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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.
Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
I have an old friend here, Carla Brams.
She runs Veon Rider, which means
wave rider in a very magical part
of Germany called the Udin Vault,
which literally means odin's forest.
And when you go in there, it really
does actually look like odin's forest.
It's an area that is a little bit occult.
It, it's, it's one of those places where
you feel the, the veil between the world
is a little bit thin, and in fact, the
original Frankenstein's castle is in
there which a lot of people don't know.
And behind that castle, there's a, an
area of forest that's been recorded
with all sorts of strange activity by
various scientists and people record
all sorts of strange phenomena there.
And it's also, of course,
stunningly beautiful.
And it's these mountains that
overlook the Valley of the Rhine.
And I met Carla when I first
started working in Germany.
And together we did a project with
German television with the autistic
son of a, of a, of a friend of Carla's.
Carla already had a very
good and established equine
assisted practice going.
And in the course of this, we.
Have been sort of working
together on and off ever since.
And she really has her own way of going.
Which I think a lot of us can learn
from, and not just confined to the
work with special needs children or
so on, but very much looking at other
areas, including the area of grief.
So I think this is something
which we can all learn from.
Carla, thank you so much
for coming on the show.
Please tell us a bit about who
you are and what your practice
is and how you got there.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Thanks Rupert for the introduction.
You know, I always think
meeting people is no no sofa.
What is the English word?
No
Rupert Isaacson: coincidence.
Karla Brahms: No coincidence.
Yeah.
And it was just magic to meet
you in 2019 making the, the film
about Emil and changing the life
of so many people with our work.
Well, I got here.
I, I was raised here in the den world and
I never thought that I would come back.
But obviously life had other plans.
I'm working with horses.
For more than 30 years now.
And I built a little paradise for my
horses, my family and me here in Lumpen.
He in the val near
Heidelberg and Mannheim.
And I always are outside with
the horses with the kids.
For 25 years.
I was walking every day with
a group of four kids out in
the forest with the horses.
And what you said, this this
powerful spiritual vibration in
the al I can feel it every day.
So we have a massive stone
arrangements in the forest.
They are often the, that I often
visit with the horses and the kids.
And it's just not only the healing
of the horses and the healing of our
presence, but also the healing of
the nature that I use for my work.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
it's, it's so refreshing.
I, I remember when I went and did
my first training for the tower, you
know, the for tower in, in Germany,
which is the, for those listeners who
don't speak Germany, you, they're,
they're, they're the government.
Wing of therapeutic riding there.
And it's great of course that
the Germans really support
it at the governmental level.
You know, many of us, for example,
when we're working in say the USA
dream of that, however, it also comes
with a sort of bureaucratic cost.
And I remember when we were doing
that first training, it was in
another rather beautiful area
in the hills near Disseldorf.
It was so regimented and it was
really kind of very arena based.
And now we're going to do this,
and now the child should do that.
And, and I remember, you know,
in horse boy, we have obviously
this ethic of follow the child.
And so if the kid wants to get down off
the horse 10 seconds after they've got
up, well of course that's what you do.
And you know, because we don't want this
to be stressful and we have, we have
faith that the child will eventually, you
Karla Brahms: know,
Rupert Isaacson: find
their way with the horse.
Karla Brahms: That was one, one moment
when, when we met and we talked about.
My work and your work, it was
like, ah, yeah, that's it.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And I was so, I was so glad because
I always thought, oh, I'm such
an individual with my work in the
ator because no one does it my way.
And I always thought I'm the, the exotic
teacher therapeutic riding teacher to
hear that you were doing it the same way.
That was so, ah, I was
Rupert Isaacson: right.
Because I mean, it's just Did you
ever meet a kid who didn't want
to just go straight in the forest?
I mean, you know, I mean, that's
what the human brain and nervous
system is designed for to go into
the natural habitat of the human.
And so if one is trying to
restore a nervous system Yeah.
Which is effectively what we are doing,
surely it makes just perfect sense even
if you didn't understand the neuroscience
to go where the organism wants to be.
Right?
Yep.
If you, if you put a big cat in
a zoo with concrete and bars like
they used to, what will it do?
It will pace around.
If you build a beautiful habitat and
you put enrichment in there, okay,
the animal probably would rather be in
the wild, but it's a whole lot better.
But we haven't really gotten there
enough with educational therapy.
And I remember in that, in that.
Training I did this one lady.
She said, ah, but if I have spent half
an hour getting no, she said 30 minutes,
getting the horse ready for this child on
this child wants to get down immediately.
This is a disrespect.
I'm like, lady, given the wrong job.
You, you, you should be teaching
adults who are motivated to ride, learn
to ride horses, how to ride horses.
What are you doing working with
nonverbal autistic children who, who
can't follow instruction and don't
understand what you're even talking about?
Like, why are you in this job?
Because it must be so
frustrating for you and for them.
So yeah, when I, when I discovered
you there, and of course our wonderful
friends, GI and Henrik Bergoff,
who've been on this show as well up
there in Munster Land in Germany,
who understand completely the need
of the child, the need of the human,
the need of the horse to be in nature
Karla Brahms: and the need of humor.
Rupert Isaacson: Say that again?
Karla Brahms: The need of humor.
Rupert Isaacson: The need of humor.
Absolutely.
Toilet humor constantly because the horse
is pooing and farting the entire time.
Right.
And what are you gonna do?
Ignore it.
It's.
Ah, so yeah, I remember the
first time we came to you and
falling in love with that forest.
And I just want to paint a little
bit of a picture for viewers.
So where Carla lives in a village that
is on the side of a mountain that's
forested with pastures dotted around.
And the, the paths out from her
stable, which of course is an open,
stable with a cover so the horses
can come in and come out and they
can be in the forest, they can be in
the field, they can be in the meadow.
And then there are these tracks that
just sort of go off into wonderful land.
And then the, the village
itself looks like something
out of a, of a grims fairytale.
You know, it's what they call
fuck work, you know, the, the
old black and white houses with
the timber and all of this stuff.
But of course, one of the things
we know about fairytales is
what do fairytales teach us?
They teach us that there, there
is also a dark side to life and we
need to learn how to navigate that.
Right?
And that of course, I really do
think is the nature of your work.
Can you talk us through
how you go about things?
People are quite familiar with horse
boy and the way you and Horse Boy and
ll invited work are, are not dissimilar.
They're, they're pretty close,
but you very much have your own
way and your own philosophy.
Can you just talk us through.
How you help people deal with,
some would say the dark side.
Others would say the realities of
life in this fairy tale environment.
Karla Brahms: Well, after I worked for
more than 25 years with the kids, my
horses and me, we got older and I was
looking for a method that I can use
these absolute amazing abilities from
the horses to read us, to read our
emotions and to reflect them to us.
I always thought horses are so much
more than animals we can use to ride on.
They, they read us and they,
they connect with us in a way
that is, is hard to describe.
And a colleague of mine, she was
doing like systematic constellations
with the horses where she used the
horses for parts of your inner is
it, it's called unti in German.
I don't know the English
word for it right now.
So one horse represented the sadness.
One horse represented the the
critic, the the c criticism.
And, and she placed the horses, or
the, the client placed the horses in
the arena the way it was suitable.
And then there were.
They got get loose and they
interact with one another, another.
And I was so amazed how they reacted in
a way that that was not normal for them.
I, I knew my horses, or I know my horses.
I live with them for 24
hours, seven days a week.
And, and they reacted in a way that was
really the connection of the client.
And I was so amazed.
I said, I want to make this, I want
to take this ability from the horses
and, and connect it with my work with
the kids, with the, with the families.
And then I was looking for a
method that that that did this,
this connection with the horses.
And then I found a consolation work.
It's called NIG, neural Imaginative.
K is creating, and this method uses
spontaneously drawn pictures that
you draw with your non-dominant hand.
So to connect the other
part of the brain that,
Rupert Isaacson: so I would
draw with my left hand.
You would give me a pencil
Karla Brahms: if I, yes.
If, if, if I would work for you with you.
I would say we take two
pieces of paper, for example.
And I often use these these
crayons, these Jackson crayons.
Course, they, they have a powerful
color and you can easily draw with them.
And, and the thing is, if you
draw with your non-dominant
hand, nobody can draw nicely.
And, and it takes this, this pressure to
make a nice picture of what you think.
And then you, you get
the, the the order first.
We, we clear what, what is
the problem, what is the, the
thing you want, you work with.
It's called RAs clear room.
And even that clears a lot of things
for the client to see what, what
is happening with the, why am I
here, why am I talking with you?
What, what is the thing
that's confusing me?
And then they get the, the the
order to draw maybe a picture of
the problem really spontaneously.
They can use the colors,
they can use everything.
They are not, they don't have
a an order how to draw it.
They, they just, it
Rupert Isaacson: could be abstract.
Karla Brahms: It could be
abstract, it could be only colors.
It could be only a sign, it could
be only a word and they have to do,
draw it with a non-dominant hand.
And then they get the, the
order to draw maybe a picture
of how it is when it is better.
Not even the goal were to go to.
How does it look like?
When it feels better?
When it is better?
And then they draw this picture.
And with these pictures, you go in
connection with your whole body.
So you lay them on the
ground and you stand on these
pictures with your whole body.
And then I ask questions,
how do you stand?
How is your body feeling?
Do you feel a part of the body really?
Is there a stiffness or a pain?
Is it getting cold?
How are your feet standing?
How is your breath?
How is it going?
How deep is it going?
Is it rather thin or deep?
And then the, the people are, are
getting connected with their body.
I ask, where do you look at?
Do you look inside?
Do you look to a certain point?
And are there feelings that coming
up when you stand on this picture?
And then we talk about all these
body emotions, body experiences.
And when they step off the picture,
they often have to shake a little bit.
And then I, I invite them to go to the
next picture and stand on that picture.
And how does it feel here?
How does it feel standing on
the picture when it is better?
And the thing is, the solution of
our problems always lies within us.
We, we are always so much head.
Our head is so important.
Our thinking is so important that we
often forget to, to listen to our body.
And our body always knows
the, the, the answer.
And with these questions, I try to get
the people into feeling what their body
is feeling, what their body tells them.
And it always is the thing that they feel
a difference between the two pictures.
And then comes the most important part.
My, my my favorite part because we
introduce a so-called Mear position.
Mear is when I work with children
and always tell them, if you have a
superhero, a superhero that knows you,
that can help you, that can talk about
you in a good way, who could that be?
And when I work with, with grownups, I
ask them they should think about a, a
person that is not really living, but
like the, the wise man in the forest
or the, the, the old woman in the sea.
Something like that.
Rupert Isaacson: The mental figure.
Yeah.
Karla Brahms: Right, right.
And then we choose a position.
We take a a white.
Piece of paper, and this is the
meta position, and we, we place it
far away from the other pictures.
And then the clients step
on that meta position.
And when they are on the meta position, we
talk in the third person about the client.
So for example, one kid to the, to the,
the Smart Fox for his meta position.
And when he stood on the meta position,
I said, well, hello Smart Fox.
