A Promise Kept - Quiet Dignity

Spring - Week 16 - On Sacred Companions and Invisible Threads

In Her Nature is a year long exploration into the healing power of the natural world. Season by season, setting out to awaken the spirit, and rekindle joy. The weekly journal of a neighborhood, its plants and birds and creatures — and how they are helping repair a heart and rebirth a soul.

It's snowing rose-colored cherry blossom from the crab apple tree today, delicate petals drifting down in the wilds of the Colorado spring breeze. I'm running my hands along the back of my old horse, Atlas, feeling the familiar warmth and solid presence beneath my palm. He's quietly munching on the first lush green grass of the year, content in the simple pleasure. Finally, the moisture of the last weeks has turned the fields and barn edges green. We are both feasting – Atlas on the sweet blades, and my eyes on a landscape that, for a moment, resembles the green of Ireland more than Colorado. The lilac bushes are blooming a month early, their sweet fragrance mingling with the earthy scent of spring soil and horse.

Fifteen years. That's how long Atlas has been my love, my companion, my heart-horse. I still remember that summer day when our paths crossed, when I first saw him – skinny, used up, his spirit dimmed by years of carrying tourists on trail rides seven days a week in the scorching 90-degree heat. They called him a "graded horse," that cold, dismissive term for animals without papers, without pedigree, without perceived value. Unwanted. Unloved. Uncared for. Something about his eyes, though, those soulful, grateful eyes spoke to me across the paddock. They held a quiet dignity despite everything.

I made him a promise that day when he became mine: I would be with him until he took his last breath. I would be his guardian, his advocate, his person. Little did I know then how profoundly this promise would alter the course of both our lives.

There are moments that change us forever. Some we choose, and some that seem to choose us. Rescuing Atlas was one of those pivotal crossroads where choice and destiny intertwined. Had I not been there that day, had I not looked into those eyes and felt that connection, what would have become of him? He was already struggling, his body showing the signs of neglect and overwork. And what would have become of me without his steady presence through all these years. He's been with me almost as long as America has been my home.

Sometimes I marvel that I got to make my little girl dreams of owning horses come true. There's something deeply spiritual in being in the presence of large animals, something that connects us to a more primal understanding of the world. And being his caretaker for a third of my life and much more than half of his – that relationship hits you at another level entirely. The responsibility and love intertwine until you can't separate one from the other.

Under my care, Atlas transformed. His coat began to shine, his barrel rounded, his eyes brightened. Years later, a DNA test revealed he wasn't just any horse but 96% Argentine Criollo. A Spanish breed developed for the harsh demands of life on the pampas. The dunn color, the dorsal stripe down his back and tiger stripes on his legs weren't just beautiful markings; they were heritage, ancestry, a bloodline that had survived centuries. He was magnificent, and he had always been – beneath the neglect, beneath the "graded horse" label. He just needed someone to see it.

The sound of his nibbles and chews is a melody I know by heart, a soothing balm to my ears after all these years. I love to let him graze, especially in his twilight years, to watch him enjoy this simple treat. His satisfaction becomes mine; his peace transfers to me somehow. His ears flick occasionally, acknowledging distant sounds that I barely register, reminding me of how differently we experience this same moment.

Around us, the meadow larks call and blue jays chatter in the trees. From the nearby stable, I can hear Hector mucking out stalls, his voice a constant murmur as he talks to loved ones on his cell phone – a morning ritual as familiar as Atlas's grazing. These sounds form the backdrop of our shared life, a life measured in seasons and small, precious routines.

Atlas's forelock has grown whiter over the years, matching the strands of my own hair. We've aged together, this magnificent creature and I, our bodies telling similar stories of time's passage. Now we both move more deliberately, appreciating the quiet moments. For six years, he's been retired, enjoying the peace he's earned after a life of service – first forced, then freely given.

I run my fingers through his mane, working out a small tangle. He leans slightly into my touch – a gesture so subtle that only someone who has loved him for fifteen years would notice. In response, I press my cheek against his neck and breathe in his scent: grass, earth, sunshine, and that indefinable essence that is purely my horse.

This is communion. This is what it means to share your days with a being who asks nothing but care and offers everything in return. In a world that moves too quickly, demands too much, Atlas teaches me daily about presence, about being exactly where you are. About finding joy in green grass, spring blossoms, and the company of those who know your heart.

Like Atlas, I too found myself transplanted to this Colorado soil. Moving to America was another of those life-altering crossroads – a leap into the unknown that somehow led me exactly where I needed to be. Atlas has been my constant through that journey, a living reminder that sometimes our greatest transformations come when someone simply believes in us, makes a promise, and keeps it.

Why Women Love Horses

A horse will turn feral if it loses its confines, is given enough time away from governing hands, dictates days.

There isnt a woman I know who doesnt burn wit the same faculty. Like calling to like. Frequency seeking frequency. We understand the gleam in their plum-purple eyes, the twitch in their whiskered lips that says:

kick the boards down, jump the fence, run.

— LE Bowman

I wonder sometimes about the invisible threads that connect certain lives, certain souls. What confluence of circumstances brought both of us – a "graded horse" and an immigrant – together under this particular sky? There's a mystery there that I don't need to solve, only to honor. Sometimes, the most profound changes in our lives arrive through pivotal decisions that alter our trajectory entirely: committing to the welfare of a horse others had written off, leaving familiar shores for distant horizons, and planting new roots in unexpected ground.

Atlas taught me that. That transformation doesn't always announce itself with trumpets and thunder. Sometimes it arrives quietly, in the form of a skinny horse with soulful eyes, waiting for someone to see his worth.

Our lives are shaped as much by chance encounters as by deliberate choices. That summer day could have been just another ordinary Tuesday. I could have walked past his paddock without a second glance. He could have been in a different corner, head down, invisible. But something – call it fate, divine intervention, or simply the remarkable odds of two beings finding each other in the vastness of possibility – brought us together at precisely the right moment.

I think we all carry these invisible pivot points within our histories – moments when everything changed, when the course of our lives shifted, often without our full awareness until years later. Looking back, we can trace the line from there to here, but in the moment itself, we rarely recognize its significance. These thresholds we cross, these hands we take or don't take, these eyes we meet or miss across crowded spaces – they sculpt our futures in ways we cannot foresee.

There's a unique solemnity in standing beside a being who has witnessed your life unfold across fifteen years — who has been there through changes of home, of heart, of circumstance. Atlas carries no judgments, holds no grudges, keeps no score. He simply remains, steadfast as the mountains that frame our Colorado home. Walking with him through these years has been a quiet revelation in patience, in recognizing value where others see none, in commitment that doesn't waver.

When I place my hand on his sun-warmed neck now, I feel not just the horse beneath my palm but the confluence of a thousand small choices that led us here. In a world filled with uncertainty, there's a particular kind of peace in knowing that at least this one promise — made to a skinny, overlooked horse on a summer day — was kept.

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—> What moments of natural wonder caught your attention this week? Please share your stories and photos in the comments below. Let's experience nature's gifts together.

As always, thank you so much for reading and supporting me.

Love,

Jane