Tocar el Viento

Tocar el Viento. Translated from the Spanish, it means “to touch the wind.” A very fitting name for this beautiful, bright red horse who endeavored all his life not only to touch the wind but to live life on his own terms. A very fitting name since his ancestors were born in Spain.

One sunny day in Florida, the woman, his woman, came into the pasture with the EYE (camera) and the intention to LOOK AT (photograph) the horses. First she turned the EYE to buddy-horse, LOOKING closely at his parts and into his soul. Buddy-horse always trusted this woman and had no reservations in giving her full access to his horse being. Then the woman asked the horses to run, but buddy-horse wanted to stay close to the woman. Tocar el Viento needed to show the EYE and the woman how he could run, how he could touch the wind from the earth. So he let the EYE held by the woman LOOK AT him, watch him fly, watch him become one with the wind. And before either the woman or the horse knew it, he let the EYE capture his very essence in this image. Tocar el Viento!

Ah, his mane–it flies in the wind, but see the snarls? One of the terms that Tocar el Viento wanted for his life was to look like he wanted to look. The woman, his woman, would brush and comb his beautiful mane, and the next day he would have again rearranged the hair to look like HE wanted, snarls in all the right places. In the beginning of the relationship with this woman, she would patiently brush and comb and apply scented goo, often grumbling beneath her breath all the time. Tocar el Viento seemed to think that somehow the woman, his woman, wanted to change him by dictating human rules that shackled him to the earth, away from the wind. So never fail, the next morning saw new tangles and a new gleam in his eye. Today, he would again be the wind! And then the woman understood that he needed to be the wind, to touch the wind, to live by his rules. And the woman left the snarls, rejoiced in the snarls, rejoiced in him.

This red horse was always aware of the EYE when it turned towards him. Sometimes he was angry with the EYE, sometimes reluctant, sometimes brilliant, but never ignorant. It is no different in this image–Tocar el Viento is very aware of the EYE, and right now he is making his statement towards the EYE and the woman, his woman. Tocar el Viento is making his statement to all who will see. How dare the EYE try to LOOK into his inner self, into his very being?

After over seventeen years with the woman, his woman, who now came to free him to the wind, Tocar el Viento departed to become the whisper of the breeze. A few mornings after he was gone, a dove came into the barn just after sunrise. They were alone, the dove and the woman, because buddy-horse and his friends had gone out to pasture. Never before had the woman seen a white dove in the barn, nor did she ever see one after this. The dove waited until the woman, Tocar's woman, gave the dove her undivided attention, then the dove flew up away into the sky, into the wind. Like the dove, Tocar el Viento is now free to “touch the wind” in the heavens and in the memories of the woman, his woman, and buddy-horse.