Did you see he was let's call him Tom.
Tom was painting the pictures
and he was stepping on then
and had these body sensations.
What did you see?
Did you see that Tom had a special
feeling or did you see similarities?
Did you see un
Rupert Isaacson: differences?
Karla Brahms: Differences?
Right?
And then we talk about the client in
the third person and, and he, the, the
smart fox is telling what Tom should do.
Maybe take another position for
the, from the pictures, maybe get
on them in a, in a, in a second way.
And so we, we start a process
with the dialogue between.
The, the meta position and the
connect connected positions, the
pictures on the, on the, on the floor.
And by stepping on these pictures for a
second time, it always feels different.
Different.
And now I use the horses as
a company in this process.
So they're just with them,
with us in the arena.
And I'm always sure they know exactly
what is happening because the way
they interact with a client with
a meta position that's so amazing.
I tell you one story.
I had a friend when I was, when I
was trying to, to to get used to this
method and, and, and try to figure
out how can you use the horses.
I asked friends and I asked mothers
of of my riding kids if they are,
if they want to, to help me figure
out how that works, how I can
interact with the horses and so on.
And it was with a friend.
She was standing on her, on her
problem and the horse was standing
next to her and yawning, and
yawning and yawning all the time.
And I asked her, do you have an idea
why your horse is yawning all the time?
And she said, no.
And when I asked her the, the body
sensations, it was all quite normal.
Not very, very extraordinary.
When this horse was yawning all that
time, I asked her I have an idea.
Do you want to hear it?
And she said, yes.
And I said, could it be that
it connects with exhaustion?
Are you exhausted?
And then she started crying
because the horse showed her how
exhausted she was in this problem.
Right?
It was a problem in her job.
And that was so amazing.
And things like that happen all the
time that the horses interact or show
a more deeper way of looking at these
pictures, of looking at the process.
And sometimes they even get,
take the, the the solution.
So one time a client was like standing
on the, on the meta position and the
horse moved one of the pictures away
and he said, now, now it makes sense.
That was the, the
distance that was missing.
Things like that.
Or one client stood on the, on
the pictures and she said, oh,
I feel I can go right away.
I can start right away.
And the horse was standing
in front of her like this.
Really, really, really close.
And I said, oh, what
does that test to mean?
Do you have an idea?
And she was laughing and said,
oh, maybe I shouldn't get the,
the goal out of my vision.
And then the horse stepped two, two
steps backward and made the, the,
the path free so that she could go.
And that was like, like always, they
always remind us to think a little
deeper, to feel a little deeper.
And that's so amazing.
Rupert Isaacson: I agree with you.
One of the things that's so interesting
about horses and all animals, of
course but horses, I think because of
their relationship with us in terms
of that they carry us and that they
have to get over this predator prey
problem in order to interact with us.
They can read our bodies.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Incredibly well.
Karla Brahms: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: And therefore they
can read our emotions because our
emotions express in our bodies.
So the way we hold our shoulders, will,
the horse is reading that, am I safe?
Am I not safe?
Is this person going to attack me?
Is this person going to be kind to me?
Simple stuff like that.
But when it, you, you talk about
makes us feel or think deeper.
It, what's so interesting about that
is in our culture that is usually taken
to mean or traditionally taken to mean.
An intellectual process.
Mm-hmm.
And of course, within psychotherapy
and, you know, Freud and so forth,
not so much Jung, but certainly Freud,
the idea that it's intellectual.
It might go back to something
visceral and emotional, but we've
got to make an intellectual journey.
And I have never been
persuaded by that.
And I was listening to a neuroscientist
the other day, I will try to remember
the name, who pointed out that the first
piece of any organism that is a mammal, I
guess, that that develops in the mother.
The first thing that
develops is not the brain.
The first thing that develops is the gut
Karla Brahms: and the heart
Rupert Isaacson: and
the, well, the gut first.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: The heart, the
brain comes quite a bit later.
All composed of the same types of cells.
All composed of neurons.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So, but when
people say, well, it's in your
gut, think deep into your gut.
You know, that's not some metaphor.
That is the absolute source of
everything that we biologically are.
The brain is an offshoot of that later.
So when you talk about.
Thinking deeper or exploring deeper,
or feeling deeper going into the body.
It makes so much sense now that we
understand this in neuroscience terms.
Karla Brahms: Mm.
Rupert Isaacson: I think that perhaps
makes it safer for more traditionally
minded people to accept because they
feel that, you know, if a man or a
woman with a professor in front of
her name, you know, says This must be
true, then okay, we can trust this.
But if Rupert or Carla
Karla Brahms: Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: say it,
then it's probably bullshit.
'cause we're just silly old hippies.
But everybody knows this.
Steeped down, everybody knows this.
Everybody,
Karla Brahms: you know, I always, I always
try to imagine the, in the humanistic
way of looking at humans, they have
this, this inner the can, the, the,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Seed
Karla Brahms: the, the inner
seed that is, is good in human.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: In the human there,
there is everything in harmony
and everything is working fine.
Yeah.
And all that distraction, all that
misbehavior or illness that is on
the outside is only to protect that
good seed in the, in the middle.
And we as, as PowerPoints, we
always try to get to that good seed.
With questions and the horses, they
go directly into it because they feel
it, they feel that inner good seed of
the human body of the human person.
And, and that is their quality,
that they take us for what we are.
We can't play in front of a horse.
They feel what we feel.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, I agree.
I I, I'm just thinking, just, you
know what I mean, from feeding
the horses before we sat down to
have this podcast and it's, we're
having, and this is the spring,
well, late winter of 2026 February.
And we are experiencing quite biblical
flooding and rain . And the, it's coming
down in sheets and it has been forever.
So I'm looking after my horses who
live, are living wild on the mountain.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And
Karla Brahms: Wow.
Rupert Isaacson: Watching how they
take care of themselves and each other
using the forest, using the trees.
And today they didn't come to be fed.
Karla Brahms: Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: So I had to go
looking for them for the first, first
time I had to go looking for them.
Normally they'd be at the gate.
Because it's, it is a very, very
big area, but they can come to
a gate where, you know mm-hmm.
Be like, Hey, where's my food?
You know, the normal type of horse thing.
And, but not today.
And I was okay.
The temperature got warmer.
Yeah.
There's been a little bit of an
outgrowth of more spring grass overnight.
I could see it.
They're feeling okay.
Yeah.
I now have to walk the food over
to them across the mountain.
And this feeling of
being in service to them and
saying, yeah, it's my pleasure.
It's my pleasure to walk this food to
you in the same way that it would be
my pleasure to cook you dinner, Carla,
if you came, you know, to stay with me.
And getting the sense of, you guys
have looked after me so much, you
know, and you've looked after everyone.
I love so much.
And yes, absolutely.
I will happily, happily walk
through the, the rain and the
mud to give you this food.
And then there are things which
they make you see when you do this.
So we are relatively new here.
We've been clearing a lot
of hazards off the area.
You know, there's stuff from
30 years ago lying around.
You can't find everything.
So sometimes you're finding
the dangerous things.
That people have left on the land,
you know, a little bit like, and so
because I had to walk this particular
way, I found two very large bundles of
barbed wire that had clearly been lying
there for probably 20 years, you know?
Karla Brahms: Wow.
Rupert Isaacson: And if the horses hadn't
wanted me to go walk that particular
way, I would not have found it.
Karla Brahms: Yeah, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, and,
you know, then I'm looking at them
going, did you want me to walk
this way so that I could, you know?
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: I think what,
Karla Brahms: you know
what I think, go ahead.
I think they're not only carrying our
bodies, but they're carrying our souls.
Rupert Isaacson: Go ahead.
Yeah.
Karla Brahms: Carrying our souls too.
And, and that is even the, the, the
bigger quality of being together
with horses because they connect with
us in a way we can't even describe.
I, I read about a study that the magnetic
heart field from a horse is one and a half
times bigger than that from a human body.
Absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: And
Karla Brahms: if you step into their,
into their presence, you can just heal.
Alone from that big, big
heart from the horse.
Rupert Isaacson: That's right.
I mean, if one brings it down
to science, that, I guess it's
the Heart Math Institute in
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: California who
put a lot of this research out.
And it seems that, but no,
this was actually university.
This is German.
This was Castle, castle University.
Karla Brahms: Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: Way back in 1990.
And it, but it was someone
at the HeartMath Institute
who turned me onto this.
And I say, why?
Why isn't this common
knowledge apparently what?
I think it was in 1990 or 90 91
there was a study which showed
where they measured photons.
Okay.
Like particles.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Being emitted by
hearts and that apparently hearts
emit light and that the emission of
love seems to actually be a physical
thing that you can measure in photons.
And
Karla Brahms: you think everything
our body is working from energy.
The first thing that happens
when our heart begins to, to to
pulse is an electric impulse.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Karla Brahms: And that stays
as, as long as we live.
It only stops when we die.
And, and this magnetic field that is.
And that is, is is common, common
knowledge that when you have an electric
impulse, that there's a magnetic field?
Yes.
And, and I think that horses connect
to that energy, to that magnetic
field that they can read us in a way
and see where things are going good
or things are going not so good.
Mm-hmm.
They, they sense our emotions
and, and, and, and it's like
they, they, they translate them
into movement or into reactions.
I can remember when I was
in my first marriage and was
unhappy, but didn't recognize it.
I couldn't ride my horse.
As soon as I stepped on the horse,
he ran and I couldn't stop him.
He ran and ran and ran.
And as more, the more I started
to, to hold him, the, the faster
he got until I put the reins on his
neck and said, okay, then take me.
And that was the thing.
He was trying to escape with me
because I was unhappy in that marriage.
And when I was divorced and was
together with my second husband,
he was never ever doing that again.
That was only in the time when he
tried to show me, you have to get away,
you have to run as fast as you can.
But I only recognized it
or realized it afterwards.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, it's so
interesting because having spent
time in Mongolia and obviously having
experienced the life changing healings
from horse and reindeer people there,
the shamanic practices around
our relationship with horses go
back, of course, to the beginning
of our relationship with horses.
So these tribes out on the step
with their concept of the wind horse,
which is a, a horse energy, which reflects
our luck, our mojo, our wellbeing.
Your windhorse can be off you, your
wind horse can need restoration.
Equally, you can ride your
wind horse to a better place.
And this concept for the people who
are in no way new agey or woo woo,
they are survival oriented people
who live in one of the most harsh and
extreme climates in the world, they
haven't got time to waste with ideas
just because they're whimsical or sound
nice, it works or it doesn't work.
You know, it's life or death out there
on the step, especially in winter and.
This, of course goes back to at
least probably the Cinta bow tie and
Yamaya Peoples living there 4,000
years ago, 6,000 years ago, you
know, domesticating the horse and
bringing their, probably their hunting
shamanic practices into their herding.
And, and we think of
this as something new.
We think of this as
something revolutionary.
We, because of course we are so
broken from it because one, one
of the, but of course it's, it's,
it's older than Christianity.
It's older than science.
And we horse people have
a, a direct line to this.
