A New Beginning: Meet Grace

 

After saying goodbye to my beloved mare, Skye, last summer, I wasn’t sure how or when I would ever feel ready to open my heart again to another horse. And then Grace appeared.

Grace is originally from a wild horse round up near Osoyoos, British Columbia. At seven years old, she is the youngest in her herd, yet she carries a presence that feels ancient-a wisdom that comes from living close to the earth.

When Grace first arrived at the rescue, she held the energy of a warrior wrapped in invisible armour, a natural caution shaped by instinct and the wild. Over the past year, while living at the ranch awaiting adoption, she slowly began to soften, finding her place among humans and within the herd.

From the first day she arrived at the rescue, I was mesmerized by her strength and radiance, even as she kept her distance. I never imagined I had the skills to adopt a wild mare, so I admired her from afar. But in Skye’s final weeks on the land, I noticed she spent more and more time with Grace over the fence line. There was something about their connection that felt sacred- like a passing of the torch I didn’t yet understand.

After losing Skye, I realized that everything she had taught me-slowness, softness, presence, breathing, deep listening- was exactly what Grace needed. So I leaned in and began spending time in the paddock with her. I didn’t ask anything of her; I simply offered her my presence. She grew curious about the woman who sat under the tree each day and, in time, she began meeting me in my grief-offering her presence to mine.

There was a spark each morning when I saw her, something I couldn’t ignore. As we settled into a slow, quiet rhythm of getting to know one another, I felt us both slowly shifting. Grace’s edges softened, and my shattered heart began slowly stitching itself back together. She started meeting me in the paddock, even whinnying across the ranch when she saw me. She was calling me in, even as I tried to resist falling in love with her.

Three months later, the adoption was finalized. It felt less like a decision and more like something that had simply found its way into being, guided, somehow, by Skye.

Skye’s lessons echo through every breath and every interaction I share with Grace. Training a wild horse is a slow journey, one that asks for presence more than technique. Grace didn’t arrive with layers of human-inflicted trauma; she arrived with a strong sense of self, a regulated nervous system, and a healthy instinct for self-preservation. She is curious, engaged, and open- simply learning a new language with me.

Horses often reflect what their humans are integrating. Skye’s work with me was about healing misunderstanding, trauma, and identity. Grace’s medicine feels different. Her energy carries embodiment, ease, and the remembering of wholeness- the truth that beneath the fractures of life, there is a self that remains intact.

The word grace has guided me through many seasons of healing, and now here it stood before me embodied in horse form- strength wrapped in softness. A warrior laying down her armour and, in doing so, revealing her truest medicine.

As Grace and I begin our partnership, I’ve noticed her watching the other horses in the herd as they co-facilitate our equine guided coaching sessions. I know in time she will step forward in her own way. My hope is that her story and presence guide women to remember that healing doesn’t come through striving or fixing. Healing comes through softening and through remembering who they truly are beneath all the layers survival required of them.

Welcome home, Grace.

May your presence ripple outward, through this herd, through this work, and through every heart you touch.