This week I am filling in with a moment in time as we’re a tad short of content. I
have been loving everyone’s stories and in thinking about the topic of time,
have realized that life is made up of so many moments, in fact that’s the best bit
of it, so how does one choose which one to write about.

I’ve chosen a moment that, as a young person, made me realize just how life,
and the time we have, is so important and how we often take it for granted.

When I was in my 20’s and early 30s, I bred, trained and rode western quarter
horses. Our sport was cutting (a western sport) as we also bred cattle on our
farm. Often, I would take my horse Roany to a friends in Williamstown to help
them round up their cattle. Williamstown area is a challenging place to ride as
its extremely hilly, very Man from Snowy River style hills in places.

One afternoon as I was being very gung Ho riding around these hills, I took
myself and Roany around a separate path, thinking I’d come back around
behind the herd. As I rode along this hillside path it quickly became a track, and then turned into a tiny walkway with sheer cliff to the left and sheer cliff to the right and a very, very dead end.

This is not ideal when you are on a horse that has to have space to turn around
and go back. In that moment in time, I realised just what sort of trouble we were
both in, which was that any false or frightened move by either party probably
meant dying. I have strangely never been so calm.

Roany and I sat there together, completely still, and listened to the wind, felt the
sunshine and had the most amazing moment of togetherness I have ever had
with another being. It felt like an eternity. Everything in that moment was
completely and exquisitely clear and profoundly beautiful.

Then as though thinking as one unit, Roany and I started to back, step by slow
step, up the tiny path with a precipice on either side of us. We finally made it
back around the hill to safer ground. He was an amazing horse!

Now, whenever I have had troubles in my life, as we all do, and I feel that life is
too hard or has somehow lost purpose, I think of that time with my horse who
has now passed away. I remember exactly how profound that tiny moment and
how it felt was. It reminds me just how beautiful and precious life is at its very
core, regardless of all of the stuff of daily life and its traumas that so often
intrude. That one moment changed my whole world!