And the horse of course is the
same today as they were back then.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And, and so are
we, we think we're different, but we
are not, we are the same organism.
We've got cell phones, but
we're the same organism.
But of course there you sit in
the Odin Vault named for Odin.
But we all know what happened in
Europe and we, particularly in
Germany, in the centuries preceding
the Enlightenment, every single
shamanic human would have been put
to death and Germany was the worst.
And your area of Germany.
Was one of the worst.
Including, and, and mine too where we,
we have our house in Eden House and
Stein, which is one of the towns there.
Mm-hmm.
One of the big witch burning towns,
but Bamberg Nuremberg, all all but
all those towns down through the Rhine
Valley, they were burning people in
their thousands, I think in Bamberg.
They had to actually
create a special furnace.
Karla Brahms: Oh,
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
More economically burn
whole families together.
Karla Brahms: Oh wow.
Without
Rupert Isaacson: having
to use so much wood.
'cause they're German and
they're very practical.
And now they're cutting down too
many trees to kill all these witch,
you know, absolutely bananas.
And this is of course happening
in the 17th century, right.
When science and enlightenment
is beginning to come into focus.
So of course, what did we do?
We modern humans, we just took the
same fanaticism that we were using with
religion and we turned it to science.
And now we're fanatics about materialist
science and saying, well, you know, and,
but increasingly the real scientists, the
physicists are saying, no, no, no, no, no.
It is all interconnected fields.
It is all you're called veon.
Right.
It is all one big ocean
of which we are all waves.
And sometimes the energy of that, those
fields can coalesce into something that.
Is material, but then and dense
matter, you, me, whatever, a horse.
But then it of course like a wave.
Karla Brahms: You know, the thing is our
brain always tries to find explanations
for things that can't be explained.
And
Rupert Isaacson: at
Karla Brahms: least, at least not,
if you can't explain anything, yes.
You have to find someone who is guilty.
So, so that's my explanation why
they burned all these wise women
in the, in the mid east century.
Because they, they were still
connected to the nature, to
Rupert Isaacson: absolutely
Karla Brahms: to the, the spirit of other
creatures in a way that can't be explained
Rupert Isaacson: well and took
power away from the church.
You know, that, that, that
should say you, you cannot have
Karla Brahms: another field that
Rupert Isaacson: your own relationship
with the divine, it must come through the
church and you must pay us money for this.
Yes.
Karla Brahms: And the thing is that
with this work with the NIGI try to, to
connect the feeling with the thinking.
So the, the standing on the pictures
that you draw, you get into the feeling
and standing on the meta position, you
can, you can come into the, into the
thinking, into the cognitively, reflecting
over what you have felt on the pictures.
And that's what amazes me always
in this work, in the process,
because the animals help us reflect
what happened to our feelings.
And they often give through
their reactions a funny
kind of, of, of solution.
I know one time the client sat stood
on the, on the, on the meta position,
and I asked what would be the next
step for the client to get further?
And the horse stood there and just pooped.
And meta said then, oh,
she should shit on it.
And, and you know, that, that thing is
so, so, so it comes from deep inside
and, and it's, it's a solution literally.
That's not hard.
It's, it's only feeling and it's
only, and you feel directly.
That's it.
That's it.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: Because the energy is
in the right place and the, the, the
explaining is exactly what you feel.
Rupert Isaacson: It, it just occurred
to me as you were describing that
process that, you are beha, basically
behaving like a horse chairman of the
step who there's a dilemma.
You know, we're a horse culture.
We're going to use a shamanic
practice to look at metaphor and
tie in with these fields of energy.
One could call that the divine and love.
And then the horses, because we're a horse
culture, are going to help us with this.
And I had this lovely sense
of a full circle of their
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And despite these
attempts by institutions, whether it's
the church, whether it's the military
industrial thing, to which is basically
the same as the church to sell us an
illusion that life is purely material,
purely mechanical that our relationships
with the horses are purely biomechanical.
Okay.
We love them, we like them,
but it's all about technique.
It's all about this.
It's, you know, and of course we, we
know it never is about these things.
Those things are the techniques that you
use here and there for training a horse
or training yourself to do something.
Okay?
Yes.
But this is.
1000000th really of the picture.
It's just something that makes
the mechanism go more easily.
Yes.
But
Karla Brahms: yes.
Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: You could be driving
a car, you need to know how to drive a
car, but the reason why you're driving
the car could be completely spiritual.
You're driving to a spiritual experience.
You're driving, or you're just
driving to go shopping, or
you're driving to go into nature.
Or you are, you could be driving
for any number of reasons.
You need to learn how to drive.
You need to learn how to ride a horse.
Yes.
But probably the reason why you're doing
it comes down to some interconnection
between the material and the divine.
And we've been sold this illusion.
I feel that the work that you're doing
brings us back to what we're sort
of supposed to be doing with horses.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And that doesn't
mean we shouldn't be riding them.
Karla Brahms: Sorry, when
I interrupt you ahead.
The thing is, I don't have
to do it with my horses.
I can do it with any horse.
I could come to you and we could
work, work with one of your horses
and do the same thing and it, and
it would have the same effect.
Rupert Isaacson: Let's do it.
Karla Brahms: Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: let's do it.
Would
Karla Brahms: you come down
here and leave the retreat?
And that, that's the wonderful
thing about this, this method.
I'm trying to get this method into
the world because it helps so much to,
to get a new idea, a new perspective
on, on what your problem is.
You know what I mean?
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
I do.
I'm just thinking, I'm thinking too.
One of the other things though
that really impressed me about
you when I first met you in 2019
and we came down to your place is
while yes, we do need to look at and
relate to horses in this way as well.
You, we also do need really,
really solid horsemanship.
And the, one of the things which I think
listeners and viewers you need to know
about Carla is she really does actually
know how to train a horse really well.
And I when Yeah, and she's, they train me.
She actually gone through, like
my wife has all of those German
exams that you go through to become
what they, you know, a trainer.
And you know, it's Germany,
so they make you jump through
the hoops properly, literally.
And okay, it's a bit mechanical and
it's a bit militaristic, but they
know horses in Germany, there's no
one can say they don't know horses.
It's one of the great horse
cultures of the world.
When I was down at Carla I'm
gonna paint this picture.
We went into the forest
and you had my children.
You didn't know me.
You didn't know them.
You had my children on your ponies
just riding with us completely.
Free.
The children didn't really need to know
how to ride because you had trained
your horses so well, that despite the
fact that you live in an area with
almost no fences and the horses could
just bugger off wherever they want
to, anytime and certainly just turn
around and go home if they wanted to.
You gave my kids who at that point
couldn't ride this feeling that they could
ride that, that they were independently
on horseback going out into, I know about
three or four people in my life who can
do that, who can train a horse to that
degree, that it makes it seem like the
complete novice rider is riding that
horse independently because that horse
is just going to go where you Carla go.
Karla Brahms: You know, one
Rupert Isaacson: funny thing, this
is extraordinary horsemanship.
I'd like you to tell us a little bit about
the actual training that you put into your
horses to achieve this, because this is
Karla Brahms: quite, you know, one, one
funny thing in the, in the film that
we were making together, there was one
scene when I, when I watched it in the,
in the final version when it was on tv.
I realized I didn't, I didn't
remember that this scene was taken.
That was when we stood here on the,
on the plots and you were talking
about the little Emil fo that was
behaving normally, in my opinion.
And you said that's not normal.
That's not normal.
Usually horse fos are known for being
quite dangerous and kicking and playing.
Yeah.
'cause
Rupert Isaacson: we had
all those kids around
Karla Brahms: the spot.
Yeah.
And, and with Amy around him.
And
Rupert Isaacson: who
Karla Brahms: were they?
When I, when I watched that
scene, I thought, oh, well
Rupert, you don't know my fos.
They always do it like this
because they're, they grow
into the work from day one.
And, and I always have the feeling
that, that what you expect the horse
to do, the horse will do because
they're so keen on pleasing us.
And when you expect, oh, now it's
getting dangerous, the horses
will, will run into the field.
They probably will do it.
But if you feel, feel, oh, we are walking
here and everything's fine and I trust
you, you, you trust you, you are carrying
the, the kids for me, and I trust you.
And, and then nothing happens.
You know what I mean?
Really when I feel unsafe.
But
Rupert Isaacson: I'm gonna
challenge you on this.
Karla Brahms: When I feel
unsafe, I get another.
Leash on the horse and say
I don't feel safe here.
I take, well,
Rupert Isaacson: I think that,
I think that's the thing.
Karla Brahms: I
Rupert Isaacson: get you
Karla Brahms: screw this,
Rupert Isaacson: you're not
operating under an illusion.
Like, you know, the difference
between safe and not safe.
So, and you know how to make a horse safe.
So when you say because it's
quite dangerous, I think for
some people to think, oh, I could
just expect this from my horse.
Karla Brahms: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know what you mean.
Rupert Isaacson: We know it's
a much more layered thing.
Karla Brahms: I could, I can only work
like this because I know my horses, right.
They live with me 24 7 and I'm very,
very looking after being, working safe.
Like in this 25 years I
was working with kids.
I only got one kid in the hospital
because she banged her hand
on a tree, on the tree branch.
And the other thing was that it was
slippery and the horses the horse
fell on the side and, and bruised
the, the, the ankle of the kid.
So there were the two
accidents that really happened.
And I'm outside with the kids every day.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
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If you know anything about our
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in the body of the person that
we're working with, child or adult.
So, this means we need to train
a horse in collection, but this
also has a really beneficial
effect on the horse's well being.
And it also ends your time conflict,
where you're wondering, oh my gosh, how
am I going to condition my horses and
maintain them and give them what they
need, as well as Serving my clients.
Takine equine integration aimed
at a more adult client base
absolutely gives you this.
So you talk about your horses come
into that behavior, but of course they
come into this functionality because
they are around horses that have
also been trained into functionality.
That's it.
Yeah.
So that the mother horse displays
this functionality to the.
The junior horse.
And of course we know that this is
how it works in a good horse tribe.
However, somebody has to train
that initial functionality
Karla Brahms: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Into the horse.
Yes, they do.
Karla Brahms: Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Could you just talk
to us a little bit from a, just a
complete horsemanship point of view
about when you put the first of
those horses together, I dunno if
that was Flocky or one before her.
But if you go on, if you go on Carla's
website, you'll see a lovely spotted
horse doing lots of cool stuff.
That's flocky.
Karla Brahms: That could be lunch dogs.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
P longstocking.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Talk to us about
how you created that original Yeah.
Functional couple of horses that then
the rest of them took their cue from.
I think it's really useful for
people in this field to Yeah.
To know this
Karla Brahms: well, I actually,
I just train them to learn
a lot different things.
Not only carrying a rider, but
standing still is the first
thing they learn, standing still.
And and they, they know that
when they communicate with
us that they are respected.
I always say to the children, don't pet a
horse when it doesn't want to be petted.
And, and the, the head is private sphere.
And I always tell the kids what you are
happy or the things that feel safe for
you and that, that you feel good for you.
