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Here on Equine Assisted World. We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and, established in the equine assisted field. This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have that these lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.
Your Host is New York Times bestselling author Rupert Isaacson. Long time human rights activist, Rupert helped a group of Bushmen in the Kalahari fight for their ancestral lands. He's probably best known for his autism advocacy work following the publication of his bestselling book "The Horse Boy" and "The Long Ride Home" where he tells the story of finding healing for his autistic son. Subsequently he founded New Trails Learning Systems an approach for addressing neuro-psychiatric conditions through horses, movement and nature. The methods are now used around the world in therapeutic riding program, therapy offices and schools for special needs and neuro-typical children.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on www.RupertIsaacson.com.
Rupert Isaacson: Welcome
to Equine Assisted World.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson,
New York Times best selling
author of The Horse Boy, The Long
Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
Before I jump in with today's
guest, I just want to say a huge
thank you to you, our audience,
for helping to make this happen.
I have a request.
If you like what we do, please
like, subscribe, tell a friend.
It really helps us get this work done.
As you might know from my
books, I'm an autism dad.
And over the last 20 years,
we've developed several
equine assisted, neuroscience
backed certification programs.
If you'd like to find out more
about them, go to newtrailslearning.
com.
So without further ado,
let's meet today's guest.
Sanaa Pharayra Sanaa Pharayra Sanaa
Pharayra Sanaa Pharayra welcome
back rockers and fellow horse nerds
especially in the therapy world.
I've got Sanaa Ferreira here who runs
something rather interesting with minis.
It's called the Romeo Roadshow, and she
goes around with these minis, speci- not
just I think, but rather interestingly,
to memory care facilities, people with
Alzheimer's, people with dementia.
And with her minis, helps
people recover memory.
And this is becoming a sort of cutting
edge of the equine-assisted world.
She's beginning to work with
University of Southern California
and Cal State in the Channel Islands
universities to try and get data.
Now, why does this work?
Like, how, how is it that we're able to
reach into a mind that, a brain really,
that is eroded and seeming to contract
and die, and yet with the right equine
intervention, we can recover all kinds
of memory and bring back all sorts
of mind and consciousness and so on.
You know, what's going on with this?
And so many of us who work in the
field either are working with kids and
young adults, or if people are working
in the sort of assisted psychotherapy
field, they're perhaps working with
adults who are seeking therapy in
a sort of top-down kind of a way.
But this population with Alzheimer's
and dementia really is its own
universe and its own world.
So I'm fascinated to talk to you, Sanaa.
Can you tell us why you do this,
how you started doing this,
and actually what it is you do?
Sanaa Pharayra: Well, it was a complete
surprise to me that I ended up doing
this, and it's an interesting story.
Essentially it started with the
rescuing a miniature horse that
was in a very sad situation.
His owner had passed away, and he had
a companion, another miniature horse
that he'd lived with his entire life.
They'd lived in a woman's backyard.
And the other horse sadly
passed away right after they
went to a foster situation.
And around that time, we happened
to be looking to adopt a horse
for a companion for another horse,
and I had every intention of
finding a full-size rescue horse.
But this little horse showed up.
It was this super sad situation,
and we ended up adopting him.
And he was an older an, like, in his teen-
teenage approximately miniature horse.
And he was kind of a typical,
what I would describe as a typical
situation where he was a pasture pet.
As I'm sure you're aware, a lot of
miniature horses, it's sort of like
the Easter Bunny effect where people
get them 'cause they're cute, but
they don't really do a lot with them.
So he wasn't he was a little, he
was a little scared of people.
You know, he hadn't
really had the right diet.
He had Cushing's disease.
You know, his feet hadn't
been trimmed properly.
Rupert Isaacson: I thought you were
gonna say he had dementia and we went in
there and we recovered all his memories.
Sorry.
Sanaa Pharayra: Had to make that joke.
As far as I know, he didn't have dementia.
But but I, you know, in my career, like
with horses, I've had many times that
we've gotten a horse and fixed it up and,
and so anyway, we, we started working with
him grooming him, got him on the right
feeding program, did all the vet work,
did the lab work, got him on Cushing's
medication, you know, fixed his feet,
and, and he s- and he started coming
around, like pretty quickly actually.
Like, he started getting more comfortable
with us and, and really becoming quite
friendly to where he would come up to us.
And to give you an idea of how feral
he was, the people that had fostered
him when his owner passed away ha-
were not able to catch him and his
friend, and they had to rope them-
To get a hold of them and basically
physically put them into a horse trailer.
So I didn't really, you know,
have any grand aspirations
other than to help this animal.
So, so as he started to become healthier
I was then able to start exercising him
and have some training sessions with
him, and I just kind of put him in the
training schedule with the big horses.
You know, he had like maybe four times a
week, and I wouldn't, I didn't do a ton.
I'd do like 20-minute sessions with him.
I taught him how to lunge,
taught him how to, you know,
listen to my voice, ho, you know.
Different, just basic stuff really.
Like more, more I was trying to
get him fit so he'd be healthier.
And he just kept getting cuter and
cuter and cuter, and he, he ended up
making this metamorphosis into like a
unicorn like pretty much like creature.
So when we got him he
had a horrible haircut.
Somebody chop- chopped his forelock off.
You know, he was fat, he was dirty,
and he did have big, big beautiful
brown eyes and a really cute head,
and I knew he would be cute once he
was, once he had had some good care.
So and then, you know, people would come
over to meet him, family and friends,
and he was just so great with everybody,
and everybody loved him so much.
And we ended up deciding thatâ¦
Well, we had transported him in a horse
trailer to bring him home, and when
we brought him home, and obviously he
hadn't been hauled around very much at
that point 'cause he'd just been in a
pastures or in a backyard his whole life.
He when we put him in the horse
trailer, he- We noticed that he
stood up, was standing up on his back
legs and, like, putting his hooves
on the window to try to see out.
And it was just kind of like, "Oh,
wow," you know, like, he can't,
doesn't have a window, you know,
it's not the right size for him.
And we ended up deciding to, to build
a little miniature-sized horse van for
him that was size appropriate so that
he could travel around and go places.
And so we got this little van.
We just bought, like, a
used, a little Nissan van.
And I hired a guy that does horse
trailer repair and welding, and we
basically built a prototype miniature
horse van, and we built a horse box that
inserted into the back of the van and
bolted to the frame that is, looks a
lot like the inside of a horse trailer.
It has the pads, you know,
like a horse trailer has.
And the hardest part of the
project was figuring out how to
make the ramp w- system work.
So we had to rebuild the ramp several,
several times, but we finally got
it to where it worked pretty well.
And once, around the time that the
van got finished we decided thatâ¦
And, and this was just really a fun,
just a fun project we were doing.
Like, oh, you know, Romeo's
- and his name was Romeo.
Romeo's coming around we're, we wanna
take him places, we wanna be able to
share him with people 'cause he's,
he's just so, so great, so amazing.
Rupert Isaacson: That was gonna be
my question is w- how did he go from
your head to, a companion horse to a
horse that you want to drive around.
You wanna randomly drive him around?
You wanna take him- Well, I think
what happened, To the, to Walmart?
What, like, what, what is it that
you wanna do with this horse?
So I think, so- Why do you
wanna drive him around?
Sanaa Pharayra: Well, I, I ventured
into this whole project with Daryl Daryl
Hannah, and she, I think she was really
inspired by how much he turned around when
we, through the rehabilitation process.
Okay.
And how friendly he became.
And people that were invited to come
over to meet him were visibly, like,
excited, you know, and happy to meet him
and couldn't stop talking about him and,
and would say, like, "He's magical."
Like, this was, like, a, something
that kept coming up is people-
Okay ⦠would say he's magical.
And so I think just seeing that,
it really brightened people's day.
It, everyone really loved him.
He was not intimidating
'cause he was little.
And he was so friendly, too.
The more we worked with him, he
became extremely, like, outgoing and
demonstrative, like, where he, he gives
you little kisses, like, on, he'll put his
nose up to your cheek, and he's so sweet.
And so I think the idea was, at first
was, like, let's just, let's be able
to take him places, one, so it's a new
thing for his training, that he can
get used to traveling, and two, to show
him to people, the people that wouldn't
be able to come to where he lives.
So, so that's, so that's how the
Rupert Isaacson: van project happened.
Yeah, but y- you must have had in
your mind a sort of, 'cause y- you
told me just before we hit record
that you, you know, came up, you
were a, a professional horsewoman.
You-
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah
⦠Rupert Isaacson: in hunter/jumper thing.
You, you know, then you start
running a, a, you know, your own barn
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Right.
And you become a horse trainer
for some well-known people.
You mentioned- Mm-hmm ⦠Daryl Hannah.
You know, and you, you, this is not
necessarily a logical thing to then
say- "Look, this mule who's shown
up that we, you know, is really
cute, let's drive him around."
There must have been some kind of
thing in your mind saying- There's a
particular type of person that might
benefit from this, meeting this pony
Sanaa Pharayra: You know, I,
Rupert Isaacson: I hon- Where were
you thinking you could drive him to?
Sanaa Pharayra: It wasn't-
Rupert Isaacson: To, to, to
build a whole thing for him.
Sanaa Pharayra: Okay.
I
would really say- It's not
something you do randomly, right?
Yeah ⦠I, I would really say it was
Daryl's, Daryl that was the one that
had the heart to do it, because she
said, "I wanna share him with people."
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
And
Sanaa Pharayra: I didn't-
Rupert Isaacson: So this being Daryl
Hannah, who we all know from the movies.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Horse lady.
Yeah.
So she said- Yeah ⦠okay, maybe
Sanaa Pharayra: it would be good- She
said, "I wanna share him with people."
"⦠for people to meet this horse."
Okay.
"I think he's magical.
I wanna share him with people."
And- Got it ⦠I want, and
she said, "I wanna build a van
so we can take him anywhere."
Because as you know, a truck and
trailer you can't take anywhere, right?
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
Sanaa Pharayra: And so, so it,
she was just, I think, inspired
and wanted to share, which
was incredibly amazing of her.
What I did know, i- I knew that we,
wherever we took him, it would be
well-received, and I knew that by that
point he'd had enough training that
it was safe, you know, to take him out
Rupert Isaacson: in public.
Right.
And at first was your idea, "Oh,
we're, we're already going to
horse shows, so why don't we take
him along and it'll be cute?"
Or was it from the get-go, "You know what?
Maybe we should reach out to
schools or something like that."
Like- No, ⦠normally there's some sort
of imaginary plan that comes in in this
Sanaa Pharayra: By that, by that
point in my career, I had phased
out of doing a lot of horse shows.
Yeah.
So I wasn't doing that as much.
But I have also in my background run some
large programs with horses interacting
with the public, like trail riding
businesses, riding school businesses.
You know, I've worked with- Okay ⦠like
Girl Scout groups, like all that kind
of outreach, you know, to the public.
Okay.
So I, I mean, I know, I'm very
well aware of how much people love
horses, particularly in an urban
environment where they don't get-
Mm-hmm ⦠to see them very often.
Mm-hmm.
So I, I was rolling with it
knowing that it would be, I knew it
would be well-received by people.
But I literally, I'm telling you, I
had no thought in my head about it
being a therapy situation like that.
I, I, I thought it was just kind of
a cute, fun project we were working
in, on, you know, like something,
something just to put on my resume that
I helped design a miniature horse van.
Okay.
Okay.
You know, like honestly at that point
that's what I thought, that when the
van, when the van was completed and ready
to hit the road, Daryl came up with the
idea of calling it Romeo Roadshow, which
was, which was really cute and funny.
And, And so we're like, "Okay."
You know, and she actually had a little
logo that she drew based on a picture of
Romeo when one of the things I would do
from time to time is fr- free jump him
in the, in our round pen just for fun.
So it was like a little
picture of him jumping.
And so we started taking him out
and about, like all over the place.
You know, public places.
We took him to the beach, we took him to
parks, you know, and get him used to going
in the van, you know, going up and down
the ramp you know, being in busy areas.
And he was great, and people
flocked to us ev- wherever we went.
And and what was really interesting
is this word magic keeps coming up.
But people random people that we
didn't know that we met like literally
on the street, would be, would come
up to meet the horses and say, they
would say, like, "They're magical."
You know?
So it- Yeah ⦠it was, like,
constantly being reinforced,
this idea that Romeo was magical.
And, and people would say,
"You just made my day."
Like, "You just made me so happy.
I can't stop smiling."
You know?
And so you know, at first, at first that
was kind of what was happening, and he
was getting, getting used to traveling.
And then the next thing that happened that
I think was really pivotal and kind of
really changed the direction of everything
was Daryl's sister has a charity called
The Painted Turtle, and it's a camp for
critically ill children to basically
get to have a summer camp experience.
It's, it's the sister camp to Paul
Newman's camp on the East Coast
called The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp.
And they were having a holiday party
in December of that year, and they
asked if we would come and bring Romeo.
So we thought, you know, oh
yeah, this will just be another,
another outreach thing that we do.
Or just another fun
thing to do with Romeo.
So we take Romeo to the camp, and
there's all, like, there's kids,
like, in wheelchairs with leg braces,
walkers, you know, all kinds of
different, You know, special different
special needs and health situations.
And Romeo was so good, and he was
literally mobbed by a group of
these children, and at one pointâ¦
And he was, and he was so perfect.
I mean, I can't even tell
you how well he behaved.
It, it was like as if he completely
understood what was going on.
At one point, I looked at him and he
had his head in the lap of a child
in a small wheelchair, and there's
so many kids surrounding his entire
body, both sides of him, and their
little hands were all over him.
You almost couldn't even see him anymore.
Like, you couldn't see any of the
little white hair of his body because
their hands were all over him.
And he just was standing there perfectly
still, just letting them love on him
and, and it, it literally was like
this moment, I think both Darryl and
I at the same time realized seeing
that, that he was a therapy animal.
It was just sort of like this moment of
like, "Oh my God, he's a therapy animal."
Like, it, it w- it's weird now looking
back on it that I didn't see it coming.
But that, I think, is what
really started off the direction
to go in that, that path.
And then also, so, so then we, we did
a couple other events with The Painted
Turtle, and there was another children's
charity that I had gotten connected with
that also worked with critically ill
children, and we did some stuff with them.
And all of the things we did
were, were extremely popular.
Same thing happened everywhere we went.
You know, Romeo would be mobbed.
And it was like there wasn't really
enough Romeo to go around, and we
figured out pretty early on- That's
Rupert Isaacson: what she said, sir.
Sanaa Pharayra: Oh, it's true.
Pretty early on we were like, "We should
get another horse because if we're gonna
be doing this, there's room in the van."
We were, usually the two of us would go
together, so we should have two horses.
That way, you know, there's more more
petting options and all this stuff.
So we so I basically looked, put a,
put an ad out in my horse network
looking to adopt a miniature
horse that had a temperament to do
therapy work, and I found Ziggy.
And Ziggy is a teenag- was a teenage
miniature horse as well, and he had his
owner had done a little bit of stuff
with him to where we kinda knew right
away that he would work in our program.
And we got Ziggy, and fir- well, first we
had to have, like, we had, like, a little
play date to make sure they liked each
other when we, we introduced the horses.
It went really well.
Because our idea was that they would
live together in the same stall and share
the same paddock and, and stuff, so we
wanted to make sure that Romeo approved.
