In the early 1990s, I began to realize my long-held dream when I married my husband, Greg, and we moved to a 16-acre hilltop property in Portland, Oregon. At the time, my dream for horses was still embedded in my unconscious mind. Looking back, I realize it has taken more than a decade to excavate this dream from the depths of my soul. After what seems like many lifetimes (in this lifetime it has been fifteen years) working toward this end, I am just now beginning to realize fully the meaning of my spiritual journey with animals.
         I found my first horse, Buddy, in 1990. He reignited my passion for helping horses. We agreed that Buddy would be my guardian spirit, teacher, ally, and protector. He would act as a support for my spiritual healing. Buddy had already been broken to ride, yet still had a fair amount of wildness left in him. In return, I promised to help him realize his ambition to improve life on Earth for all beings, which then became our combined destiny: To write books about the secret, spiritual life of horses.
One day, Buddy told me that he had come to the Earth to establish an organization from the ground up, a sort of "grass roots," (yes, pun intended) organization. He wanted to write books about interspecies communication. Buddy wanted humans to expand their views of communication, and to inspire us to open our minds and hearts to understanding and learning from nature. Buddy said, "Every breath we take is a communication with the air. What would the air want us to know about our bodies? Where is the air stuck inside of us? Where does it sense we need more of it? What does the air want us to know about its relationship with us? If we follow the path of air into our bodies, personify it and give it a voice, we will find the information it has to share."
          I got to know Buddy while taking lessons and training him on the trails around our house. But when he was injured by another horse at his boarding stable, I asked my husband to build a barn on our property so I could bring Buddy home.
After a year with us, I felt Buddy was lonely for another horse. So I asked him if he would like a same-species partner. He pictured a beautiful, wild-spirited, white Arabian mare with flowing mane and tail. At the time, I was too new to the horse world to think of taming such a wild thing. So I asked again. "Do you have anyone else in mind?" Instantly, he projected an image of a dark bay Thoroughbred. Within a few weeks I had found Ellie who then became his lifetime mate.
Immediately upon seeing each other they were both impassioned. It took some time for them to sort out their differences---Ellie wanted nothing less than the role of alpha mare, which Buddy finally allowed. And when they began to trust each other completely, they never parted again.
          I began to write this book with their help and the guidance of my mentors and invisible teachers in the supernatural realms. We wrote it with the wish that others will enjoy the secret, intimate view of what Buddy calls, "The Spiritual Life of Horses."
Although it was Buddy's idea to write a book, over the years I became more committed to discovering and exploring animal spirituality. It became my passion to join other voices around the world in a chorus of celebration for the combined, evolving consciousness of humanity and the species Equus.
          For thousands of years, the horse has been an inspiring and persuasive mythological icon. When exalted, their indomitable spirits rise from the depths of an untold dream, perhaps conjured by a fantasy to fly, spiraling up from the ashes, like the Phoenix, soaring into the light of new millenniums. The mythology of the horse is, therefore, the dream of the horse. As such, these myths are made from the same mind-stuff.
         Another calling I began to recognize was to bring out of the undifferentiated mind stream of divine consciousness, the birthplace of all dreams and myths, an enlightened mythical narrative for horses so that they could realize a mystical and mythological Renaissance. Freeing their consciousness in this way is a breakthrough no captive beast would hesitate to embrace.
         Therefore, this book weaves many different voices and threads throughout its pages. At first it may appear linear, but look again. The book is deeply, multi-layered. You can pick it up and open it at random to find new meaning, depending on your state of mind. There are many levels in each section. Each chapter is a reflection of the whole, similar to a hologram.
My wish is that the book will inspire other artists and writers to explore the myriad of myths that nonhuman species wish to tell. This process will unleash creative minds and unify the collective wisdom inside the matrix of life.