You can be sure that the horses do that.
The same thing.
So if you don't want to be touched
in your face, don't touch the horse
on the, in the face and always try to
ask the horse what you want from it.
And the horse will always respond to it.
And if it doesn't respond in
the right way, maybe you ask
the, the, the wrong question.
And, and what I try to, to to teach is
that they get into communication that
they see the horse not as a a sportive
thing that you can ride on that, that
you can direct through the forest.
But it's a partner who is carrying you and
you are the, the, the meat eater who's be
sitting in the back of the horse's neck.
And so I try to teach them teamwork.
I try to teach them interaction
on a, on a certain level where
the horse is on the same spot.
We call it in German.
And when I train my horses, I always look
that they feel safe, that they can trust
me, and that that things that they see
that the things that I do won't harm them.
So I always ask them to give me the hoof.
I always ask them, can
I put on the halter?
And, and they, they are allowed to say no.
And then I ask again,
but in a friendly way.
And that, that is the thing
that the horses learn.
Hey, when Carla is coming, it's fun.
We do things that are nice.
And in all those years, I didn't
have the problem that the horses
didn't want to come with us.
When they see the ki see me with
the kids going to the meadows in
the summer, they're outside all day.
They come because they say, Hey, it's fun.
We go outside, we go on a nice ride,
we go, we get, we get brushed in a
way that's, that's feeling comfortable
for us and we are treated in a
way that feels comfortable for us.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I feel that
we, we have, I mean I've, I've
observed this with your horses
and it's, it's, it's remarkable.
And questions come up in my mind.
So one is, if you didn't have the
base level of horsemanship that you
have, I wonder if it would go as well.
But the second thing is, part of
that horsemanship isn't just the
classical training that I know
that you know how to do, but it's
also you meet your horses' needs.
Right.
So your horses, do you think, I
guess, let me pose this as a question.
Do you think that if your horses
were living, for example, in
stables, you could have the same
level of cooperation from them
Karla Brahms: No.
Rupert Isaacson: That you have
out there in the forest with them?
Karla Brahms: No.
It's my responsibility to look
after them, that they can live in
a kind of way that suits them, that
is for, for their, their needs.
I always have their needs
more in I than my own.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Karla Brahms: So the hoofs from
my horses are always nicer than
my fingernails, for example.
And that's
Rupert Isaacson: a better
Karla Brahms: every
Rupert Isaacson: horse.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And the thing is, I,
I learned from my horses and my work
changed because of the needs of my horses.
Mm
mm
Like last summer, no, two summers ago.
In 2024 when my husband was so ill, I
had to give away three of my horses.
And I knew with that change I
couldn't do the, the groups anymore.
So now my work is changing
again with the horses.
I have my, my flocker, my, my horse that
is absolutely reliable on everything.
She's ev doing everything for the
persons that are around with her.
She's now 25 years old and I
can't put grownups on their
back, on her back anymore.
And the other two horses I have, they
are darlings, but I couldn't work with
kids with them and they're not mature.
So my work is changing again.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I hear you.
I hear you.
This is, this is so sane.
And I, I think that, so for example,
in Horse Boy, when we are back riding,
meaning when we ride with a child,
the horse must be over 10 years old.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
' Rupert Isaacson: cause we know
that they're just not mature
enough in the brain and the
emotional, you know, to be safe.
But we also need to know that they have
enough muscle that their back is strong.
That they, you know, that
they have the body with enough
wellbeing to give wellbeing.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And if they don't
have this, we, we can't do it.
And so as you say, as horses
change, get older, we have to find
a different role for that horse.
Or if a horse is too
young for that role, yeah.
We need a different role for that horse.
Yeah.
And so we have to be flexible like this.
And, you know, you keep your
horses in this, in this very
ideal, naturalistic way.
I'm lucky I can do the same thing.
But when we first moved to Germany
from Texas, where we had had
our own ranch, we didn't have
that option because we were new.
So we needed to keep the horses at
a boarding stable, which is where
we met you, you met first, where
the horses were living in stables.
And this was the first time I
had ever kept my horses this way.
Mm-hmm.
And I remember thinking, ah, this is going
to be an interesting challenge because
this will allow me to help people who have
to keep their horses in this situation.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Because I won't, I can't, you can't
say to somebody who's living on
the edges of a city, for example.
Yeah.
You know, you must keep your
horses like Carla because
Karla Brahms: that's not possible.
It's not
Rupert Isaacson: possible.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: But you also can't
say you should not keep horses.
Karla Brahms: That's the thing.
Rupert Isaacson: So how
do we make the whole.
It as ideal as possible
given the limitations.
So of course I had to answer this and
I had to observe my horses and say,
will they be as safe and will they
be as reliable as they were in Texas?
Because now they are not having
as much access to nature.
And I very quickly came to the
conclusion that no, I could
not expect the same from them.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: So then I thought,
well, okay then how do I do this?
Particularly in winter, where in
Germany, you know, the farmers don't
want the horses on the fields because
they don't want the fields muddy.
This was interesting for me coming
from England where we just accept mud.
You know, mud is just
the culture, you know?
Oh, a nice bit of mud for you, you know?
Oh, thank you very much.
I have a last bit of mud.
Would you rock some mud?
Would you rock some mud with your mud?
You know, so, you know, it's like what?
You don't want muddy fields?
Okay, fine.
Karla Brahms: You we have,
we have a certain saying it's
the so-called often much,
but the often hai,
Rupert Isaacson: the keeping
your horse in the open mud.
Yeah,
Karla Brahms: right.
Rupert Isaacson: Which of course
horses seemed fine with, but
so, you know, because that's
was the culture of the barn.
So that's where we really came up
with the concept of crazy time.
And luckily we had a barn
owner who would allow us.
To use the big indoor arena
to free jump the horses.
'cause our horses are very
energetic and the horses loved this.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And we could do it
in herds, we could do it in teams.
Summertime was no problem.
Summertime, the horses could go out.
But winter it was a real, and we found
that when we answered the horses' needs
with this crazy time, then they went
absolutely back to being as reliable
Karla Brahms: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: As they had been.
That's the
Karla Brahms: thing.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Because they
had endorphins in their system.
Karla Brahms: I also have a small
indoor arena, which I use for free
work, for free fire, abide we call it.
And the horses, they, they show
me always what they want to do.
So I have like
yeah.
Poles.
Poles,
yeah.
And I have a est and I have a a whipper, A
pedestal.
Yeah.
A Cecil.
Yeah.
And they always show me
what they want to do.
Absolutely.
And it's so amazing to see how
they, how they try to, to find
out what can we do with these
things or how they play with me.
Exactly.
They actually want to play with
you can, I can jump on it with my
front whos and things like that.
That's so amazing.
So if you give them crazy time,
like you say and, and they feel that
their, their needs are respected.
They, they are reliable.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
It's one of the things which,
you know, because you also know
that we teach a lot of dressage.
Yeah.
And so of course when I'm wearing
my dressage hat, one of the
things I'm often talking about
is allowing your horse to say no.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: How is this
compatible with dressage?
And people have asked me this.
I said, well, because it's pointless
if your horse does not want to do it.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: If your horse
doesn't want to do anything jumping,
going in the forest dressage.
Yeah.
Why?
Okay.
Well maybe we need to go
get the doctor in town.
A hundred years ago, the horse has
to say, yes, your wife is sick.
You must get on your horse.
You must ride to town.
You must make sure that the
horse is absolutely with
you, or your wife will die.
Yes, sure.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And then the
doctor must come with his horse.
His horse has to say, yes, absolutely.
So how do you get a horse that says yes
like that by allowing them to say no?
Sometimes that, just like you, if I, if
I, so this is of course easier when one
has a herd, but if I say, oh, Carla's
coming and we want to do this thing
with Carla, so I think it's this horse.
So I go out to the field to get
this horse, and I arrive with
the Holter or the bridle, and the
horse says pretty clearly to me.
No,
Karla Brahms: no.
Usually
Rupert Isaacson: another horse
will walk straight up to me
and go, actually it's me today.
Karla Brahms: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: And I'll go, oh, okay.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: This
Karla Brahms: can see that is one
thing that I also use with my work.
The, the clients, we, the first
thing we do is go into the
stable or into the meadow and see
which horse connects with you.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Karla Brahms: Which horse do
you feel is a good company?
And often that horse is coming.
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
And it can change from day to day.
Karla Brahms: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Just like with people.
Yeah.
But then if yes, if I really need
that horse to ride over the mountain
in the thunderstorm, he's more likely
Karla Brahms: the horse then
the horse will, will feel that.
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And then you, you
Karla Brahms: can, you know, you
know, one thing the, the little Emil
pony, I raised him because I wanted to
have a second horse for the carriage.
I want, my, my desperate wish was
to go with two ponies with spots on
their bottom in front of the carriage.
And, and he exactly fulfilled that wish.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: It was so easy
to train him to go in front of
the carriage with his mother.
Mother.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And that was for two years.
The, the hobby that my, my husband
and I were, were happy with and, and.
I, I, I know one of my, my mentors, one of
my teachers way, way back when I started
with the therapeutic riding, he said,
if you buy a horse for a special reason,
it will fulfill exactly that reason.
But no other.
And the thing is that, that really, that
hit me, and with this experience now from
almost 30 years, I can say he was right.
Rupert Isaacson: It's very interesting.
I, I remember you telling me another
story about the fulfillment of
dreams because you, like me, did
not come from a horsey background.
I think you should tell us,
you, you were a child, a girl
who wanted horses very badly.
Your father, who was a riverboat
captain, did not care from horses.
Tell us what he said to you.
You can have a horse when,
Karla Brahms: yeah.
Do you remember?
We were always sitting in the boat and the
river always goes one direction, right?
It always flows river down.
And he said, you can have a horse
when the waves are going river up.
And sometimes when the wind was coming
from down the, the, the valley, the
waves looked like they were going.
And I said, oh, daddy,
daddy, look now I get a pony.
And he said, ah, ha ha ha.
That was only just a joke.
And I was so upset and I realized, and I
said, I will never, never, ever promise
my children anything that I can't fulfill.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
Karla Brahms: And I was 30 I had to
get 30 to get my own first horse.
Not because of my father,
but because of me.
But you know, the funny thing
is, before my dad died, he always
brought me a big sack of carrots.
And that was his way of showing
it's okay, what you're doing.
I respect what you're doing.
Rupert Isaacson: It's very interesting.
I, I've never quite understood this
resistance that parents have to
fulfilling the dreams of their children.
Particularly,
Karla Brahms: but you know, when you,
when you were raised in a, in a family
that has their destination and the
destination of my family was the boats
and the river, and I was an alien.
I was, I was infected with a horse
virus and nobody could understand
it, but I was so sure that I
want to have horses one time.
And the same thing is with that
with that certificate of being
a horse therapeutic teacher.
When I first.
Realized how many, how much work that
is to get all the qualifications,
to get through that process
of getting that certificate.
It took me eight years, but I was
so sure that I want to do that, that
nothing could get me off the path.
Yeah.
