Helping to heal

But even though she calls herself “a handy old chook”, at 70 years old, Ms Mear is reaching the stage where she cannot continue the therapy work she has been performing single-handedly for the last 40 years, without some assistance and support.

For four decades Ms Mear has been helping children and adults who have been victims of sexual violence work through their deep trauma, through interaction with ponies.

The course of events that led Ms Mear into her chosen path are remarkable.

At the age of five, she was abandoned by her parents. Shortly after finding herself on the streets in Western Australia, she was raped.

Filthy and afraid, with her faith in humanity shattered she found refuge in the companionship of animals.

After being taken in, and raised in an orphanage, a teenage Linda joined a team of drovers and spent the next few years learning about breaking in horses, mustering, living off the land, fencing, splitting poles, farming and building to name a few. 

With no formal education, but an instinctive and intuitive understanding of working with animals, coupled with the knowledge and skills she had learnt as a “bushy” Linda moved to Bundaberg, where she worked as a veterinary assistant for six years.

It was shortly after this that she met her husband Len in Roma.

“The connection was immediate,” she said.

“We were married in less than six weeks.”

But their marriage would not even last seven years.

Mr Mear was killed when he was gorged by a mad bull, leaving his widow with a four-month-old daughter to raise on her own.

Grieving and alone, Ms Mear rediscovered the healing potential available through interaction with animals.

“I felt instructed by God to reach out to others who have been broken and hurt, and help relieve their pain with the skills I had learnt,” she said.

Thirty years ago she moved to Brisbane, where with her string of ponies she has helped countless children and adults find healing and release, a service for which she has never charged.

“It doesn’t feel right for people to have to pay to have their pain eased, to pay to feel whole again,” she said.

“I want to continue with this work, I feel I have so much more to give, but the economic, physical and spacial demands are becoming increasingly difficult to manage on my own.

“The current establishment where I am at is also no longer suitable for me to continue this work at.”

Ms Mear is reaching out to anyone in the community who may be able to provide a space and/or assistance which will enable her to continue and re-establish her therapy work with victims of sexual violence.

Anyone wishing to contact Ms Mear can do so at 0475 580 611.