The language of horses: How a Chilean woman found her voice in Park City

Alejandra Lara. Photo: Lexie Larson

Horses gave Lara what she wanted most in her new home – a way to communicate that transcended language, and a way to hold space that allowed her, and others, to experience the transformational magic of awareness and attunement that horses had taught her as a child.

PARK CITY, Utah — “When I moved to Park City with my husband, I literally didn’t know how to speak the language and I felt terribly alone,” said Alejandra Lara. “It was so frustrating. I was desperate to communicate.” She was thousands of miles away from her home, friends, and family. It wasn’t an easy transition for a young woman who didn’t speak English. “I didn’t feel like I belonged,” she said. “I didn’t have a community.” So, she turned to the language she knew, the language of nature and horses.

Lara grew up in the saddle, riding through the forests of southern Chile on her parents’ ranch near Temuco. “We lived amongst the Mapuche people who teach that stones, animals, trees, forest, rivers — everything has a spirit,” she said.

“I grew up asking permission to enter a forest, saying thank you to plants and herbs. I understood the relationship with Mother Earth. Everything is a sentient being and everything is interconnected. It was magical and it taught me so much.”

As a child, Lara’s best friends were horses. “I learned to tune in to horses at a very young age and become aware of what horses, humans, and nature were saying when they seemingly were saying nothing,” she explained.

Horses gave Lara what she wanted most in her new home – a way to communicate that transcended language, and a way to hold space that allowed her, and others, to experience the transformational magic of awareness and attunement that horses had taught her as a child. “The horses were a bridge,” she said. “Finally, I was giving back to the community, creating connections, and friendships.” 

Lara galloped ahead. Just ten years after moving to Park City, she was the founder, facilitator, and coordinator of the Equine-Assisted Learning (EAL) program at the National Ability Center (NAC). “The NAC offers a place for people of all abilities to come together,” she said. “I’ve helped thousands of people from all walks of life. I trained a team and now it’s so much bigger than me. I’m honored to be part of it.”

Experiencing the healing power of horses on a daily basis, she founded Park City Horse Experience in 2016. This program is open to community members and caters to families, corporate groups, and more. It offers mindful horse experiences and programs, including her signature program, Horse Meditation Circles.

In 2020, she co-founded and became the program director for REINS, a 501c3 non-profit organization that helps rescue horses heal by pairing them with trauma survivors. “We all have trauma,” Lara said. “As we rehabilitate horses, we simultaneously transform the lives of people. Helping horses recover helps people recover.”   

Her passion for understanding the connection to healing and horses has earned many credentials and awards including the 2018 PATH International Credentialed Professional of the Year award for her contribution to the Equine-Assisted Learning and Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy fields. In 2021, she was hired as the executive director for the Equellness Center, a 501c3 non-profit organization that promotes mental fitness and personal growth through equine-assisted services and wellness programs. 

Lara works with people who have suffered severe trauma, abuse, those living with addiction and disabilities, as well as people who simply want to interact with animals and experience their powers to create awareness. “People can have profound experiences in just one afternoon in the arena with a horse,” she said. “Horses are highly sensitive to nonverbal messages and intentions. Through this, we receive unbiased feedback, and our long-standing stories about ourselves and our core relationships with other people can be transformed in a safe and powerful way.” One of Lara’s clients who had been in therapy for decades shared her experience: “I learned more about myself and my relationship issues in an afternoon with Alejandra and a horse than I ever did sitting across from a therapist.”

When Lara witnesses someone do something as simple as approach a horse or ask a horse to back up, she sees not just how that person is with a horse, but how they interact in the world. And that can open awareness. She may gently ask the person, “What is the horse saying? What is the feedback the horse is communicating to you? What are you noticing in this relationship? Hopefully, this helps the person see common experiences in their life. “Interacting with horses helps people see something that is true in their lives outside the barn,” she said. 

This helps Lara illuminate dynamics and change how people approach relationships. “How we interact with a horse is how we interact with others: our friends, our coworkers, and loved ones. By asking questions about the human’s relationship with their horse they come to discover insights about themselves they never imagined possible,” Lara said. “As prey animals, horses don’t hold the biases that are common with humans. This non-judgmental experience provides an opportunity for relationship-building that can rewrite past trauma stories and provide present-moment connection.” 

Her unique methodology of mindful horsemanship helps facilitate self-awareness through relationship, horsemanship, and inquiry. This work is inspired by her training as a Mindfulness Meditation Teacher (she is certified by both the Awareness Training Institute and the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley). This fall, she will be offering Mindful Horsemanship groups at the Equellness Center.

Learning from horses, and her time in the native forests of Chile, opened a longing for understanding that transcends typical ways of knowing. For Lara, there are myriad options for further learning, self-discovery, exploration, and growth. She incorporates dance, movement, art, photography, mythology, storytelling, mandala making, tarot, and dreamwork — all as a means of understanding what the conscious mind is not aware of. 

Taking life by the reins in a new direction, Lara is steering her passion for creating community and deep connection into a new venture. “As I continue to facilitate mindful horsemanship, I am also offering dreamwork groups for women — no horses for this endeavor, unless you happen to dream about them,” she laughed. She will be facilitating these groups with Tracey Cleantis-Dwyer, a trained Jungian psychotherapist with 25 years of dream-tending experience and author of The Next Happy: Letting Go of the Life You Planned and Find a New Way Forward.

“I am delighted to be creating this space with Tracey,” said Lara. “Together we can create a community for women to expand their self-awareness through the experience of sharing dreams. This is a powerful way to feel deep community and connection, learn the language of your unconscious, and to get rid of the feeling of being alone in what are universal experiences of being a human.” 

As for Lara’s skills, Cleantis-Dwyer said enthusiastically, “Alejandra has a tremendous gift of seeing, attunement, and awareness that allows her to notice enormous subtleties, changes of posture, of voice, of energy that she clearly learned from years of working with horses and clients. Her horse and human listening make her an extraordinary group facilitator and allow her to create safe spaces for all who enter. I am delighted to be co-facilitating these dream groups with her and gently shepherding growth.”

Lonely no more, Lara’s fluent understanding of horses, humans, and nature helped her to create a life, community, and healing work in Park City, beyond what she could have dreamed of many years ago. Now, she’s dreaming even bigger.

“I’m creating safe spaces for others to join me in discovering ways of ‘knowing’ beyond the ordinary,” Lara said.