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ELEVATE EXPAND
ENLIGHTEN
BEYOND THE SADDLE:
Horses As Healers
Starr Horse Retreats
Minden, Nevada
Welcome to Starr Horse Retreats
A Sanctuary for Soul Awakening & Embodied Connection with Horses
In this sacred space nestled beneath the Sierra sky, horses are more than companions—they are cosmic allies and earthly shamans. They reflect your truth, amplify your gifts, and activate dormant codes of remembrance.
We are entering a new paradigm of Horse Activation, where transformation arises not from what needs fixing, but from what is ready to awaken.
Whether you are on a healing path or feeling called to something greater, Starr Horse Retreats is here to guide you into deeper resonance with yourself, with nature, and with the soul of the Earth.
Come as you are. Leave as who you came to be.
Founded in 2020, Starr Horse Retreats is a 30-acre bit-less horse sanctuary nestled in the Sierra Nevada. Here, horses are not seen as tools for therapy but as sovereign beings, shamans, and soul activators. Each horse in our herd carries a distinct energetic frequency, and together, they help our guests remember who they are, why they came to Earth, and what their soul mission is during this planetary awakening.
Here, the horses lead. They are mirrors of truth—illuminating unconscious patterns, revealing the shadow, and transmuting it through unconditional love. Unlike traditional talk therapy or equine-assisted models that center the human as healer, this approach honors the horse as guide, teacher, and sacred ally. Through them, we witness the sacred art of awakening in motion.
We offer two retreat pathways, both designed to support profound transformation:
Beyond the Saddle: Holistic Clicker Training Program
September 14 – October 10 | Tuition: $2000 (lodging included)
This four-week immersion is perfect for those longing to work with the herd daily. It offers a grounded, ethical way to engage in mutual trust, spiritual dialogue, and non-coercive learning with the horses. It is an intimate and illuminating way to explore your own inner landscape through relationship, attunement, and reflection. This program has been described as life-changing and initiatory by past participants.
October 17 – 20 | Tuition: $1500–$2000 (includes meals + lodging)
A ceremonial four-day immersion including sweat lodge, sound healing, cacao, flower baths, and guided work with the herd. This retreat is a powerful portal into soul remembrance, recalibration, and deep healing—held in reverence and co-creation with the Earth and the elemental forces.
We are located in Minden, Nevada, just 30 minutes east of Lake Tahoe, with three guest houses on the land.
To learn more about the depth of our work, we invite you to subscribe to our YouTube channel and explore the videos we’ve created over the past year:
Horse Healing Retreats
Awaken Through Horse Spirit Medicine
Step into a sacred sanctuary where horses are honored as shamans, healers, and cosmic mirrors. Our retreats weave together ceremony, sound, movement, and bareback connection to awaken the wisdom within.
Through practices like Free Liberty, yoga, Temazcal, and sacred flower baths, you’ll release old narratives, reset energetic patterns, and receive guidance for your path forward. Each moment with the herd becomes a portal—opening insight, activating confidence, and restoring your natural rhythm.
This is not just a retreat. It is a remembering. Come as you are, and return more fully to who you’ve always been—with the herd as your guide.
Music: Together
Jay Aliyev
Holistic Clicker Training Program
Beyond the Saddle: Horses as Healers
This is a first-of-its-kind immersive, four-week experience designed to transform the way we engage with horses — and ourselves. Rooted in ethical horsemanship, our training method uses positive reinforcement and clicker communication to build trust, cooperation, and deep relational harmony.
Clicker training allows us to teach a horse virtually anything that traditional methods might — but without force. Instead, we work through clarity, curiosity, and compassionate feedback. It aligns with a conscious framework that honors the horse as a sentient being, not a tool to be controlled.
At Starr Horse Retreats, our herd of 17 free-roaming horses live on 30 sacred acres, supported by natural rhythms, clean water, community, and care. This environment allows them to step out of survival mode and into their true nature — as intuitive guides, teachers, and healers.
Students often arrive thinking they’re here to train horses.
But what they discover is that the horses are training them.
Our four-week holistic training program includes positive reinforcement-based horse teaching (clicker training), spiritual ceremony, and elemental work. It is fully immersive: participants live on the land, engage daily with the herd, and take part in the stewardship of sacred space from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Angelene Hall discusses her experience at Starr Horse Retreats
Angelene Hall discusses her experience at Starr Horse Retreats
🌍 Our Sacred Approach
At Starr Horse Retreats, in Minden, Nevada, we hold space on land known for both profound beauty and deep brutality. Until as recently as 2023, the town’s sundown bell, a haunting remnant of policies that once required Native people to leave the streets by sunset, continued to ring.
We honor the Washoe people, original stewards of this land, and move forward with reverence, humility, and a commitment to right relationship.
However, the sweat lodge (Temazcal) on our land is held in the Mayan tradition, into which I was initiated through direct ceremonial experience and deep mentorship over many years. We offer the temazcal in reverence for Earth, for lineage, and for healing, while acknowledging the Washoe land upon which we reside.
We do not claim ownership of the traditions we engage with — we honor, protect, and acknowledge their sacred roots. We also recognize that each of us, regardless of birth culture, carries a birthright to ceremony—a remembrance that transcends borders and colonization.
Alongside the Temazcal, we share other practices taught and passed on with care, including the tipi, which honors my husband’s Mojave lineage, and my path as a Starseed reclaiming ceremony for Gaia and all of humanity.
Our Offerings Include:
• Hawaiian Hoʻoponopono and Huna teachings, honoring forgiveness, presence, and harmony
• Free Liberty Meditation, a modality learned in Costa Rica where horses co-create a field of stillness and consciousness with humans
• Flower baths, a sacred tradition learned in Peru after plant medicine ceremonies, for energetic clearing, blessing, and awakening
• Yoga, originating in India, is offered as a daily ritual of embodiment and breath
• Ceremonial narrative rewriting, where participants reauthor their life stories in sacred partnership with the horses
• Starseed activation sessions, inviting multidimensional remembrance through sound, meditation, intuitive horse communication, and elemental connection
• Temazcal (sweat lodge) ceremonies, held in the Mayan tradition
• Light Language transmissions, offered as vibrational activations to awaken soul memory and align with divine essence
Our horses are sovereign beings and healers—never tools or performers. They are honored as co-facilitators in the ceremony of remembrance.
This sanctuary is held in reverence for Earth, for the horses, and for those who are called to remember.
“I hold deep reverence for the Washoe people and the ancestral stewards of this land. I recognize that this land was taken without consent, and I consider it a sacred responsibility to acknowledge that injustice, while also doing the deep inner work of reclaiming my own connection to Earth, to ceremony, and to Spirit.
My own remembrance arises from my starseed lineage, and the work we do serves as a bridge between ancient Earth wisdom and cosmic intelligence. It is not meant to replicate, but to reclaim our place as sacred humans in harmony with Gaia and the elemental forces.
Our work blends many lineages, including Earth-based spirituality, intergalactic remembrance, and personal soul retrieval. I do not claim to be a member of the Washoe tribe or to represent their practices. I use words like shaman, sweat lodge, or tipi to describe archetypal tools of transformation that cross many cultures. That said, I remain committed to honoring the specific history of this land, the displacement of the Washoe people, and the need for all of us to be in right relationship with Indigenous sovereignty.”
—Melinda Starr
Founder, Starr Horse Retreats
RANCHO RICO
Yerington, Nevada
Rancho Rico is our second property, located two hours from Tahoe and Reno. This venue is on 88 acres of riverfront property with multiple gathering areas for large camping events.
