Ground rules

For Mother's Day this year, my son, Ryan, paid for an animal communicator to talk to my horse, Olive...

and Karen's horse, Kaffi.

For various reasons, some on our end, most on hers, the reading took place nearly three weeks after Mother's Day, on June 6 at eight in the morning. I had concerns about the timing, because that is prime breakfast hour. It seemed likely our horses would be too interested in their food to cooperate. We talked about moving them into a paddock, but eventually decided to just let things unfold naturally.

At the prescribed time, we got the phone call. I put the communicator on speaker phone, and she went over the ground rules with us.

At the beginning of each session, we were to stand with our horses. Then she would guide us through three deep breaths to open the channel between her and them.

She warned us that some of things might not make sense in the moment, and we should not get hung up on that. Instead, we were advised to listen to what our horses had to say, and the meaning would likely come later.

Also, she admitted that although she talked to horses often, she was not a horse girl. She does not know all the proper horse terms. She was very clear that any wording mistakes were on her not the horses.

After that, it was time to begin. Olive had already left her food and was standing with us in her run. We took our three deep breaths, and Olive - via the communicator - said, "I am the princess."