So that went really well thankfully.
So we got Ziggy, and right around
that time point Daryl had said to me,
"You know, I really think we should
do some work with seniors also."
So I had been looking for p- some places-
Rupert Isaacson: Why?
Why, why did she say that?
Sanaa Pharayra: Sh- I think sh-
it honestly just from her heart.
She's like, "We need to share him with
everybody," and, like, seniors were
people we hadn't shared him with yet.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay,
Sanaa Pharayra: so it-
Rupert Isaacson: I think it was
Sanaa Pharayra: simple
⦠Rupert Isaacson: it wasn't that she
had a particular thing with seniors,
it was more- Kids have been seeing him.
What about old people?
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah, I think, and
I really just think it came from
a desire to share, share it, you
know, 'cause it was so positive.
And so I had found an organization
in our area that has an adult daycare
program, where basically a lot of the
participants are, have memory care issues.
And they basically just go for the day,
and it's a way for, you know, their
caretakers or their family that cares
for them to still be able to go to work
or get other things done during the day.
And then they do different activities
with the people, and they, you know,
feed them lunch and, and stuff like that.
So, so we started with this organization
called Senior Concerns, and they have
a courtyard area in the middle of
their building, so it's like an outdoor
area, and they arranged chairs kind
of in a circular seating arrangement.
And we brought Romeo and Ziggy in,
and we would just kind of spread
out, and we'd visit each person
sitting, and they would be seated.
Some people were in wheelchairs,
other people sat in chairs.
And we would visit each person for a
couple minutes, and we'd kind of go,
go around in a circle a few times, and
we visited for, like, about 45 minutes.
And it was great.
Everybody loved it.
It was interesting because most,
most of the people were very
comfortable with the horses.
And then there were a few people that
had grown up with horses that were
super comfortable with the horses
right away, and then there were a few
people that were scared of the horses.
So I just kind of intuitively,
obviously I'm not gonna force anyone
to, to pet them that's scared.
But I would s- I would
still go, like, withinâ¦
I'd still bring the horses near the
person, not, not maybe quite as close,
and we'd just kind of hang out in
their presence for a couple minutes.
So I'd still spend some time in their
presence but just allow them to sit
there if they didn't wanna engage.
You know, they didn't have to
pet the horse, and I'd move on.
So, so anyway, the first visit
went really well, and they really
wanted us to come once a month.
So I go back the next time, and I
noticed that the people that had
been scared were better than the,
the first time I'd been there.
Still not completely comfortable,
but noticeably better.
And, and so, but again, at that point, I
just, I didn't really think much of it.
And then the third time I went, so three
months into this, the people, every one
of the people that had been scared was
no longer scared anymore, and they were
all petting the horses, smiling, enjo-
like, obviously enjoying the experience.
But what w- what was very interesting
is they didn't seem to remember
that I'd been there before.
Because they ask me like the
same questions every time.
You know, 'cause I'll go around like
two to three laps usually per visit.
They'll ask me the same questions.
Some, some of the people will.
You know, not everybody has the
same amount of cognitive decline.
But what are their names?
Are they boys or girls?
How old areâ¦
You know, the same questions
over and over and over.
And and I just keep answering them, you
know, when I get asked the same thing.
But I thought to myself, I'm like,
"This is pretty remarkable," because
I know as a riding instructor that
teaching people who have fear issues,
it takes a long time to overcome fear.
Like fe- Yeah, and the really the
only way you can overcome fear, in my
opinion, is to have repeated positive
experiences, you know, that basically
take the place of whatever, you know,
the fear, the fear issue came from.
And so the fact that they became so much
more confident in only three visits when
I wasn't able to also use language to
explain anything to them, it was just
the experience of the horse being there.
Even though they didn't remember that
I'd been there, that just, that to
me was like, kind of blew my mind.
And I have been arou- I have
been around therapeutic riding
programs multiple times in my life.
I was on the board of directors of
one, and I've supplied horses for
some therapeutic riding programs.
So I've been kind of like a
little bit in, in that world.
I wouldn't say fully immersed, but I
never, I've never worked with seniors, you
know, or people with cognitive decline.
But I was really fascinated by that.
And then- And the, and then it,
the program just kept growing.
We got more facilities that had day
programs that wanted us to come.
So we started expanding our schedule,
and basically trying to go once a month.
So it kind of got to where we, we knew a
lot of the people that we were visiting,
and we were observing changes in them.
And seeing, like, people that were very
disengaged, they even kind of staring
off into space n- not looking at you,
and then you bring the horse up to
them, and all of a sudden they'd wake
up and become alert, and, like, go to
the horse, pet the horse, even smile.
People that, as far as I know,
didn't talk mu- like, at all or
much, I've seen, I've heard them
say words or talk to the horses.
The care staff has told us multiple times
that it's turned people's days around.
You know, if someone was having a hard
day, after the visit with the horses
they were mu- noticeably better.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Sanaa Pharayra: I've seen people that
appeared to be agitated or ruminating
on something s- kind of snap out of
it when the horses were there and
they were visiting with the horses.
And so I was just really, like, a lot of
interesting observations, and then I just
started asking questions because I was
also getting to know the, the people that
work at the facilities, the care staff
and the people that run the programs.
I was also getting to know them.
And everyâ¦
This is something else that was very
interesting to me, is that every one of
the places that we visit also has dog
therapy programs that come regularly.
Not on the same t- not at the
same time as us, but on the
schedule they come regularly.
And so I would ask the staff, "How does
this compare to the dog therapy visits?
Like, do you, you know, are you seeing
the same thing when the dogs visit?
Is it different?"
And and every one of them has
told me that they see much greater
engagement when the horses are there.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Sanaa Pharayra: So I thought
that was fascinating, too.
And then that really, like all of these
things that I was seeing, just m- you
know, it kind of inspired me to go
down a rabbit hole of finding out has
anyone done research on this, because
I know that there's been some research
on autism and equine therapy, and PTSD
and equine therapy but I hadn't heard
of anything that had been done with
older adults with cognitive decline.
So I started looking to see if it had
been, anything had been done before,
and it's very, like, very, very minimal
what's, what's been done previously.
And I think you did, I think you
may have speaken- spoken to Nancy
and Paula, who have the Connected
Rupert Isaacson: Horse program.
Yes, I have.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And that's in a pre- We actually just
published that podcast with them.
So just listeners and people watching
on YouTube, go back and find, we'll give
you their name again in a moment, because
they're the ones who are doing ⦠Just go
find that episode because they're the ones
who are doing the research on cognition,
dementia, and so on with horses.
Just give us their names again, Sana.
Sanaa Pharayra: It's Nancy and
Paula and it's The Connected Horse.
Rupert Isaacson: The
Connected Horse, that's right.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Yeah.
And so that is how I met them.
I was, I was just trying to find out,
you know, who's done research, who
knows, who knows anything about this
that I can, that I can collaborate with
or l- you know, learn something from.
Yeah.
And that's how I, I found them,
basically, and I reached out to them and
they were very gracious to ⦠They've
met with me a bunch of times via
Zoom and we've talked about stuff.
And their program's different because
it it's focused more on individuals
with mild cognitive decline and their
caregivers, and they go to a facility that
has lar- mostly, I think, large horses.
And they do a program at a facility.
But they the two of them are, you know,
lifelong horse people, but they're also
work in the gerontology field, so they
have a lot of expertise in that field.
So they've been very helpful.
And so, so-
Rupert Isaacson: Nancy
Scheer and Paula Hirtel.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: That's just ⦠Yeah.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yes.
Thank you.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Yes.
Please go on.
Yeah.
Sanaa Pharayra: I didn't, didn't
wanna butcher their last names.
So, so anyway, I've been talking
to them, and they also have a very
brilliant veterinarian named Dr.
Claudia Sonder, who's on their
board, who helped with their-
Okay ⦠helped with their study that
they did, and she was formerly the
head of research at the UC Davis Vet
School, and she's really incredible.
And has a lot of experience
doing research with horse stuff.
So she helped them with their study,
and they've been really helpful.
But long story short- I think both
Daryl and I kind of realized the, the
more we did this work, first of all,
there was a massive amount of need
for it we, that we had no idea about.
And we were s- And
Rupert Isaacson: this is all
happening in the LA area, right?
All in Southern California.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Well, Southern California, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I think that also what we saw
how much it was helping people and how
great it was, and we wanted to do as
much as we could to advance the field
and help it, you know, and kind of were
surprised no one's done this before.
Like, it's kind of ama- it's kind of
incredible to think of it like that.
And so we kind of came to the conclusion
that we need to somehow be, you know,
involved in some research to look at this.
Mm-hmm.
Because, I mean, I'm blown away.
I've been blown away by some of
the things I've seen- Mm ⦠but
it's not my specialty, you know,
to do research on this population.
So I started working on reaching
out through s- you know, just
whatever connections we had.
I started networking to fi- see if we
could find some partners that would help
us with a study, and that's how we got
connected with Cal State Channel Islands.
And we have a professor named
Ronald Verkowski, who's s- he's
specializes in gerontology research,
and he's been working with us over
the summer to kind of help figure
out how we're gonna do a study.
And the idea is to probably s-
we'll probably start with a small
study, hopefully in the fall
or in this next school year.
Okay.
Yeah.
And we're, we're working out the details
of that now, but that's kind of been
sort of, like, where the next chapter is
going is to you know, get some greater
understanding from the academic and
science, science community, I would say.
Rupert Isaacson: I'm looking, I'm
on your website right now, so I-
Okay ⦠got distracted, and I'm
looking at all these pictures of
of Romeo and Ziggy with old people.
And it's, it's remarkable
because what I'mâ¦
I'm not just looking at the pictures
of them, I'm looking at the pictures of
him, and there's a particular picture
I'm looking at where he is receiving a
kiss and sort of giving a kiss to- Yeah
a lady in a straw hat, and I
can see in, just in his eye the-
depth of sort of understanding
that he's got going on.
Yeah.
And of course, I have, you know, I have
a bit of a background with this myself.
When my son, who was diagnosed with
very severe autism when he was three-
Right ⦠you know, non-verbal,
pooing his pants self-harming
tantrums, the whole nine yards.
When he met my neighbor's Quarter Horse
mare, Betsy there was a moment like that
with that exact expression that I'm just
seeing in that picture there with Romeo,
where she saw something in him and seemed
to accept a kind of responsibility,
Mm ⦠where she would then modify her
behavior in ways that were so remarkable.
You know- Right ⦠he crawled under her
hooves that first day without knowing
her in the pasture with the other horses
around her before I could get to him.
And- Right ⦠I knew the mare
a little bit and I knew she was
a bit of a boss bitch, you know?
Right.
And if she was going to move the
other horses off, she might do
it with her ears back and a, you
know, a little bit of a rush.
Right.
And she moved them off with this
really gentle, like, movement of the
nose, and bent her head to Rowan,
and licked- Yes ⦠and chewed.
And I could see past, you know,
I'm sure you had this moment too,
where, and I'm sure listen- a lot
of listeners have had this moment,
where you think you know about horses.
You know, you've been
around horses all your life.
Yeah.
And, and you do.
There's a lot you know.
There's a lot you don't know.
And when you see a moment like that,
you realize, oh, my God, there is this
entire universe in there that I only
know the very, very outer periphery of.
Sanaa Pharayra: Totally.
We, we don't know
anything really, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: No.
Sanaa Pharayra: They
have so much to teach us.
Rupert Isaacson: And it's interesting
to me that- Totally ⦠you know,
when I was a kid or a teenager, we
were aware growing up in England of
riding for the disabled, you know, RDA.
Uh-huh.
But it wasn't something I
ever got involved in because
I wasn't interested, you know?
And, and I- Uh-huh
wasn't interested at all until my son
became- Right ⦠as he was, and then
suddenly he forges a relationship with
my neighbor's mare, and he begins to
speak when I start to ride with him.
Mm.
And oh, my gosh, you know, now
I'm suddenly in that world.
But I'm always rather impressed by people
that want to get into that world- Mm
anyway, you know?
Right ⦠not just for
selfish reasons like me.
N- but what I find fascinating about
the whole thing is it used to be that
the therapy world was really something
very apart from the regular riding world
or the regular horse world- Mm ⦠or
the, the showing world or whatever.
And now I think that is really changing.
I think the therapy world is now
bleeding over into the mainstream and-
Right ⦠causing a lot of people in the
mainstream to recalibrate and rethink.
Like, why am I doing this at all?
I guess I'm- involved with horses 'cause
it kind of makes me feel better, you know?
Right.
Because I'm not using them
to go to the supermarket.
Right.
And when I go to the doctor
I drive my car, you know?
And so the only reason I'm
involved with this animal at all
is really for my mental wellbeing.
Right ⦠and then, oh, what
about the animal's wellbeing?
And I love that your story
started with this horse being
somewhat of a rescue horse.
Sanaa Pharayra: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And you
restoring him to wellbeing.
Right.
And then him taking that wellbeing
and transmitting that to others.
And weirdly- Yes ⦠I, I feel that the
therapy world has some catching up to do
in this regard, that up until relatively
recently the attitude has been the
horse must be quiet to do therapy- Right
but that's it.
Right?
So it doesn't matter- Right ⦠if he's
stiff or arthritic or not feeling good,
and we'll stable him 24 hours a day
because we just want him conveniently
there, and- Yes ⦠he'll just do,
like, a bunch of sessions a day, and
all we require of this horse is to
be quiet while we lead him around.
And of course the horses- Right ⦠hate
it, and s- go sour and start to,
you know, bite the handlers, and
gradually get stiffer and sicker.
Right ⦠and now people in the
therapeutic world are realizing,
ah, yeah, no, we have to give
these horses wellbeing, or they
will have no wellbeing to give.
But it's interesting how that's a
bit of a late conclusion, that- Well-
you know.
Yeah
⦠Sanaa Pharayra: that's, I think that
from my perspective, you know, and I- I
really, I, you, I really think it's great
that so many people wanna be involved in
all of this, but my, And there is this
massive wave of interest in animal therapy
that's happening- Mm ⦠right now.
Not just with horses, but, you know,
even with dogs and, and other animals.
Mm.
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
Sanaa Pharayra: My concern is that it's
not well-regulated and that I th- I,
my previous experiences with it, I felt
like the horsemanship aspect wasn't as,
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
⦠Sanaa Pharayra: prominent
as it should have been.
And to your point you know, and
I experienced the exact same
things in the riding schools,
that I think that there's- Yeah
this idea that these sort of dull,
lazy, burnout horses are, quote-unquote,
safe, and that this is, you know.
And, and to have a therapy program,
you just go get, go get a suitable
horse, and then, and then all the f-
a lot of the protocols are just based
on assuming you have a suitable horse,
but not going into the depths of how
do you determine the horse is suitable?
How do you maintain the horse?
How do you take a horse
and make them suitable?
Like, all of that- Yeah ⦠requires a,
a great deal of horsemanship that cannot
be acquired in a short period of time I
Rupert Isaacson: wholeheartedly agree.
Sanaa Pharayra: And I've been, one of
the things I've been really, really
dying to talk to you about, 'cause I
was bl- well, I was blown away when
I found out you were doing therapy
work on upper level dressage horses.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Sanaa Pharayra: And I thought that's
super interesting because there is
this, like, because we focus on, in
our work with the miniature horses,
we're focusing on emotional engagement.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
So
Sanaa Pharayra: to have emotional
engagement with the horses,
the horses can't be exhausted,
tired, or burnt out, or dull.
