Sara Fancy and her horses. All photos by the authorâWill you be my father?â Connie asks with the twisting posture of a nervous child. We just met half an hour ago. Sheâs old enough to be my mother.âIâd be honored,â I reply.She places her hands gently on my shoulders. âThis is my father,â she affirms, smiling sweetly.Connie hasnât spoken to the real man in 20 years, making this a tricky role to play. Rounding out the family is a Jack Russell Terrier named Jack (her daughter), a chestnut mare named Jackie (her grandmother), and a few other human strangers in various roles.The matriarch of our little clan is Sara Fancyâa former competitive bodybuilder and exâpunk rocker who developed a love for horses in midlife. She was particularly fascinated by the animalsâ apparent intuition, their ability to read and respond to human emotional cues. This sensitivity, she believed, could be harnessed for therapeutic purposes. Building on the work of psychoanalyst Bert Hellinger, Fancy bought several of the animals and a desolate plot of land in Southern California. She erected stables and a yurt, and named her new homestead the Silver Horse Healing Ranch. I drove down from LA this summer to experience Fancyâs horse therapy firsthand.The cars arrived in clouds of dust stirred up from the dirt road. We all met one another inside Saraâs kitchen. There was Connie, a longtime Silver Horse client, and her friend Kay, who was there for support. After them came Christopher Rutgers and his wife Stephanie. Like many visitors to the ranch, Christopher had been referred here by a traditional therapist.âWe also get a lot of recovering alcoholics and drug addicts from the clinics,â Sara added in her cheerful British lilt.After several cups of tea and slices of watermelon, we strolled to the stables under a blazing blue sky. A horse named Pretty Boy sauntered to the edge of the corral, pushing his cheek into Saraâs hand. âPretty Boyâs owner was going to shoot him in the head and throw him in a landfill,â she explained, rubbing his muzzle. âLuckily, the man called me first and asked if I wanted him. I canât use Pretty Boy with clients because heâs a little mousy, but I took him anyway. Ironically enough, some time later Pretty Boyâs owner ended up shooting himself in the head.âAll the horses at the ranch are rescues. âHave you heard of the drug Premarin?â Sara asked. âItâs a hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women like me and Connie. It stops you from growing a beard and makes you feel young and virile again. Premarin stands for âpregnant mare urineâ because thatâs where they get it from. They keep the horses in these tiny spaces indoors under artificial lighting with bags to collect their urine. They give them as little water as possible to keep the urine concentrated. Anyway, in 2003, scientists discovered that Premarin can give you breast cancer, so a lot of these places closed down. There were suddenly 30,000 pregnant mares on the rescue circuit. I took as many as I could.âSara gestured to a mare whose ears had perked up. âShe likes it when I talk about this stuff. You want people to knowâright, Jackie?âSara and her horse SilverWe joined Sara on blankets in the shade of a tent. âIâll give you some background,â she began. âWhat we do here is a version of Family Constellation Therapy. The premise is that whatever issues youâre having, they could be related to an ancestor. Itâs not just immediate family. You can go back generations and generations. Weâre looking at what didnât get resolved back there. The dead need resolution too.âShe talked next about Hellinger. He had been a German solider during World War II before becoming a Catholic priest. His religious work brought him to South Africa where he lived for years with Zulu tribesmen, and he borrowed heavily from their practices in his later career as a psychoanalyst.âIndigenous cultures all do the kind of work we do here,â Sara claimed, âbut maybe slightly differently. Thereâs one tribe where they take you to a place, and they say that the mountain is your father and the tree is your mother. They use nature as representations of your family.âIn Hellingerâs version of Constellation Therapy, human volunteers rely on intuition to embody a clientâs relatives, whom the volunteers have never met and know little about. Their interactions with one another are believed to be influenced by those absent individuals, allowing them to resolve their issues through enactments.