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Heather is committed to helping people live more embodied, heart-centred lives, both personally and with their animal companions.
ABOUT HEATHER FARIS
Heather's experience as an Intuitive and BodyMind Practitioner provides a strong foundation for her work in Animal Communication. Since 2003 she was in private practice as an ARC Bodywork Therapist and helped establish the Healing Space in in Calgary, AB, an inspiring work space for various holistic practitioners.
Certified as both an ARC Health Practitioner and an Instructor, she later served as an Advisory Board Member for The ARC Institute, a school of consciousness based in Qualicum Beach, BC. Based on her knowledge that the circle is a sacred creative container, Heather created the ARC Circle workshops. She later used that foundational work to develop and facilitate Corporate Circle Workshops for Lululemon Athletica in Calgary.
For more than 20 years Heather studied and explored various healing arts including Hakomi, Authentic Movement, Reiki, Qigong, Creative Visualization, and Journey Work. In 2000 she studied Animal Communication with Georgina Cyr and Penelope Smith. During that session she had such a profound experience of connection with a black stallion that it changed her professional focus. (Read the full story below.)
Before that, Heather earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria, where she explored painting and drawing but found her creative voice in expressing spirit through nature-based sculpture.
Heather acknowledges that we all have rich inner worlds and recognizes the value in being witnessed in a deep and respectful way. Her wealth of experience continues to evolve out of a commitment to her own creative healing process and spiritual journey, as well as a desire to have her sacred intuitive gifts be of service to all beings.
Thunder Meets Lightning
HEATHER'S FIRST ANIMAL CONNECTION
"My first animal communication workshop was in December of 2000. We’d been asked to bring a photo of our companion animals to work with. When the woman beside me shared that her horse's name was Lightning, a memory came rushing back and I felt a need to describe to her what I’d experienced as a child: most kids love animals. But I really loved them. For hours my girlfriend and I would play “horse” in the yard, pretending we were horses, galloping so strong, beautiful and powerful. I was always a black horse. I was always called Thunder.
We decided to swap animals and she handed me her photo. It was more than a coincidence that her big, beautiful horse was black.
I can still see the photograph in my mind, Lightning’s coat shining in the sun as she stood among fruit trees, surrounded by long green grass and bright yellow daffodils. I’ve never met Lightning in person but in those few minutes of connection with him, I experienced a deeper kind of meeting than with any horse I’d been physically present with.
When I'd decided to take the animal communication workshop, I knew I would be fighting self-doubt along the way. Learning to trust one’s intuitive gifts is not an easy path. I so wanted to connect that the night before I actively worked to combat these negative feelings: I put energy into my intention to trust that I could do this. Being offered the chance to speak with an animal whom I had experienced so much joy in embodying as a child seemed like more than a coincidence. It was a genuinely good sign.
The facilitator proceeded to guide us into a meditative state. She suggested we communicate with the animal present in our photos. It was a moment pregnant with extra meaning for me. It didn’t take long and I was ‘there’ with Lightning. I could see him clearly in my mind's eye. I felt his presence.
There are many details to the communication I don’t remember, especially as I write this for the first time 12 years later. I think he said something like “All you need is love” which I would at that time likely have rejected as cliché, or my imagination. But I like to think that he may have been reassuring me that I could do this if my intentions were based in love.
What I remember vividly is him showing me a spot on his lower back that was sore, and his left hind leg, which seemed to have had an injury. I felt called to energetically place my hand on his back and offer comfort and healing energy to that area. As I did I felt a loneliness in him that was deep and wide and seemed to go way back through time.
I stayed like that, just being with him, through the communication session. Time disappeared. Our connection deepened. In the background I could hear the facilitator in the room, calling us back, but I felt such a deep connection with Lightning. We were still connecting and I felt it was not time to leave so I stayed with him. The facilitator touched my leg to confirm I’d heard her. I nodded I was OK and the group moved on.
Soon after I thanked Lightning and slowly began to bring myself back. As I did I remember saying to him, with tentativeness and a slightly apologetic tone; "I hope this has been OK, Lightning. I am new to this and not really good at it yet. I hope I understood you correctly. I hope I’ve helped.”
As soon as I sent this thought to him I saw a forceful flash of the horse’s face right in front of my face, his eyes huge, his eyes looking deep into my eyes. I could feel his energy, right there, pressed up in front me. My heart welled up, and so did my eyes as I felt him communicate a heartfelt “thank you!”
I had helped! Our connection had been meaningful for him, too.
Later on, my workshop partner told me Lightning was a former race horse but had been retired after he broken his hind leg. The woman said that might explain that sensation of his having a stiff lower back. During his long recovery he would have been tied alone in a stall with very little stimulation, unable to move much and with limited contact with either animals or humans. This also explained his protracted loneliness.
I never physically stood with Lightning in his life, nor touched his silky black coat, but what we shared was so profound that my heart still expands and opens whenever I remember it."
