An Excerpt from
Heart to Heart:
The Essential Guide to Animal Communication
An Equine Spirit Medium
Meeting lovely black Percheron mare Tasha was life
changing. It was one of
those "meant to be" situations. I
found myself on a farm that was more a house of horrors than anything suitable
for animals or even people. The stains on Tasha's stall door and the wall
behind her, were months of untreated diarrhea. Her owners sat inside the house
for entire sunny weekends, addicts to their violent video games and liquor
bottles while the horses stood in filthy stalls. Those weren’t even the worst things I
witnessed. It was dangerous and ugly and cost me dearly, but she and her barn
mate are now in a much better situation.
Tasha pleaded for me to be her guardian. Animals don't understand legalities, they only understand love. My explanations about ownership bypassed her completely. She'd been bounced from one awful situation to the next. "Rescued," only to be abused. She did not love her guardians; this is what allowed her to survive them.
First, Tasha taught me how to calm my frantic feelings about animals in need of rescue. While I was pushing to get care for hers and her barn mates horrifically overgrown and split feet, to find a paddock that wasn’t knee deep in slop composed mainly of raw sewage, to get them decent feed and stop the whippings---she told me what mattered to her.
Exhausted from my efforts to get assistance with this rescue, I calmed down enough to ask, “Tasha, if you could change something about your surroundings, what would it be?”
In a tiny, sweet voice like that of a ten year old girl’s, she said, “Get me out of here. My barn mate hurts my feelings.” She ducked her head, avoiding my eye.
In my exhaustive catalogue of what needed correcting, it was the mismatch of equine personalities that bothered her most. Sure, I’d seen that the Paint gelding chased her around. Tasha showed infinite tolerance. Then he’d try to impotently mount her, and get a kick in the chest for his troubles. I’d not had experience with only two horses living together, and assumed it was the usual sorting of herd order. But in Tasha’s mind, she was being bullied. You never know what will come from an animals’ consciousness. Her next statement pushed me past my own limited understanding.
"If you stay with me," she said in her sweet voice, "I'll speak to your dead for you."
Like an arrow to my soul, she projected a picture of a horse who had been sent to slaughter behind my back. I had been an assistant trainer for his breeder for three years, travelled with him as a farrier apprentice, and arrived one day to an empty stall.
"King went lame," my mentor said, with averted eyes. As if humane euthanasia, with my attendance, was not even an option. As if neither King nor I even merited a phone call to seek my opinion or willing financial support for vet care and board. This has been my life long brutal experience with those who support horse slaughter. It is their first option, not their last. They prefer it.
How had I missed the signs that this might happen? Why wasn't I at the barn to fight on King's behalf? I had beaten myself up over this for years.
Until Tasha showed me King Sunny, I had avoided the painful memory. I'm not even close to spiritually perfect. My rational mind reeled; I frantically searched for a logical reason why a huge black draft mare should remind me of a fine boned, athletic chestnut gelding.
Tasha sent me a wave of comfort, the warm balm mares exude to keep their foals glued to their sides. My heart expanded and glowed. I was able to look at King without collapsing in grief. He looked back. But he was silent.
"Does he blame me, Tasha?" I asked.
She sent me a mental image of a vast herd of horses, galloping in an endless circle from this world to the spirit world, then back again.
She said, "We are all one herd."
King swung his fine head and joined the circle.
I'm able to look at King's photos again, recall his quiet amusement when I caught and tore my billowing hippie blouse on the saddle horn while mounting him (another green horse would have bolted at the sound), his calmly competitive spirit as we won a class. I swim through my "if only's" and "should haves" into greater understanding.
Except for the occasional soft nudge of his nose, King is silent. That's okay. Our relationship was all about softness and silent understanding, until that terrible end.
This what Tasha taught me, from her filthy stall in the middle of a junkyard: The circle never ends. Every horse knows the story of their herd. Each one knows the individual story of the next. When any horse looks at you, she knows your history with the herd. And no matter how skewed the story, how broken she is or how broken you feel, she sends love.
From Tasha, I also learned that the emphasis I place on certain facets of rescue, are not necessarily the priorities of the animals involved. While I will never become passive over the need for humane care, gentle, spiritual Tasha showed me I don’t need to completely freak out over what I see as lacking. That some of the urgency I used to feel about rescuing, is entirely my own issue. The peace of mind she gave me has made me more effective as a rescuer. I can better prioritise, better explain my case to authorities and other animal lovers.
And oh yes, there was a grand purpose for my chancing upon these beleaguered animals and tragic wastes of humans.
With the evidence I gathered at that farm, the fraudulent “rescue” that had adopted out Tasha’s barn mate was shut down by the Washington State Attorney General. It turned out that while the rescue garnered over $1 million dollars annually, many horses were being placed in horrific situations. That is, of the few they found homes for at all. The Director was embezzling donations to fund her dog and horse breeding operation.
It took a long time to rebuild my finances and health after what I spent to help those animals, and I fielded attacks from the enablers of these sadistic hoarders for years. They'd even destroyed my property. At least two dozen people knew of the outrageous abuse, and shielded the perpetrators. Some participated in the abuse. They then launched a campaign to smear me. But providing the video and photo evidence that shut them down, is one of my proudest accomplishments. It takes a village to raise a child, and an entire team to protect animal abusers. Always.
In all senses, we are one herd. In all senses, what was lost, is regained.
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Copyright 2026 Reisa Stone. May not be copied nor reprinted in any form
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