And I mean, today that certificate
is hanging on the horse rider Lou,
because none of my clients ever
asked me what my qualification is.
You need your qualifications for
the bank when you want some money.
You need the qualification for the
insurance when something happens.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And you need the
qualification for when you want to
go for, to a thought building, to a
Rupert Isaacson: a
development, professional
Karla Brahms: development,
development practice.
And that's right.
But what you, you offer for your
clients is always a question
of, of relation Relationship.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: Of relationship.
And if that is good, then it doesn't
matter what qualification you have.
Absolutely.
Because you are a teacher or you are
a person that can create memories with
the kids and the horses, or you're not,
Rupert Isaacson: well,
what, what they say.
I think it's so true.
Is there in fact only two
emotions in the world?
There's love and there's fear
and all of the other, and
Karla Brahms: there's grief.
Rupert Isaacson: Sorry,
Karla Brahms: don't forget the grief.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, let's go into
that because, because grief is, is,
is a strange hybrid of the those two.
It's almost as if they have a baby.
And, but if one is coming from, so one
could be coming from fear with that
qualification, fear of doing it wrong,
fear of an accident, fear of I don't know
all the things one could be afraid of or
one could come at it from a point of love.
Which one is gonna work
better for the client.
You know, I think we can answer that
question, but you've brought up grief.
Okay.
So I just want to do
a small trigger alert.
For those listeners, we are going to go
into a slightly different realm here.
So if you are someone who is in
a particularly raw stage around
grief right now, you might, or you
might not want to listen onto the
next part of this conversation.
If it's, if you feel it's too raw to
discuss grief at this point, perhaps.
Switch off and come back to it later.
If you feel that this is
for you, please go on.
Okay, so I'm gonna just hit it straight.
Carla's husband y who was also
a friend of mine, and this is
actually a bit hard for me.
Okay, so here's the story.
I grew up not just with horses, but also
in a part of North London, which in the
late eighties was a hotbed of music.
And it was, there were two main forms of
music that came out of my neighborhood.
One was reggae and Scar.
It was a, a re finding of scar with
sort of white boy bands, taking
the old Jamaican music bands like
Madness, bands like The Specials.
Karla Brahms: Bad Manners.
Rupert Isaacson: Bad Manners.
They came out of my area of London
and then also what was called the
New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
So bands like Iron Maiden, those bands,
they were in my neighborhood as well.
So there, and it was
really a similar energy.
One went more rock, one meant went more
scar, but it was a sort of real outpouring
of it came out of punk and it was sort
of the next stage on from punk and.
There was a band called Bad Manners.
And if you don't know bad manners
you need to go on YouTube right now
and type in Nini, Nana, Nana Nunu,
Karla Brahms: Nunu
Rupert Isaacson: Nini, Nana, Nana nnu.
And there was this huge male lead singer.
There were skinheads
called Buster Blood Vessel
Karla Brahms: with an enormous tongue,
Rupert Isaacson: with an enormous
tongue who he always looked like he
was about to have a heart attack on
stage and is still alive to this day.
Karla Brahms: He's still alive.
He is,
Rupert Isaacson: Douglas, I think
his name is living in Bulgaria.
Douglas, your husband told me I think he's
Karla Brahms: called Douglas,
Rupert Isaacson: who perhaps never learned
to read or write, I think, and then had
managed to somehow carve himself out.
Anyway,
y my friend Y and Carla's
life and soul partner, second
husband y when I first met you and
I was chatting to Y and he said,
oh, oh, she still live in that part
of London and that you come from.
And I said, why are you talking
with that accent in English?
It's like, well, I lived
there for a long time.
And I was like, oh, I see you really
actually do talk English with that accent.
You really did like
learn your English there.
And it turns out he had played for
bad manners in their horn section.
He was their trombonist.
And any of you who know
about Scar know that.
It's very much centered
around the horn section.
And you, you've got to
be a really good player.
And he'd gone, this boy from Heidelberg,
Heidelberg University, taken his chances
in London as German boy and had made it.
But at the end of it, he'd
come back to the Odin Vault
and had connected with Carla.
And one of the most amazing things, and
this still goes on to this day, is Carla
and Y run a scar, reggae one day festival
at re in its the most amazing and magical
evening that you can possibly spend.
It was Y's band would play and
you dance all night and you'd
fall asleep on cushions in the
forest or in hammocks, wake up and
have breakfast and it's amazing.
Anyway,
not so long ago young contracted
cancer and he fought it off.
Big, big bloke.
Young, big young.
One of those guys.
Big, solid guy that you always
think of as big like a building.
Building's gonna be there anyway.
And then the cancer came back
and and he died.
And I remember feeling this sense of.
Outrage about it.
I remember coming down to visit
you bef shortly before he died,
and he was at peace with it,
but he still looked so good.
He was still big yarn.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And then I came down
after he died and I saw him and you'd
laid him out and you'd laid him out
so beautifully in his leather pants
and his leopard skin coat and his hat.
Karla Brahms: That was his wish.
Rupert Isaacson: And a,
and a joint in his hand.
And, you know, perfect.
And he looked so good, he looked
so handsome and he looked so young.
And I was like, what the fuck
are you doing lying there young.
Get the fuck up, fuck off with this
lying there thing.
You look so good.
This is bullshit.
You're, you're, you're
bullshitting us here.
And of course, in the inter
intervening months, year, more than
a year since this has happened,
you've of course begun, begun to
turn your work towards grief, Carla.
Yes.
Please talk to us about this.
I know a lot of, a lot of listeners,
a lot of viewers right now will
be facing very similar situations.
Karla Brahms: Well, actually
tomorrow it's exactly 14 months ago.
And
the thing is that a lot of things changed,
but I was absolutely sure that I want
to stay here and I, I have the feeling
he's still around helping where he can.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I, I get that
Karla Brahms: very strongly,
not physically, but somehow.
And, you know, riding that
grief wave is one of the biggest
what's the English word for
Rupert Isaacson: challenges?
Karla Brahms: Challenges, yeah.
Is one of the big
challenges that I ever did.
But
I also feel that with persons
like you and a few others,
if you're opening yourself and not
turning the grief only into your system,
if you open up, then it gets better.
It'll never go away, but
you can handle it better.
And, the thing is that I, I realized
that what helped me most are my animals.
The place here, and actually a picture
I, I drew in my training when I, when
I got the NIG practitioner, we, one
had one time had a a training that
was called the, the, the life path.
And there you draw a picture
of yourself as an old woman
or as an elder, elder person.
And the picture I drew that time was this.
Can you see it?
Yes, I do.
Beautiful.
That's me as an old woman.
Okay.
So, and that I drew that picture
before Yum took his first chemotherapy.
We didn't even know if he could
handle it, if it would work,
if we didn't know anything.
We, we were just in the beginning of
all that cancer stuff that awaits you.
And I drew that picture.
And when I stood on my meet up position
and my therapist asked me oh, I think
my meta position was the snail Gary.
She said, oh, Gary how did Carla
get that elder woman on the picture?
And Gary said, yes, that funny widow.
And everybody was like,
and I was like, oh.
And then I realized, well, that is
a possibility with that diagnosis
and with that cancer, it's really
possible that I will survive young.
And that picture of that funny,
happy widow is carrying me through
all these things because I now,
that's me, that's inside me.
That's my picture of me as an old person.
Rupert Isaacson: What's
interesting is that you're in
a dress, in a pair of heels.
I don't think I've ever seen
you in a dress, a pair of heels.
You have to get that dress in those shoes.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
And, and so what I, what I really
try to do is now give persons in
grief the possibility to also find
out what is their way in the future.
Because when you lose someone,
you not only losing the person,
but you lose your self identity.
I'm a widow now.
I'm not the husband the,
the wife of Jan anymore.
I'm not the, the we.
Yeah.
I'm now an I and I have to find out
what is my identity in the future.
And that is one of the most hardest
points in grieving that you have
to find out who are you and what
are your dreams in the future.
Mm-hmm.
Is there a future?
The thing is, when you live in
a partnership, there's the, the
present and there's a lot of future.
And as soon as your partner dies,
there's the present, which is not very
important, but there's a lot of farenheit.
Rupert Isaacson: A lot of past,
Karla Brahms: a lot of past.
And right now I'm at the point
where past and future are equal.
Again, I'm in the present.
The past is important, but the
future is saying, hi, I'm here.
What are we gonna do?
And what helped me to get into that
state, that the, the future is present
is, is important again, is that I have.
Had all these experiences with my horses,
with my cat and dog, with my friends with
you, and with the, with the inner pictures
I was drawing when young was sick.
So I want to help other people in grief
to benefit from that experience I made
and offer that to them so they can come
to my house for a kind of grief retreat.
Yeah.
For a weekend.
And we can do whatever they want or
we can do nothing and they can just
go into the forest, which helps alone.
They can just snuggle up on the couch, on
the sofa with a dog, which helps a lot.
They can lie in bed with a
cat on top, which helps a lot.
And my animals are always finding
the right way to help people.
Not only my horses, but
also my cat and my dog.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And I realized that
being together with people who
are also in grief helps because
they speak the same language.
And, and having like meals
together, cooking meals together
is also a part of self caring.
And that is what people
in grief have to learn.
To, to be good to themselves to
help their inner identity to heal.
And that's what I wanna do.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, we
talked about this before we
switched the record button on.
Death and grief in our culture is taboo.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: It's not allowed.
So we don't see the dead.
You know, I'd really appreciated that
you had young lay out and grim joke,
but it was handy that it was January
because he lay there for, for some days,
so that many of us who wanted to say
goodbye could drive down and say goodbye.
If it had been high summer, we wouldn't
have been able to do it so long.
All right.
And
Karla Brahms: there are cool packs
that you can put under the packet.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
And one has to think about these things.
But you provided a ritual
and you provided a ceremony
that allowed us to remember that
death and life are the same thing.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And that the fields of
consciousness are not dependent upon.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: The material
density of the fields.
Producing matter, but at the same
time, because the density of the
fields producing matter is part of
the beauty of reality and creation.
We, of course, form emotional attachments
to living beings who are these
dense moments of the wave before
it becomes part of the ocean again.
And we need to ride those waves.
And, and I really appre, you're
one of the only people I know
outside of perhaps Ireland, where
they still lay out the dead.
Who
did that?
The, I think most people who
go through grief and everyone's
going to go through grief.
You can't be alive without
going through grief.
Everyone who goes through
grief in our culture has to go
through it alone, pretty much.
Karla Brahms: And that is the thing
we, we have a lack of information
in our culture about handling dead
people and handling the death.
I knew that you are allowed to keep
the body for at least three days,
and I knew that it is important
to do what feels right for you.
For example there was a time, I
think five years ago I saw a movie.
And in this movie there was a scene
where a young lady died and her friend
washed her body and put on the clothes.
And immediately I thought, oh, I want to
do the, to the persons I love, because
that's the last step of respect, and
I don't want any other to do that.
And so when Jan's father died in 2020,
in the part, in the time of Corona,
well, he was 88 and it was, it was okay.
