Sweet habit of the blood

Daisy & Angel (& Beauty) 

"A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of earth, for the labours men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amid the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be in-wrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbours, even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood. At five years old, mortals are not prepared to be citizens of the world, to be stimulated by abstract nouns, to soar above preference into impartiality; and that prejudice in favour of milk with which we blindly begin, is a type of the way body and soul must get nourished at least for a time. The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one’s own homestead." George Eliot (Daniel Deronda)

I was struck by this, as more than ever, this summer, it is those neighbors; the feral cats and goats of cackleshaws, the deer and cobs in the next field, the animal frens who nourish our souls, and we do what we can to help them thrive. Beauty asked us for help, two legs had old infected wounds along with muddy conditions had left her fetlocks stinking and covered with lumps of granulated flesh (a condition we eventually learned was common in the injured warhorses of the first world war). We'd previously been wary of Beauty and, especially her psycho-eyed daughter; Daisy. Daisy was also in foal and due any day. Of course the bad reputation was more based on them not liking screaming kids in their field, defending their patch had become habitual. Their owner had too much other adversity going on, and so we begain washing and treating Beautys legs every evening after feeding our ponehs. Beauty has been so patient, so gentle and easy to help. And after a week Angel, Daisy's foal was born. Perfect miniature awesome equine beauty, and because we visit and help, Daisy is entirely at ease with us around her baby, and we get to watch in awe, as this virgin consciousness totters and runs and spreads the butterfly wings of her foal-mind. It is a Compact, a Bargain, not all are Familiars (linked through blood and family) but all are part of the web, the chain that links us with these dragon-lands.