We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Charlotte Chanler a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Charlotte, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

The legacy I aspire to leave is one that profoundly shifts how we view and value our relationships with animals. They are dynamic, deep, and complex beings with their own unique emotions and experiences. Our connections with them are not secondary to our human relationships but are equally significant and worthy of the same depth of care and attention.

This intrinsic bond is an essential part of our shared future—a connection that we are meant to rediscover and realign with. People are often surprised at how many ideas their animal can bring to a conversation in terms of creative problem solving, shifting perspective, insights on their person’s life, ways to compromise, future planning, supportive training protocol … it’s really limitless. The level of detail and nuance that the horses are able to relay for their people on balance, cadence, energy, telepathic connection, preparation and mindset is consistently tremendous.

Through my work, I hope to inspire others to embrace the true value and depth of their bonds with their animals. A life fully lived is one where our relationships with our animal companions are cherished and celebrated.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m an Animal Communicator currently based in Loxahatchee, Florida. I offer in person and long distance appointments for all species though I do specialize in working with competitive equine athletes. Each conversation is so incredibly unique and I never know beforehand what will unfold within the space. Working in this way I’ve learned to hold space for the mystery of what may arise, and I feel so grateful to bear witness to the alchemy of each relationship.

The work I do is intrinsic to my soul and is the result of a life lived alongside animals. I grew up an only child and spent most of my time outside with my animal family. I loved laying on soft moss while building fairy houses with my cats, crossing river streams with a dog boldly following alongside, the warmth of my pony’s frosted breathe as I broke the ice on his water trough. I never lost the sense of wonder for the connections we can cultivate with animals and the wisdom they can share with us and it blossomed within me into the ability to truly listen and somatically connect with animals on a soul level.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Word of mouth has been the best way for me to connect with clients. I find it deeply authentic. It’s wonderful confirmation that the experience is resonating deeply with my clients and it’s important to me that my clients feel called to the session themselves out of genuine love, interest, and respect for the animals.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I have always known that my destiny is intertwined with horses, but for many years the specifics of that vision had much more to do with competition than it does now. Where I grew up in Florida, most people who had horses trained and showed them, so falling in love with horses meant getting into showing. My passion for competition was fierce because it offered me more time with horses. In my last year as a junior I was competing internationally, home schooling half the year to attend the winter show circuit, and was discussing plans with my trainer to move into the Grand Prix. But I was also struggling a lot behind the scenes and by the time I started working for my trainer full time, it felt like things were hanging on by a thread. I remember the moment that everything pivoted. I was riding out on a summer morning on a black gelding called Darius, and for the first time in my entire life, I felt no joy in it. I knew something was deeply wrong, and I knew I couldn’t find the answer by staying in the environment I was in, and so I quit. At the time it felt like leaving this position meant leaving horses, and in a way, it did – I lost some of my most cherished horse friends in the process as I wasn’t an owner, and I still feel the loss of that today. My heart was shattered, but I knew I had to seek the answers elsewhere.

Pretty quickly after that I moved to San Francisco, then to Brooklyn, and on to Los Angeles, worked in luxury camping, as a jeweler, a medical caretaker at a cat sanctuary, toured with bands across the country, sometimes stealing glimpses of the wild horses in the West out the bus window, all the while feeling the deficit of their presence in my life. But it would be filled in my dreams, as all those years I had near nightly dreams of horses. Hundreds, thousands, of them. So many I wrote poems and made art about them. I created a brand of non gendered jewelry featuring horse hair pieces because I missed being around them so much and working with their hair brought me peace. I started practicing shamanism and became an Animal Reiki Master. It felt like the further I went, the louder they got.

My years living in Los Angeles gave me the inspiration I needed to find my way back to horses, this time on my own terms. It was there too that I met Salem, who changed everything. A black Azteca mare with a white star, who in my mind’s eye has always unfurled massive raven’s wings. Wild and independent, her spirit reminded me of my first pony, a fuzzy black shetland called Elvis. I knew she was for me even though she barely knew the basic cues of walking in a halter.

After a year of living in the Rancho neighborhood in Burbank, cutting our teeth hiking side by side though the hills of Griffith Park, along the Golden State Freeway, crossing swinging bridges and highway underpasses to get to the public arenas nearby, it was time for us to find a new space to call home. And much to my own surprise, the place that made the most sense was right back where I started in South Florida. By the time we arrived back here I had already been offering animal communication professionally, but stepping back into this specific equestrian space really illuminated for me just how momentous that pivot was, and how it got me not only where I needed to be, but to who I needed to be as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.charlottechanler.com
• Instagram: @horsemagic
• Other: Tik Tok @horsemagickisreal

Image Credits

All image credits are mine.