Dusk photography

At the weekend 'ö-Dzin always comes with me to see the horses and he takes photographs.  These were taken when it was starting to get dark.

I like this picture of me – I think it really shows how much weight I have lost.


No point in losing it if it doesn't show, now is there!

And Dee doing her usual post-feed thing.  I love the way the flash has highlighted her mouth.  Her teeth look cleaner than usual.

Feeding

Life has been a bit hectic over the last three weeks.  My mother—who is 94—fell and broke her wrist.  She was in hospital for a couple of weeks and now is in a 'transitional care' home for up to six weeks.  They will then assess whether she can go home – whether she can realistically continue to live on her own.

The care home is lovely.  She has a large room with an en suite bathroom.  The meals are good.  There is a pleasant garden.  The staff are friendly and efficient.  There is a lounge with the TV always on and a quiet lounge with no TV.  There is a kitchenette where I can make mum and I a cup of tea when I visit.

Mum is determined to hate it, and is convinced that it is her evil daughter's fault that she is there – that I want to rob her of her freedom.  Sigh. . .

Needless to say there has not been much time for anything other than visiting mum.  The horses are in the top fields at the moment as there is still quite a lot of grass there for them.  I have been going straight up there every day and feeding Dee by the fence, rather than trying to take her down to the yard.

Last night I got stuck in traffic coming back from the care home, which is right the other side of town from me.  It was dark and wet by the time I arrived at Wenallt Road.  Although all other roads had been clear up till then, there was thick fog on the Wenallt.  I called Dee and a horse came over to me through the gloom.  The horse looked the right sort of size, appeared to have a white star and two white socks and was wearing a Masta rug, though I could not discern the colour.  So I fed it / her. 
After finishing the feed this horse put its head in the air to do the flehmen response – so at that point I was confident that it was Dee that I had fed!  She always does this several times after being fed even a treat.  She was quite nervous being away from the herd in the dark and the fog and quickly headed back to its safety as soon as she had finished eating.  I was also glad to get out of the rain and go home for my feed. 

I still had to go a way up the hill until I could get off Wenallt Road though and the fog got so thick that I was crawling along desperately trying to find what was road and what was verge as there are no road markings on this single track lane.  I haven't been in fog that thick for many years.  It was a relief to finally arrive at the main road opposite 'The Traveller's Rest' – where the fog miraculously disappeared.

Today Dee was waiting for me by the same bit of fence where I have fed her for the last three days.  Red was close by too so I went over and gave him a few treats and a bit of fuss while Dee ate her feed.  He would have already had his dinner as part of his livery.  There was another horse with them—Saffron perhaps—and Red was quite happy to share the treats with her.  It is sweet to see that Dee and Red still stay close to one another, as all the rest of the herd were one field further down.

Powerless

I haven't been able to blog for a week because we have had a problem with our electricity. The engineer came last Wednesday to do a routine annual service on our water heater, and while checking its electrical connection, found a fault on the fusebox. He could not safely switch everything back on – having discovered the fault. So Wednesday afternoon and all day Thursday we had no electricity at all. Of course, by Sod's Law, Thursday was the coldest day of the winter as yet. Fortunately we have a log fire in our lounge and had an ample supply of candles. Also—having been keen on camping in the past—we have a little gas stove and several LED lanterns and wind-up torches. So we managed well enough.

By Thursday evening we had the cooker and one socket, so we were able to plug in a few things to make life a bit easier. By Friday we had, in addition, the shower, hot water (bliss!), and the kitchen sockets. By the end of Saturday we had all the sockets throughout the house, but still no lights. This wasn't too much of a problem as we could plug lights in, so we insisted our plumber/electrician had Sunday off to spend with his family. We felt rather sorry for him – he turned up to do a one hour job and it has turned into a long-winded emergency. He has been having to cancel other jobs to give us priority. Today (Monday) he has got the lights in the lounge, dining room, office and hallway working, so we have assured him we can manage with things as they are now for as long as necessary—we can wash in hot water and keep warm, use all our usual appliances, and work in good light in the lounge. We have enjoyed 'camping' in our home, and snuggling up in front of the fire in a candlelit room.

It has been fun to have my life circumstances thrust me into the opportunity of experiencing that fresh, new feeling of appreciation, for something that I generally take for granted. I know that every moment-by-moment experience could always be this fresh and new, this appreciated, and have that 'for-the-first-time' feeling of wonder – if I was able to live in the moment and experience the Nature of Mind . . . if I could keep my sense fields open and avoid conceptual judgment immediately clicking in. Unfortunately I still continually slip back into my limited comfort zone, where everything is familiar, and understood within the terms of my own definitions and reference points. I find it strange that I cling to this blandness and actively miss the electricity of what is.

We succeeded in snapping another picture of Dee doing the flehmen response. This picture is actually from a video. I hadn't realised, but she wobbles her bottom lip around at the same time. I think she looks so funny. We weren't able to ride this weekend because everything was a bit chaotic, but hope that things will be a bit more normal next weekend.

Habits

We have been trying to capture a picture of Dee doing this for a long time. We have numerous blurry images of her ears or the view of the stable where her head was a moment ago, having just missed the opportunity. This is called the flehmen response and it is Dee's habit to perform this several times after a feed – I have never seen any of the other horses on the yard do it. It is quite an extraordinary sight.

I have been noticing habits and patterns recently, and noting how my daily routine touches other people's: the pigeon fancier who frees his pigeons to stretch their wings at about the time I set out for the stables . . . the lady walking her dog with a gammy leg and a waggy tail . . . the Rhiwbina Ramblers with trousers tucked into boots striding out on a Thursday morning . . . and also on a Thursday, several women leaving a community hall carrying large pilates balls. Our lives are so entwined and interdependant. We may think that we are the centre of our sphere of being (Sanskrit – mandala, Tibetan – kyil'khor) but our reality can be more enjoyable, creative and playful if we allow ourselves to be defined more by our periphery – by the people and circumstances we come across in our lives. If we open ourselves up to enjoying the dance of life around us, we have the opportunity to be less focused on the 'being-me' project which can dominate our lives and limit us.

Regular contact with horses is, in my opinion, particularly good for opening ourselves up to relaxing and appreciating our peripheral circumstances. There are chores that have to be completed, some of which I find physically quite demanding, but the pleasure I derive from the contact with our horses enables me to engage with these chores daily without any sense of resentment even when I'm exhausted. When riding I have to be aware of the horse's perception of the world as well as my own, the movement of her body and my flow with that, and relax into the horse/human interaction, which again loosens my fixation on self-focus. I feel most fortunate to have daily contact with my horses and for the benefits they give me as a human being.

I think Dee is appreciating having flax bedding again. She has clearly been lying down during the night. I am glad that she feels sufficiently comfortable and secure in her stable that she can relax so well.