What is it about horses and people...?
I've never been a horsey person. The whole, My Little Pony set didn't feature one iota in my childhood. Neither did any other animals for that matter. Despite all of that there has always been a connection, an affinity between me and other animals; one that has grown stronger in recent years, especially through hiking no less.
Hiking, oh yes, and that's where I found myself today, connecting with and sharing a mutually life enhancing experience with a horse. A horse most forlorn.
I've seen the same horse a number of times in the past three years. It has always looked so sad, looked after, yet unloved. Today was different. I saw its hair on the ground around its feet... are they feet? Anyway, I saw hair on the ground. I couldn't quite make out whether it had fallen out, but reflecting on it now, I'd say that whomever had given it a haircut. Strange, I'd never thought of people having to give horses haircuts, but there you go. We do live in a strange world.
Either way, it was looking sad, so still, almost statuesque in a solid, immobile way. So not right. I stood, connected, relaxed, settled and quite still, yet moving. The horse began to respond to my presence in its life. And that was all I was - present with, and it began to move. First moving its weight and turning its head. I moved my arms. Just a tiny, intuitive gesture of living movement and the horse responded. Its movements were slow yet sure as it turned and inched its way towards me at the fence between us. The lush, green grass, so far removed from the lifeless ground on which it had previously stood, did its trick and the horse was soon munching away on the luscious greenery.
A magic few moments of life. Nothing really happened and yet so much did.
Those opportunities for mutually life enhancing experiences are rare indeed.
