“Nature is my church. Nature is my biggest informer. I think that's the thing in the last couple of years that I've come to and why I'm so, so grateful that this work found me because it definitely found me. Nature is the deepest relationship that I have. My relationship to the earth, the elements, animals and things like that have informed all my other decisions. It informs everything in my life. And to have found myself on a path where I get to hang out with horses and see them do their big work in the world is one of the best things that's ever happened to me. I will be grateful until I die.”

In episode #10 of Healing and Horsemanship, I sat down with Ashley Frye, who will absolutely blow your mind as she did mine in the span of a ninety minute conversation. In fact, I had very little idea just what I was getting into in my conversation with Ashley, as my initial conversations with her revolved around the equine therapy work that she so passionately devotes herself to. I knew that she began her career as an Equine Therapy Facilitator at Wild Hearts Equine Therapy in Seneca, South Carolina. However, as I found out during our chat, the many lives she’s lived as a high school educator for 11 years and a birth doula offer a glimpse at the profound wisdom she has to share. And on top of all that amazing paths she’s walked, she has been a seer her whole life.

The topic of journeywork and channeling is something very special. I’m a believer in energy work, communication with what’s beyond our quantitative measuring or understanding, or whatever else you want to call it. But understandably, it’s a scary thing to share for someone who is highly sensitive, empathic, or has innately channeled their whole life without understanding how it works, and why it’s happening to them. I really appreciated Ashley’s vulnerability in sharing her experience as a lifelong seer, and how she is now committing herself to sharing it and trusting that she won’t be outcasted and those who are aligned with her gift will find her.

Whew! There’s a lot here to unearth. Read on or listen here to learn about the importance of not playing it small and showing up authentically even with the fear of being ostracized for being different, unlearning the need to have control, and why Ashley believes that horses are “exceptionally good medicine” in teaching us to show up, and much more.

So let's dive in. You said that this is something that you never would have expected that you would be doing, but the path found you.

Yeah. So I don't want that to come across as egotistical because so nothing in my life has gone the way that I thought it would. Like nothing. Whenever I was planning, you know, like even as a high schooler and whatever… I kind of had a direction. My background is wide and varied. I think for a lot of people, well, 2019 is really when my life took a huge turn, like unexpected huge turn. And I had been teaching primarily high school and middle school. And I just, I loved the kids, loved working with the kids, but being an English teacher and being a subject that was tested and I was working with, I really am not fond of the term ‘at risk’, but I was working with primarily at risk students. So I had just reached the level of burnout that I just, I was not physically doing well, I was emotionally not doing well. I loved what I was doing, but it was not sustainable anymore. I had known that and then been kind of fighting that for a little while.

I decided I was going to focus on my business, which at the time I was doing birth photography and I was a birth doula. It's like when you finally do take that leap of faith, the universe is like, I see you and also... [laughs] Life kind of fell apart. It was a huge catalyst. And, and a lot of things happened. My 20 year marriage ended, my grandparents, whom I was really, really close to got very, very ill, and ended up passing away within 10 months of each other. And I lost two dogs. And so it was just like a lot of stuff fell away and it was very painful. And there was a lot of grief that I had to navigate. And then the pandemic hit. And so I was like, what is happening in my life?

It was this really sacred pause, honestly, and not one that I necessarily welcomed. But in hindsight, I look back and, and a lot of what happened was necessary. Not of course, that awesome, you know, you never want to lose people you love. But when I was trying to figure out like, what am I going to do now, you know, kind of rebuilding my life in a way, I was listening to a podcast on my way home from visiting my family. And I had applied or I was wanting to apply for a photography grant and nothing was lighting me up. I couldn't figure out it was supposed to be a personal project. And, you know, I'm passionate about a lot of things, but nothing felt right in my body.

And I was driving back and this podcast, the woman she was interviewing was talking about horses and she said she'd grown up with them and then had, you know, gone away from horses and that they had recently reunited her life and how healing that had been. Nothing about equine therapy, like just working with horses. And I have a couple moments in my life where you feel that full body, like you just feel, you just feel it in your entire body. And something said equine therapy. And I just, I was like, that's it. That needs to be my, that needs to be my topic.

