Offering into my blazing gaze a trickle, a trace, a leaking from a containment. So I contain, I hold within all the forces which will not be soothed. No one comes to soothe. I am as a child again, there is no soothing, I do not learn to soothe myself. I turn to animals for their quiet gaze, and the sense of safety the garden offers, the trees with their enfolding branches, the stilled wings, the air made stiff but not stern, those branches which hold my gaze as I stare up at the sky, lying on the empty grass.
In my work there is the soothing between species, and I understand now that I look for it there: this soothing, this sense of safety, this loving tenderness I can receive from the horse, or the deer, or the dog, or the bird. There is also the physical contact, the warmth of skin on skin, stillness.
My blazing human gaze meets another human blazing gaze and my containment is breached. I leak, I want to pour; I am beside myself but no soothing comes. We do not speak. Or if we do I seem unable to hear you, I do not understand what you are trying to say.
A black and white nose slides along my thigh. Her warm breath and her doggy smell comfort me a little. She holds my gaze calmly, her eyes follow mine, stay with me.