They have to be alert and bright.
Rupert Isaacson: Happy.
Sanaa Pharayra: And-
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
⦠Sanaa Pharayra: happy, yes.
But also, they also have to be
trained so that they're safe too.
Mm-hmm.
So they're ⦠And, and that's the
hallmark of a well-trained horse,
is that they can be both responsive
and relaxed at the same time.
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
Sanaa Pharayra: Exactly.
But that takes a, a higher
level of skill to produce that
over and over and over again.
Rupert Isaacson: It does, and
one has to be curious enough
to want to acquire that skill.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: As you know, horse
people are notoriously defensive about,
and- Right ⦠in fact, I, I go further
and say toxic- ⦠about dying on the
hill of their particular discipline
or- Yes ⦠inclusion or whatever.
Hating- Yeah ⦠ever going
back to being a beginner again.
Right.
Defending, like, to the death their
own position rather than doing what
any other professional would do in
any other field, and saying, "Well
look, in order to get professional
development, maybe I need to go outside
my discipline a bit and, you know- Oh,
Sanaa Pharayra: definitely
⦠Rupert Isaacson: learn from other people."
Yeah.
And so but I am of course naturally
curious, and I'm also a journalist, and
I had, you know, a background working in
human rights in Africa long before- Sure
⦠I got my life taken sideways by autism.
Uh-huh.
But I was always a horse person,
and I was always curious.
So I grew up very much in the sort
of fox hunting heartland of what they
call the shires of England, which is-
Sanaa Pharayra: Okay
Rupert Isaacson: you guys
would c- be like your Virginia.
Uh-huh ⦠and that's the areas of land
in the midlands of England where fox
hunting and cross-country riding was born,
and you get those huge, big hedges and,
you know, we all grew up jumping them.
And, Right ⦠then, you know, eventing
comes out of that, and show jumping
comes out of that, and blah, blah, blah.
Right.
And it all very quickly got
exported to the Americas through
the colonials, people like Lord
Fairfax, and so George Washington was
a fox hunter, and blah, blah, blah.
Uh-huh.
So I, I grew up in the sort of belly
of that tradition, and I remember
there was a traveling horse show
going around in the '80s, early '80s.
I'm a teenager.
And, People had gone to see
it, and it was really good.
There were people doing really
interesting things with horses
that we didn't normally get to see.
And I remember hearing it discussed
by a couple of the people out hunting
going, "Well, well, you know, I don't
train my horse to do circus trickster."
And I remember thinking,
"Well, but why not?"
You know?
Like, why would that i- in any
way detract from them being
able to take you over a hedge?
And maybe it would sort of
deepen your horsemanship.
And anyway, a lot of horses ride and
drive, and ride and plow, because even-
Right ⦠when I was growing up, there
were still a lot of horses being trained
to harness who also were riding horses.
So what's the problem
with cross-fertilization?
I know what it is.
You're afraid of what you don't know.
Okay, fine, I understand that.
But when it got to, with me, I
noticed, you see, from day one, that
my son was up on the horse, that the
rhythm that the horse was in made a
difference to whether or not he spoke.
It was that simple, that if the horse
was in some sort of soft collection,
and I wasn't in any way a dressage
person at that time, this is like
2004, so I knew e- enough about-
the bare minimum jumping collection that
I could- Uh-huh ⦠put, and I had lots
of hours up on this horse with Rowan.
So I could- Uh-huh
kind of work out a bit of a private
language with her, and- Right ⦠with
using my weight and so on.
And eventually I could train her to
what they call the terre a terre, the
ground to ground in classical dressage,
which is like a piaffe in canter.
And, Okay ⦠when I did that, my God, I
mean, he just ⦠So then of course- Yeah
I started wondering, well, would
that be other kids as well?
You know, is that just him?
And I noticed, yeah, immediately.
Any, any kid I did that with
just communication- Yeah
⦠communication, communication.
So then of course I had to get curious.
Well, why?
Why is that working?
So something's happening
in the brain, something's
happening in the nervous system.
Very like you, going, reaching
out to the universities.
I reached, I said, "Well, who knows, who
knows about brains and nervous systems?"
That, that's neuroscientists.
All right.
So I ring up some neuroscientists
and say, "Look, we're doing this
thing, and this is what's happening."
And I send them- Right ⦠the video,
and some of them come and look, and
they, and they explain it to me.
They say, "Oh, right, Rupert, what's
going on when the horse is in this
kind of soft collection is that it's
rocking your guys' hips in rhythm.
And when that happens, it makes your body
produce this hormone called oxytocin,
which not only feels really good, 'cause
it does feel really good to do it, but it
calms an over-agitated nervous system so
that it calms down the amygdala, Mm-hmm
which is being triggered all the time
by thinking there's a threat, therefore
telling the body to produce the stress
hormone cortisol, which blocks learning.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: And you're
giving them the antidote.
And more than that because the vestibular
system's being so activated, 'cause
you're up there for quite a while,
and you're playing games up there
and things it's causing the brain
to produce this amino acid, this
protein, and that protein has a name.
It's got a four-letter acronym,
BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic
factor, which means getting
more brain cells basically.
That the- Yes ⦠the, the amino
acid, the protein becomes a stem
cell that becomes a, a, a neuron.
Right.
But billions of them.
And then among- Yes ⦠these neurons
are some of particular interest to people
like you, Rupert, because there's some
particular neurons called Purkinje cells.
We should call them- Mm-hmm ⦠Purkinje
cells because they were discovered
by a Czech dude in the 19th century-
Uh-huh ⦠with a very big microscope.
And these things govern motor skills-
doing stuff and social skills.
So you are taking someone with an
overactive nervous sy- oversensitive
nervous system, overactive amygdala, who's
basically poisoned by too much cortisol,
therefore can't learn, and is, you
know, in a state of distress, and you're
filling them with the antidote hormone,
which happens to also be a hormone of
communication, which is useful- Right
when you're dealing with autism, auto
being- Yeah ⦠the Greek word for
the self, locked within the self.
Difficulties- Right ⦠the
relationship with the exterior world.
You're filling them with a
communication hormone that makes them
feel good, and social skill cells.
So guess what?
You see change.
And we, when we understood that, we're
like, "Okay, so we can replicate this."
So we came up with a way of replicating
it with a horse, horse Uh-huh ⦠with
a kid in front of you, and a way of
replicating it without a horse, because
we also thought, well, what, what are you
giving to the families when they go home?
You know, they- Right ⦠haven't
got a horse, right?
So they need some way to keep
this type of movement going.
So we would show them that, and
that's called movement method.
All right, fine.
But then we realized, yeah, but how do
you train the horses to be able to deliver
this without, like, having 1,000 hours
up there to work out a private language?
So then I was like, "Okay, fine.
I need to talk to people who really
know how to train this kind of thing."
And that eventually- Right ⦠led
down a rabbit hole of d- discovering
that it's all about in-hand work, and
it's all about teaching the dressage,
the classical dressage, on the ground.
And if you can do that, then you
have horses that can collect in this
soft way, which is joyful for the
horse, 'cause when horses are in a
state of joy, they move like that.
And when
Sanaa Pharayra: they're in their
quiet joy- It's also very, it's
a very focused state for a horse.
Rupert Isaacson: It is.
And, but the, th- there's that, but it's
tied into their passionate behaviors.
It's tied into their- Yeah ⦠play and
mating and, to some degree, fighting
behaviors just like it is in humans.
So you go to the non-explosive end of it.
You go towards the sort
of quiet joy end of it.
And th- luckily, there's a
classical system for this.
So I, you know, went and learned
from people in Portugal, and
learned sort of quite obsessively.
Yeah.
And then found that we could replicate
how to create- a therapy horse
that had the ability to do this.
And of course, the ability- Got
it ⦠to do this isn't just
understanding some movements.
They need exceptional amounts of muscle.
They need- Right ⦠and then we
also realized, back to that BDNF
thing that we were talking about
that the horses get it, too.
Because when you work with them in
hand in that way, they're constantly
crossing the midline of their body.
And- Right ⦠when any mammal does
that, whether you're a monkey like
us, or whether you're a horse or a dog
your brain produces that BDNF thing,
so you effectively grow a new brain.
We were getting all these therapy horses
in who were messed up in various ways,
Sanaa Pharayra: and- Kind of like yoga
⦠Rupert Isaacson: very like, b-
t- think of it as a mix between
yoga, martial arts, and dance.
Yeah, no.
And all of those sort of- Definitely
⦠serve the same functions to some
degree, but in slightly different ways.
And but they all have this
effect on the brain and the body.
And so what happened w- was we were
getting these donation horses which
were coming without wellbeing.
Right ⦠and often feeling bad, and
often feeling kind of grumpy- Right
um, with a sort of default no
in them, but who were quiet.
Yeah.
And after we had done this with
them for, oh, you know, not
long, they, they would go from no
to maybe to- ⦠okay, to all right.
Yeah.
To yes, to at your service, madam.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: We, we would watch
them transform, very similar to
what you talked about with Romeo.
You know, as you were talking,
I was like, "Oh, yeah, BDNF."
Sanaa Pharayra: Well, as they become
more physically capable, you know, and
it's easier for them too probably, for
the collected movements, 'cause as you
said, it does take time to develop their
bodies- Mm-hmm ⦠to be able to do that.
Rupert Isaacson: But not
a crazy amount of time.
That's the thing.
So there is this really
efficient old master system.
You can do it in about three months.
If you
Sanaa Pharayra: know what
you're doing, though.
You know, if you know what you're doing.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, the only way- It
doesn't take a while ⦠you can know what
you're doing is if you go get mentorship.
The only way you can know
what you're doing- Right
is if you let somebody
else teach you, right?
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: And of course,
I had a, a really good motivation
for that because m- of my son.
Right.
And wanting to help other people
like my son, so I wasn't interested
in maintaining a status quo
of- Right ⦠my horsemanship.
I was very motivated to learn new things.
Yeah.
But what I have seen frequently in
the therapy world is that people
are not curious, and people are
not wanting to learn new things.
And- Right ⦠this saddens me,
because as an autism dad, I'm like,
well- That means you're prioritizing
your desire for a status quo over
helping people like my son, and
frankly, that saddens me, you know?
Right.
So it's really interesting for me
to hear the, your story because
there's so many parallels where, but
the, what, what stands out for me
particularly with you there is curiosity.
You seem to be- Mm-hmm ⦠an unusually
curious horse person, that you've- Yes
⦠made that journey from the hunter jumper
thing, which is great because it gives
you lots of expertise, and then- Mm-hmm
into the sort of public outreach end,
but you begin to- Right ⦠notice,
yeah, but some of these horses, they're
not, they're not feeling so good.
Right ⦠you put that
in the back of your mind.
What, what can I do about that?
And then you, you fall into running this
stable for Daryl, and you're do- now
exploring all kinds of other things.
You're ex- you were telling me
you started exploring liberty.
You started exploring all these
other aspects of horsemanship
without ditching- Right ⦠any of
the other things that you'd learned.
Right.
And then you arrive at a point
where you can produce a horse like
Sanaa Pharayra: Ophelia.
Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
And one of the things there are so
many different offshoots of this, but
before I did, you know, as we talked,
we, our fr- mutual friend Kansas,
Rupert Isaacson: Kansas
Sanaa Pharayra: Paradine
set
Rupert Isaacson: this up
One of the best humans-
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah
⦠Rupert Isaacson: on the planet, yeah.
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Sanaa Pharayra: She's, she's great.
And she had, so Kansas had been telling
me I needed, you know, to talk to
you, and I was, I would ⦠And so I
went and I watched your documentary,
and I watched several presentations
that you had on YouTube, and I
watched a bunch of your podcasts.
And so I w- so I heard the story about you
discovering that the upper, some of those
upper level movements were more effective.
And I heard you ta- talking about
in one of your presentations your
observed responses, you know, in your
son and the other individuals with
autism that you were working with.
And one of the things I wanted to tell
you, discuss with you, because it kind
of blew my mind, is a lot of the things
that you were telling me that you notice
the positive benefits are p- parallel
almost exactly what I'm seeing in my work.
But, but with what I'm doing,
nobody's riding a horse.
So that kind of blew my mind.
I wanted to talk to you about that
because I did see that you had
consulted with Temple Grandin, and
I did hear about the movement method
and the theory about the movement.
And I myself know from getting to
ride horses that are trained at a high
level, I know the feeling of those
collective gaits, the piaffe, passage.
Like, you know, it, it, from my, from
myself experiencing it, it is a thrilling-
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, we
Sanaa Pharayra: call it the-
Like, ah ⦠the horsegasm,
Rupert Isaacson: having the horsegasm.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Like, it, you- I
mean, there's so much, like- You
don't, you don't experience that
movement and get off the horse
and go, "Eh, that was all right."
You know- Yeah.
You go like, "I want to
do that again," right?
Yeah,
Sanaa Pharayra: yeah.
Yeah.
And so- It's addictive ⦠I, I, but
I was like, "Oh, my God, I can't wait
to talk to Rupert about this," because
how, I wanna, I wanted to tell you,
I'm seeing similarities- This without,
Rupert Isaacson: without
Sanaa Pharayra: the- ⦠without riding.
And that, and that's another reason
why it's been blowing my mind- So-
⦠because there's no riding involved
Rupert Isaacson: I can
speculate as to why that is.
Okay.
So we have a third program
called- Mm-hmm ⦠Takhin.
It's a weird word.
It's a Mongolian word.
Okay.
T-A-K-H-I-N, Takhin Equine Integration.
And this arose, like everything that we
do, somewhat organically because once we
were down that road of training the horses
to these high levels we were beginning
to attract a lot of dressage clients as
well as the therapy work, and we got very
quickly overwhelmed with the number of
people that, you know, wanted to sign up.
And we kind of needed to because, you
know, they, the dressage people would
subsidize the therapy work we were doing.
Right.
But we ran out of time to
train and condition our horses.
Mm-hmm.
And we sort of panicked a bit.
And then- I came out of the funk
and went, "Oh, I'm an idiot."
The clients should be the horse trainers.
That's just the, a no-brainer.
They, they can totally do this.
Particularly the horses that already know
how to do it, but just need maintenance.
They need to be lunged.
They need long reining.
They need to be- Right ⦠worked in hand.
There's no reason why an adult
autist could not do this.
There's no reason why the foster kids
that we are dealing with, the teenagers,
there's no reason why they can't do this.
There's no reason why these PTSD first
responders and soldiers that we're
dealing with can't, can do- They can,
of course, they can do this, you know?
Right.
And so we train them to do it,
and absolutely they could do it.
Because also these horses could
sort of show them how to do it,
and then some of them got- Right
quite good at it.
So then we could say, "Oh, well, why
don't you help us, you know, take
some of this new intake of horses?"
Some people are just quite
natural horse people.
And because they weren't riding, it
was an easier transmission of skills.
But then we It's very funny actually.
I was in, I was giving a, a, a talk
at Denver University, and I had, was
talking and being quite frank about
how sad I had been about some of
the not so great things I'd seen in
therapy, and more than that- Right
how one particular big organization
had really gone after us and kind of
attacked us when we appeared on the scene.