âSome of Hellingerâs first patients were Holocaust survivors and perpetrators,â Sara said. âIf youâre Jewish, and you have ancestors who died in the Holocaust, the Nazis who killed them become part of your family systemâand vice versa. Itâs the same with slave-owning ancestors here in America. There was a woman who had slave owners in her ancestry, and she had a strong desire to be an activist. She wanted to help unprivileged black kids, but it always backfired. She was continually being attacked by them.âOne great thing about using horses,â Sara continued, âis that theyâre super hyperaware of all of those connections because theyâre prey animals. We are predators to them.âThe ability of horses to read the humans around them is well documented. A prime example is the famous German horse Clever Hans. Around the turn of the 20th century, Clever Hans toured Europe to great acclaim, performing arithmetic. People would pose math problems to the horse and he would stomp his foot to indicate the answer. It took a psychologist months of careful study to discover that the horse was simply reading and responding to the expectations of the crowdâhe would stomp his foot until he sensed from the people around him that he had reached the correct number.Sara thinks this ability can be put to better use than creating an equine sideshow. âIf the horse thinks that this person needs to get together with that person, they will nudge you together. Or if you need to be apart they will nudge you away,â she said. âHorses are continually looking for balance. Theyâre able to tap into the energy field to find out information. Take this hat, for example: Thereâs information in the field about who designed it, who wore it, and the workers that made it.âAfter the briefing, Connie assigned us all a role, and we headed to the corral. We didnât know much about her history, just that she hadnât spoken to either of her parents in many years. Her goal was to have a better life in every way. Sara brought out Jackie, the mare we had met earlier, and the session began.âFeel into your feet,â Sara prompted. âJust feel the weight. How do you feel in your body?ââI feel firmly planted,â I replied, trying to channel Connieâs father. âIâm feeling something behind me.âThere was nobody there, so Sara instructed Christopher to stand behind me to be that something. She asked what he felt when he looked at me.âI feel a lot of aggression,â he said through tight lips. âI want to slap him. Iâm really angry at him.ââAre you breathing?â she asked him.âNo.âJust then, Jackie walked between us. The mare stopped and held firm.âAny different?â Sara questioned.âItâs diffused a bit,â Christopher replied.Sara speculated that Christopher must be channeling Connieâs abusive grandfather.Connie herself was played by Stephanie, who isolated herself inside a circle drawn in the dirt. She told Kay, who was representing Connieâs mother, to stay away. Jackie trotted over to Kay, slapping the womanâs face with her tail.For an hour we all stood like duelers in the sun, engaging one another in drawn-out emotional exchanges. At the end, Sara presented the real Connie with a rock.âFeel the weight of this burden that youâve been carrying from your mom,â she instructed.âOh, itâs much heavier than this,â Connie replied, shaking her head.âWell,â Sara countered, âitâs a representation of something that youâre carrying that you donât want to carry anymore, right? And, your mom is acknowledging that sheâs willing to take it back. Go ahead. You can give it back to your mother.âWith tears streaming down her face, Connie passed the rock to Kay.âI want to be done,â Connie said.âWe can be done,â Sara confirmed. âKeep in mind that you might get some information in the next few days. You might get a call. Itâs affecting your parents and your grandparents too.âSara gives instructions to StephanieChristopherâs constellation came next.âIâm the first person for generations of my family who isnât a drug addict or an alcoholic,â he began. âThere was violent abuse throughout my motherâs and fatherâs families. My father left when I was four, and I didnât have a relationship with him until my adult years. My mother was an alcoholic and my stepfather was fully checked out. The huge trauma was that I was horribly abused by the father of the stepfather to the point where I barely survived. I was a very suicidal kid.âStephanie gently grasped the hand of her husband as he continued. âI left home at 18 and started skiing, eventually becoming a professional skier and climber, and my whole life got amazing. Then, in my mid 20s, I broke my back, which ended my skiing career. After that, I had the great blessing to start a nonprofit organization that has helped thousands of kids by giving them the same kind of experiences that I had. After 15 years of building this amazing worldwide organization, Iâve started to transition out of it. Ever since I made the decision to transition, my back injury has been really flaring up. I want to address that, and also the need to disconnect from the old survivor story that Iâve been carrying with me all these years. One of the issues that I think itâs really affecting is that I have resistance to starting a family. Itâs something that Stephanie and I have talked about a lot. Iâm worried about continuing a bad legacy.