Bliss

I suppose it's unusual for someone to say they had a wonderful, relaxing time shoveling shit, but  I did.

Last night I helped my daughter take care of her riding instructor's horses. They live outside and don't have stalls in the barn like some of the animals at the farm. And one of them, thoroughbred Will, hurt his foot and needed to stay alone in the round pen for a few days.

So the paddock needed to be de-pooped and Will needed to be hand-walked to graze for a bit. We dumped his water tub and hauled out buckets of fresh water to re-fill it and then took care of getting Shooter, Tonka and Damien out of their field and fed.

Not very exciting. For you. For me--it was nirvana. If you're a horse person, the smell of hay and horse and even horse manure is the very scent of heaven. While Shooter munched his hay and tipped his feed bucket (goof) I pressed my face into his neck and inhaled. Ahhh...horse. I could have stayed there forever. He was big and warm and so alive. The tension held inside my body melted away. Peace.

I was reminded of so many quotes about horses.


A horse is the projection of peoples' dreams about themselves - strong, powerful, beautiful - and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence.  ~Pam Brown

The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears.  ~Arabian Proverb 

And Allah took a handful of southerly wind, blew His breath over it, and created the horse.... Thou shall fly without wings, and conquer without any sword.  Oh, horse.  ~Bedouin Legend

And then Shooter lifted his head and sneezed on me.

But it was still the best kind of therapy...

What brings you bliss?