Page 70 - Dreamscapes Magazine | Spring/Summer 2025

P O W E R T R I P
Healing Hooves
How a horse
encounter in
Ecuador taught life balance
WORDS AND PHOTOS BY JENNIFER MALLOY
AS DUSK FALLS ON THE SLOPES O F
Rumiñahui Volcano I find myself confessing
my deepest fears—to a horse. The horse,
indifferent to my desperation to connect,
refuses to move when prompted, leaving me
feeling like a failure within mere hours.
I’m in Ecuador’s Chagras Region at
Hacienda El Porvenir, a working ranch near
Cotopaxi National Park. I travelled to this
Land of the Four Worlds in hopes of finding
some clarity to an adult ADHD diagnosis
received a few months earlier. That’s how I
ended up here, dabbling in equine therapy
for the first time, in deep mourning for the
life I might have lived.
CHALLENGE ONE
“Lead your horse to where you want to go,
not where he wants to go,” Maria, the ranch
owner and horse therapy facilitator, calls out.
Easier said than done. No matter how I
tug at the bridle, the horse resists. Failure is
now written all over my face, even when
spending time with a horse, something that
should feel simple.
Maria approaches. “The horse senses
anxiety,” she says. “Calm your mind and
body. Be gentle, but firm.”
But my mind has never been calm, and
for the first time, I stop pretending. Earlier in
the day, while forest bathing on the ranch, I
had broken down, inhaling the aroma of
damp leaves, scented with a hint of fresh
soil, and cried unabashedly for the first time
in years. The horse knows I’m not okay.
CHALLENGE TWO
The next day, I did connect with a horse named
Cariño. Sitting 15 metres away on the grass I
sense his longing—one that mirrors my own.
I press my hands into the earth, desperate
for connection. Cariño collapses onto the
grass, meeting my gaze. The indifferent
horse from the night before is gone, replaced
by a creature that looks exhausted, fragile—a
reflection of myself. I’ve spent a lifetime
donning a mask, trying to fit into a world
that wasn’t built for me. And I’m tired, too.
LESSON LEARNED
I lie down in the grass without breaking my
gaze. We simply exist in that space, a space I
could only find here in Ecuador, at a ranch
nestled in a corner of the earth, where my
chaotic soul could finally find peace.
When I finally rise, knowing that my time
here is finite and limited, Cariño rises with
me. I tentatively approach him, hand out,
and when he dips his head to sniff at it, I
move closer, cradling myself into the side of
his neck and feeling his majestic mane tickle
my skin. He nuzzles into me, and I know.
I’m going to be okay.
DS
TRAVEL PLANNER
Advanced reservations are needed for Hacienda
El Porvenir’s Equine Therapy program.
For details, see tierradelvolcan.com/
hacienda-el-porvenir
70
DREAMSCAPES SPRING/SUMMER 2025