Recap of Gateway Ranch

Totally enjoyed the workshop I went to in Kamloops, BC at the Gateway Ranch with Liz Mitten Ryan from "One With The Herd". It was there where I learned how to communicate with the ALL. My spiritual beliefs were indeed challenged out there and I now resonate with this way of thinking.. I have always connected to animals on a deeper level and my thoughts are now that "God" is not just in us humans. Really that is such an egotistical thought but typical of our species. Just because we speak words, we think we are more intelligent. Maybe if we stopped speaking so much and just listened, we would be more intelligent. We would tune into the subtlties of nature. It is my belief that "God" the spirit, lives in all things on the earth and beyond, in the animals, in the plants, and in the rocks. That is why it is referred to now as the "ALL".

While waiting my turn to work at the Merlin tree with our wonderful shaman Billa, I was journaling sitting on top of a beautiful mountain surrounded by our group of warm, wonderful human beings. My legs were draped over the cliff and there was some sounds below. The whole herd were below us grazing on some grass along with the steer Tesoro, who thinks he is a horse. Horses have an order in which they run with the dominant mare in the lead. As they abruptly started stampeding off, I laughed out loud when I noticed that Tesoro had gone up a notch in the pecking order. He was now second from the last and there was a horse behind him. How cute. You really can be whomever you want to be.


After my session with "Merlin", I felt very peaceful and radiant and at "one with nature". I started writing in my journal again about the day's events while the next workshop person went to Merlin. All of the sudden, I was filled with a feeling of overwhelming fear. And so I wrote, Why am I feeling this fear, this doesn't make any sense? What is this fear? And a voice came in my head that said, "It is your fear of being alone." And so I wrote that in my journal, "it is my fear of being alone". But I was not alone. I was with 10 very nice people. I thought about my life and how I could never figure out why it was that I could travel all through Africa and Europe by myself at 20 years of age by myself with no fear, but could not stand staying at camp by myself for more than a day. I just had to get away sometimes, away from children, away from husbands, away from the 3 businesses we ran. I would get to camp and totally just love it for one day and the next, I would be on the phone trying to get anyone to come visit me. I had a fear of being alone.

As I looked at the page again, I read, "It is your fear of being alone." The word, ALONE literally jumped off the page. I read it again. ALONE, AL ONE. Oh my God! It was my fear of being ALL ONE. It was not my fear of being alone, but my feeling of being all one with God! Wow! This was my message from Merlin. What an AHAA moment as Oprah would say!

Now, I have been planning on moving to Rydall Bank, a little farming community behind Bruce Mines, where I will be a caretaker of a amazing 600 acre farm or ranch. I found this farm one day while I was just driving around with my daughter, looking at property. The property has a river running through it and is surrounded by three lakes. It overlooks Ottertail lake and has a gorgeous hill behind the farmhouse with magnificent rock. Rock Lake is north of the property, and Gordon Lake is East of the property. The problem I have had about moving there was that I have been feeling a little fear of being alone. Guess what. That fear is now gone!! Now I am really looking forward to that time where I can experience peace and solitude and getting in touch with ALL. And of course, hanging out with my horses maybe even healing with my horses..

The other thing I learned at Gateway Ranch was that Liz's horses want to help heal people. It is probably because they are so happy there. They can roam and run anywhere and still come home to an open barn filled with food and shelter if they so desire. The same is true for the 4 dogs and cats at Gateway. They are very loved and very well taken care of.

I had the wonderful opportunity to practice my massage on humans with the help of Liz's horses. Fascinating!!! One beautiful mare chose to work with me. She came to heal. Her name was Crystal. She came of her own free will. The horses at the ranch are free to roam anywhere on the 330 acres but she showed up to work with me. How she would work was to place her head on my client's body where they needed healing. Kind of like Reikki. And just stay there for about 20 minutes.

On one of my clients, she placed her head directly above my client's forehead. I looked into her eyes and there was such peace, like she was meditating. My client had severe neck problems. My hands were under my client's neck and Crystal head was right in front of me. I gently placed my forehead on Crystal's head. Crystal gently put her chin right on my client's forehead. The three of us were connected. A kind of tri-unity, or trinity. My body was just vibrating. Tears of gratitude poured out of my eyes to be allowed to share in this experience. It was so beautiful. Then Crystal pushed my head back a little. I realized she wanted me to traction my client's neck. My fingers went under the lip of her scull and I gently pulled. When I did this, I could see on my client's face that it caused discomfort and after a few minutes Crystal would stop pushing me and I would let up the tractioning. Then we would start again synchronicitly a few times. How powerful is that? It is something we do in craniosacral therapy and this increases the flow of cerebral spinal fluid.

My teacher, Billa, was working on someone beside me at one point. The horse that was working with Billa placed her chin on the client's lower abdomen and stayed there for about 45 minutes. Billa's client just lay there looking quite peaceful. It was like they were both meditating. Billa stepped away and let the horse do her work. I believe her client had some fear issues in life which we store in our abdomen. That is why when we have stressful situations, one of the first thing affected is our stomach and bowels. So incredibly interesting.

Of course, when we move to Rydall Bank in the spring, I will be seeing if any of my horses are interested in doing this kind of work. It is work that I would totally be honoured to do. I know they are so wise and have much to teach us.