And his dad was also at home and,
and all together with his family.
And I said, am I allowed
to wash him and clothe him?
And y said, I will help you.
And his, his son, his younger
son that he had from the first
marriage said, I help you too.
So we three, we washed Y's
dad, and we closed him.
We, we shaved him.
He, we cut his fingernails and
everything and we laid him out
in, in his home, in his home bed.
And when Yu died, it was exactly
clear that I will do that for him too.
And my friend, or our friend
and his son helped us.
So we three were washing
and, and clothing yu.
And I'm so glad because shortly before
he died, he said, I want to be burned.
I want to wear that Leo parts echo that
jacket, the leather pants, the creepers
and the black shirt and everything.
Afterwards you do as, as
it pleases you, I'm dead.
I don't care if I lie in the forest or
if I lie on the, on the graveyard.
Please do that for yourself.
You have to have a place where
to go and to remember me.
And I was so glad about that because
we could do whatever felt good for us.
And I never had the feeling that
everything I did with a, the, the,
the ceremony or with a, where he,
where he, his, his ashes is buried.
It, it, it never had, I never had
the feeling I'm doing it wrong
because he said, do it as you please.
And, and I think that that is something
that helped me too to get through all
that hard times because I knew he was.
He was right with everything I did.
Rupert Isaacson: We don't really
have, again, we talked about
this before we hit record.
We don't have a language
around grief, do we?
Karla Brahms: That is it.
Rupert Isaacson: So, so one of the
difficulties I think is that people feel,
because it's a taboo, that although they
want to give comfort or offer comfort,
they feel one of two things usually.
One is avoidance.
I don't want to be near death
because death is a contagion.
What if I catch it?
I think that isn't, but the
other one is, which is comes
from a, a slightly better places.
I don't want to intrude,
I dunno what to say.
I don't want to say the wrong thing.
Hmm.
So what people then do is they say
nothing or they, as you said, they
come and say to you, platitudes
about how you have to let it go or
something like that, which meaningless.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
And sometimes it weird
Rupert Isaacson: and
frankly hurtful, you know?
Yeah.
Because no, the whole point is
one is not supposed to let it go.
One is supposed to experience it.
It's a little bit like somebody saying
you should not experience birth.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: You know,
Karla Brahms: and, and you can't
tell anybody how it feels to
give birth, but because you have
to, to have to go through it.
Rupert Isaacson: And it's gonna
both suck and be ecstatic.
And I think there is an ecstatic
side to death because what in fact
there really is, if you, if you think
about what the word ecstasy means,
it means to be outside of oneself.
X static.
The static is the state X is
outside in Latin, we are out.
So when we are in ecstasy,
we are outside of ourselves.
And that can be a positive
or a negative feeling.
We tend to assume it's a positive
thing feeling, but it can be both.
It can be an ecstasy of pain, an
ecstasy of torment, an ecstasy of joy.
We'd rather have the ecstasy of joy.
But with something like birth
or death, it's going to be both.
Karla Brahms: And you know the
energy, sorry when I interrupt.
Yeah.
But the energy that is released
when a child is born is the
same when somebody dies.
You know, the day before young died, I
was standing under the shower and I had
the feeling, oh, I have to go quickly.
I have to, I, I don't
want to miss anything.
And I ran down to him and
I said, can you imagine?
When I was under the shower,
it exactly felt the day like
when the children were born.
And I first took my
first shower after birth.
It was the same, exactly the same feeling.
And he was laughing.
And then, then I said, did you
ever imagine that you were more
important than the horses one time?
And we both sat there laughing as
hard as we as we could, because
that was always our running joke.
Young always said, okay with Carla,
first come the horses, then the kids.
And some way back then I come and we
always had much fun about that saying.
And it was exactly like I said,
young was in the first place.
And, and realizing that this, this
feeling was the same, gave me that, that
feeling that everything is connected.
Mm-hmm.
Like when somebody is born, you
don't have a, an a, an impact on it.
And when somebody dies neither.
So maybe that is what all life is about.
That, that the energy that is between life
and death is, is so sacred that you, that
you can only be like in a, in a state of,
of wonder to keep every day a little bit
in a, in a, in a sacred way, feel alive.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
This is why we must have ceremony
and ritual, because ceremony and
ritual are the acknowledgement
of the sacred, aren't they?
Yeah.
It, it, it says, I recognize
that this is sacred.
And I, I remember being, when I came down
to be with, to visit when I, and Rowan
was with me and young was still alive.
The moment I walked into the
room, I could feel the sacred.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And then when I came
back and he was gone, but he was laid
out the same feeling, the same thing.
But our culture denies us this.
And it's so interesting.
Back to earlier in this
conversation, we were talking about
putting to death all the wise
women, you know, 400 years ago.
So now when we discover something
like your, you know, neuro imaginative
gestalt and it's effectively shamanic
process with science behind it, but
shamanism also has science behind it.
There are things going on
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: That we
now consider in our culture.
This is something new when actually the
original horse people were always doing
this because this is, you know, part
of what it means to be a human being.
Now.
Now, when I entered that space,
that sacred space with Jan, both on
the way to death and after death.
I realized this felt totally new to me.
So, so yeah, I felt that I, this was
something unfamiliar to me and new
to me in my fifties, which shouldn't
be, should, should be, should have
been very much a part of life.
And just as we're cut off from nature
in so many ways, cutting our ourselves
off from life, from death, from birth,
you know, most people meant not everyone
attends the birth of their children.
I was lucky I did get to do that.
So you now are turning your work
to this, to this very problem.
Karla Brahms: I try to,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Te tell us about, I mean, you, you,
you've, you've mentioned it in brief and I
know you're going to be offering retreats.
I just like to, ah.
I'd like to know your thoughts on it.
Yeah.
What do you, what do you see?
How do you see it developing
what you're doing?
And are you, are you reaching
out to others who are beginning
to offer the same type of work?
Are there others out there in the
equestrian, the equine assisted
world, also looking at grief?
Are you in contact with them?
Where's this going?
I think this is a field
we should all be aware of.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
That is a thing that I start now to
get connected with other people who
are working with horses and offer grief
therapy or grief accompanying with horses.
And it's like I met a community
in the internet, it's called Toast
Heden where people in grief can
talk to other people in grief.
Rupert Isaacson: Helden is a, is
a, is a, is a hero, by the way.
In Yeah.
Karla Brahms: What
Rupert Isaacson: in, in English, just
a to helden would be grief heroes.
Yes.
Would that, yeah, yeah,
Karla Brahms: yeah, yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Okay.
So I just wanted to
translate that for people.
Yeah.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So you met this, you found this community.
How did you find this community?
Karla Brahms: I don't remember.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Yeah.
I think
Karla Brahms: it found me and, and
I realized that writing and talking
about my emotions really helped.
And so about over that community, I have a
lot of contact with people who are working
with grief and, and that is an amazing
new field that's opening up with a lot of
possibilities to learn and to, to bring
my experiences into, into that community.
And I don't know where the journey
is going to, I mean, look at us about
that one click in the internet to
connect my friend Sarah with you.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Karla Brahms: We got in touch and Matt is
each other, and now we're sitting here.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And I mean, with the,
with the energy, it was the same thing.
I was looking for a method and I found
this institution and, and now I'm, I'm
doing that teaching training people
for the NIG practitioner with horses.
And, and I never dreamed five years
ago, or six years ago when I started
with it, that it would come this far.
I have the feeling that
when you follow your heart.
When you follow your dreams, when you
have dreams and you follow your dreams
you don't have to do a lot of things.
Sometimes the things they just develop.
Yeah.
And, and, but you have to be open to new
chances and yeah, step over your shadow,
get out of your comfort zone, some say.
But just trust yourself and try.
All you can do is fail and
even failing is an experience.
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Take it from there.
All right.
I'm, I'm just thinking of all the,
all the various types of therapeutic
riding or therapeutic equine things
that are out there in the world.
As you know, I, I work in many
countries and I don't see this offered.
Okay.
I am not offering it.
Okay.
We should be offering it.
How do we offer it?
Well, if I was going to offer
it, I would need to work with
somebody who knew what to do.
That would be you.
So if I said, okay, we need to add this to
our practice, then I will reach out to my
friend Carla Brahms and say, Carla, would
you please come and lead some retreats?
Perhaps in Spain, perhaps when we
go to the US perhaps, would you come
and help some people there, get going
with this or something like that?
Or even if you just
talk to them over Zoom.
But I think it's really interesting
to me now that we're having this
conversation, one would think if our
job with equine assisted stuff is to
alleviate suffering, I think we can
all agree that that is sort of our job.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And we are very
used to looking at that in certain
contexts like autism or trauma.
Of course grief is trauma.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: It's such an obvious
glaring hole and absence in our field.
The taboo that we talked about has
actually permeated our own work.
Hmm.
We are not offering this as equine
assisted practitioners of any kind.
You are.
Karla Brahms: But you know,
I think, I think that every
person has experience of grief.
Yes.
'cause grief is not only
connected to losing a person.
You can also grieve if you move
from a town to another, you
lose your, your, your high.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Your homeland,
Karla Brahms: you're,
you're losing your job.
You're losing your.
Your cat, your dog,
Rupert Isaacson: your identity,
Karla Brahms: using friendship.
All that is, is, is, yes.
Is having grief in, in, in its
tail and working with the nurses.
Rupert Isaacson: Right?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And, and I mean, you,
as a parent of an artistic child, you
lose your, your vision of the future.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
Karla Brahms: When you, remember,
when you got the diagnosis from, from
bro, it, it hits you like a baseball.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Well, particularly because
they tell you there is no,
Karla Brahms: and, and
that's the thing you,
Rupert Isaacson: which
Karla Brahms: is so at the moment
where you are responsible visions,
you're inner, inner landscape is
shattered, then you feel grief.
And it doesn't only rely on on,
on losing a person you love.
Rupert Isaacson: That is very true.
Karla Brahms: And the, the good
thing about working with horses
is that they carry that too.
If you mention it or not, they just
carry it and they, they heal it.
They
must
Karla Brahms: all go through it.
Being together with the horses and, and
offering the clients to feel their needs
and to, to speak about their needs.
That's, that's only,
that's most you can do.
That's, that's the best you can do.
And if you, if you offer a surrounding.
Where they can find out what they need.
You don't have to do much more.
You know what I mean?
Rupert Isaacson: I do, I do.
I'm just thinking about the
horses themselves as well.
Most horses living in therapeutic stables
must be, must experience grief because
the vast majority of them are donation
horses that have been given away.
And many of them, most horses, as we know,
go through several big life and herd Yeah.
Changes in my,
Karla Brahms: and they can't,
they can't decide with which
horse they are neighbors.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
Absolutely.
They're weaned and then
they're sold and then, yeah.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: There
must be so much grief.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: I'm thinking about
my own herd, you know, so I've got
two horses in my herd who I bred,
so they've always been with us.
Karla Brahms: Mm.
Rupert Isaacson: And it really is
interesting, the differences in their
behavior and their relationship with
other horses and with us compared to
the other guys who came up through
a slightly more normal thing.
