In an Open Relationship with the Wild: Leading Me to My Liberation

I am in an open relationship with the wild, and it is the most honest commitment I’ve ever made.

Five years ago, I began a conscious trek through the wreckage of my past—navigating the jagged terrain of attachment trauma and the deep-seated echoes of sexual violation that haunted my girlhood and early adulthood and a handful of relational ruptures throughout my life that made my head spin while creating a dis-ease in my body; I didn't know how to navigate the mess.

For a highly sensitive soul like me, the modern world often feels like a relentless assault; a fast-paced, unforgiving machinery that demands we mask, perform, and move at a tempo that ignores the heartbeat and natural rhythm of the soul.

A continous act working against oneself..

Then came The Funny Farm…

A full circle return to the lifestyle and pace of how I grew up; living closely with the land and the animals; my safe haven as a child.

For over a year, I’ve been building a relationship with this sanctuary. Particularly, the last six months, it has been my daily sanctuary.

Here at the Funny Farm, liberation isn’t a lofty concept; it’s something I shovel, carry, and breathe every day.

The Grounding Rhythm of the Morning

Every day starts with a sense of purpose that the "real world" could never provide. There are 17 mouths—17 fuzzy, expectant souls—waiting for me at the gate. They don’t care about my status, my "success” or what I look like.

They care that I’m there.

Getting up with the sun to feed these eager fuzzy friends, break ice on water troughs and muck the stalls of dung they left for me isn't a chore; it’s a meditation.

The cold mountain air wakes up my lungs, activating senses that the digital world tries to numb.

There is a primal, healing rhythm in the physical labor. Shoveling manure, lifting heavy bales, and hauling wheelbarrows gives the stress my shoulders and heart carry a place to go. It moves the energy out of those stagnant places and grounds me into the earth.

This daily ritual offers connection and unconditional love at the purest level.

It’s more than the labor.

It’s the snuggles. Their cute faces awaiting me at the gates and fenclines. The songs I sing to them in the quiet of the dawn. It’s starting the day on a note of pure, uncomplicated love.

The Breath as a Bridge: Unlocking the Stagnant

Before the farm, my journey into the body began through the breath. Spending years in Arizona as a conscious breathwork facilitator taught me the visceral language of the nervous system. I learned that trauma isn't just a memory; it’s a physical tenant. It stores itself in the fascia, the gut, and the constricted chest, locking us into "survival mode" long after the danger has passed.

In my practice, I witnessed how intentional, circular breathing acts as a key to those locked rooms, allowing the body to finally express and release what the mind couldn't process.

And it worked for me during the depths of my journey diving in and unearthing experiences and patterns I developed; not because I was broken, rather trying to survive with unresolved trauma living in my body.

Those years mattered and shaped me as I step into the second chapter of my life; MY second chance, alongside this baryard crew who were given theirs at the Funny Farm Sanctuary.

I bring this mastery into the stalls every single morning. Because horses and donkeys live entirely in their nervous systems, they are the ultimate biofeedback machines. If I approach them with a chest tight from the world's chaos, they feel my "armor" as a threat. Before I leave my van to start this daily ritual, I check in. I breathe deeply into my belly—I regulate.

When I approach the herd, I don’t just offer hay; I offer a shared frequency. I breathe with them. By matching my exhale to theirs, I am signaling to their ancient brains—and my own—that we are safe. We are present. We are home.

And I sing to them; their heads lower and lips tremble. And for me, singing tones my vagal nerve. It’s a win for us all.

Mirrors in the Mud: The Donkeys

At 48, I see my own reflection in the donkeys. These "beasts of burden" once mishandled, maltreated, and nearly sent to slaughter before Madi, the mamá of the farm, intervened.

Donkeys are notoriously pushed beyond their limits, worked into the ground until they break. They remind me so much of what Ive done to myself over the years; the constant pushing and overworking along with some of the men I’ve known and chosen to date—the ones who "loved me hard" in the honeymoon phase, only to discard me like donkey dung the moment my high sensitivity and emotional intelligence became "too much." Like these donkeys, I’ve known the pain of being a "shiny object" that was used and then abandoned without closure.

In the beginning, these sweet souls were skittish. They flinched at shadows. They moved slowly toward trust. But through consistent presence and regulated breath, we have built a bond without words. A space where being "too much" doesn't exist.

The Teachers: Jaci and Dakota

The horses offer a different kind of medicine.

* Jaci: A wild mustang. Feral, feisty, and possessing exactly zero "fucks to give." She is my “firehorse”. She is the energy I am striving to embody—the part of me that refuses to be tamed or minimized.

* Dakota: Her stall mate. A survivor. A brood mare bred one too many times, touched by "hard" hands until she lost the desire to be handled by humans at all.

I feel Dakota in my marrow. I cry with her. As a woman who has been handled by humans with harsh voices and dark intentions, I honor her need for distance. I know what it’s like to want to close the door on connection because the end result has always been pain. In her silence, I find permission to heal at my own pace.

The Medicine of Presence

The most revolutionary thing about this equine connection is the lack of cognitive dissonance. Animals don't do "fake." They don't care what you look like. They care about your nervous system.

If I am sad, I don’t hide it. I cry with them. They mirror us if we don’t identify what we are feeling—and that right there is the medicine. In this sanctuary, authentic expression is the only currency. You cannot mask here. You cannot pretend.

In the muck and the hay, among the survivors and the wild ones, I am finding my own way back to being untamed. My liberation is blooming—one scoop, one snuggle, and one horse snicker at a time.

I am Tierra Azul. I am wild, I am free, and I am finally, slowly, coming home.

Yours truly, Amy XXX