Communicating and healing.
One part of Julie's work is her talent as an animal communicator - or the art of interpreting what an animal is thinking and feeling. The other is to use the gift of healing, either through the laying on of hands or through distant communication, to help restore health to a sick or ailing animal.

What is animal communication?
In the most straightforward terms, it is the ability to translate into words the thoughts and feelings that animals want to us know and understand. Of course animals communicate with us through body language, which we read and often interpret accurately. But 'animal communication' as practised by Julie and others in this field, is the art of making a direct connection with the horse or other animal's mind and acting as a bridge between animal and human.

Although communicating with animals mind-to-mind might be a new concept for some, many people have been doing this for years, perhaps quite unconsciously. Today, there are ever-increasing numbers of individuals around the world adopting a non-physical approach to animal communication and healing. By connecting with love, integrity and the highest intent to universal energy, it is possible to give and receive information from the animal concerned.

What is healing?
There are probably almost as many definitions of 'healer' and 'healing' as there are individuals who practise the art, but a straightforward way of defining it is simply to say that to heal is, 'to restore to health'. One of the earliest forms of healing was traditionally referred to as the 'laying on of hands'. However, the term 'healer' is often used today in all sorts of contexts with healers often defining themselves through a multiplicity of names and disciplines: 'Spiritual,' 'Psychic', 'Magnetic', 'Colour', 'Crystal', 'Therapeutic', 'Reiki', 'Radionic' - to mention just a few. A complex web has been woven around the words 'healer' and 'healing'.

Julie's own definition is a simple one: "To me, the essence of all healing is love. Healing is simple and straightforward. If you're genuinely giving love to an animal or a person, than you're giving healing, no matter what you call it. Everybody can do that. And everybody does. Some people do it all the time and never realise it. I think everybody is a healer at some point in their lives, however they define it."

Speaking with the animals.
Since animals can't speak, how do they communicate with us? Of course, we read their body language and often interpret it accurately but Julie connects at another level where she is able to communicate directly with the horse's mind, acting as a bridge between horse and human. Another way of putting this would be to say that she is working with the invisible energy which surrounds all living creatures, defined loosely as 'energetic material.'

This vast sea of energy in which we all swim, whether we actively perceive it or not, connects us to every form of life from an earwig to an elephant, from a snail to a stallion. Some individuals are able to make this 'connection' more easily than others, although it is almost certainly a dormant talent within everyone.

The language of animals is, of course, is not verbal, although their understanding of our words is often at a higher level than we generally credit them. Their communication with Julie is more easily expressed in pictures, in visual images, as well as sensations or feelings that she might experience in her own body. It is then her task to translate, as accurately as possible, the messages that the animal is sending.

"What I do, 'says Julie', depends very much on the animal. Whether it is distant healing or communication, I always ask the animal if he or she would like my help and as long as they say 'yes' I am happy to go ahead. I always ask their permission first.

"Then, if they've got something they want to tell me, I might get a number of different signals. Sometimes it's a kind of inner voice or a picture, other times I get a feeling of where it's hurting in the horse or in the animal, reflected in my own body. Sometimes it's all three but not necessarily in that order. The level of communication varies a lot. With some animals they have very little they want to convey, with others there is a great deal and the images and sensations often come so fast that it's hard to keep pace with them."

"I have to interpret what an animal is communicating as clearly as I can. So of course I have to put it in words that will resonate with the people I'm talking to, so they can take it on board. For me, healing and communication are difficult to separate. Sometimes an animal doesn't have much to say but is in pain and that's what I have to sort out first. Every creature is different. But if I'm called to see an animal, it would be very unusual if it didn't need healing. Although sometimes just being able to tell me what the problem is can be healing in itself. Healing, in my view, is essentially creating a space where unconditional love can flow."