Comanche and tara

Tara Coyote is the bestselling author of ‘Grace, Grit & Gratitude: A Cancer Thriver’s Journey from Hospice to Full Recovery with the Healing Power of Horses’, the children’s picture book & mustang advocacy book collaboration with the illustrator Nica Ware, ‘Comanche the Wild Mustang’ and the coloring book version of ‘Comanche the Wild Mustang’.

Tara weaves together 30 years together of somatic experience with her love of horses. She was a horse-obsessed young girl being fortunate enough to spend summers with her cousins in New Hampshire who owned horses. Although she begged and pleaded with her parent, she never was granted one of her own. Decades later, while undergoing a particularly difficult life transition, she read 'The Tao of Equus' by Linda Kohanov, which inspired her and helped her to remember her profound connection with horses. It is due to the healing experience she experienced with them, which dramatically transformed and in a sense 'saved' her life.  In a period of two years, Tara went from living in the suburbs, being married with a successful Pilates studio and then decided to give it all up to follow her heart’s calling of helping people heal with horses. It was through this extreme leap of faith, although pivotally challenging and terrifying, that brought her back to life again. Now you can find her living on her ancestral land in Kaua’i, Hawaii which is Wind Horse Sanctuary with her two gorgeous horses living in an off the grid yurt.

Tara is a Eponaquest™ equine facilitated learning  and Power of the Herd ™ instructor developed through Linda Kohanov. Linda has created a innovative human-equine approach for developing emotional intelligence, leadership and relationship skills. Please visit the Eponaquest website for more information or check out all of Linda's books in the Suggested Readings section.

Five years into developing Wind Horse Sanctuary in Nevada City, CA, a stressful event occurred which necessitated selling her business. Tara ended up moving back home to her father’s ancestral land of Kaua’i, Hawaii in January, 2019. As she had four horses at the Sanctuary, she ended up letting go of two of the herd and kept Blue, the paint horse and Comanche, the mustang. Transporting them across the Pacific Ocean, 2,500 miles away was quite the feat! Comanche, Blue, Xaria (super fluff ball Australian Shepherd wonder dog), Kismet the cat and Tara all live happily on The Garden Island now. The new version of WHS is much smaller than the Northern California version, but it has the unique magic, healing and charm of Hawaii.

Tara specializes in the human/horse bond for healing grief, loss, difficult life transitions and facilitating help for care-takers through offering private sessions. Tara is highly experienced with helping clients with the grief process and is very familiar with issues around illness. In the last seven years, she has experienced a vast amount of loss through the death of her two closest friends, who died young from cancer. She has led hundreds of people in her ‘Grief Rituals with Horses’ at her ranch and in rituals around the world. Please see the 'Death/Grief' page for more info.

Tara has also been journeying with late stage breast cancer since 2016. She has been publicly sharing her health journey through her blog page, YouTube channel and social media. She is very grateful to be alive after being recommended to Hospice in the winter of 2019. To learnvmore about Tara’s health journey, please visit her other website: Cancer Warrioress.

She has worked extensively with adults and children teaching Linda’s profound work. To see testimonials of her work please visit the WHS testimonial page and the WHS Facebook testimonial page.

Horses have a powerful manner to guide us down the pathway of self-attunement and awareness. While in challenging situations, horses can help us find the true balance needed to bring balance into our lives. Tara has also trained in extensive shadow work, leading women's groups through embracing and learning to love their shadow. 

Tara is very proud of the award winning environmental 10-minute short film she created about climate change and equating it with her health journey in the film Honor the Earth

To know more about Tara please check out her YouTube channel, personal Instagram page, WHS Instagram page and WHS Facebook page.