When a friend tells Diana that “you and Emma have a unique relationship,” she is certainly not exaggerating. Woman and horse are so bonded that they communicate through thought transference, and the things that Diana learns about the mare will challenge all her human logic and put her, and the horse, on a magical path.
Written as a true story and so pleasantly flowing and competently organized that you would have a hard time believing that this is St James’s first book, the saga of communication between Emma, the mare, and Diana, her owner, builds gradually, starting as a pretty normal relationship. Human rides horse. Horse obeys human--until Emma starts to disobey and then, despite the best possible care, falls ill with no apparent medical explanation. Stymied by her expensive pet’s fractious ways, desperate Diana consults with a woman who claims to be able to talk to animals through mental telepathy. Carol quickly tunes in to Emma’s thoughts, and it isn’t long before Diana, too, is “talking”--not just to Emma but to other animals.
Emma (whom Diana named intuitively, seeing the horse as an “emissary”) has a strong “personality” and never acts quite the way Diana has reason to expect. Raised in an abusive environment like Diana herself, Emma resorts to odd behaviors such as “spacing out” and avoidance. Once, she simply runs away for a while.
Another time, she disappears and claims to have had sex with a stallion that no human has ever seen, Emma says, because “he is black and lives with the shadows.” When a vet verifies the pregnancy, though the fetus has miscarried, Diana is forced to believe Emma’s rather preposterous, romantic story.
One of the startling revelations Diana receives from Emma (as if merely talking to her is not enough) is that the horse knew her in a previous incarnation. Later, Diana encounters a goose named Mathilda who tells her that she is the reincarnation of Diana’s childhood pet, a parakeet. Seeking spiritual wisdom in Meher Baba’s book
God Speaks, Diana finds corroboration that a parakeet could indeed evolve into a goose!
Diana St James is by education hardly someone you might consider fanciful. She holds degrees in math and psychology, having studied at UC Davis and MIT. She has been a math instructor and a marketing consultant. Yet St James, now retired, swears that she talks to her horse and other creatures, and plans a sequel to Emma Speaks.
Emma Speaks is a must-read for horse lovers, animal lovers, and those who believe in extra-sensory perception and reincarnation – all together, a rather large group!