May Remembers
I was taking care of my neighbor’s animals for a few days while they were away camping and decided to walk through the pasture to connect with the horses.
The little dog, Firework tagged along. He was a young dog and sometimes wandered while following the distraction of enticing scents amongst the tall grass along the irrigation ditch. I brought a leash, intending to prevent a frustrating search in the event of his disappearance. To my relief, he stayed close enough to assuage my worry and I walked towards the grazing horses with him tagging along.
I greeted each of the two horses in turn, giving them a pat and letting them sniff my hand. However, the third horse, May, didn’t allow me to approach her. She was notoriously hard to catch and usually wouldn’t let someone walk right up to her. Since I was still carrying the leash, she was especially wary of me. She must have assumed I was there to catch her, potentially taking her away from her enjoyable occupation with the lush grass.
As she walked away from my first approach, I veered off in a different direction so I wouldn’t make her feel I was pursuing her. Pausing for a few moments, I saw that she had resumed grazing in a relaxed manner. I tried again, walking towards her a second time. She waited until I was almost close enough to touch her and she moved off, just out of reach.
I decided to take a different approach since all I really wanted to do was connect with her and give her a pat. I wanted her to understand my intention and not feel she had to be wary of me coming close to her for any reason. I stopped and took a deep breath, feeling my body come to a quiet stillness.
I closed my eyes and made a clear picture in my mind of me walking up to her shoulder and scratching the underside of her neck and her chest. After a few moments of visualization, I opened my eyes and looked at her.
She had her head down and was nipping off the grass. I started walking towards her and she kept grazing, allowing me to walk right up to her shoulder as I had imagined.
I scratched her neck and talked to her in a soothing voice, still holding the leash in my hand. She stayed with me while I petted and scratched her all over, not making the slightest attempt to walk away from me. My mental pictures had been stronger than the physical evidence of the leash I held in my hand. After a few minutes of soft connection with her, Firework and I walked back to the house together, the leash now stuffed away in my pocket.
Several years had passed, and after moving away and not interacting with May at all, I went out to the pasture recently to take some photos of her for this blog. There she was, grazing with two new horses. I stood outside the fence and said hello to her out loud, even though she was too far away to hear me.
Noticing my presence, she pricked her ears forward with curiosity and began walking directly towards me. I climbed through the fence and snapped some photos as she approached.
After sniffing my hands, she turned and positioned her body at an angle; a gesture that clearly invited me to put my hands on her shoulder. I then recalled that she had recently cut one of her legs on the fence, but it had mostly healed and she wasn’t limping. I didn’t know which one it was and casually asked out loud if she would show me. To my surprise, she lifted the leg nearest to me and I saw the grayish scab near her hoof!
A tingling discharge of energy suddenly ran down the back of my body as some residual trauma energy from the injury released. That must have been all she wanted because she turned and walked away, standing nearby in the sun; remembering my hands from another gentle encounter.