It was the, the biggest organization.
And I thought- Mm-hmm ⦠"Well, why?
Like, surely we're all
here for the same thing."
What I didn't know is that
the board of that organization
was sitting in the audience.
So I got a I got a, I got an email- Oops.
And the email said, "Should we talk?"
And I said, "Yeah, of course, absolutely."
Mm-hmm.
So we, we have this meeting, and luckily
I had Betsy Carl, who I'd also done
a recent podcast with, who was one
of their senior instructors but also
worked for me, Uh-huh ⦠on the call.
I said, "Look, you should be on this call
because, you know, you're one of them."
Yeah.
And I s- they first they said, "Well,
we've got no beef, you know, we've never
said anything bad about you, Rupert."
I'm like, "Come on.
Why are we even having this conversation?"
Right.
"What I want to know is, why?
What's your problem?"
And- Right ⦠after a while
they, they go and, "All right.
Fine.
We think you're dangerous."
And I said, "Well," I'm knocking
on wood here, "in 15, now 20 years
of doing this, we've never had an
accident, and we work in 40 countries.
So what are you refer, what danger
specifically are you referring to?"
Right.
Right?
And they said, "Well,
it's the back riding.
It's the riding with the kid."
And I said, "Well, right, but w-
we have no accidents doing that."
And they s- Right ⦠and
then it came out.
Said, "Well, we in our organization, when
we did it, we had accidents, so that's
why we stopped doing it, and that's why
we don't think anyone else should do it."
And then the penny dropped.
I was like, "Oh, of course you did."
Right.
Because you don't know how to
prepare a horse, and you don't
know how to prepare a rider.
So if you take some donation
Sanaa Pharayra: horse- And
not everybody can do that-
Rupert Isaacson: Right ⦠too.
Right.
No, e- exactly That's like
a different, you know- It's,
it's not your shtick, right?
Yeah.
To say that it's unsafe and, and crap
means that it's also quite racist
because you're, you're denying the
entire culture of Northern Asia.
You're denying the entire culture
of America west of the Mississippi,
where most kids grow up in front
of mom and dad in west and south.
Yeah.
And the entire culture of l- you
know, Central and South America.
That's a bit racist- Yeah ⦠isn't it?
You know, and like, are you saying
that these are, like, shit horse
cultures when they're clearly not?
Yeah.
Right?
So but I said, "I do get it, and
so for you and your organization,
you probably shouldn't do it.
Right.
Absolutely.
But we are different."
And that's when luckily Betsy chimed
in and said, "Look, the way these guys
prepare their horses and their riders,
it's-" You know, I haven't seen anything
better, frankly in terms of wellbeing.
But all, so, so basically we started
training our clients to be the
in-hand classical dressage trainers,
and we could say to someone, "Look,
this horse was broken in service.
Please would you help me put him
back together so that he can-" Uh-huh
⦠serve that autistic kid over there?"
Right.
And we realized that was its
own therapy because- Mm-hmm
what really gets you through
therapy is a sense of purpose,
and that's what builds resilience.
And also the BDNF, the growing of
a new brain, builds resilience.
Yeah.
And you don't, if you say
you're traumatized, you don't
wanna stay traumatized forever.
Like a hunted deer doesn't need therapy
after it gets away from the wolves.
It will shake off the cortisol and
go back to its normal behavior.
We are very resilient humans.
I- i- if we weren't, the entire
population of the Western world
would have collapsed after World
War II, but it didn't, you know?
People went on- Right ⦠and thrived.
So clearly we can do this.
And so w- we thought, like you
did, but if they're not riding the
horses, will they get the same thing?
But they're touching
the horses all the time.
Mm-hmm.
And when you're touching the horses,
and when you are transmitting wellbeing,
mammal to mammal- Mm-hmm ⦠it's
called the mammalian caregiving system.
Mm-hmm.
So also when Romeo is putting his head
in their laps and they are reaching
out to him and they are stroking him.
Yeah.
That's like when you get a massage, or
you pet your dog, or you rock your baby.
Guess what?
Oxytocin again.
Right.
Large amounts of it.
Perhaps not the same industrial
size shot to the gut and up the
spinal column and vagal nerve that
you get with being on the horse.
But still- ⦠a lot, and you
can sustain this over, over time.
So if you do repeated visits, you know.
So what a lot of people have found
with these animal-assisted therapies
is that the other thing is people
want to complete the therapy.
People want to show up- Mm-hmm ⦠again
and again, 'cause they build a
relationship with the animal.
Mm-hmm ⦠whereas with a human
thing, they might abandon it.
They might stop at a certain point.
And also, humans talk to you and make
you feel guilty and make you feel bad.
Horses and dogs don't, so they
just take you as you, as you are.
There's, there was a really good study
done at the University of Bournemouth
which showed that in domestic violence,
I think both perpetrators and victims,
a five-day intervention with horses over
five weeks, like once a week for five
weeks I think there was a 51% reduction
in domestic violence one year later.
Mm-hmm.
And that was, like, a
really minimal thing.
So I can totally see how with what
you're doing, you're, you're, you're
basically going around purveying oxytocin.
And a- as you know, a lot of
people with dementia often are
in a state of high anxiety.
It's not- Right ⦠it's
often not a nice place to be.
Right
so you can come in and assuage and
ameliorate and unblock the cortisol, and
so therefore cognition kind of improves,
boom, like, in what seems to be a really
sudden way because there's nothing
blocking it anymore, if that makes sense.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah, and there ha-
there does seem to be with the p-
individuals that I would say have
more advanced cognitive decline
that let's say are non-verbal-
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
Sanaa Pharayra: I feel like I'm also
seeing more pronounced interactions coming
from the horse with those individuals.
Mm-hmm.
So that's been kind of
interesting as well.
And like I said, I, I want some help
digging into this more and researching it.
But it's something that has kind of w- a
curiosity that I have about it is when you
take language off the table, and you no
longer have the ability to use language
to communicate, does that maybe free
them up to communicate with the horse
in a d- u- unimpeded in a certain way?
You know, it's just something that
I've been noticing and I keep, I
keep wondering about because it's
almost like the words are getting
in the way sometimes, you know?
And then when they can't talk,
you know, then you just see
communication with pure emotion really.
And it's almost like- I guess
Rupert Isaacson: you you put
your finger on something there.
Go on.
Yeah
Sanaa Pharayra: Iâ¦
And that's the, that's the kind of the
wavelength the horses are on anyways.
Mm-hmm.
And it's, it's, you know, and I also
kind of feel like the people that can't,
can't use language anymore maybe almost
emote more strongly because that's
what they h- can do, 'cause that's a d-
coming from a different place, you know?
It's very interesting.
Rupert Isaacson: What stands out
from what you said is that you see
the horses making a greater effort-
Mm-hmm ⦠to bridge the gap.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: I s- you know, I
observed this with Betsy in those,
in those sessions, and I've observed
it time and again with other horses.
We once had this little boy who had
drowned, and he was supposed to be in a,
a state of vegetable, should switchâ¦
You know, they should have
switched off the life support.
You know, this is no life,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Right.
And they brought him out to us,
and and like, God, I don't know.
I don't know if we can do
anything here, you know?
Right ⦠and they push him
in a wheelchair, and the dude
just doesn't seem to be there.
And, Right ⦠my horse Clou, who was
a real, in some ways, a real bastard of
a horse Like, he was the ho- he was the
horse that absolutely proved to me that I
do not know how to train a horse, right?
But if he felt like doing it, he was,
like, rock solid golden, and he came over.
He spotted this kid- Mm-hmm ⦠as we
were just kind of around the front of
the house, just kind of scratching our
heads a bit really and shooting the
shit with his parents and caregivers.
He spotted it, and he came over,
and he sniffed this boy all over his
body, and then he began to lick him.
Mm-hmm.
And he licked him from head to toe.
Yeah.
And I've seen this happen a few
times now, and all I could do
is, like, not be in the way.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: But i- it's
natural to think then, oh, is
anything actually happening?
But yeah, by the end of that
session, the boy indicated a couple
of things, and for his caregivers,
this was, like, a huge deal.
Mm-hmm.
So what is going on?
And I'd invite, you know, if, if
you're watching this on YouTube
and you've had similar things, this
is to people watching, if you had
similar things, put it in the comments
below, and I'd, I'd like to know your
speculations of what you think is going
on when this happens, when you seeâ¦
'Cause w- if we're, if those of us horse
people who've been brought up telling
horses what to do, and horses are usually
honestly pretty happy to do it, you know,
particularly if it's kind of fun, but
it's at a bit of a one-way communication.
And then we see them do what you describe.
Why?
Why are they doing that?
Why are they trying to bridge a gap?
So what do you think, Cinna?
Sanaa Pharayra: I don't know that
I have it all figured out, but I,
but I like to try to, you know,
I like to try to figure it out.
And one thought I have had is
does language make our minds
really busy in a way that maybe
makes us a little less present?
You know, if, if we could imagine
going back to a time before humans
had language, and how there ⦠We
still would've had communication
before we had language, right?
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Sanaa Pharayra: And we would've been
able to communicate with each other,
but how different would that have been
cognitively because we think in language.
And it, and it makes me wonder with the
co- 'Cause, 'cause from what I've been
learning, you know, there's a certain
part of the brain that governs language,
you know, that is affected kind of early
on with Alzheimer's and other dementias,
depending on which kind you have.
So if you lose that, you don't
necessarily lose everything, though.
You could, you could still have ⦠Th-
this is another thing I didn't know
very much about Alzheimer's or dementia
when I started doing this, and I
kinda thought that when people got
those conditions that they just slowly
drifted away until they weren't there
anymore and it was just their body.
But that's not what I have
seen s- as I've done this work.
They, they are still there.
They just don't necessarily
have access to the same thing
that they had access to before.
So it ju- it just makes me wonder a lot
about language, and if there's, like,
a, a primal level of communication
that maybe we revert back to once we
lose language, or never had language
in the case of your son early on,
you know, before he started talking.
Rupert Isaacson: I'm just ⦠Go ahead.
I'm, I'm just doing a little bit of brain
research on, on Google here, and then-
Yeah ⦠if you'll just keep talking.
Sanaa Pharayra: And that that
is how animals are, right?
And that maybe it's a more natural
way for them to communicate with us.
I, I, you know ⦠This,
this is just one thought.
I have lots of other ones, but this
is just one thought because I have
been seeing something more pronounced
with the non-verbal individuals.
But it, but it does seem like there
may be something kind of primal.
A- and in all these conversations
we're having, Rupert, like, another
thing I always go back to is the
fact that we don't, as humans, don't
acknowledge the fact that we are animals.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, I do.
Sanaa Pharayra: Oh, me too.
I know I'm a stinky monkey.
Yeah, but yeah, yeah.
But, you know, that's right.
But we, we really need to acknowledge it.
Like, it- Yeah ⦠we, we talk
about it like these a- the
animals are over here, right?
Yeah, sure.
And then we're, like, you
know, the civilized pe- we're
intellectuals, you know?
And- But like we are a- we
are animals too, you know?
And,
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
⦠Sanaa Pharayra: maybe, you know, it
would do us some good to remember
that and to go back to, to that more.
Rupert Isaacson: I couldn't agree more.
I'd like to hearâ¦
i've got a couple of things-
Okay ⦠to say around that.
But you said you've got lots of thoughts.
Mm-hmm.
So if that's only one area of
speculation, what are your others?
Sanaa Pharayra: Well, there, these
are, this might be sort of in a random
order, but another thing that I was
gonna tell you that I've learned when
you were talking about when you were
talking about the horses that you've
gotten for your program that came in
and were kind of cranky and stiff,
and you guys rehabilitated them,
trained them, and then they became,
you know, happy at, to do their job.
Another epiphany that I've had throughout
this process is that horses can be
trained for emotional engagement.
So- That was something that would,
would have never occurred to me, and
I've learned that from Romeo and Ziggy
because, and, and it's interesting
because I've been around many different
disciplines of competitive riding.
Mm-hmm.
Like, w- s- spanning the English
world and the Western world.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Sanaa Pharayra: S- po- and I'm,
I'm gonna even throw polo in
there, race horses, all of it.
So when you have, like, an experienced
show jumper, for example, w- that
goes in to do the jump off, when
they hear the buzzer go off and the
timer's starting, they know, right?
The horse knows it's time to
jump off, it's time to go faster,
it's time to turn tighter.
Race horses know when
it's time to, you know-
Rupert Isaacson: Go
⦠Sanaa Pharayra: turn it on and
run, you know, run and open
up as, as much as they can.
Polo ponies know how to
race to the ball, you know?
Like, Yeah ⦠rop- roping
horses race the steer.
So they all learn- Absolutely
what it is that their job is, so to speak.
Well, I've seen, I've witnessed Romeo and
Ziggy learning what their job is as well.
W- which is interesting, because I do,
the training that I do with them outside
of the therapy work is mostly in-hand,
like, maneuverability-type training.
You know, like teaching them toâ¦
And I, I usually just work them in a, in
a, like a little rope halter and there's
no need to use bits or anything with them.
So they, but they do lateral work.
They do leg yields, they do side
passes, they do shoulder in, turn on
the haunches, turn on the forehand.
I practice backing them through lines
of poles, because I want them to be
super maneuverable and, and light.
I don't want to have to ever
pull hard on them, you know?
So they go undergo all
that type of training.
But when they're in the therapy setting,
the training is used to put them in
the right position to interact with
the person as effectively as possible.
S- after they're in that position, then
it's up to them to have an exchange.
But I've seen them
learn- what their job is.
And they don't respond to every
person the same way either.
You know, they, they definitely, I
think, respond, seem to respond better.
That's why I'm s- saying the people
that are, have more advanced cognitive
decline, that m- and maybe it's
because they're, like, quieter,
their energy level's quieter, they're
more still, they move more slowly.
Th- but it does seem like the
horses respond to them better.
Like, not that, you know, even than
the people that are more alert.
Rupert Isaacson: So like- When you
say better, can you define better?
Sanaa Pharayra: More demonstrative,
more emotionally outgoing, where
almost like they're seeking the
person out to interact with them.
Whereas some of the other people that
are maybe more excited to see Romeo and
Ziggy, they go to, they go to them more.
You know what I mean?
So I guess suppose the horse
doesn't really have to come to them.
But it, it's a curiosity.
I would say I see curiosity in them.
Like- Mm ⦠what's going
on with this person?
Let's go over and check
it out, kind of a thing.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah Okay.
What springs to mind is
again, neuroplasticity.
If you're doing all that groundwork with
those horses and all those laterals again,
you're engaging their vestibular systems.
You're, they're crossing the
midlines, so you're gonna get
that BDNF effect I was- Right
talking about.
So they, their horse's
own cognition grows.
And one of the things I didn't talk
about, but it, this is a natural way
in, is it's not just the horses get
more cooperative and happier, it's like
they become emotionally intelligent.
And the same thing, like they can
be- they can begin to not just
figure stuff out, but handle theirâ¦
Not just figure shit out,
but handle their shit.
And the same is true, we
find, in Movement Method.
So for example, kids classrooms that adopt
Movement Method there have be- there was
a s- there have been multiple studies done
on it now, and there was a PhD done on it
in 2024 through Grand Canyon University.