âBack in the corral, Sara had swapped Jackie for Silver, a stallion. Christopher was clenching his fists, pumping himself up. âI feel like I could do a back-handspring into the ring!â he remarked.Sara told him to stand wherever he wanted, so he hopped onto a tire in the centerâthe only high ground.I had kept my role as a fatherâChristopherâs this time. Kay was the mother again, and Connie was Christopherâs back pain. The animals, Jack and Silver, would be left unassigned. This would allow them the freedom to find their identities as the therapy progressed, Sara explained.The session started out slowly until Jack the dog began racing furiously around the corral. I thought that it looked like fun, so I tore off after him. We took turns chasing each and being chased all around the ring. When I returned to my place, panting, Sara turned to Christopher.âDoes what he did mean anything to you?â she asked.Christopher seemed disappointed. âMy fatherâs not a very vital, athletic person at all, so thatâs interesting that he would want to do that.âJust then, Silver walked over and stood between Connie (Christopherâs back pain) and me. I ran my fingers through the stallionâs mane.âWhat you want to do to Connie?â Sara asked Christopher.âI want to squash her like a pancake,â he said.âSay, âI want to pancake you!ââ the therapist directed.âI want to pancake you!â he shouted.âHow does that feel for you, Connie?ââI just felt strong, and like am going to be here for you,â Connie responded.âConnie, say, âYou canât pancake me!âââYou canât pancake me!âSara next turned her attention to Connie and meâstanding on either side of Silver. âYou seem like a couple to me. The horse has an erection, which makes me think there might be a sexual relationship between you two.âSara turned to Christopher. âDoes that make sense to you?ââMy father is a martyr,â he replied. âHeâs a victim. Heâs masochistic. Both of his wives brutalized him. I could see there being almost a sexual charge around suffering.âIn a series of exchanges, Sara connected the back pain to an intergenerational lack of emotional support.Sara lined us up behind Christopher. âIâm going to do seven generations,â she explained. âConnie, get behind Roc. Youâre going to be the grandfather.âWhen we were all lined up, Sara turned to Christopher. âNow, I want you to slightly lean back.âSilver began to whinny.âYouâre feeling fear,â the therapist concluded. âThe horse is picking up on that.ââI donât feel that Iâm going to be supported,â Christopher stated. âI feel like heâs going to buckle.âSara next began to inquire into Christopherâs religious beliefs.âI have a very strong spiritual connection that Iâve pulled from all sorts of different things,â he replied.âI know itâs silly,â the therapist said, âbut Iâm going to play God now, okay?âThe session ended with Sara as God being cradled by Stephanie who was playing one of Christopherâs distant ancestors. The ancestor was an unknown evil individual who killed many innocent children.âI caused all of this suffering,â Stephanie announced, gesturing towards Christopherâs entire lineage. âAll of them belong to me. You canât save them.ââIâve spent my whole life trying to save innocent children,â Christopher said, wiping at his eyes.At the end, when we were ourselves again, we all shook hands and embraced.Two months later, I called Christopher to ask if anything in his life had changed. He said his back hurt less, he was more aware of his own inherent wholeness, and he was committed to starting a family. Still, he was cautious about attributing those developments to our day at Silver Horse.âIâve been on this spiritual journey for a long time,â he stated, âand along the way, Iâve had help from many different places. I know that I had a real authentic and insightful experience with this woman named Sara, and my wife, and a few other peopleâbut from a narrative standpoint, itâs challenging. Trying to making sense of it all is a bit of a foolâs errand. Like so many experiences in my life, that day at the ranch is one more drop in the ocean of who I am.âFollow Rocâs latest project collecting dreams from around the globe at World Dream Atlas.
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