Odin

Three and a half years of patience, presence, and growing trust with Odin, a rescued former rodeo horse.

We began in a dry lot round pen with a horse who would run away when we simply approached and looked at him. Odin, a former rodeo horse, needed distance to feel safe. Before we could begin to know him, we had to learn how to honor that distance, to care for him from wherever he could bear to have us.

So we sat.

At first, being together meant asking very little. We allowed him to become familiar with our presence, while we became more attentive to his. We learned his habits, his routine, and what he could and couldn’t tolerate. Slowly, we began to approach. A few steps closer, a pause, time to notice his response. We learned when to stay and when to come away. We learned that our desire to reach him needed to make room for his readiness to be reached.

There was love in those early hours, even with so much space between us. It lived in the willingness to return, to sit again, to let a visit unfold without knowing what it might bring. Sometimes, the small gift of the day was that he stayed a little nearer.

Over these three years, approximately fifteen hundred combined hours have gathered around this relationship. Hours of sitting, watching, waiting, offering, and returning. Gradually, Odin began to approach us. He became willing to stay in our company. There were moments of curiosity, moments of ease, and moments when fear returned and we needed to find our way together again.

We were changing, too. To accompany him asked us to slow down inside ourselves, to soften our expectations, and to become more sensitive to what he could receive. His pace became part of our practice. Each small opening invited us to deepen our patience and trust that something was growing, even when we could not yet see its shape.

The Trust Technique, developed by James French, has helped guide us in this practice. Through meditation and present-moment awareness, we quiet ourselves while remaining attentive to Odin, allowing his responses to guide our pace. Being quiet with him becomes a way of listening, of offering a peaceful presence in which trust and confidence have room to grow.

For me, this is an unfolding relationship of mutuality. As we become more aware of what we bring into his space, we become more responsive to what he shares with us. We pause, listen, and make room for him to participate. Through these exchanges, a stronger bond takes shape, and new possibilities emerge. The changes we see in what Odin is willing to try become part of a larger story: learning to feel more at ease with us, more confident in himself, and more able to meet something unfamiliar with curiosity.

This past year, much of our work has taken place in the chute. Within a form that allowed us to reach him, we continued to make room for his choices. We introduced the long-handled brush, then the hand brush, and eventually the touch of our hands. He became familiar with the pocket halter and began to allow us to touch his head.

What sounds simple in the telling held so much in the living. A brush coming near his body. A hand resting where it had never rested before. The pause while he considered what was happening, and our own attention as we waited with him.

Sometimes we touched and came away. Sometimes we returned to something familiar. Little by little, there was more room for him to explore an experience and discover how it felt. We began to share the quiet pleasure of touch.

A few weeks ago, we switched sides.

Until then, Odin had been walking into the chute in a direction that gave us access to his left side. Now we were introducing those experiences on his right. Something familiar on one side can still feel new on the other, so we were prepared to take our time and begin again wherever he needed us to.

But Odin surprised us. It was as though he were learning on fast forward.

We still went slowly, giving him space to work through his anxiety. Yet he adapted so quickly. The brushes, our hands, the experiences we had spent so much time introducing on his left became familiar on his right. Already, he is able to do the same things on both sides.

Watching this unfold, I felt how much those earlier hours had made possible. He seemed able to draw on something we had been building together for a long time.

And over these last few sessions, something even more tender has emerged.

Odin has begun offering me little snuggles. First to my back, then to my bosom, and then to my face.

He is so gentle.

When I watch the videos afterward, I can see what is harder to see when he is that close: the sweetness and innocence in his eyes. I find myself lingering there, taking in the face of this horse who once needed to run when we looked at him, now choosing to bring his face close to mine.

There is something deeply moving about receiving affection from him. For so long, we have been offering our presence and waiting to learn how he might receive it. Now he is finding his own ways to reach toward us. I feel both the tenderness of the moment and the wonder of being someone he chooses to come close to.

I cannot know all that has shifted within him. But I can see his courage in these moments: the way he stays through uncertainty, discovers that touch can be kind, and allows us a little more closeness. What once frightened him is gradually becoming something he can approach, explore, and sometimes seem to enjoy. His trust grows through these small, living moments, each one allowing us to know him a little more.

We have brought our patience, our care, and our love. Odin has brought himself, again and again, to the edge of what feels possible. After three years, I am still learning to deepen my presence, to find Odin’s pace of love, and to understand how much can live inside a small moment. The long hours are there. The waiting is there. So is the quiet courage of a horse choosing to come closer.

And now there are snuggles.

When Odin brings his face to mine, I feel the meaning of all those hours gathered into one gentle invitation. In that closeness, I feel welcomed into a tenderness he is choosing to share. I think of the distance we began with, and of all the careful moments through which we have found our way here.

To be received this closely by a horse who once needed to run when we looked at him is more than I could have imagined. It is a gift shaped by patience, made possible by his courage, and offered with a tenderness I will never take for granted.

It is truly something to behold.