But other multiple, m- you know, at
least eight or nine other studies.
But we also got the reports from
the teachers saying after about 10
weeks of doing Movement Method stuff,
which is not dissimilar, but it's
combined with learning, th- the kids
went from a them and us kind of a
confrontational, normal relationship
between kids and teachers, and went
to a sort of cooperative relationship.
And after about 10 weeks, we got
reports saying, "Honestly, we don't
need them in the classroom anymore.
We can just give them the assignment,
tell them how to do the project, then
they divide up into little groups,
and they go off into the areas of the
school that they find the best for
them for their learning environment.
Some go outside, some go to quiet corners,
and we don't need to supervise it."
Mm-hmm.
It's like they become
emotionally intelligent.
And I thought, "Well,
this is interesting."
So I went to look at one of these
schools, 'cause I hadn't actually
looked at my own method in schools.
I'd just-
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah
⦠Rupert Isaacson: trained
some people to do it.
And I went to the school in Northern
Germany, and I was, I walked through
about five or six rooms, which were just
full of kids of all ages, all clustered
together in little groups working
on projects without any supervision.
And then I went into an actual
classroom, and these two little Arab
boys, Syrian refugees, pulled me aside.
Said, "Oh, you speak English.
We're learning English.
Let's show you how we learn English."
They, and they pulled me into the
corridor and showed me how they had
concocted a dice game with a hopscotch
game- Mm-hmm ⦠by themselves to
learn English through where the dice
landed and how many hops you did.
And this was my method, kind
of, being shown back to me by
kids who had no idea who I was.
And I, I like, I started crying.
I was like, "Jesus, I, I have no idea."
You know?
But I, I think once one
gets into metacognition,
and that's any brain, right?
That's an equine brain, a
human brain, a dog brain.
You also get w- w- what is
emotional intelligence really?
Emotional intelligence
is sort of compassion.
Mm-hmm.
So if a horse is in a sort of top-down
instruction kind of a lifestyle, does it
need to develop compassion for its human?
Or does the human need to demonstrate
more compassion to the horse because of
the demands that the human is making?
I would posit that what you've
been doing with your horses, 'cause
it's not just Romeo and Ziggy,
I think it's others too, right?
Mm-hmm.
Is you are creating that
emotional intelligence in them.
You put it there yourself.
You said you can train horses
y- to, ⦠How did you put it?
You, you can train horses to be
emotionally, Engaged ⦠engaged, right?
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: That really
is a type of compassion.
And so then c- is it, is what they're
doing when they encounter these- more
far gone individuals, human individuals.
Are they recognizing suffering and,
of some kind, and doing what any
mammal does within the mammalian
caregiving system to try and assuage it?
And it's, I would speculate that
that probably is what's going on.
Yeah ⦠you also talked
about verbal and non-verbal.
Of course, we know that horses vocalize,
and we know that, like many animals, they
often vocalize at, at audi- audi- audible
ranges that our human ear can't hear.
Like, so, you know, elephants do
these low frequency ones that go over
many, many kilometers and, and horses
apparently do something quite similar.
But we have this larynx.
We don't just vocalize.
We do rap, we do poetry,
we write rock songs.
We do what we're doing here.
And we, that allows us to strategize,
which makes us top predator.
So it's both our savior and our,
our downfall a bit, 'cause we're
victims of our own success perhaps.
Your point about- Well, you
Sanaa Pharayra: just said something
im- interesting about strategizing.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Sanaa Pharayra: Because there
is an element of dis- dishonesty
to, to strategizing in a way.
I mean, it, like, you know,
the predatory mindset.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Sanaa Pharayra: You know?
And again, when, once you take that
away, horses, as we know, can read
people very accurately, you know?
So, so, I think that's part of w- one
reason why, you know, the therapy work
with them is so interesting, Is that you
kinda can't bullshit them, so to speak.
But I think- Yeah ⦠again, what I wonder
is when you lose that veil of language
or you didn't have it to begin with,
if that puts you in a different state.
Rupert Isaacson: Puts you in
a state of vulnerability that
is similar to theirs, as- Do
Sanaa Pharayra: you think
it's more honest, though?
Do you think it's less self-deceiving?
Well,
Rupert Isaacson: honest, honest
honesty and deception are all
through the eye of the beholder.
So- Mm ⦠humans are not the only
animals that strategize, right?
All predators- Right
all predators strategize.
So a dog- Right ⦠a wolf pack is
not morally wrong for creating a
ruse that makes the deer run that way
so that the, the, there's actually
a, an ambush for them over there.
And lions are not morally corrupt
because they do the same thing.
Right.
They're just honestly using the tools
that they need to use to survive.
But what I wonder, and you
make a difference between, say,
dog therapy and horse therapy.
Mm-hmm.
So dogs are n- are not unlike us.
They strategize.
They form relationships and
alliances based around getting food.
I suppose you could, I suppose
you could say horses do.
But horses basically are our prey.
We are the prey.
Sanaa Pharayra: Well, dogs evolved to
please humans, and so I think that it's,
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm
⦠Sanaa Pharayra: less, less ⦠I
don't think it's, like, unusual to
have a dog come up to you that you've
never met before and be affectionate.
Yeah.
Right?
That's not unusual.
Like, it, it's sort of
like you expect that.
Yeah.
I think it's more rare if a
dog's not friendly than it is
You know, most dogs- Yeah, yeah,
right ⦠will come up to somebody
wagging their tail and you know,
wanna lick you or whatever.
But I think when a person has an emotional
engagement with a horse, there's a
level of awe that they experience.
Rupert Isaacson: Good word.
Tell us about awe
Sanaa Pharayra: I, I
call it the awe factor.
That's what I see in these
people's faces is they're in awe.
That it sort of shocks them out of
maybe a mundane existence, especially,
especially as we start to work more with
people that are living in homes, you know,
permanently in memory care facilities
that are locked down or whatever.
I see it on their faces
when we c- bring a horse in.
You just see them all of a sudden like
This look of surprise of like, "What?
A horse is here?"
You know what I mean?
And it, it's kinda almost like maybe
snaps them, snaps you out of, like,
rumination or withdrawal, ⦠That-
this- the best way I have to describe
it at the moment is to tell you that
I see awe, that people having an a-
you know, being in awe of the horses.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
And, and there's a lot of interesting
studies being done into awe, Yeah
at the moment.
And it's true that the human's natural
state is to be in a semi-constant state of
awe, Yeah ⦠if you are living in nature.
I've been lucky enough to w- live
and work with hunter-gatherer
peoples, mostly in- Yeah ⦠the
Kalahari area of Southern Africa.
And y- y- y- it's just a constant
state of awe because there's the wide
landscape, there's the great sky,
there's very powerful, strong nature.
There's an elephant.
There's a lion.
There's ⦠This is all pretty awesome.
Sanaa Pharayra: Well, and we, we, we as
human animals evolved to live that way.
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
Sanaa Pharayra: But, but our society
has evolved so quickly- Yeah ⦠into
this urban state that n- we're in, and
now on the cusp of this AI revolution-
Uh-huh ⦠that our brains, there's no
way our brains- Digital dementia, yeah
have, have, could've caught up,
you know, have caught up to this.
Absolutely.
And I, and I think a lot of the issues
that we have in our society is because
we're living in an unnatural way.
Well- And one of-
Rupert Isaacson: Totally agree.
Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.
Go on
⦠Sanaa Pharayra: one of the things that
I feel like, you know, Daryl and I talk
about this a lot, is that we feel like
we're bringing nature to people that
don't get to experience nature anymore.
You know?
Like, that the horse is
sort of a symbol of that.
Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, it's so true.
And whenever you examine, like, language
around horses, t- back to language again.
Mm.
But the, the, the vocabulary that
we use around horses outside of
equestrian vocabulary- Mm-hmm ⦠it's
always a positive, right?
That guy's a real stud.
You know.
They're always about beauty-
Yeah ⦠passion, speed, freedom.
Hold your horses, you know?
Y- there's just so many
sayings and synonyms
that we use that have their, That
we've been observing horses for
millennia- Right ⦠and admiring them.
And somehow- Well, I was
Sanaa Pharayra: gonna say,
there's a, there's a genetic,
there could be a genetic memory
component to all of this as well.
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
Indeed.
In fact, that w- takhin weird Mongolian
word program I was talking about-
Sanaa Pharayra: Mm-hmm
Rupert Isaacson: it's actually the
Mongolian word for the wild horse,
what we would call the Przewalski's
horse that was never domesticated.
Okay.
And they call it takhin, and it means
Sanaa Pharayra: honored one.
Oh,
Rupert Isaacson: interesting.
Honored one or revered one.
Sanaa Pharayra: Uh-huh.
Rupert Isaacson: Honoring the
essential wild nature of the horse.
Uh-huh.
I think there's something about
horses that reminds us of the
wild nature of ourselves in, in
the good way, in the best of it.
The, as you said-
Right ⦠that sort of awe way.
'Cause horses do inspire
awe, you're absolutely right.
What's interesting to me too is that
given that horses are naturally afraid of
us, like all herbivores- Mm-hmm ⦠they
have to be because- Right ⦠you
know, you love Romeo, but if your
kids were starving, you'd eat Romeo.
You wouldn't be happy about it, but
you would want him as your ⦠Because
you'd have to prioritize your children.
And i- in the back of every horse's
mind, they sort of know that about us.
Mm.
And so they have a good
reason to be a bit skeptical.
And then what you're describing when
they go and do this kind of extra
desi- you know, effort to make- Mm-hmm
this bridge across that, maybe
they're also correctly divining that
this monkey probably won't eat them.
But nonetheless, why should
they care from a monkey?
Because monkeys are trouble
for horses, yet they do.
Mm-hmm ⦠I observed that with Betsy.
And as you say, yes, it seems to
be the most vulnerable among us
that they reach out to in this way.
What I wonder is-
Is it going back to the work of
people like Rupert Sheldrake?
I don't know if you're familiar with
him, the British physicist that was
basically kicked out of mainstream
physics because he dared to suggest that,
Sanaa Pharayra: Is he the one
that did the study on dogs?
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Sanaa Pharayra: On dogs.
He did the study.
Knowing their owners w- I have that book.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
To all the listeners and watchers,
we won't go into it here, but
look up Rupert Sheldrake dogs.
Okay, he's an eminent
professor, but they cru-
Sanaa Pharayra: Like, Dogs Who
Know When Their Owners Are Coming
Home, I think is what the book's
Rupert Isaacson: called.
Exactly, and that dogs not only
knew when their owners were, like,
driving up the driveway, they
knew when they had left work.
How did they know that 20,
30, 50 kilometers away?
How did they know?
And so he came up with this idea of
morphic resonance, which is that there's
a field, there's just one general field
of consciousness, and everything is an
offshoot, so everything's part of it.
Similar to you go to the
ocean, you see a wave.
You notice the wave as its own thing,
but you also know that it's connected
to the entire ocean, and when the wave
breaks it just goes back to the ocean.
And you know this about
evaporation with water.
The rain that hits you is the rain that
hits you, but it's also part of the ocean,
but it's ⦠And if you by extension take
that into everything, then why would there
not be a resonant field of consciousness?
Yeah.
So then he had the temerity to
suggest that, you know, consciousness
might not be a product of the human
brain, but the other way around.
Right.
But I think that when you are looking
at something like what you're seeing
with Romeo, is that not a sort of-
Perhaps one can't empirically prove
it, but what else could it be?
Sanaa Pharayra: Well, but this is, this
kinda goes back to what I was trying to
say about language, is I wonder if we
have lost the ability to tap into those-
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
⦠Sanaa Pharayra: I'm gonna just use
the term, quote, unquote, "other
senses" that we used to have.
That somehow when we got language
and the over intellectualization
and that we learned to rely so much
on that, that we lost some of these
other abilities that animals have,
that still have, have always had.
And we did too.
Rupert Isaacson: Actually, we still do.
Remember that there's lots
of people on the planet who
don't live like you and I live.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Who tap into those fields
of consciousness every day.
Right.
Like if you are a, a bushman hunter
gatherer in the Kalahari, you have to know
how to become the animal that you hunt.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: Or you
will go very hungry.
And you need to know how to talk to the
plants in the Amazon, or you're not- Yeah
⦠going to discover that this one and
this one and that one create ayahuasca.
But if you do it with that one, that
one, and that one, and boil them for even
20 minutes too long, it will kill you.
You don't do that by trial and error.
And how do you, how do you learn that
this type of mushroom, blah, blah.
You don't do it by wiping out your entire
clan so that one person- ⦠thinks,
"Oh, I guess it's that mushroom.
But hey, look, there's no
one to breed with now."
Right.
So that knowledge has gone away.
No, no.
People have beenâ¦
are still doing this.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: But not in our society.
Yeah.
Or not many in our society.
Some.
Yeah.
Sanaa Pharayra: And we, we evolved to be
more, to, to live more that way, right?
Mm-hmm.
I mean, you know.
So i- i- yeah.
I mean, I think it kind of goes, to me
it kinda goes back to that same thing
that there you know, is this just a
primal nature there that, like, m- is
connecting with the animal and recog- Mm
I also, I see, I also feel like I
see recognition, like on- Mm ⦠the
horse's face and the person's face.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Go on.
Sanaa Pharayra: Tell me more about
that I just, it's like they're re-
like, you know, again, it's like
they're, they're experi- they're
definitely experiencing awe.
I definitely think an emotional
encounter with a horse is, is more
powerful than a dog because it's
something different and unique.
Obviously a lot of older people too
did grow up on farms and have been
around horses, so there's that as well,
that it could be bringing, you know,
it do- it does bring back memories.
There, we've had a lot of
people share childhood memories
with us involving horses.
I guess the thing, I guess the
thing that I've realized too is
that when y- just because you lose
the ability to use language doesn't
mean that you're not still there.
And I didn't really know that.
Like, I didn'tâ¦
It was something I've never
really thought a lot about.
And that there's other ways of
connecting that are, that remain.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
Yes, because we are the storytelling ape.
Sanaa Pharayra: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: It's very difficult for
us when we encounter people that can no
longer tell story or can't from an early
age, like a non-verbal kid to not see
them as some other species, because it
really defines our species, the larynx.
Right.
Right.
However, what's also really interesting
about it is, you know, when you say,
"Well, does language get in the way?"
And I'm thinking about people
like, you know, my Bushman friends.
They're highly articulate.
They use a lot of language.
In fact, their language is really evolved.
They have these phonetic
clicks that they use.
Uh-huh.
So they don't just use consonants,
but, you know, for example, the,
the one of the healers that healed
my son, well, Unta is his name.
You know?
And the, the healers, the, the Bushmen
that I'm actually partially related
to by marriage- Uh-huh ⦠that's a
whole other story.
Are called the â¦). And, you know,
they, they, have like six phonetic
clicks in among all the other thing.
So they're really evolved with language,
but the language doesn't stand in the
way of them being able to contact the
ancestors in a shamanic trance state or
talk to plants or talk to animals, because
they're not using it for separation.
Mm.
So they're not trying to define
themselves outside of that.
Mm.
In fact, they're using language
to do the opposite, I'd say.
And w- what is healing but
conflict resolution, right?
So you have a, you have a dilemma.
Let's say y- you have dementia.
Mm-hmm.
