Wyatt Mad Plume took his own life two years at age 29. Ever since, Wyatt’s sisters Lynn and Erika have been trying to turn their grief into something concrete and purposeful. Specifically, they want to provide free mental health resources to community members in the company of horses, animals their brother loved. Local men in particular, Lynn and Erika say, tend to resist talk therapy. They hope an alternative, informed by a blend of emerging mental health research and longstanding cultural traditions, might help reduce the likelihood of a death like their brother’s. They’re eager to make a dent in daunting statistics that no one has yet figured out how to crack.
