How horses at Spirit Horse Ranch help Maui wildfire survivors process their grief

KANAIO, Hawaii – To fear. Anxiety. Anger. Depression. Overloaded.

Janice Dapitan began her second counseling session by writing these words on a whiteboard, reflecting what she felt at that moment. The day the fire destroyed her hometown of Lahaina — and the fights that followed for nearly a year — still haunt her.

The fire killed his uncle. He burned the homes of seven family members. His daughter narrowly escaped the fire with her two children, but lost her home and moved to Las Vegas. The house Dapitan shares with her husband, Kalani, survived, but now it overlooks the burn zone. The vision is a painful and constant reminder that the life they knew is gone.

“There are so many triggers,” she said on a blustery July day. Her long black braids fell over a tank top with the word “Lahaina” printed in gold. “We may be fine today and tomorrow may be different. Everything is uncertain. Every day is a different challenge. We want to remain happy, but it’s a process.”

A year after the wildfires on Maui, thousands of residents share the struggle of Dapitan. They mourn the loss of loved ones and generational homes. They are haunted by their traumatic escapes and even the guilt of surviving. They endured months of instability – trading hotel rooms, schools and jobs. An estimated 1,500 families left Maui, forced to start over thousands of miles from home.

But lately, Dapitan has been enjoying some relief, thanks to an equine-assisted therapy program at Spirit Horse Ranch in rural Maui, an hour’s drive from Lahaina.

“The connection with horses is different than the connection with machines or humans,” Dapitan said. “It’s almost like an instant cure.”

After large-scale disasters, restoring a community’s mental well-being is as important as rebuilding infrastructure, experts say. And just as building an entire city can take years, so can healing its residents.

“We can be so focused on physically rebuilding – because that’s challenging enough – that we don’t create space for that healing,” said Jolie Wills, a cognitive scientist who led the mental health response for the Red Cross after the 2010 Christchurch earthquake. in New Zealand.

Although some survivors need professional support to overcome trauma, much recovery can happen outside the clinic walls. Maui residents lean on programs that help them reconnect – with themselves, their community, land and culture.

After writing down his words, Dapitan sat on a folding chair inside a horse corral. A few feet away, 22-year-old Maverick, Tennessee Walker, rolled in the dirt.

The program’s founder, Paige DePonte, sat across from him and began a technique called brainspotting. She moved a small wand in front of Dapitan’s eyes to stimulate certain eye movements that are believed to help the brain process trauma. Later, Dapitan approached Maverick. She brushed her dark mane. After leading him once around the corral, she stopped, rested her arms on his back, and began to cry.

“He just lets you lean on him,” she said. “I can feel healed because at least someone is letting me lean on them.”

For her husband Kalani, the quiet isolation of the ranch, situated on a hillside overlooking Maui’s south coast, gives him space to process what happened. “Before we even met the horses, I was crying,” he said. “Peace really breaks down your barriers.”

Participants in equine-assisted therapy do not typically ride horses, but the presence of the animals alone can calm people as they cope with trauma. They can brush, walk, and even talk to the animals, or the horses can simply be nearby while facilitators lead them through other counseling or psychotherapy methods.

“Horses are incredible healers,” said DePonte, who started the program on her family’s cattle farm in 2021 after observing the transformational effect the animals had on her own recovery from trauma. “They are in a state of coherence all the time, not thinking about tomorrow, not thinking about yesterday.”

The program, now supported by grants from the Hawaii Community Foundation, Maui United Way and other private donors, has provided more than 1,300 sessions for affected residents.

Dapitan had already started therapy before the fire to recover from previous trauma, but she said time on the farm feels different. “I think I got the most out of the horses in two days, compared to the year I’ve been getting regular advice.”

Holistic programs like these helped meet the enormous need for support services following the August 8, 2023 fire that killed at least 102 people and displaced 12,000.

In addition to the harrowing experiences of losing homes and loved ones, survivors are stressed and Exhausted from the volatility of daily life — changing hotel rooms, changing schools, loss of income.

“It’s been a pretty significant impact on people’s mental health,” said Tia Hartsock, director of the Hawaii Office of Wellness and Resilience. “Navigating bureaucratic systems during a trauma response has been very challenging.”

In a Hawaii Department of Health survey of affected families two months after the fire, nearly three-quarters of respondents said that at least one person in their household had felt nervous, anxious or depressed in the previous two weeks. By the six-month anniversary, more than half of survivors and a third of all Maui residents surveyed by the University of Hawaii reported experiencing depressive symptoms.

That’s to be expected after a disaster of such scale, Wills said, calling it “very normal reactions to a very abnormal situation.”

Providers, nonprofits, philanthropic groups, and the government have collaborated to reduce barriers to mental health treatment, such as paying for people’s therapy sessions and hiring mental health professionals for shelters and FEMA events.

But they knew residents also needed other options. “Clinical support wouldn’t necessarily be right for everyone,” said Justina Acevedo-Cross, senior program manager at the Hawaii Community Foundation.

Numerous public and private funders are supporting programs that re-engage residents with land and people, which Hartsock calls “incredibly helpful in healing.”

Several are rooted in Native Hawaiian healing practices. Cultural practitioners from the Hui Ho’omalu organization offer lomilomi, or Hawaiian massage. These sessions typically lead to kukakuka, or in-depth conversations, with Native Hawaiians trained in mental health support.

Affected families also maintain taro plantations, restore native plants, and take cultural classes on protected lands managed by the Ka’ehu organization. Aviva Libitsky and her 7-year-old son Nakana volunteer there at least once a week, removing invasive snails from kalo pools and cleaning trash from the shore.

Libitsky was anxious for months after fleeing the Lahaina fire and losing the home she had lived in since 2010. Working the land calms her. “It helps you channel that frenetic energy and direct it toward something useful.”

She and Nakana recently learned to weave bracelets from hala tree leaves at one of Ka’ehu’s cultural workshops. They also went to the Spirit Horse Ranch. “We just focus on new opportunities, creating new memories.”

As Maui enters its second year of recovery, providers are preparing for a new wave of people seeking help.

The last families are moving out of hotels and into temporary housing designed to transport them to the reconstruction of Lahaina. This sudden stillness can trigger greater emotions, Acevedo-Cross said. “They are able to feel a little more.”

Many of those who were not directly affected by the fires are now experiencing its impacts, such as rents soartourism jobs disappear and friends and family move away.

For some, healing will not occur until Lahaina is rebuilt and the community can return home.

“We don’t have a hometown anymore,” Kalani Dapitan said. He misses his friends and family, and most of all, his daughter. He constantly worries about what will happen to Lahaina, especially as a Native Hawaiian. “We are not sure of our future, of how our cultural aspect will develop.”

With so many things still uncertain, time at Spirit Horse Ranch helps the Dapitans stay present.

At the end of the session, Janice returned to the whiteboard to write the words that summarized her feelings. “Relaxed,” she wrote, and looked up. “That is all.”

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