That to some degree is a dilemma,
and it, it presents problems.
Or you're a, an autistic child that cannot
speak and cannot communicate your needs.
That does create problems.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
We even know with basic toddlers,
when they can't communicate
their needs, even if they're
neurotypical, they throw a tantrum.
The, the frustration is so great.
Right.
That'sâ¦
So what you're observing
is suffering, really.
That's what's causing the tantrum.
So what's the opposite of suffering?
The opposite of suffering
is joy, is wellbeing.
Right.
And can language be used to that?
Of course.
That is story.
Story is always about the
resolution of conflict.
It's ⦠The hero's journey
is always result- resolution.
Mm-hmm.
Or the heroine's journey.
But we have evolved since
agriculture languages of separation
rather than languages of unity.
So if you use language to evolve a dance
that lets you talk to elephants and then
you train other people how to do that
dance that lets you talk to elephants-
Yeah ⦠there is something called
the elephant dance in the Kalahari.
You're going to use language, but
you're going to use it to try to
connect with elephants rather than
to separate yourself from elephants
and kill them and get their ivory.
Mm-hmm.
You're gonna tap into some element
of e- elephant that is about healing.
But I think what, what I, what
I've observed is it goes two ways.
So shape-shifting in shamanic
contexts, people often wonder what
that is and, like, i- is it like
American Werewolf in London where,
like, you actually sprout hair and,
you know, a spotty coat and a tail?
No.
I've seen it happen.
So when Besa, who was the healer I was
closest to, would take on leopard energy,
he could call a leopard out of the
bush while he was in a state of trance,
which is ⦠Imagine you trying to call
a cougar out of the bush right now.
You're i- sitting in Oregon.
Go outside the back
door, call for a cougar.
It's not gonna happen.
But these guys can.
And then why would the leopard come?
Why did he want to make
contact with the leopard?
So he wanted to make contact with the
leopard so he could go inside its body,
borrow its nervous system to go a distance
and take a certain energy, spiritual
energy, that the leopard has to go and
catch- the wrongdoing that has been
inside this person they're trying to heal.
Sometimes he might use lion energy.
Sometimes he might use, you know ⦠And
I saw him fall i- call a leopard
out of the bush, fall into trance.
Whenâ¦
It's the other way around.
Fall into trance, then his people sat with
him and said, "The leopard will come now."
And the leopard came, and then went
off on its mission, and they sat with
him for as many hours as it took for
the leopard to come back into the
area and him to regain consciousness.
Many people who've worked in
situations like that have seen that.
So he was trying to connect with
leopard, but leopard wanted to cooperate.
Leopard also wanted to be connected with.
And you, what you've described with
Romeo and Ziggy, them wanting to
bridge this gap in order to create
healing, to resolve conflict, to resolve
a dilemma across species, because we're
all part of one resonant morphic field.
But perhaps when the habit of using
divisive language, language that separates
us from the world around us rather than
integrating us with the world around
us, perhaps when that falls away and
leaves, as you say, the language of
emotion perhaps then it's easy for
animals to do what they actually are
supposed to do anyway, which is make
contact with us in this way, just in the
same way that we make contact with them.
Mm-hmm.
Because, you know, animals will
come to humans for healing.
You know, Right ⦠lo- lots of stories
about, you know, lions with a, you know,
thorn in the paw coming to someone.
Right.
All that.
This e- this exists.
This goes on.
This is not just a fanciful story.
So I just wonder if, if what
you're doing is actually creating
a, a effectively a shamanic
experience in an old people's home.
And when I, I looked at, I
listened to your description.
What you said is, I made a little note
of this, "They have a circle of chairs."
Yeah.
"The horse is in the middle, and then
the horse goes to each person for
a couple of, for a minute or two."
Right.
"Gives that person what they need."
That's, you just described
a Bushmen shamanic ritual.
The healer, people gather in a circle.
The healer is at the fire.
The healer dances around the
fire until they go into a
state of altered consciousness.
Then they go to each individual
that's around the fire and give
that person what they need.
Take out something-
Mm-hmm ⦠put something in.
And perhaps th- perhaps that trance
dance has been called for a particular
individual who's got a particular problem.
But everyone who's gathered there- Mm-hmm
⦠will get attention from the shaman.
And I just, you know, you described
what was going on with, with,
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah
⦠Rupert Isaacson: Romeo.
It's like, well, what is,
what i- what is it but that?
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah, and it, there's
and that is, like, our group setting.
That's the way we do our group visits.
And maybe there's a collective energy
too, because everyone can see what's
going on, you know, because it's a circle.
We did recently, though, start visiting
people, room-bound residents where we'd
go into their rooms and they'd be in their
bed, and we'd- Mm ⦠bring the horses,
and the horses could put their heads
over the bed and visit people that way.
And definitely that is also
equally profound as well.
Obviously we're just trying to find
as many ways as possible r- as r- of
reaching people, you know, that wouldn't
be able to have the experience otherwise.
Yeah, I mean, I think it, it, all
those things could be possible.
And you know, this, this is kind of a
side note, but the timing for me of this
whole adventure coming, like, kind of
a, a, I would describe it as unfurling.
That Romeo Roadshow has, process has
been, like, this unfurling th- as it
was not anything that was ever planned,
and it kind of just unfolded in front
of me, and one thing led to another.
The timing of when it came into my life
personally was very interesting, because
I had reached a point, I'd done a lot of
the, you know, professional equestrian
world for a long time, a lot of showing,
training, coaching, all that stuff.
And I had reached a point where I
wanted to do something different.
I, I knew I wanted to continue
working with horses, but I wasn't
feeling that that was the direction
I wanted to go in any- anymore.
And I was looking for something.
Like, I was trying to figure out
what my new path was gonna be.
And I'd been kind of in the
works of trying to figure
it out for a period of time.
It'd been a while, like several years.
And I had tried some different things,
but nothing really- Nothing really
kind of like caught my passion and
focus, and this came into my life,
something that I did not expect,
that I never in a million years would
have thought I would be doing this.
And as it unfolded in front of me, I
just felt like I, I had to keep doing it.
It meant so much to people, and I
knew someone needed to do it that
knew what they were doing to make
it safe and all, all that stuff.
And it was kind of like
perfect timing, too.
So one of my one of my beloved
grooms who helped us in the early
stages with Romeo, he said to me one
day, like a little ways into theâ¦
It was before, it was before we really
started doing the work with seniors.
He said "You know, Sanae, I think of you,
of you as like an angel in Romeo's life."
And in a way it's like there isâ¦
This might sound really out there to
some people, but like I have thought
multiple times that maybe he's returning
the favor to me, too, like showing
me like this other path, you know.
So and that does get into all of
that spir- way more spiritual realm.
But I never would have come
up with this on my own.
I ne- and I'm a, and I do think I'm
a relatively open-minded person,
you know, and I'm an idea person.
But it's, that's very ironic, too
Rupert Isaacson: Well, the most
practical, down-to-earth horse
culture on the planet is Mongolia.
Mm-hmm ⦠they eat them, they drink
them, they live- Right ⦠under
roofs constructed from them.
They, They wear them on their bodies.
They, there's no part of the life
out in the nomadic countryside in
Mongolia that is not practically
affected by horses in the same way
that, say, plastic practically affects-
our life or something like that.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: We don't
eat it and drink it.
Well, actually, we do.
We're getting all those microplastics.
Sanaa Pharayra: I'm just
gonna say- ⦠plastic is our,
plastic is our spirit animal.
Rupert Isaacson: if you're a horse
nerd, and if you're on this podcast,
I'm guessing you are, then you've
probably also always wondered a little
bit about the old master system.
of dressage training.
If you go and check out our Helios Harmony
program, we outline there step by step
exactly how to train your horse from
the ground to become the dressage horse
of your dreams in a way that absolutely
serves the physical, mental and emotional
well being of the horse and the rider.
Intrigued?
Like to know more?
Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
Check out the free introduction course.
Take it from there.
Oh, my God.
Which, which actually in
a weird way is all right.
Because if plastic is our spirit
animal, then really the forest is
our spirit animal, 'cause what is
plastic but fossil forest, really?
So- ⦠at the end of the day, I guess.
Whatever, whatever that.
But so I've got micro fossil
forests in me or something.
I don't know.
But the, theâ¦
That's a bit more
reassuring and comforting.
But the, the the fact that they are so
down to earth and- Mm-hmm ⦠like this
horse needs to take me from A to B.
Yes.
And that's just that.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: And this horse needs
to help me round up that livestock
over there, otherwise- Right ⦠we
will starve, and that's just that.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: Despite that
intense practicality, their entire
spiritual world, not surprisingly
perhaps, is built around the horse.
Right.
And so they have this
concept of the wind horse.
The Buddhist the Tibetan
Buddhists have it, too.
There's some cross-fertilization between
Mongolian Shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism
for interesting geographical reasons.
And it's like your luck, your mojo, your
your wellbeing, your spirit, your soul.
Somewhere in the middle of all that.
And when you go to see a shaman
on the Mongolian Steppe they're
tapping to horse energy.
And it's, it's the,
the, an ancestor energy.
Mm-hmm.
And that's kind of what they're
doing and kind of what they're using.
And even, even to the sound that they
make on the shaman's drum, da-da-dum,
da-da-dum, da-da-dum, da-da-dum.
It's the one, two, three.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
Yeah.
The galloping horse.
And actually, that is in a lot of Northern
European Shamanism, too, which came
across from Siberia with people like the
Yamnaya tribes in the yeah, Early Bronze
Age, and left those same shaman drums.
And now you hear them
in Celtic music as well.
Da-da, da-da, da-da-da-da,
da, da-da, da-da.
It's all horse.
Right.
It's all horse.
It's all horse.
So it's only really, I suppose, since
about the 17th century with Descartes
coming up with this thing of, you
know, "I think, therefore I am.
And therefore if you can't
think, you don't have a soul, and
therefore you're not reallyâ¦
And that means we can
be horrible to animals."
You know?
Right.
And that getting really kind
of, people really jumped on
that one for some weird reason.
And we are still, like, recovering C-
Cartesianaholics or something, whereas,
you know- Mm ⦠a, a, a Mongolian
who's like super practical horse person-
⦠would look at us and go Well, of course
it's tied up with your spirituality.
I mean, you know- Mm-hmm ⦠I mean,
you saying that humans don't have
a spirituality, that's like saying
the sky is red when it's blue.
Because i- as much as one might want
to deny it, it just keeps surfacing.
As- Yeah ⦠my friend Warwick Schiller,
I think you should get on his podcast,
I'm gonna suggest that he has you
as a guest, says in his Australian
accent, "You can't fight the woo.
It will find you."
You know?
It will find you.
And of course, you know, a lot of the
most seemingly conservative people, you
know, in America are very Christian.
You know?
Or at least they claim they are.
Right.
Yeah.
Even if they're not quite
living by the Christ message.
So yes, I, I think you're right.
He probably did r- or is starting
to resolve something in you.
And this is actually what-
Mm-hmm ⦠I wanted to ask you next.
Okay.
So- Okay ⦠i'm sure that many of our
listeners and watchers are speculating
about where your name comes from,
'cause it's- Mm-hmm ⦠an unusual name.
And when I first heard it, when Kansas
told me, I was like, "Oh, that's
some California name," you know?
And then I'm like, "No, no, no.
Actually, I've heard that name before.
I've heard that name before."
And I was like, "No, no.
It's not.
It's a, it's, it's, it's
a Middle Eastern name."
And- Yes ⦠and th- then I'm trying
to locate it, and then you and Iâ¦
And I said, "Are you, i- is
your family from Lebanon?"
It's more like- It is
Near East than Middle East.
And you're like, "Well, almost."
And so I'm not gonna spoiler
alert, but I want you
to tell us that ancestral story.
Okay.
And then let's talk about how-
Romeo and Ziggy might be playing
into that and how- Okay ⦠it
might benefit the rest of us.
W- where's your family from?
Sanaa Pharayra: So I was
born in Jerusalem, Israel.
My mother's American.
You know, m- mostly, like, European
descent on my mother's side,
and my father is Arab Israeli.
And my father's side of my family,
from what I know, were Bedouins
that settled in the Galilee region
of Israel, which apparently has
population, you know, that are Arab
Israeli that are Bedouin descendants.
So myâ¦
When I was very young, I was
about a year old, my mother
brought me back to the States.
She wanted me to grow up in the United
States, and my parents split up very early
on, and my mother raised me by herself.
So I didn't really have any connection
to my father's side of my family,
and it wasn't until or I fr- early
on after I moved to California, Iâ¦
It was actually when MySpace was first,
first started, so it was even before
Facebook I had s- a cousin in Israel that
found me on MySpace, and we connected
and he, you know, we talked a couple
times, sent messages, and he's like,
"I'm your cousin, you know, from Israel."
And you know, my mom confirmed,
"Yep, that's your cousin Adam.
He's a li- you know, a
little older than you."
And he, So we talked, and he shared
more family history, at least as far as
what he knew, and he said, "You know,
we, we we can't believe that you are
into horses and that you ride horses."
Our grandfather was, I think,
I believe it's called a Faras.
It's an Arab name for a horseman,
and he raced Arabians in the desert.
And so they, you know, felt very
strongly that's where I got the horse
you know, the passion for horses from.
But I didn't know anything about
any of that until I was in my
20s, is when I, when I met my
cousin through, through MySpace.
And growing up, I was just a kind of
naturally born horse-crazy kid, basically.
You know, my mom was anâ¦
I would say my mom is an animal person,
but wasn't necessarily a horse person.
There wasn't really anyone in my
family that was, were horse people.
So she got me into riding lessons young,
and that's how I got started in horses.
Rupert Isaacson: Did your-
Sanaa Pharayra: So it
wasn't until later on that-
Rupert Isaacson: Did your parents
retain any contact- Go ahead
after, after she went back to America?
Did they, like,
Sanaa Pharayra: not talk?
I'm s- I'm, I'm, say that
again, I didn't hear you.
Rupert Isaacson: I'm sorry.
Did your parents break off contact
after she moved back to Am- America?
Like, did they not talk anymore?
Sanaa Pharayra: Yes.
I mean, my fa- I don'tâ¦
My father didn't wanna be a
father so he kind of exited
stage left when I was very young.
I was- Right ⦠I mean, he did
come to see us when I was, like,
two years old, and then left
and didn't wanna participate.
So I think at a certain point my mom,
yeah, my mom realized it would be
better to, you know, not have contact-
Rupert Isaacson: Right
⦠Sanaa Pharayra: with him.
Got it.
So he was not, yeah, not in
my life at all after that.
Rupert Isaacson: And was it his father who
had been the fast, the, the horse dude?
Sanaa Pharayra: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: So your father must
have had contact with horses growing up.
Must have.
Sanaa Pharayra: I don't know thatâ¦
I'm not sure, I'm not sure that he did.
I mean, I don't really know.
The only thing I do- But
Rupert Isaacson: if his own father was
doing horses, how could he not have
had access to or contact with horses?
Sanaa Pharayra: The only thing that
I know is that there was a, a very,
very large age difference between
my grandfather and my grandmother.
So I think they had settled in Galilee
by the time you know, by the time he was
born, so I don't know that he was around
the real Bedouin way of life, so to speak.
You know, Mm-hmm ⦠but I don't know.
