An Ode to Hands

On a daily basis, our hands make our lives, keeping them running on a bare minimum: cooking, washing, working. Pounding nails into fences, trimming hooves, cutting string, lifting, throwing, catching.

On a good day, they make our lives rich and full. Creating, stirring, feeling. They run needles through material, they pull paintbrushes across canvas. They kindle our imaginations and expand our world , turning the pages in our books.

They convey our innermost feelings to loved ones, speaking what words can never do justice to. They show who we are to the animals in our lives without ever making a sound. They can make the difference between crude work and pure art, all in the dance of hands.

They can work a million ways- just one small little body part can create feelings hard, soft, fast, slow, careful, careless, smooth. The world as we know it is a daily creation of hands working magic, without so much as a prayer of thanks from the body that owns it.

They wear the story of our lives, a canvas we take with us.

The next time you reach for a spoon to stir cream in your coffee, or pound a nail, or caress an exceptional horse, remember to thank your hands for connecting you to the beauty all around.