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Harmony: The Story That Inspired The Harmony Relationship Center

~A Story of Destiny, Presence, Healing, and the Miracles That Shape a Life~

There are some stories so extraordinary, so perfectly woven by Spirit, that they become the foundation of a person’s calling. The story of my horse Harmony is one of those stories.
For years — beginning in 1998 when we moved to Seattle — I carried a quiet knowing that one day, somehow, I would have a horse. I didn’t force it. I didn’t chase it. I simply knew.
Even as life moved us from state to state, even as I made choices for my son’s well-being, even as I left behind the beloved Monday Riders group where I first learned about horses — the knowing stayed.
I had no horse training. No horse property. No way to afford boarding. No logical path at all.
But Spirit had a plan.
Years later, at exactly the right time, a partnership formed between EAGALA and the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF). They were offering free therapy horses to licensed therapists. When I saw Harmony’s picture on their website, I knew immediately:
“That’s my baby girl.”
But TRF said no. They insisted she was too exceptional, too valuable, too magnificent to be given away. They wanted her to go to someone who could pay for her.
So I did what people of faith do when the external answer is “no,” but the inner truth remains unshaken.
I printed Harmony’s picture. I put it all over my house. And I kept loving her — even from afar.
Three weeks later, TRF called out of nowhere.
“We think we have a horse for you.”
It was her.
Of course it was her. Because when something is truly yours — spiritually, soulfully — it finds its way.
  
🌿 Harmony’s Past & the Wound She Carried
Harmony was a grand-daughter of Secretariat, born into a lineage of power, heart, and brilliance. But her life was shaped by grief long before she came to me.
She had lost her third foal at birth.
In her grief, her owners put her in a stall — four walls, isolation, no movement, no herd. Horses are meant to move through grief, not be confined with it. This isolation broke her heart even more deeply.
Alone in that stall, Harmony developed the coping mechanism known as cribbing — anchoring her teeth on wood and inhaling deeply for an endorphin-driven release.
Humans saw a “problem horse. "I saw a trauma survivor.
They saw a behavior. I saw a heart broken open by loss.
They saw addiction. I saw a soul adapting in the only way she could.
This is where my grief work began — not in theory, but in the embodied grief of my equine daughter.
  
🌿 The Miracle That Followed
The very week Harmony arrived, another miracle occurred.
Jefferson County Health and Human Services called me out of the blue. They asked if I would do equine-assisted psychotherapy for foster children and teens.
I had never advertised for this. I had never solicited it.  had no established equine program.
But the moment Harmony came into my life — the support I needed arrived:
Work. Resources. Purpose. Provision. Alignment.
This is what happens when you walk in trust. This is what happens when you follow your Inner knowing. This is what happens when Spirit says: Yes.
  
🌿 Harmony as Healer, Teacher, and Co-Therapist
Harmony lived on a thousand-acre ranch in Evergreen with forty herd-mates — a life of freedom, open space, belonging, and safety. The life she was meant for.
And something extraordinary began to happen:
Harmony became a healer.
She sensed emotions long before words were spoken. She knew when someone was open and when someone was armored. She read people with the accuracy of a mystic.
Children who had never trusted an adult — trusted her. Adults who had shut down — opened in her presence. People with addictions — recognized themselves in her coping strategies.
She was even featured on the news — her “addiction” helping humans reflect on their own.
When majestic people stood near her, she shimmered with the same majesty. When sensitive people approached, she softened into gentleness. When someone’s energy was off, she turned away — demanding honesty.
Harmony didn’t follow traditional horse-training rules. She followed truth.
She refused direction when I was out of my authentic self. She partnered freely when I returned to presence.
That was her teaching:
Be present. Be real .Be honest Be here.
This became the foundation of my Presence work.
  
🌿 Harmony and Rosie: A Friendship of Seeing, Loving, and Being Loved
After Harmony lived in Evergreen for almost 10 years, I was guided to move us both to Northern Colorado to be closer to Christopher who lived in Fort Collins. So, in early 2020, she moved to a small ranch and I planned to move later in the year. As you can see, my move was delayed by Covid. I was able to visit her once a week and though it was difficult to be so far from her, she was doing well. 
One of the blessings was that where she lived, a quiet and touching friendship blossomed. Another horse lived there — a gentle mare named Rosie, who was blind and often unsure of her footing. Though she shared space with two donkeys, they kept mostly to themselves.
Harmony noticed.
In her natural way of sensing who needed care, she began staying close to Rosie — walking beside her, standing near her, offering her steady presence whenever she seemed uncertain.
For a time, Harmony became Rosie’s eyes, her guide, her companion, her safe place.
But this friendship was not one-sided.
Rosie loved Harmony just as deeply.
She didn’t judge Harmony’s cribbing or her sensitivities.She simply accepted her — fully, gently, beautifully.
In that acceptance, Harmony received something rare:a friend who saw beyond her coping patterns and loved her for who she was.
Their friendship healed them both.
When Harmony passed, Rosie grieved too. Her companion, her comfort, her seeing-heart friend was suddenly gone. She returned to her quiet days among the donkeys, but for that sacred window of time, she and Harmony shared a bond built on presence, trust, and unconditional love.
  