I haven't, you know, I haven't-
Right ⦠haven't been able to
ask him that, so I don't know.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, okay, so when
you told me that story, a whole bunch
of connections went off in my head.
Okay, so, I think when people
think of Israel, obviously they
don't normally think of Arabs.
Right ⦠but there are a lot of Arabs
in Israel, and when people think of
Israel, they don't often think of horses.
Right.
But there's an ancient
horse culture in Israel.
If you open up the New Testament, which
is the sort of mythol- mythological
history of the Judaic kingdom, Mm-hmm
through the Bronze Age, there's tons
of horses in it, and they were, they
were all using horses all the time.
And of course, so were the, as you
say, the Bedouin tribes, and that's
where we get, you know, our Arab
horses and, to some degree, our
Thoroughbred horses and blah, blah, blah.
Right.
And the Islamic world is very much,
and always was, a big horse culture.
People forget this.
All of the texts of classical dressage
from the Middle Ages are in Arabic.
They're not in European
languages at that point.
Then with the Renaissance they become-
Europe- Europeanified again Uh-huh
Um, okay, because it's just a more
literate culture, particularly in
Southern Spain and North Africa.
But anyway, but
y- we talked about conflict resolution
Sanaa Pharayra: Uh-huh
Rupert Isaacson: Okay
I think we can all agree that
people have been fighting over that
bit of rock for a very long time.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: For a very long time.
Okay.
Since before people had words like Jew and
Arab, the same people were for some reason
saying, "This bit of rock we will ⦠We
care about it so much we'll die for it."
You know?
It- Right ⦠this goes
back into the Bronze Age.
Even even in Judea itself, you know,
you've got so many competing tribes
that they're just talking about within
the New Testament, some of whom are
supposedly of what we now call Jewish
origin, and some of whom are not.
And they're tussling- Mm-hmm ⦠it
out, and they're tussling it out, and
they're also tussling it out with Egypt,
and they're tussling it out with the
Hittites up there in Turkey and Syria,
and they're, they're battling it out with
the Assyrians in Babylon so that they
end up going into, you know, bondage.
They're all riding horses.
They're all- Yeah ⦠riding horses.
And if there's one thing that ⦠And
then the Crusaders show up, and
when they show up, they show up on
horseback, and blah, and blah, and blah.
If there's one unifying element
in- international human relations.
It's usually the shared passionate
interest thing, which is why football,
that's why I have the World Cup, you know?
The Eurovision Song Contest.
Yeah.
The, yeah.
But horses are that, too.
So you know this.
Every time, you know, you c- you or I
can just show up anywhere in the world,
find the horse people, and we're grand.
Yeah.
You know?
It, it- Right.
Instant friend.
It doesn't matter if, if
we speak the language.
It doesn't matter if we
share the same religion.
The color of our skin makes no difference.
Like, ponies are us, and that's just that.
Yes.
It's interesting to me that there
you are with this Arab Israeli name-
Mm-hmm ⦠not really knowing your
heritage until later, that there's a
horse heritage there, that you come out
of this ancient horse heritage, which
must always have been both a source of
conflict, the soldiers fighting each
other are doing it on horseback- Yeah
and a source of healing.
They're sharing-
Mm-hmm ⦠their knowledge.
They all share this love of the horse.
When they're not in battle, they're
trading horses from each other and
saying, "Oh, that's a good mare.
Can I breed to that one?"
And then you come over to the USA,
and then you end up entering the sort
of field of consciousness of horse
healing from a rather particular place
with a rather particular name, with
a rather particular genetic history.
Sanaa Pharayra: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And you are
involved in conflict resolution,
having come out with a horse thing
from possibly the most contested
corner of the planet that exists.
And you said that you feel that
Romeo might be reaching out to you.
Maybe there's some work
he would like you to do
What goes on in your gut and in
your heart when you look into
where all this is going for you?
Sanaa Pharayra: Well, I, I feel like I
have always felt a very, very strongâ¦
I've always had an extremely
strong sort of compass for what I
wanted to do from a very young age.
My mom really wanted me to go the academic
route, but I wanted to be a horse trainer,
and at that time when I was going, you
know, in high school thinking about
going to college, at that time there
weren't a lot of academic programs for
horse equi- equine studies or whatever.
It just wasn't very available.
So I did what everybody else did,
you know, apprenticeship, working
student, learning hands-on learning.
I went that route.
Getting a little off, off topic here.
Circling back to what was Iâ¦
Remind me again, where
were we going with this?
I don't wanna go off
on a tangent too much.
What's
Rupert Isaacson: Romeo-
Sanaa Pharayra: Okay
⦠Rupert Isaacson: got in store for you?
Sanaa Pharayra: Got it.
So I have always felt like I, horses
have meant so much to me in my life.
They were everything to
me from a very young age.
I've learned so many things from
horses, not just about riding,
but, you know, feel like horses
taught me h- to be an entrepreneur.
You know, like they, all kinds of things.
Like, to be industrious, you know, to
be creative, like so many life lessons.
And I'm very grateful that I was able to
be involved with horses, as particularly
because I was a child of a single mother.
We didn't have a lot of economic
resources, and looking back on it,
it was pretty miraculous that I
was able to do as much as I was.
And that's probably been one of the
hardest things for me working in the
pro- professional equestrian world,
is feeling like I, I want this to be
more accessible to people, and that
it, it's very challenging, that it is,
it isn't that accessible for various
reasons, most of which boil down
to the cost, you know, cost of it.
And,
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, unless
you're living in Wyoming where
God gives you- Right ⦠the
pasture and cleans up your horse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Sanaa Pharayra: In which case
you already have horses anyway.
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
Sanaa Pharayra: So-
Rupert Isaacson: And you're part
Sanaa Pharayra: of a
Rupert Isaacson: horse family.
Yeah
⦠Sanaa Pharayra: so, so the first thing
for, with the Romeo venture is that it
sort of naturally, you know, aligned with
my desire to make horses accessible to
people that wouldn't have access to them.
So, so, and kind of, like I
said, I, I can't take credit
for, for coming up with the plan.
Like, I really, I mean, honestly, Romeo
kind of, Romeo led us through that.
But it, it really actually look, it's
so brilliant, like, in so many ways.
Like, it was so brilliant, and that's
what's so funny about the whole
story that it wasn't premeditated.
But the van, like Daryl literally
said to me, "Do you remember
the van from National Velvet?
I wanna build a van like that for Romeo."
Like, that, like, literally was,
was the, how this all started.
But now that we have the van, I'm
like, it's so brilliant to be able
to take them into the city, into
a parking garage, parallel park.
I mean, we, we're making them accessible.
So it's, but there's so
many layers to the project.
Like, it, it has recently taken
a bunch of twists and turns
that I didn't even see coming.
S- we have been working on coming up
with more of a concrete framework.
You know, we just filed all of
our papers to start a 501[c][3]
so that we can start, you know, p-
properly funding and, and grow this.
But ultimately, you know, I want to be
able to continue to do the research and
development necessary to really develop
this field, and eventually with the idea
of being able to make it more accessible.
You know, some form of scaling it or
helping other people learn how to do
it, like what you're doing so that
it can be available to more people.
And I had ideas of how I would
do that eventually, you know,
based off of other models of how
I've seen other people do it.
But even recently something just
came up that I didn't see coming,
which is that multiple universities
have expressed interest in working
with us with their students, and
having their students learn this.
And I did not see that coming, and that's
really interesting because for me it
goes back to this, th- this thing of my
mom wanting me to go the academic route.
And- Right ⦠I think she was
very disappointed that I didn't
go that route for a long time.
Mm.
And now here I am giving
presentations at major universities.
Yeah.
You know, in front of professors and
doctors and, you know, researchers
about horses, and they are
genuinely interested and fascinated.
And so that's, like, a whole nother level.
So yeah, I guess if, you know, this is
Ro- somehow Romeo's, Romeo's showing
me this path it, it's continuing to
unfold and it, who knows, like, where
it's gonna go next at this point.
I mean, it con- it continues to amaze me.
Rupert Isaacson: Have you reached
out to or are you in contact with Dr.
Nina Ekholm Fry?
No.
She's University of Denver Director
of Equine Programs at the Institute
for Human Animal Connection.
Sanaa Pharayra: I haven't, but I've
heard about the programs at that school.
Rupert Isaacson: I have a feeling thatâ¦
Well, I, I think I'll connect you.
But,
Sanaa Pharayra: Okay
⦠Rupert Isaacson: I, I think
you guys are a natural fit.
They were, they were sort of the
first, that I know of in the USA,
academic full-on department in
just human animal connection.
Yeah ⦠and as you say,
this is now a field.
Yeah ⦠there's also a wonderful, woman
who's just about to become doctor, Dr.
Kez Sullivan who- Mm-hmm ⦠she did that
study through University of Bournemouth
with her supervisor Anne Hemingway, Dr.
Anne Hemingway.
Mm-hmm.
That was the one on domestic violence
that I referred to a little bit earlier.
Right.
And I think that there's some
people that you could and
probably should join forces with.
I know you've got other people as
well, but w- where there's specific
interest in this equine human field.
Yeah ⦠and then of course there's the
Horses and Humans Research Foundation,
and that's Pebbles- Yes ⦠who
runs that who's been on this show.
But it's so interesting to me that
you know, when I was first starting
in this, you know, academics
were not interested, you know?
Right ⦠but luckily, there were
lots and lots of grad students out
there who, who rode horses, who all-
Yeah ⦠kind of went, "Well, why
isn't there a field of study here?"
Yeah.
And then they all went and got
their PhDs and became academics,
and now- Right ⦠here we are.
And then, yes, as you say
now, your, your mum can can
She'll still probably still kvetch
at you that you don't have a
tenured position at some university.
But maybe that's coming, you never know.
Maybe you'll get your honorary PhD.
Sanaa Pharayra: You never know.
It's just it's just ironic, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
It is.
Sanaa Pharayra: I mean, I, I, I do
think the universe has a sense of humor.
Rupert Isaacson: It
really, I hadn't noticed.
, Yeah.
What, what's next?
If you, if you proj- w-
not even what's next forâ¦
What, what's your dream?
What would you really, really,
really like this to turn into?
Sanaa Pharayra: I really want
to preserve a place in our
society for horses, you know?
That humans can stay connected
to horses even as we continue to
evolve in this modernized way.
That I think that they have a very
important role to play now more than ever.
I mean, hor- it, horsepower has
a whole new meaning to me now.
And I think if I can do a good
job at being a steward of this
I'll be able to demonstrate that.
And, you know, I think as peopleâ¦
I think as it gets more visibility, you
know, and people realize how important
it is, it, it can grow and expand.
And, and hopefully too, as that happens,
it, just like what you're doing and the
conversations we're having today, we can
also educate people on how to be good
stewards of caring for the animals, and
how they're partners in this with us.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
But I'm sorry, that's all BS.
What do you want to do with this?
Sanaa Pharayra: I mean, I, I, I feel
like that's, like, it, I want, like
I said, I wanna, I wanna preserve
it in order- There's a vision in
Rupert Isaacson: there.
There's a vision in there
that you're not communicating.
I can feel it.
Sanaa Pharayra: In order to
preserve it, we have to teach
the next generation how to do it.
So teaching.
Right.
I wanna elevate, I wanna elevate
the, the therapy work, too.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Sanaa Pharayra: To properly to
where I feel like it should be.
Rupert Isaacson: Which is
Sanaa Pharayra: what?
A lot higher level of horsemanship.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Sanaa Pharayra: And
understanding for the animal.
And I think it c- I, I keep going back
to accessibility, not just accessibility
in transporting the horses to places
that horses wouldn't normally go,
but maybe accessibility in being
able to teach people how to do this
that wouldn't n- normally get the
opportunity to learn about horses or
to be involved in something like this
Rupert Isaacson: You know,
Sanaa Pharayra: and I think the oppor-
opportunity, just recently I realized that
there may be an opportunity to bridge a
gap between young people and old people.
Like, one of the, one of the,
Rupert Isaacson: There we go
⦠Sanaa Pharayra: professors that we
met with the other day had, had said
that she felt like if we could create
a program that students could be
involved in with the therapy work, that
this may be a way to get young people
interested in the field of gerontology.
Rupert Isaacson: That is
what I was digging for.
Putting old people in old people parking-
⦠is a really stupid idea, right?
Because- Yeah ⦠no
other culture does that.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: Because these are the
people with the knowledge and the wisdom.
Right.
And then right when they're in a
position to impart it to you, you
put them in the freezer, you know?
Yeah.
And then are flabbergasted when
we can't find answers to questions
that maybe they figured out in 1973.
Right.
And because they're not around
to ask, we make more mistakes
perhaps than we needed to.
The, the idea of a sense of purpose,
like, you know, all animals, humans
and others, need a sense of purpose.
I remember when we took our two little
kids when they were really small to see
my wife's grandmother, who was in- Mm
⦠old people parking and had dementia.
And she didn't know who we were,
and it didn't matter because as soon
as she saw the two little kids, she
just started giving them, ordering
chocolate cake and then teaching
them how to play Chinese checkers.
Yeah.
She went from kind of like-
Huh?
To, "Well, this is how you do the da,
da, da, da, da, ba, ba, da, ba, dum."
And then when we stood up to go she went
And w- what one realized was, oh, in
the old days, maybe if there was Granny
or Grandpa sitting by the fire in the
corner, and they were drifting away
from time to time and drifting back, but
the intergenerational way of life, the
proper ma- mammalian tribal way of life,
meant that they were constantly engaged.
Right.
And so they were fulfilling economic
and social functions regardless,
regardless of where their cognition was.
But because their cognition was probably
better because they were engaged-
Yeah ⦠they were also less gaga.
Because when you, when you go into
these hunter-gatherer areas, I
can tell you, you don't see it.
You don't see it.
You don't see-
Sanaa Pharayra: Right
⦠Rupert Isaacson: old people like that.
They're, they're, they're so
engaged, and they're moving
physically, and their bodies are-
Sanaa Pharayra: Yes
⦠Rupert Isaacson: often, yeah.
You, you just do not see this
catatonic sitting around with
the brain not there thing.
And as you say, the brain is there.
Because you, you, you put my kids or you
put Romeo into the picture, and boom.
And that was what I was digging
for of where's it going.
I think that, that this particular
aspect of our culture, we're
talking about conflict resolution
here, resolving a dilemma.
We have a massive dilemma of-
Yeah ⦠the abandonment of our seniors.
Yes.
Not, and that's a problem not
because it's bad for them.
It's a problem 'cause it's
bad for us, that we are, we
don't have our consultants.
We don't have our, we don't
have our tribal elders.
We don't have our council of elders.
We're supposed to work everything
out as, like, idiot 40-year-olds?
Or, you know, no.
No.
Right ⦠we can't.
So is what you're doing a way towards
healing a kind of social disease that's
really crept in with the negation
of the value of what's soon to be
the largest sector of human society?
I suspect you're at the
cutting edge of this.
Sanaa Pharayra: Well, there's another
interesting twist that we didn't
even touch on at all in this talk,
but the, the fact that, like, from
the very beginning Daryl always, you
know, likes to film, film stuff with
the horses, and just, just for fun.
Always taking pictures, always filming,
you know, and we were making just
cute videos to show people, like,
"Look what, we taught Romeo to do
this trick," or whatever, and, and
it's, and again, with no agenda.