And then I've got another horse welt.
I bought him as a foal.
He grew up with the breeder, but then
was with us from the age of three.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And
he's a little different.
He's a little closer to those guys.
But say my horse zag, for example,
you know, very well, who's, you
know, superb, amazing horse.
He's probably been passed around
quite a bit, you know and his way
of looking at the world is wounded.
There's no question, there's no
question he gives from that wound
enormous healing.
But you are right.
I don't think we consider, I mean, we,
we consider it within equine wellbeing.
Yes.
But now that we're on the subject of
grief, we don't really consider, I think
much how in grief a lot of horses must be
Karla Brahms: Hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, you, you
have a very particularly integrated herd
because that herd lives and dies together.
Yeah.
Karla Brahms: But even them, when, when
I gave away the, the three ponies mm-hmm.
I had to give them away.
I couldn't keep them anymore.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Karla Brahms: It changed
the behavior of the herd.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Karla Brahms: Like my, my only male
horse is the son of my, my oldest horse.
He's now the only male with two ma mares.
And he is.
So tense.
And I think it's the, the fear
of losing these two again,
of losing more of his herd.
Okay.
And I remember when, when my my
first horse that was very close to
Flocker, they were like a couple,
when he died, she was like two weeks.
She, I couldn't, I couldn't get near her.
Mm-hmm.
She always ran away because I had the
feeling that she connected me with, with
the death of, of her partner, which was
on the, on the field where they lived.
And they, they all saw what
we did and they all saw how
he died with a veterinarian,
giving him the, the final yeah.
Injection poison.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And it took more than
two weeks for me to get close to her
again, because she was looking for him.
She couldn't handle that.
He's not there anymore.
The other horses, they went to the dead
body and sniffed on him, but she was just
running at the fence and looking for him.
And that was the moment when I
realized that horses are in grief too.
But they handled it
differently than we Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: they do.
Karla Brahms: After weeks, she,
she was like, okay, he's gone.
Now we take it further.
Life goes on.
Rupert Isaacson: I dunno if
you're familiar with a book called
Gulliver's Travels, which is a, an
Karla Brahms: at Yeah, yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah, yeah.
They make
Karla Brahms: a little bit like
Rupert Isaacson: movies like
Karla Brahms: all children do.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah, yeah.
So everyone knows the the
adventure on Lilipu where he
meets all the little people and
they tie him up and all of that.
But the actual Book of Gulls travels,
he goes to all these different
places, and one of the places he
goes to is the Land of the Hui Hams.
And the Hui Hyams are horses.
And they're horses that have a, a
culture and a and a they kind of
live like civilized human beings
sort of thing, but they're horses.
Oh, wow.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And Daniel Defoe,
who wrote that book, was Anglo-Irish.
So he was in the 18th century
growing up and living in a very,
very, very rich horse culture of
Thoroughbreds, early thoroughbred.
The, the, the Dar the, the Bali
Turk, which is one of the foundation
stallions of the Thoroughbred think
was, was standing at stud very close
to where he was living, and he was
very much part of that whole world.
So horses were a big
part of his Irish life.
And so he has a lot of respect for
horses and he uses the horses as a sort
of a metaphor for how we should be.
And he's, he's invited to Tea by a me.
This chestnut ma and he's, he's
having tea with the Chestnut Ma.
And it somehow comes up in conversation
that her husband just died.
And he's immediately, oh
my gosh, I'm so sorry.
You know, I, I hate to impose,
you know, this must be such
a difficult time for you.
Are you sure I shouldn't be here?
And she says, no, no, no, no, no.
You don't understand.
We, we, Huey hins, we horses.
For us it's very different.
I very, very much loved my husband, and I
very, very much enjoyed my life with him.
And I reflect on everything
that's good with him.
And now he's gone and we go forward
and would you like some sugar in
your tea or would you like some,
you know, and he's trying to get
his head around this in the book.
And I remember reading that
when I was in my twenties.
And horses do serve for us as such a
good metaphor of resilience, I feel.
Because what is grief?
What is trauma really?
But the process of resilience, I,
I, I think that people often get
the relationship with trauma wrong.
That trauma is this place where you
stay, you, you do not stay in trauma.
Trauma is a thing that happens.
It can happen in a sustained way
even, but it builds resilience.
One, we otherwise life
on the planet would just.
Be extinguished.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: But that process
of resilience is personal and
different for every being.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
And you know, one thing that
having horses behind your house is
helping through grief is that you
feel you are still able to act.
You have to go outside every
morning, feed them hay, clean
the stables, get them exercised.
Rupert Isaacson: Yep.
Karla Brahms: And that keeps
you in a state of, in control
Rupert Isaacson: positive mental health.
Yeah.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
You're in control of your, of
your day, of your structure and
you are able to handle things.
And that is maybe one of the most of
the best things that happened to me
in that, in that state of I what I am.
Because when I read in the community,
in the grief community about all these
persons who sit alone at home with
no job, no reason to live, they only
sit there and sit in their memories.
That's so hard to get out of that.
That I'm so glad to have the horses
and the animals that I have to take
care for because they keep me in life.
They keep me in the now and in the
presence and in the, and they force
me to make decisions, decisions
for them, and decisions for me.
Mm.
And that is maybe the, the, the
greatest gift that they could give me.
And maybe that's, that's a part
of the benefits of equine therapy.
That horses help us to
acknowledge the present.
They keep us in the now and now.
And now, now is important.
Not what was yesterday, not
what is will be tomorrow.
But now they're living in, in
the, in the presence all the time.
And they, they care for themselves.
And they always do things to feel good.
If they're not feeling good, they
try to do things to feel better.
Rupert Isaacson: That is true.
Yeah.
They'll seek out the edible delicacy.
They'll roll, they'll
rub against the tree.
They'll
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Seek out each
other and groom on each other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And of course in our taboo laden culture,
okay, we might hug each other, but we
might not lie there and hold each other.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Or stroke
each other or groom each other
like a, like an ape would.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
And that's al also.
And, and, and that benefit of using horses
in these processes of therapy because
they can offer a physical closeness Yeah.
That we as a therapist could never offer.
That would be too much in,
in, is it called insult?
Rupert Isaacson: Well, let's
just say that within the strange
way, our culture has evolved.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: The very thing that
would be the most help is the very thing
that we probably are not allowed to give.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: That's the thing.
But luckily our horses can, yeah.
Karla Brahms: Yes.
And that's the thing.
It's, it's innocent to hug a horse
and to stay there for at least 10,
15 minutes as long as you need it.
Or if you lie on the back of a horse,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Karla Brahms: You can, you can just
inhale the healing for as long as you need
it and the horses will give it to you.
Rupert Isaacson: Yep, yep, yep.
Karla Brahms: And they always feel
warm because their body temperature is
higher than ours and they always feel
soft, and they will always offer it to
us because they're such sweethearts.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Generosity.
Karla Brahms: Yeah, generosity.
That's it.
Yeah.
And that's one thing I, I realized
in these processes with the, with
my NIG work, that the horses will
always offer themself to help
when the, the people start
crying on the pictures because
emotions are overwhelming them.
The horses will always go
close to them and just stand
at their back or at their side.
Yeah.
And just be there.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And this
presence is helping.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
And sending out that
enormous electromagnetic
Karla Brahms: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Photon,
laden love beam that we now
Karla Brahms: know.
And if you, if you think of help
and grief, not words are helping,
not, not big gestures are helping.
Just being there.
Being there and, and maybe
offering a handkerchief
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: Is enough.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Karla Brahms: And that presence,
that that still and calm presence
of horses to be just there and,
you know, you can rely on them.
That's
Rupert Isaacson: now, but what, what
about the other, what about the other
necessary mechanisms of grief, though?
So many cultures, you know, you know,
obviously Africa's a big part of my life.
In Africa, when people grieve,
they grieve really actively.
You're allowed to scream, you're
allowed to wail, you're allowed to
tear your clothing, you're allowed to
embody it.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Our grief
rituals are very restrained.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: You go to a funeral,
you know if you're lucky, you go
to an Irish wake where everyone's
getting drunk and celebrating.
Or you go to a, a memorial like the one
you threw in your village where the whole
village showed up and was eating and
drinking together and finding commun.
They
Karla Brahms: brought
the, the, the eating.
I only cared for the drinks.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Karla Brahms: Everybody brought
something to eat and that was wonderful.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, it was an
amazing, actually experience in,
in, in really cool German food.
It was like, wow.
All these, all these delicacies.
Yeah.
But the idea to have a grieving, allowed
grieving ritual to allow that energy
to that's very much also a human need.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: You know,
how, how do we bring that into
a retreat and equine practice?
You know, we need both.
We need that quiet
presence, but we also need.
But I, I, I, so is it, for example,
if you just speak personally, I'll
let to ask this as a question.
Let's say
it was closer to the time
of Jan's actual death.
Would it have been more helpful
just say, if I had showed up
at a that particular time to
which I guess I did, to engage in
a loud grieving, or was it more
helpful to engage in a quiet grieving,
if you can look back on it now?
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Or would you
say, no, actually Rupert, I
need, I, I would've, I need both.
What, yeah, just, I think this is
really useful to, for people to consider
what's, what's the interplay, what's
the sequence really of grieving
that we need to be aware of?
'cause it's outg gone from our culture.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
That's
Rupert Isaacson: the point.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: It,
if, if, if you, let's say you weren't
living in Germany and you were living
somewhere where the traditional norms
of German culture did not apply.
What would've been your
ideal way to grieve?
Karla Brahms: I think
exactly the way I did.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Karla Brahms: Because
I can't imagine doing it in another
way because I, I always did what
felt right for me, and I still do.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
I
Karla Brahms: don't care if I
break out in tears in public.
It doesn't bother me.
And
Rupert Isaacson: did you have a
process of loud grieving and if so,
how did it, how did it play out?
Karla Brahms: Alone in the forest.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
And
Karla Brahms: it's like
you can't push it back if it comes.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And if to, if you
allow yourself to, to just do it.
And, and I think it's wrong to say
people how they have to behave in grief.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
Karla Brahms: It's actually more to allow
them to feel what they need and give them
the room and the possibility to do that.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: What's inside them?
It's screaming, then scream.
If it's being quiet, then be quiet.
You know, the thing is, one funny thing is
Yan and I had the ritual when we were
sitting on the sofa in the evening
that he was putting either his feet
on my lap or his head on my lap.
And I was always either massaging his
toes or I was scrambling his skull.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh.
So maybe he came a little bit higher
up the hierarchy of affection.
Karla Brahms: And after he, he was dead.
I was sitting on the sofa and my
hands had nothing to do, and I
was like, I have to do something.
And, and it was not cuddling the
cat or cuddling the, the dog.
That would help.
And I started knitting.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Karla Brahms: And I started knitting.
I, I wanted to knit a sock, like
a sock without the, the foot.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And I knitted.
I knitted and knitted.
And then suddenly I felt, oh,
it's far too long for a tuper.
And I said, oh, I don't care.
