A soothing, buzzy, atonal vibration fills a well-kept stable off 30th Street near Glen Eyrie.

Nothing is short-circuiting. It’s just the sound of a contented llama. A humming llama is a happy llama, and today that happy gal is 10-year-old Chloe, who shuffles around the pen with her three buddies: Zorro, Pedro and Issey.

After investigating the humans who have entered their domain and deeming them acceptable, they munch the big bay of hale in the corner, sniff the earth looking for something delicious, and stay on alert for activity in the wild lands around them.

Just like a pack of dogs, there’s a hierarchy here. Eight-year-old Zorro, with his adorable underbite, is king of the corral.

For the moment, his ears are up as he keeps watch, allowing his fellow llamas to let down their guard a notch. That is, until Chloe relaxes a little too much for Zorro’s liking, and he huffs and makes a little movement at her, giving her an order of some sort.

“Pay attention or something,” says Terry McConnell, who owns the herd and speaks llama.

And now Chloe has located a juicy stick from somewhere, which she gnaws while staring at you with her placid eyes, looking like a cow chewing her cud.

“Why are you so funny?” McConnell says. “Everything about them is hilarious. They’re very curious, very alert. They’re also very in tune with people’s feelings.”

But the herd serves a higher purpose than just being cute; they’re the bones of McConnell’s adventure and healing business, Luxy Llama. From May through December, she offers guided hikes, wine-and-cheese events, or simple quiet time with the animals. She also sometimes brings a pair to Sunday brunches at Garden of the Gods Resort and Club, where diners finish their meals and meander onto the patio for a llama palate cleanser. They’re also available to attend family reunions, birthday parties and any other gathering that folks think goes well with a camelid.

The llamas also serve as therapy animals for clients at the Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, which conducts research and uses its scientific discoveries to help trauma survivors.

Psychologists in the Milestones Resilience Care program regularly bring their clients to the stable, where they go on hikes with the llamas while participating in therapy sessions.

“It’s a grounding experience,” said Nicole Weis, director of healing and community programs at Lyda Hill Institute. “The phrase is be where your feet are, and that’s what llamas are. They’re a very grounded and balanced creature. They also require a level of trust. It’s good trust-building for a llama to be comfortable allowing you to guide them.”

The Milestones program treats trauma in a whole-person perspective through psychotherapy, somatic services, and alternative therapies, including animal-assisted therapy with llamas and horses.

“It’s hard to be around a llama and not feel some level of joy. And joy is such a healing experience,” Weis said. “But then there’s also the process of building trust and getting to walk with the animal. There’s a lot of therapeutic benefit to movement. We see this in a lot of animal-assisted therapies, where the client speaks to the animal, but the animal can’t reply, and you get to express memories and feelings.”

Visitors to the Luxy Llama stable can sit at the picnic table in a partially enclosed structure, where the llamas wander in and around. Time slows down here, giving the nervous system a chance to reset from sympathetic to parasympathetic.

“People come to let go of the rush,” McConnell said. “That’s the thing about llamas – they won’t be rushed. Sometimes people are very emotional here. They feel settled. A lot of times, people observe how square the manmade things are. They’re very linear. If you look past this, everything is non-linear because nature has a different way. People have control issues. Nature just is.”

She points out an empty frame hanging on the wall of an enclosed portion of the corral.

“It’s symbolic of hope for people,” she said. “As we go through life, things happen, and it’s our responsibility to frame them how we need to or want to. It’s a choice to think positive, not that it’s always easy.”

McConnell knows of what she speaks. Luxy Llama was born from tragedy, after her youngest son, Ajay Rajendran, was diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma when he was 19. He was treated locally, but faced a recurrence. They wound up at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where he went through a successful stem cell transplant using his older brother, Max Rajendran, as his donor.

Treatment was intense. McConnell chose to serve as her son’s caretaker, meaning she couldn’t leave his hospital room for months, due to his fragile immune system.

“Before that, I was in software and very much a go-go person, as were the boys,” McConnell said. “This was a wake-up call to slow down and take the time to be together. We talked about all the hard things, like what if he didn’t get through this, our mortality, accepting where we were, but never giving up hope.”

Those months in the hospital transformed her insides, and after finally returning home, McConnell knew her outsides needed to match her inner evolution.

As a longtime lover of camelids, she’d already had years of experience owning llamas. She once owned a herd that lived in Patagonia, and would donate their sheared fur to a local artisan whose work she admired.

Around 2020, before her son got sick, she bought 10 llamas that lived on a farm in Salida. During her visits with the animals post-cancer treatment, she decided to repurpose them for the greater good.

“I wanted to do something to honor my boys. Max saved Ajay’s life. Without him, he wouldn’t be alive,” McConnell said. “I thought I’m going to create a business that is going to help with healing and being present. I’m not a therapist. I just wanted to create a space.”

And that she has, in this quiet spot on private land owned by The Navigators. She visits her furry companions every day, caring for them, finagling water into their pen, and abiding by how they like to be touched and not touched.

It’s new ground for the former corporate crusader who didn’t grow up on a farm or have previous experience caring for large animals. And it’s a tangible representation of the hard work she and her sons have survived, and a commitment to helping others go through their own twists and turns.

“We’ve proven we are all resilient, with each other, though, because no one does it alone,” McConnell said. “We’ve witnessed that life is always changing, and we’re transforming along with it for the better. And despite the hardships, it builds a warrior. We’re all warriors in our own way.”

Details

Meet and greet with the llamas, 1-4 people, $250 per hour, 5-8 people is $400 per hour; guided hikes, $250 per person; offsite visits, $500 per hour; 719-217-1152, luxyllama.com.