Shele Jessee on Tending To Wild Beauty
I met Shele Jessee far from a horse ranch, working at an Ayurvedic clinic and education center in Northern California. It didn't take long for me to learn she has a horsewoman though, as with all lovers of horses, there is something that speaks through our body language as an unspoken expression, helping us to identify one another as sisters.
As I got to know her better, I learned she was a certified Wilderness First Responder, Permaculture designer, and herbalist. A wild woman at heart, she leads trips with kids and adults in the mountains, makes herbal medicines and handcrafted jewelry pieces, and is a hide tanner and animal tracker. A lover of learning and nature connection, Shele works to share her joy for the Earth with all its inhabitants.
Growing up on a ranch in the foothills of Northern California where she was blessed with riding horses everyday, her earliest memories are of encounters with wild animals, and her soul finds peace in expansive, raw nature. Shele's purpose and life is to share her love of the natural world with people.
Read on to hear this wild woman's unique views on relationships with horses, wilderness and the freedom and simple beauty of living on a 100,000 acre ranch in Argentina.
You were steeped in a world of training horses growing up and now work in nature connection facilitation. How are you bridging those worlds today within a modern society?
I was deeply steeped in sort of a bizarre world of horses. Showing horses is different, and in a way it can be very fake. The sportsmanship behind the competition came from tasks based in reality that the horse and rider performed out of a need. Rodeo is a really good example, like the saddle bronc and cutting. In the early cowboy era, that was what it looked like, and it was kind of rough. However, as you get further into, for lack of better words, a higher level of showing, you get further distanced from its original roots.
I showed in western pleasure classes, where the horse and rider is judged based on how a horse moves and how a rider rides. As the sport naturally progressed though, I saw so many horses that couldn't function on a ranch and that weren't moving naturally as a horse moves. There are still really skilled horse trainers who work on keeping gaits at their correct cadence, how a horse is supposed to move, and there are a lot of people that fall short.
Not only is it a bizarre world but it's an incredibly expensive world. I didn't grow up in a family with money, but my Mom did everything she could to make it happen and I'm really grateful to have that experience, but it was financially a little bit out of our league. When I turned 18 I was no longer able to show in the youth classes, and my Mom couldn't do it anymore, so I was pretty much on my own, and there was no way that I was going to be able to afford that on my own. And I didn't really want to be a horse trainer, because I'd only seen it a certain way, you know I had only been in this one world with horses. And I think ever since then I've been trying to integrate horses fully, or more fully into a more realistic life with horses, which is hard to do in this time, and hard to make a priority in the world we live in.
"I'm still building the bridge between nature connection, horses and the modern world."
When I fell into the nature connection world through Weaving Earth and the Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness Program, and Jon Young and Tom Brown, as I discovered it, it brought me back to remembering where I grew up which was on a huge ranch outside of town steeped in nature connection. And so learning about the plants, birds and animals that are around us, coupled with my love for horses and the outdoors and discovering horse packing which I never in a million years thought I would get into, I discovered my purpose.
Tell us about your time in Patagonia, leading horse packing trips on a 100,000 acre ranch.
I'll maybe start at the beginning. I'd been working for Weaving Earth and knew I was moving toward something else, though I didn't know what that was. I don't even remember how I found it, but I remember I was online in the morning after a healthy dose of yerba mate, and my partner Nic was still asleep and there I was discovering Estancia Ranquilco, this ranch in Patagonia. I saw the potential to combine the two worlds of nature connection, with the love of the mountains and the outdoors that I had remembered, with the horses and knowledge of being in the backcountry. And within minutes I was signing up for a 5-month internship in Patagonia!
I don't particularly like flying, and haven't flown a lot but one thing I really don't like is to feel held back by fears. So it's almost like if I'm afraid of something I will go towards it more.
T.A., the guy I ended up working for got right back to me and explained that they were full for the year. I quickly responded back, trying to sell myself, and my skills, and said I even know a construction guy because they offered that as an internship, and meanwhile my partner knows nothing about all of this as I'm signing him up for a trip to Argentina. A little bit of time went by and he emailed me back and there ended up being some openings. I remember the day that you and I met, and got to work with Jasmine in an animal as medicine arena, literally. That had always been in my understanding and knowledge of horses, the medicine they hold, but there was so much that felt in the way of that being on a more conscious level. That day was really profound in my deciding to go down there. I knew the whole time that I wanted to go, of course, but that time working with you and Jasmine was a big deal.
So we finally ended up in Buenos Aires, which is about a 16 hour flight, and from there a 24 hour bus ride to a small town called Zapala. Then you're picked up by a ranch driver from the bus station, and then its a 3 or 6 hour drive, I can't remember, and then its a 3 hour horseback ride to the ranch. I just remember there was so much put into the decision making of if I was to go there or not, that when I got down there it was so dream-like.
Then we were there for 5 months. We chose not to go down there this last winter, but I can't imagine missing it this next winter. To describe the surroundings, I would say expansive, like mountains on top of mountains on top of mountains for as far as you can see. My time that I spent there was filled with taking guests out on day rides, and picnic lunches, and longer 3 or 5 day trips into the mountains, where we would take a couple of mules and head off into the sunset.