I just knit.
And I knitted and knitted and
knitted for I think six months.
And the, the tuper I made was,
is now like seven meters long.
And I didn't care because I
felt it, it, it felt good for
me to sit on the sofa and knit.
Yes.
And I had the pleasure of, oh,
which wool will I take now?
Which, which color is, is my grief at
the moment, which color will suit me?
And so that the thing that that that
happened is a colorful, multi mixed up.
It's, look, it looks like a snail
house, like, like a snicker.
But if I roll it out, it's
like seven meters long.
And suddenly I felt now it's okay.
Interesting.
Now I don't need it anymore.
Okay.
And I think if we give people the
possibility to do what they feel, what
helps and allow them to do that, that's
more than we can ever help anybody.
Rupert Isaacson: And now what
you've done, of course, is you've
created a sacred object, right?
You've created a shamanic
I can imagine how Yeah.
A snail.
Oh, isn't it interesting that you, I was
gonna ask you this, but I didn't want to
interrupt you when you were doing your NIG
thing in the early stages of Jan's cancer.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And you drew
the GaN the grant, the happy.
Happy granny.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: The widow,
Karla Brahms: the happy granny.
The happy widow.
Rupert Isaacson: The happy widow
in her heels and party dress,
which we now need you to get.
'cause I, I think you, you
drew that costume for a reason.
Right?
But you talked about the
superhero, the meta think being
Gary the snail and you the snail.
Yeah.
You said it like, I should
know who Gary the snail is.
And then you created a sna.
No,
Karla Brahms: SpongeBob.
Rupert Isaacson: Ah, okay.
Okay.
SpongeBob.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Karla Brahms: The wise Gary, I even drew a
picture in a NIG session once about Gary.
See this?
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Okay.
Karla Brahms: This is my, Gary
and Gary stood for the what
is the English word for ghe?
Rupert Isaacson: Tension.
No, not tension.
Not
Karla Brahms: tension.
The, the opposite.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
So relaxation.
Koen height.
Yeah.
Suppleness.
Relaxation.
Flexibility.
Calmness.
Calmness.
Yeah.
Calmness.
Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And that was my wish.
I wished that things would calm down and
I would feel calm and safe and secure.
And then I was supposed to
draw three talents of mine.
Three things that I can do.
Good.
The funny thing was that I
drew, I think I drew empathy and
love and having a lot of ideas.
And these three pictures for themselves,
they were only colored in one color.
So empathy was like blue
and the heart love was red.
A red heart and the
ideas was a yellow star.
And in the end, my, my metta, I
didn't, I, I don't know what meta was.
That time when Metta was looking
at these pictures, it said, well,
in Gary's house, all these pictures
all these colors are already there.
So my ghe is already in me.
And realizing that it all is
already there made me calm.
Isn't that funny?
Rupert Isaacson: It is.
And now you've knitted it.
Karla Brahms: And now I've knitted it.
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: I'm just thinking that
if, if you're going on, you know, if
someone's coming to your retreat, I
think that knitted gsen height, that
knitted sna Gary, the snail shell,
seven meters long, could be an object
that could bring great insight.
And comfort at the same time.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And also serve it as an
inspiration of what, 'cause I, I think
we often do this when we're in pain.
When we're in pain, we
throw ourselves into a task.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: It's a
really necessary thing.
I remember the first time I
really got my heart broken.
I went from being a student who
couldn't give a shit about his grades
to, I threw myself into my degree.
Okay.
You know, and I became
like the best researcher.
And began to write, actually
Karla Brahms: Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: Threw myself into story.
And obviously, you know, when I
was in that state of great grief
in the early stages of Rowan's
diagnosis, well, that's what Horse
Boy came out of and all of that.
Mm-hmm.
So,
Karla Brahms: so grief
brought out the best in you.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Yes.
Do you feel it's doing the same for you?
Mm,
yeah.
I think it is too.
Karla Brahms: Mm.
Rupert Isaacson: Even though I
would say that there was, you were
still the best Carla, where before
going through that you were still
the best when, when Y was there.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Now, yeah.
I, yeah.
I, and, and so this is
my, this is my final.
Question really is how does one deal with
the sense of unfairness and injustice?
You remember I said that when I saw Y laid
out and there I had that sense of outrage.
This is not right.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: This is not fair.
You are too young.
You are too good looking.
You're too healthy, you're too talented.
You have too much left to do.
You have, you know, you and
Carla have this karmic love.
You guys really were are
one of those couples who
have found, you know, the
lucky ones who've really
found, really found it right.
Not just the romance, but
also the partnership and the
creativity and the respect and
the, the, the, the whole thing.
The, the, the, the being something
greater than the two of you individually
are the, the, the very thing for which
we all aspire in our relationships.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: You have, I
feel that he's still around.
I've ever since my exposure to a
healer in England when I was in my mid
twenties, funny old guy, he used to go
around healing horses, but he was so
effective that vets used to refer people
to him, and he said he was the hands
of a dead friend and his dead mother.
Right.
And I remember asking him,
I said, well, what are these
people doing hanging around?
I mean, surely when you die, you, you,
you go said, no, actually, Rupert, no.
You can hang around for quite
a while if you feel that
there is necessary work to do.
Karla Brahms: Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: You will eventually Yeah.
Go back to source.
But you can, you can
absolutely hang out for a bit.
Karla Brahms: You know, your
question of unfairness is
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Karla Brahms: The, the love
and all the, the magic of our
relationship is still there.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Karla Brahms: So the love doesn't go away.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And if you, if you
ask why did, why did that happen?
You will never find an answer.
Mm.
We don't have it in our hands when
we go, when we leave this planet.
Yeah.
I could walk with a dog in the forest
and a branch fall down and hit me.
Sure.
I don't care.
The thing is, it's not effectful, if
you ask for the why did that happen?
And if you say This is not, but
Rupert Isaacson: it is a natural question.
Nonetheless.
Karla Brahms: It is a natural question,
but it's none that can be answered.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Karla Brahms: And to, to stick to that
question will just make you crazy.
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
Karla Brahms: So.
The healthiest thing is to
say everything has reason.
I don't know the reason now,
but maybe someday I will.
Yeah.
And I have made the experience in my
life that I often had to start at 0.0
and every time it got better than before.
Mm-hmm.
And I don't know yet what will bring
the next years if I live, I'm 60 now
when I live 20 years.
Wow.
I'll be grateful.
But what was the good thing about
going through that experience now?
I will only, only know then.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
Karla Brahms: sure.
Not now.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
You're right.
Karla Brahms: Just trusting, trust.
Just trusting that
everything will go out fine.
It's the only thing
that I can do right now.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
And I'm thinking about the difference
between you and other people
who might be going through this.
You know, you talked about horses,
and horses bring us into the present.
I think one of the things that horses
also do is they teach us trust.
Right?
Karla Brahms: Yes.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: They really do.
And
Karla Brahms: just stay in the presence.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, I'd be
very honored if you would start to
offer your grief retreats through.
The various places and centers
that do our work, because I
know that this is necessary.
Mm-hmm.
So I hope that's a
conversation we'll be having.
And I think it starts with an event.
It's, it, it has to start with,
I mean, I know obviously you're
doing them at your place too.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Which is magical.
So people I think, who are going through
this, you can obviously tell by now
if you're listening or watching that
Carla's grasp of English is perfect.
So if you were an English speaker
going through grief, you could
absolutely, I would just find
Karla Brahms: a way,
Rupert Isaacson: go to Germany and enter
that magical forest of light and dark
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Of fairytale and
reality in the denal where she is with
her horses and take a retreat with her.
How do people contact you?
How do they find you?
Karla Brahms: They can find me with my
homepage am point de or in Instagram,
I have an Instagram account too.
It's also called,
or they just ask you.
And you can look them further.
Rupert Isaacson: So, Lampen Hein.
Karla Brahms: Lampen Hein.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Lhe is the,
is the name of the village?
Well, the, the, the local town.
And so I think you need to
spell it out for people.
'cause when you say Lhe, people go, sure.
What?
So let's, let's, so Veon is
of course, with a W, right?
Yeah.
Because in German, the, or
Karla Brahms: they can just Google.
Kala.
Brams.
Rupert Isaacson: There we go.
Karla Brahms: You will find me.
Brams.
Like, Beethoven,
Rupert Isaacson: like the, like B
Karla Brahms: Kala with a K.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Carla with a k, K-A-R-L-A.
And Brahms.
B-R-A-H-M-S.
But we will of course also put
your website in the show notes.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So re if you, you know, if you can't
get your English heim, if you a, if
you can't get your English speaking
head around that, and a few years
ago, I wouldn't have been able to.
Don't worry.
Carla Brahms type her into Google, but you
could also type in horses, equine therapy.
Carla Brahms it, she'll come up.
But Len Reer, W-E-L-L-E-N.
And then re is R-E-I-T-E-R.
All one word.
Len Writer.
If you type that in, Carla Brahms.
Yeah, she's gonna come up, but as
you say, you can also contact us.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: But I think I, I think
it's it's it's a field we need to expand.
I think it's an underserved area.
We know that most people
who are going through grief
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Are facing the tyranny of
this kind of taboo that we talked about.
Karla Brahms: And just
hope to see you soon.
Rupert Isaacson: Say that again.
Karla Brahms: And I just
hope to see you soon.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, the other
thing, which if you're listening to
this, you might want to consider is
every June there is a massive reggae
party at Carla's place in the forest.
And the stage is the style, the, the open,
stable, where the horses normally are.
The horses go to the field for this
and give it over to the reggae bands.
And we dance in that space.
And then the forest goes up
from there and there are hammer.
It's just, it's like a festival.
Karla Brahms: Yeah.
And we,
Rupert Isaacson: and it's
Karla Brahms: Celebrate
Love, music and life.
Rupert Isaacson: It, it's one of the
most joyful events I've ever attended.
It's everything a festival should be
because it's not an official festival.
And it's also a, a fundraiser
for you'll experience.
Excellent.
Reggae, excellent nature, German
culture, warmth, love, happiness.
You can fly into Frankfurt
Airport to go there.
I highly recommend it.
Bring a sleeping bag, sleep
in the forest, sleep in one
of the hammocks, bring a tent.
I'm gonna try to be there for this
one because we'll be up in Germany
on and off through the summer.
We'll prioritize it.
Karla Brahms: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: It's on
Karla Brahms: the
Rupert Isaacson: last
Karla Brahms: Saturday in June.
Rupert Isaacson: I know that I have to
be in the USA in, in Michigan in June,
but I'm hoping we're we're back for it.
Karla Brahms: Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
And it's, it just, it, it, that reggae
night is the absolute product of Carla
and Jan's relationship, and if anything,
served as a metaphor for the absolute
excellence of that human relationship.
It's that event, which has
been going for some years now.
Karla Brahms: Thank you.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, Carla, it's
been a real honor to talk to you.
Karla Brahms: Same, same.
Rupert Isaacson: Always.
So, until soon.
Karla Brahms: Until soon, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: I hope you enjoyed
today's conversation as much as I did.
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