Melissa Sovey-Nelson writes, ‘There remains the untamable nature of the Horse, at his core. It is at once intimidating and romantically Wild. That is surely part of why I ride, to provoke that Wildness in myself.’
Interacting with a Horse is as close to interacting with a Wild animal as most of us will ever get, herein lies our intrigue. We are seduced by this Wild animal, we are afraid of this Wild animal, we romanticize our life with this Wild animal, a life without force and dominance, one with joint devotion and magickal connection with this Wild animal.
And then on day we find ourselves fortunate enough to have a Horse. We have a Wild animal. Only… we then realize that this Wild animal weighs a thousand pounds, is wicked fast and does not speak our language. And we are faced with the realization that we, as Human, have become domesticated and we are no longer Wild. And when our Horse acts out in Wild ways, we panic.
And then the Wild becomes a threat, and we are afraid and disappointed that our Wild fantasy has not turned out the way we imagined. So, we set about training the ‘Wild’ out of our Horse, we suddenly want it to be compliant and docile, and we suddenly want to trade the Wild romantic ideals for controllable safety.
And safe we must be. Now we find ourselves disappointed that our experience with a Wild animal has turned out so different than we had planned. As Melissa Sovey-Nelson said, perhaps we are drawn to the Horse because we feel the Call to invoke the Wildness within ourselves. I believe that deep down inside us this Call still remains.
So the question is, how do we stay safe and still Call forth the Wild buried beneath the domestication? Possibly our Horse asks of us, what we ask of them. Trust. We want them to trust us to do things we ask of them that perhaps do not align with what their Wild nature defines as safe or logical. Such as enter a small enclosed box and fly down the highway at speeds that no Horse can possibly identify with. What if our Horse wants us to trust them in some of their Wild nature? How do we know to be safe and yet trust the Wild?
What if Wild is a state of mind, or an emotional connection to an untethered Soul? Will embracing the Wild within our Horse help us as domesticated Humans become more instinctual and trusting of the Wild within ourselves? If we can we model a fragment of the Wild nature indigenous to our Horse within our own being, in an effort to relate to what is innate within them, then we have succeeded in tasting the Wild for ourselves, and we have shown a glimpse of trust for who they are at there core.
Wild is not always dangerous, sometimes it is what saves us, it is what returns us to our instincts… before we had so many rules.
The Invitation
When you examine ways that you are drawn to the Wild within your Horse, notice if this is a mirror to where you hold on to the Wild, or, is it a part of you Calling to be re-Wilded? Can you spend an hour alone with your Horse just being instinctual? Just sensing the earth around you ? Just feel the sun, the snow, the wind, the silence, hearing nature carry on around you in all ways Wild and brilliant. Without one thought for your cell phone, your schedule or the domestics of life that demand so much of our attention and drowns out the voice of our own Wild within.
Delaya Diana © 2020