🌿 Her Death, My Grief, and the Truth Emerging Now
 In 2021, when COVID was still raging, and Harmony was still awaiting my arrival,  the first sharp cold of the season arrived early. Horses with sensitive gastrointestinal systems — especially those who have coped with stress or grief through cribbing — can be especially vulnerable to sudden weather changes.
When the temperature dropped that November, Harmony experienced colic, and she passed.
It was no one’s fault — simply the heartbreaking reality of a tender, sensitive horse meeting the first cold of winter. Her passing came far too soon, and I was carrying so much upheaval at the time — the dissolution of my marriage, the move, the pandemic — that I couldn’t fully grieve her then.
Only now is the grief ready to be felt, and with it, the deeper truth of how profoundly Harmony shaped my life and calling.
  
🌿 What This Story Means for My Work Now
Harmony’s legacy is not behind me. It is within me.
And everything rising in my life right now —A new Presence workshop, A podcast invitation, more  grief insights,  renewed horse connections —is part of her continued teaching.
I do not know if Harmony will one day return in physical form. My heart believes she will. But whether she returns in body or in spirit, she is guiding my next chapter.
Her story is my message. Her healing is my work. Her presence is my ministry.
And this — this luminous, improbable, magical journey — is the essence of what I offer:
**To help people believe in what they cannot yet see,
to follow the knowing in their hearts, and to experience the miracles that unfold when they walk their authentic path.

Why We All Love “Sweet Caroline” I couldn’t get the song “Sweet Caroline” out of my heart this week, so I decided to listen to what it might be trying to tell me. I recently took some rare time off and saw the movie Song Sung Blue. It’s based on a true story about a veteran who struggled with alcoholism, found sobriety, and then found his way back to life through music. He meets a woman with a beautiful voice who sings Patsy Cline, and together they become a Neil Diamond tribute duo, calling themselves “Lightning and Thunder.” (She prefers the phrase “Neil Diamond interpretation.”) No matter where they perform, no matter what other songs they sing, there is always one song the audience longs for: “Sweet Caroline.” And as I sat in the theater, I realized that for most of us, the moment the title is spoken, the melody begins to rise in the heart. We may not even know why — we just feel it. Yes, it’s fun to sing.
Yes, it carries the warmth of romance.
But I believe there is something deeper. I think we all want to be someone’s “Sweet Caroline.” Whether we are male or female, young or old, partnered or alone, there is a place in the human heart that longs to be seen, named, cherished, and called forth with tenderness. When I was fourteen, I had a boyfriend who called me his “Sweet Caroline.” At the time, I didn’t fully understand why it mattered. Now I do. It wasn’t the name itself — it was the feeling of being someone’s beloved, someone whose presence made a heart sing. And here is where the mystery deepens. Mark Nepo often shares a remarkable truth:
When two heart cells from two different people are placed together in a Petri dish, over time they begin to beat with the same rhythm. Two body-less cells… finding a shared pulse. There were years when I could barely say that without tears. It is such a holy image. If two simple cells can find a common rhythm, then surely two human beings — housed in these miraculous bodies, carrying memory, longing, love, and hope — can also learn to create a space where hearts begin to beat in harmony. This is where listening becomes sacred. There is a difference between hearing with our ears and listening with our hearts. I call the latter heartful listening. Heartful listening begins with willingness: • Willingness to know and honor that my feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and truths are part of me, and that I am entitled to them.
• Willingness to know and honor that your feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and truths are part of you, and that you are entitled to them.
• Willingness to stay present as we speak and as we listen, without trying to dominate, dismiss, or disappear. When two people meet in this willingness, something extraordinary can happen. A relational field is created. A resonance begins. And like those two heart cells, something in us starts to beat in unison. Perhaps this is why “Sweet Caroline” never grows old. It is not only a song about love.
It is a song that invites belonging.
It calls forth the memory of being welcomed, named, joined, and celebrated.
It awakens the hope that somewhere, someone is singing us into presence. And maybe, in the deepest sense, we are all longing to hear the same words: “You are my sweet one.
I see you.
I’m glad you’re here.
Let’s find the rhythm together.”