And, and going back and watching them,
'cause we use them all the time for
different things that we're working on,
and in all the videos we're just, like,
giggling and laughing, and like, "Oh,
look how cute he is," or, "Oh, good boy,"
you know, like, 'cause it was just fun.
But we have amassed a massive amount
of footage well, like, professionally
shot, 'cause she is an expert, you
know, at that, and really knows
how to get the right camera angles.
And she's been teaching me,
and I've actually been able
to help with it as well.
And I had no idea how powerful telling
that story was gonna be to people.
Yeah.
And we recently gave two presentations
at, at those two universities and, and
the one university told us it was the
best presentation that their summer
research fellowship program has had.
I can believe it.
And then the other university, like,
who I didn't really know if they were
gonna give us the time of day, they
were visibly moved by the footage.
And that was what sparked the comment
about this could be a way to get young
people interested in, in this field.
And I do wonder if the s- it does seem
like the story of Ro- Romeo somehow
is a a story of unity, like, in that
it's something everyone can agree on.
Rupert Isaacson: I've got the title
of the mo- of the documentary.
What?
'Cause you're, 'cause you're
recovering people's memories
and their cognition, right?
Sanaa Pharayra: Uh-huh.
Rupert Isaacson: Where for art thou?
Sanaa Pharayra: Love that.
It's so funny 'cause in one of our
little reels that we made about
our program, one of the seniors is
saying, "Where for out there, Romeo?"
I'll send it to you.
So funny.
Yeah, that's great.
But, but I do feel like we have this
very, very strong storytelling capability
that we have not tapped into yet,
and it would be super interesting
to see, like, you know, we I do
feel like there's gonna be docu-
at, at least one documentary, if not
multiple things coming from this.
'Cause just because it's, people
love it, it's so interesting,
and we have so much footage and-
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
But what you, what you can also
show is, is, is the value of-
keeping seniors involved in society.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah
Rupert Isaacson: And you can do it
through a story that people think
they're engaging in with this cute pony.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: Which is a great
hook because, you know, no one's gonna
go see a documentary about the old.
But they will go to
see- Well, just like how
Sanaa Pharayra: many young, how many
young people wanna go to school to,
you know, take care of old people?
I mean, it's not, like,
you know what I mean?
Like-
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, sure.
I mean, some people might do it for
the money, but yes, yes, it's not a,
like a respected field with status.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: But it ought to be.
The care for- Right ⦠care for
the elders ought to be, like,
a revered and honored thing.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Shouldn't it?
Sanaa Pharayra: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Rather
like the, the nurses- And,
Sanaa Pharayra: and
Rupert Isaacson: it's
Sanaa Pharayra: so necessary
right now, too ⦠ability to pay.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yes, and it's going to get
more and more necessary.
I can feel in my gut that this
might go somewhere even m- to
another place after this, too.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Ancestors.
You're dealing with people that
are about to become ancestors.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: And but who have the
ability to impart their wisdom, and even
if they've got cognitive decline, Romeo
can be like a sort of dream catcher and
catch those memories and catch that.
Sanaa Pharayra: We were visiting
a older gentleman in his room the
other day, and we had both Romeo
and Ziggy at his hospital bed.
And I didn't think that he could talk
at all, and he was, he- you could tell
he was enjoying the horses visiting
and, and he kind of started to, like, i-
sort of, like, struggle to s- it seemed
like he was struggling to speak, and
he tried and tried and, and all of the
sudden, he, towards the end of the visit,
he mustered up, "I grew up on a farm."
Wow.
And it's like he needed to tell
us that, and that just that, those
words, to me, he wanted us to
know how special that was to him.
And he c- was struggling to say
anything else, but he was able
to say, "I grew up on a farm."
And I felt like I understood
him- Huge ⦠in that moment.
Rupert Isaacson: It's huge.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: If you went ⦠I
wonder if you went back again
and again, would more come?
Sanaa Pharayra: May, it may be.
I mean, I feel like I've seen,
definitely seen progress with the people
that I see regularly on other levels
Rupert Isaacson: Now, you
have some ancestors of your
own that are at work here,
reaching out from the Bedouin
ancestry of the Arabic horse
tradition-
Sanaa Pharayra: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: which goes back about
at least 4, possibly 6,000 years.
Sanaa Pharayra: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And you're in the
process of discovering something about
the resolving of a conflict in our
society with the jettisoning of the old.
And you are exploring that,
and you will explore that.
And you come from, and your ancestors
come from, a part of the world that is
embroiled in a, an endless conflict.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: And while no one
person can go and resolve that conflict-
I can't help but wonder
if programs like yours
Over there
might be a way to bridge understanding
between groups of people-
Sanaa Pharayra: That's
fascinating ⦠who are
Rupert Isaacson: at
animosity with each other.
And it's in your blood, and the ancestors
have a funny way of getting things done.
Let's export this girl to America.
Let's put her in celeb land.
Let's make something magical
with horses, animals, nature, or
happen with that in a way that is
clearly needed in that culture.
And then maybe let's bring her home for
a bit to see what she can do over there.
And what would be really
interesting would be if you went
out to Israel, Lebanon, Syria
Or even, even maybe just the obvious
things, just, just to where your
people were the last in Galilee
And you began, you didn't go
in saying, "I want to resolve
conflict between Jews and Muslims."
Sanaa Pharayra: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: But when you go
into an old people's home over there,
you're gonna find Jews and Muslims.
And- You think
Sanaa Pharayra: they're in
the same homes together?
Rupert Isaacson: In so- in
some places they will be.
Uh-huh.
Some places, in some places they won't be.
And whether or not they're in the
same homes together, there's nothing
to stop you from going into both.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: It doesn't even
necessarily have to be you personally.
I mean, it might be at the
beginning, but you might show some
people there how to do the work.
And if you create the documentary
and you share your own h- you know,
ancestral story in there, I feel
it's pretty likely that someone
out there's gonna reach out to you.
Or that you might say, "You know what?
Sod it.
Let's just go."
And as you say, one of the nice things
about minis is you can stick them in
the back of a van and go anywhere.
Right.
You know?
It, you don't need toâ¦
And it, and it's sort of
inclusive and democratized.
You can go into urban environments.
You can put them in an elevator
and go up to the fifth floor.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: I have my ancestors
reach out through me which is
what happened with the Bushmen.
And we ended up helping several groups
who'd been illegally evicted to make way
for diamond mines get their land back.
And I had a bit of an ancestral debt to
them because of things that my family
had done to them in the past- Hmm
but also I was related because
not all my family is white.
And that healing journey prepared me for
the advocacy I had to do with autism.
And the horsemanship that I acquired
along the way prepared me to do
that work and, and, and, and, and.
And it's still not over.
Yes.
I have to go back out to Botswana
now it's, to do the next stage
Sanaa Pharayra: Did you know at the time
that your ancestors were guiding you?
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Because when I heard of the, this
particular group of Bushmen in South
Africa where there were not supposed
to be Bushmen left anymore, they
were all supposed to have been wiped
out, that they'd been living by the
side of the road for a couple of
generations 'cause they'd been kicked
out of what's now a national park.
They've got a third of it back now.
The w- whe- when I heard where
they were, I knew that that's
where my non-white family were.
And I knew that in that area, it's
so sparsely populated that all the
groups, to some degree, interbreed-
Sanaa Pharayra: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: whether
voluntarily or not.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: And I thought, I n-
g- absolute gut feeling, "You have,
Rupert, you have to go have a look."
And I did, and I found out I was indeed
a cousin by marriage to this group.
And, well, then you take the
adventure that's in front of you.
I feel that you're being
prepared for something.
And, But the thing about resolving a loss
within society that's global, which is
this schism between the old and the young,
which is a schism with our mother, it's a
schism with our planet, it's a schism with
nature, it's a schism with who we are.
It causes us such enormous
psychological pain to live this way.
You found a mechanism
for bridging that gap.
You've been shown it by this pony, but
there's ancestors guiding the pony.
And moving through the pony.
I talked about shape-shifting, I
talk about, talked about before.
And I would just encourage you
to ask these questions, and then
the obvious thing is, yeah- Okay
if you have to create some big
piece of media, you know, a little
bit like I did with The Horse
Boy, well then people notice.
Conversations begin.
Relationships begin.
And logical things follow.
Sanaa Pharayra: Did you b- did
you publish your book first or
did you do the documentary first?
Rupert Isaacson: No, they d- they k- I
did them simultaneously because- Okay
When I did the book I, as an autism dad
and as a journalist, I was uncomfortable
with the idea that if I wrote a book,
let's say, l- you know ⦠What I said
to my p- publishers, 'cause I was already
a writer, and I wrote a- Right ⦠I
wrote a, a proposal but, you know, just
'cause you write a proposal doesn't
mean the publishers will go for it.
Right.
As any writer knows.
And just 'cause you write a book doesn't
mean anyone will notice, you know?
Mm-hmm.
That's another thing every writer knows.
Just 'cause you make a film doesn't mean
anything, any, everyone will notice.
A lot of things have- Right ⦠to
come together to make that happen.
All right.
So, I was uncomfortable with the idea that
if I went out there and there was great
change, that I would be writing this book
saying, "I went to this place that you'll
never go to, and I met these people that
you'll never meet, and you kinda have to
take my word for it that this happened."
Right.
And I remember thinking, "Okay, well if I
was a, if I was an autism parent sitting
in Queens, New York or London, England
or somewhere might that-" feel oddly
like a slap in the face in a weird way.
So I thought, "No, i-
it has to be recorded.
If anything happens, we have to record
it, including if nothing happens."
Yeah.
Because what then?
And I thought, "Well, all right.
Well, at least, at least we're
treating the autism as an adventure,
not as a sort of end of everything."
And that has some merit, no?
Because we're being told by
back then anyway, by all the
pediatricians, "Well, your lives
are over, and his life is over."
And it's not.
Right.
Like, he's, he's downstairs right now.
He's 25.
He just took the train back from
Frankfurt, having flown over- Right
⦠from America by himself, and he's off to
youth hosteling to Leipzig, you know, next
week, and he's got three jobs, and he's
drives his own car, and just all of that.
That's awesome.
And, you know, but he was non-verbal,
shitting his pants, and, you
know, self-harming tantrums.
So they ca- no, we, we did them
simultaneously and because I, I felt
it just needed a record an actual
physical record where you could see
if it happened or if it didn't happen.
Mm-hmm.
I didn't know that the work would
go global because I did, there
was no work at the time that I
produced the movie and the film.
There was no Horse Boy Method.
There was just- Mm-hmm ⦠what
I had f- discovered and
stumbled into with my own son.
But at that stage I wasn't
really working with others yet.
Sanaa Pharayra: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: That came afterwards,
and then it, and then it grew.
I just have this weird feeling that
you're uniquely placed and these
things don't happen out of the blue
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah, I, I have
definitely gotten a very strong
sense throughout, throughout this
whole journey with Romeo ofâ¦
I, I would have used the word
momentum, but w- it's had a
strange amount of momentum.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Sanaa Pharayra: I've never
experienced anything like this before.
Like, to where- Yeah ⦠n- it's like
I just feel like constantly doors are
opening, constantly people are offering
to help or wanting to support it,
and, and honestly listening to me talk
about it, like being interested in it.
I've never felt likeâ¦
O- obviously I've been around
horses my whole life and had lots
of horse stories to tell, but never
felt that people were as genuinely
interested in, in my horse stories
until, like, Romeo came into my life.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Sanaa Pharayra: And now everyone that
knows me knows about Romeo, so when I
see people I haven't seen in a long time,
it's a n- natural conversation topic.
"What's going on with Romeo?
What is he up to now?"
You know?
Like, so yeah, there, it, it does
feel like something is helping this.
I obviously have put a lot of work.
A lot of work has been put into this,
not just by me, but by other people,
you know, as part of the, the team.
A lot of people care about this.
But even beyond the work that
we've put in, there's something
else that's been pushing it along.
And it, and it seems to be growing
and expanding at a fairly rapid pace.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like there's a- another force behind it.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I would agree.
I'm fascinated to see where it will go.
Sanaa Pharayra: Me too
⦠Rupert Isaacson: I think everyone
listening and watching will be, too.
Okay, look, we've hit the two-hour mark.
I think people probably wanna
know how they can get in touch
with you, how they can find out
more, maybe how they can help.
Sanaa Pharayra: We have a website.
It's romeoroadshow.com.
So that has some information about
our program, and we have a lot of our
regular updates on our therapy visits
and other activities on our Instagram
account, which is just @romeoroadshow.
We will, within the next couple of
weeks to 30 days, have a link on our
website if anyone wants to support the
Romeo Roadshow project financially.
There will be a way to do that
through the website as well.
Rupert Isaacson: You said that horses
can be trained to become emotionally
present, emotionally engaged as well as
physically safe around these populations.
Yes.
You do a lot of in-hand work for this,
and classical in-hand work and so on.
Are you gonna start training
people how to do this?
Is that gonna be a program that-
I would- ⦠Romeo will do?
Sanaa Pharayra: I, I would love to.
You know, I think that's gonna be part of
the growth of the program, is to be able
to teach, you know, others how to do this.
Obviously we need more horses
to be able to do that, but I
definitely think that that's coming.
Rupert Isaacson: I would love
to become, to be part of that.
So if-
Sanaa Pharayra: That would be great.
Would love that.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So, Kansas and I are talking
about doing some gigs together
in California next year.
Oh,
Sanaa Pharayra: awesome.
Rupert Isaacson: So maybe
that's something we should do.
Maybe we should get together and look at
how the classical work goes into this.
Which y- you're already doing.
But maybe some ways to systematize it.
Sanaa Pharayra: I would love that, and
also if, if you can keep me in the loop
on scheduling, and I know when you're
gonna be in town, I'll try to plan
some therapy visits when you're h- when
you are here, so that you can- Okay
Maybe come with us and see what
we're doing, so you can see us-
I would love to ⦠in the field.
Rupert Isaacson: I would love to.
And with your permission I might film
some of that and put that on YouTube.
Sanaa Pharayra: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Sanaa Pharayra: That would be great.
Yeah, I did bring Kansas one time.
She came with me one time, and we
talked about, you know, I wanted
to get some feedback from her
on ways to make it, the horse
interactions better and, and whatnot.
So I think it would be amazing.
I'd love to have some collaborators and
to be able to talk about it some more.
Rupert Isaacson: So
watch this space, lads.
If you're listening or watching me,
Kansas, and Sena will all get together
and we'll do a gig in-hand work with
the amazing Romeo and some others.
And we'll let you know when this is
gonna happen, and maybe you guys wanna
sign up and come, 'cause it will be fun.
That'd be
Sanaa Pharayra: great.
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
Brilliant.
Well, Sena, thank you
so much for coming on.
I am-
Sanaa Pharayra: Oh, thank you.
That was a lot of fun, and
I hope we can talk more.
There's so much more to talk about.
Rupert Isaacson: There,
there absolutely is.
I think we should, we
should do this again.
You know, and all the
questions we didn't get to ask.
And- Listeners, watchers, if
you've got questions, things like,
put them in the comments below.
We will respond.
We read them all.
And if you ask us to talk with
Sanaa again about stuff that youâ¦
We will.
So just, just tell us, and we'll respond.
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