Today we’d like to introduce you to Carolyne Stolzenfels.
Hi Carolyne, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My story starts on a small farm in New Jersey. I came from a family of hard working, rough around the edges people who honored their German and Native American roots. I happened to be an artistic little kid with a heart murmur that created upheaval in my parent’s way of thinking. My parents protected me in so many ways and in others there was no way that they could. At 12, I was given one of my dad’s race horses to learn how to ride. This beautiful black stallion became a trusted confident through many losses and rough patches during my teenage years. He was the only animal that was given the gift of living out his entire life on our farm. There was something special about him and everyone felt it when they were around him. To me, he was my best friend. We would walk through the woods with groups of deer beside us or gallop through the meadows free as a bird. My parents must have had a hell of a time with me as a child. I was so quiet, until I wasn’t. I had a tendency to speak up when I didn’t like the way things were or saw something that I believed wasn’t fair. I still have this eternal optimism that tends to flow from me and all that I do. I find the silver lining in everything.
I was the first to graduate college in my family and then go on to earn a Master’s degree in education. I wanted to help my older students read at grade level and knew I needed to learn more in order to do help them. It angered me that they were pushed through the system without having the skills to succeed. That is a common denominator in my life, I see something unjust and I dive in to improve it in some way. Later, I founded a Montessori pre-school because there were no early childhood education options in the area where we moved.
Throughout all this growing as a person, my love for horses was a quiet ember in my heart that I wanted to stoke, but time, finances, and maybe the belief in myself didn’t allow for it. Many moons and two children later, I finally got the opportunity to bring horses back into my life when we moved to a small island in the British Virgin Islands. My husband was always getting recruited for his career so it was normal for these opportunities to arise where we could move to this grand place and start over. With this opportunity, we would have to move out of the country. It was a completely different world down there. After researching the position, my husband looked at me and said, “but there are horses there.” As luck would have it, there were five, rescued Paso Fino horses that lived on the resort that he would be running. It was such a unique experience to spend my days with these beautiful souls while our children were at school. Living in a different country for three years changed our perspective on so many things. Culture, life, language, wealth, poverty, food, family, all of it. I continued to learn how to work with horses while I was there. I also volunteered at the school that our daughter attended. It was so much like the school I founded back home. All of it was an amazing experience. The horses taught me so much about how the past can effect the future. They all came with scares of abuse from people. I got to learn from them, observe their communication and how they responded to people’s energy, intention, and non-verbal communication. On a quiet island where people come and go, they became my friends. We had to leave that island when my mom was diagnosed with bladder and kidney cancer. In one phone call, our life completed changed. Fiercely protective of my family, I had to drop everything to take care of her. It was a gift to have her live with us for the next ten years. After a long batter of health issues, her body gave up last November. She was able to teach me that dying isn’t a bad thing and sometimes, it is more peaceful than we can every imagine. I miss her every day. I am so incredibly grateful of her encouragement to keep working towards my dream of having a farm with horses. During those ten years, we brought two more horses into our lives and even had a colt born on our farm. My mother was overjoyed to experience such a different lifestyle where horses are honored for their intelligence, kindness, and sentient presence instead of how fast they could run. Everything good that’s ever happened to me has horses involved in the equation. They are my inspiration to grow as a person, an artist, and now in my 50’s as an Equine Gestaltist.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’ve always thought my life has been smoother than others because I have this uncanny ability to look on the bright side. Clients that come to our barn to heal their broken hearts from terrible things remind me that no one has an easy life. I know there were parts of my own history that scarred me deeply. My biggest struggle was overcoming my own childhood. It was rife with dysfunction from alcohol abuse to the physical harm that my sister and brother endured in front of me. Right from the get go, God gave me a heart murmur which protected me from my mother’s fists and my father’s belt. As an empath, it was tragic for me to observe such things along with the deaths of so many animals on our farm. I was the child who spent more time with the animals than with the humans. I was the one who knew when they were hurting or needing something. My very first memory is of a horse’s legs. Apparently my mother lost me in the barn because I wandered into a stall. I was two years old. The door was open with a chain across the stall so there wasn’t anything stopping me from going in with this big, beautiful mare named Lady. She sat there quietly munching on her hay while I held onto her front leg. I’ve always felt at home with horses.
As I grew up, I lost friends to car wrecks and suicide. I lost colleagues to sudden heart attacks. I had an enormous amount of grief I carried with me with no way to truly express it. Looking back on all that, I realize those experiences shaped who I became as an artist, and a teacher. I was able to connect with students that were labeled at-risk because I understood where they were coming from. I understood how quickly their reactions were merely trained from fear, distrust, and even sadness. They were being raised in survival mode and I knew what that meant from my own life. My parents did the best they could with the knowledge they had. I just wish they had more knowledge.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Wildfire Dreams Sanctuary?
Wildfire Dreams is really a culmination of all my loves put into one very special place. As a certified Equine Gestalt Coach and retired teacher, I still work with school age students, but mainly work with women who need emotional and mental clarity. These women have lost their connection with themselves. Equine Gestalt is so much more than therapy. It is experiential, transformational work with horses by your side. I love that about it. I am fueled by the spiritual intimacy that horses provide. It has always been a dream of mine to share what I see and feel in horses with others. I also teach children how to become horse owners someday and how to safely ride. Not for showing and competitions, but instead for connection with these 1,000 lb animals that effect the way we feel just by standing next to us.