"I think that it can sometimes be difficult to know when lessons begin and end."
I feel like I am still there, because there is a part of me that wishes we only rode our horses to town. Which they do there, there are superhighways, as we call them, in the middle of nowhere, that are these horse trails that all the gauchos use to get to and from each others houses that were maybe a 3 hour ride. The biggest lesson that comes up now as I remember my time there is that the universe is always supporting us. I would describe myself who has struggled with finding a way to integrate horses in my daily life. To receive the opportunity and the support to spend time down there and live a life where I did ride my horse to town to go eat ice cream is a real gift. And it makes me wonder what's in store next...
How do you define horsemanship?
When I think of horsemanship, I think of a relationship. It's an art form and there's mastery involved or a care to master; a care to have so much relationship with the animal and the art. I think there's a level of commitment involved in that, and like many things in life there's never an end achievement; there's always a learning and a striving in horsemanship. You're always working towards the optimum goal of horse and rider in partnership, and asking what's the highest level the horse and rider can operate individually, and where they meet.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to connect more deeply with wilderness and nature?
I can sometimes put this grandiose idea on thinking I have to go out on this big backpacking trip to connect with the wilderness or nature, or whatever it is I'm longing to connect to. However, the simple act of just sitting outside is really all that's needed, and in doing that I think we begin to remember our own wildness.
One of the things I really did walk away with from the trip to Patagonia that relates to this question is to simply take a shower we had to have chopped firewood, or to chop some firewood, and that would heat our water. That's how we cooked and heated water for tea or yerba mate, and prepared all of our meals was over a fire. There's a lot of work involved in that, but it allows for a very simple life. You don't need a lot when you're living that way and I think when we spend a lot of time outside connecting to nature, we begin to remember that a simple life is still a very profound life, while maybe not easy. So I would say, go outside; don't just look out the window, go outside.
Tanning hides of dead animals found on the side of the road is not for the faint of heart. Tell us about your experience with this skill.
I love working with my hands, and when I started the Nature Awareness Program which shifted into Weaving Earth, my partner Nic and I were commuting over 6 hours each way to be in the program. I learned to tan hides from a good friend of mine, Jay Sliwa, some people know him as buckskin Jay. And I don't remember I was overly interested in it, or feeling drawn to it. My Dad has been a deer hunter, and I've seen when the deer have been hunted and come in, and see them be processed. I was young then, and didn't necessarily like it. Though as we were on this commute I was always seeing animals dead on the roadside, specifically birds, and felt there was always this push from the universe, and also that I was asking for it, trying to make meaning out of these deaths that I was seeing that seemed so meaningless.
"I'm really grateful that in the right situation I can give some sort of meaning to that life, and it is important to tend to wild beauty."
As for the process of tanning, I love making things, and I love what it does to the mind. And the thing I like about working with animal hides is the depth of time that it takes. It takes a very long time to process an animal down to the hide, and make it all usable, and I like that quietness of mind that comes over. There is a lot of physical work in it, as it is hard on the body. When I'm working I'm constantly reminded I need to take breaks and drink water, and there's a lot of good lessons in it. I will also say that I grew up on a ranch where we raised our own meat, and butchered a couple of steers each year. And when I moved away from home I was opened up to what grocery store meat looked like, and this was before there was an organic movement. I moved out around 18 or 19, and by the time I was 23 I was a vegetarian, because I saw the meat they were selling in the stores was not what I remembered meat looking like at home.
I also have a lot of questions around the impact that the clothing industry has on our water, our soil and consumerism in general. I love fashion, and beautiful things, and creating leather yourself in working with animal hides is a totally chemical free process. And if that animal was roadkill, creating something beautiful from that is the only thing I can think of doing to make some sort of meaning out of such a meaningless way to go. I will also say that it's illegal in California, and that being said there are some states where if a moose gets hit by a car, there's a list of families that they call so that the family can benefit from the meat and bones. So I think there's definitely a shift that needs to happen.
There are all kinds of networks and groups that are working on safety corridors for animals so they can continue on their movement and migration patters safely, but its a sad thing that happens.
If you were elected president, what would your first act be?
[Laughs] I don't know a lot about politics, I think I've shielded myself from a lot so I don't know that I can articulate my words well, but the first thing that comes to mind is just that this is a really ridiculous question. I think first off I wouldn't be the president, but there would be a circle of people, because it can't just fall on one person to make these decisions. Whatever it is that would create a structure to protect the environment, the land, the water, the birds, the children and the future generations, that would come first. And there are a lot of things that are in the way of that happening. The way that we are consumers now, the way the we live in houses now, the way our water comes to us now, the way that we are reliant on electricity and our cars, and that our cars have created this distance and then made it shorter, it has made the environment a tool for that existence.
I think a lot of people maybe don't think it's possible to live in harmony with nature. I can't quite believe that. I want to live in a world where I ride my horse to town every day. And so I'm just going to keep working on that.
Learn more about Shele
Stay in touch with Shele Jessee by following her on Instagram @_hollowbone_ and learn more about the work she does and the products she sells at Hollow Bone.
