings to the horse the stronger the healing will be. We need to remember that the horse, like the human, will have a need for healing on three levels - emotional, mental and physical. (p. 37)

This book is replete with explanations of various forms of healing, equine problems which have responded to healing, and further CAM approaches (acupuncture, craniosacral therapy) that can also be used for healing.

What I found most interesting in this book are Coates' un-hyped descriptions of spiritual moments when she looked into particular horses' eyes and found herself transported into a timeless dimension.

This book is attractive as well as informative, a pleasure to hold in one's hands.

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Blessings

Dan