Wildfire Dreams became a non-profit organization in May, 2025. Our mission is to positively change lives by creating connections in a sacred place of healing that promotes wellness, balance, and harmony with horses.
I specialize in loss and grief. Not only for loved ones gone to the other side, but also for major disappointments in life that a client is carrying with them and they don’t know what to do with. So many of my clients are attempting to heal from inner child traumas, divorce, loss of a job or career, and/or what they thought life should be, but it is not. I do not diagnose or label in any way. I also know my limits as a Equine Gestaltist. I will always refer someone to a psychologist if their pain is in need of a psychotherapy or other modality.
I am known for my calming presence, discernment, and my deep connection to my horses as my partners. They are not “used” in any way shape or form. Our five very special horses are my colleagues. I designed our small barn to allow them to always choose whether or not they will work with an individual not. They have the freedom to come and go as they please. After five years of this work, I am still amazed that our horses always show up to help whomever walks into our barn. It is a scientific fact that a horse’s electromagnetic field is larger than our own and effects our own heart beat when we are close to them. They’re can read our energy because of their incredible senses as a prey animal. We lack those senses. Horses are successfully a part of many equine assisted learning and therapies. I believe in this work because I see the results over and over. I give people the opportunity to experience it, and grow from that awareness in themselves. Their work with me and the horses opens their entire life up to joy and ease.
I fully understand this work because I experienced it myself. After a life time with horses, I didn’t know how they could truly help a human heal until one of my own horses showed me just how talented equines can be. On a foggy Sunday morning, Magic left his morning hay, left his herd mates and walked right up to me as if he might need something. I stopped what I was doing and stood there with him making small talk as if there may be something wrong with him. I mean, why would he leave his food and friends? He quietly stepped closer to me and I couldn’t help but stroke his mane and stand there with him, trusting that he wasn’t going to hurt me in any way. And then something happened within my body. It was if I got plugged in to something bigger than myself. I felt calm, grounded and fully present. I also felt this huge wave of grief hit me like a truck. I didn’t know where it was all coming from. Magic gently wrapped his head around my body and held me in this embrace as I cried. This was not a nice cry, it was sobbing, and a convulsing cry that lasted two or three minutes. He held me until I cried out all the grief I held in my heart for years. Then as if his work was done, he let me go and went back to his hay, just like any other morning. I was left to ponder what the hell just happened, and understand that my entire body felt different, like I was ten years younger, lighter, with an awareness I never felt before. Magic is still my number one coaching horse. He has a way of pulling things out of people that they didn’t even know was there until we break into the vault of hidden hurts. Equine Gestalt is truly life changing.
I hope that readers know they are not alone. There are beautiful connections out there to be made if they are brave enough to seek them. If they are looking for peace in their hearts, Wildfire Dreams is one option for them.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I was once told that the amount of risk you take is in direct proportion to how successful you are in life. I would have to agree with this statement. It’s so important to take risks when you believe what you’re doing is the right thing. One of the ways I test if a risk is the right thing for me is to ask myself if it will be good for me, good for my family, good for my community, and good for mother Earth. If I can answer yes to all of those things, I will take that risk. I work with horses so most people would say I’m naturally a risk taker. Anyone who will jump on the back of a large animal and attempt to communicate with said animal when they could run away, buck, or even injure you has a natural desire to take risks. I feel like I am a moderate risk taker, but definitely a risk taker.
What matters to me the most is that I believe in what I’m doing; otherwise taking risks wouldn’t be worth it. For instance, when I was teaching at a local community college and couldn’t find any early childhood educational programs for our daughter at the time, I chose to start a Montessori pre-school in an area that not only never heard of Montessori, but wasn’t too keen about this new resident bringing something different to their county. Most of the 15 years we lived in that area was me educating parents on the value of Montessori education. It was a risk, but a very successful one and completely worth it. I’m proud to say that program is still thriving even after I left seven years ago.
Another risk I chose to take was to leave the 9 to 5 professional world to run an Equine Gestalt program on our small farm in Northern Michigan. Again, no one ever heard of such a thing, so it was a huge risk, but a great one for me, for our family, our community and definitely the planet. Our farm is 20 acres of sanctuary for humans, horses, and every living thing right down to the microbes in the soil. Taking risks comes with obstacles and set backs, but they are not enough to stop a person who believes. I always say, “where there’s a will there’s a way.” I have more than my fair share of will and determination. I was once told in a teacher’s review at a high school where I taught that I had more tenacity than any person that principal had ever worked with. At the time, I wasn’t sure if he was giving me a compliment or saying I was a pain in the ass. I had worked to develop a program for freshman that were coming into high school without the academic skills to thrive. I knew they needed to connect with teachers, so I taught teachers how to connect with students, not just teach them. I know now my will to keep going and achieve my goals has allowed me to live a life that aligns with my values. I am blessed to have that awareness and truly know what I need in my life. I’ve learned that taking a risk to be successful may mean improving my lifestyle, creating time for myself, and not listening to the culture of commercialism and always needing to make more money. Sometimes we need to make more time for ourselves so we can become the best version of ourselves. I wasn’t willing to wait until I got too old to do that, so I created Wildfire Dreams.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.wildfiredreams.com
- Instagram: wildfiredreamsegc
- Facebook: schonfriedenfarm
- LinkedIn: Carolyne Stolzenfels
- Youtube: bedtime stories in the barn