I can't explain it. Like I hadn't, I kind of heard of equine therapy, but not, I really had zero knowledge of it, or what it was or what it entailed or anything. So the next day I Googled Equine Therapy Centers Near Me and ended up finding the center that I now work for. And it has been so wild and so profound. So I sent them an email and said, hey, here's what I would like to do. I want to bring awareness to Equine Therapy. So like after reading through their website and the thing that got me is their tagline. It's connecting the soul of the horse to the heart of the human. And I was like, “Oh, these are my people.” And these are my people, you know, without even meeting them, I was like, okay, these are my people. And it was everything on the website talks about it being horse and client led and just very much advocating for the wellness and the wellbeing of the horse as much of the human.

So I scheduled a meeting with them. And again, all of this sounds very, what's the word? Um, almost made up when I look back on it because when I got to the farm, as soon as I got out of my car, I was like, this place is going to change my life. Before I met the people I work for now, I just felt it. There's that felt sense in the body. Then I met Jess and Janine, Jess is the founder. Janine, she does all the things. They're phenomenal, phenomenal humans. I just, after chatting with them and taking her to the farm and hearing that philosophy and... and what they did, I knew I wanted to be a part of it. So I started going out and I got permission from the clients that, so we have some clients that for privacy and safety reasons, can't take photo and video, and then we have other clients that you can.

So I was observing, I was just observing, I was learning through observing, I was just soaking up and watching all these other facilitators work with clients and the horses in just the most profound and beautiful ways, like every day I left. Just every day I left, I didn't even turn on the radio or anything driving home because I just was like, holy shit, this is one of the most profound things I've ever experienced. So the longer I went out there and got to know the people out at the farm, they eventually asked me if I wanted to go through their volunteer training. I was like, yes, I absolutely do. Again, none of this I planned. I just kept... I think what I really learned after going through those really difficult years and through grief, I decided, especially after my marriage ended, that I was not going to live with a closed heart. I wasn't going to let it make me better. That I was going to keep my heart open and that I was going to say yes to things that resonated even if it scared me.

I've had to do a lot of shedding and a lot of unlearning. Saying yes to things that feel really big is sometimes really hard for me. But I just, I was like, you know what, I'm too old to live small and tiny. Like I don't mean this, but I've reached a point in my life where I'm like, I don't want to look back and be full of like, why didn't I do that? You know, just because I didn't know what the outcome was going to be. So I said yes, and that was another thing that I really admired about them. Their volunteer training is six weeks. It's six consecutive weeks of training. You learn about the horse's brain. You learn about horse behavior. You learn, I mean, it's so thorough and it's, I think it's two hours per week. The first week is three. You get a handbook. It's so important to them that people really understand what they're doing and why they are there. And I really admired that. That says a lot about them as an organization and I wanna be a part of that. So, those six weeks were, oh my God.

I think I told you in my intake form that I grew up with horses, but when I left home at 18, I didn't think horses would really be in my life again. It wasn't that I necessarily learned the wrong way. with horses, but I learned there was very much the way I grew up with horses was there was a hierarchy. Humans were up here, horses were down here. My dad is literally a cowboy who worked on a cattle ranch. It wasn't because people didn't care about horses, but I think it was just this old way of working with horses of, we've got to go work cattle. This animal is a tool to get a job done. So there wasn't a lot of emphasis on understanding body language or horse dynamics or herd dynamics, or there was none of that, you know?

And, and I heard the phrases, this horse is disrespectful. This horse has a bad attitude. And so you, you hear that as a kid and, and you're just like, okay, that's, that's how it is. There was nothing about saddle fit. There was nothing about, you know, floating the teeth correctly, and things like that. And again, I want to emphasize it wasn't because people didn't care about their horses, but the mindset was, you know, and I even saw it with dogs. Like nobody I knew growing up had dogs inside because they were farm dogs. They had a job and, and you loved them, but they stayed outside, you know? So to come to a place that emphasized the subtleties of a horse's energy and the subtleties of how horses communicate and understanding that just blew my whole world wide open. Like blew it open. It changed everything. It just changed everything.

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Learn more about Ashley

Learn more about Ashley’s work at Of Breath and Bone, follow along with her on Instagram @ofbreathandbone_, and be sure to claim your 15% discount on Earth Medicine and Journeywork Sessions booked in 2023 as a Herd Member.