The Perils of Wild

There are many tools and insights to use as we incorporate our relationship with our Horse into the exploration of our spiritual journey. The better we know them, the better we know ourselves and the more we understand the Souls wisdom and perspective. It is remarkable how much support and vision comes to us when we collaborate with the Horse in our exploration of purpose.

As Human we live in situations and societies that demand compliance and submission and most of us have become over domesticated. Those who answer to their inner Wild are often criticized or ostracized, perhaps they turn to substance abuse to help them in their struggle to escape conformity that threatens to suffocate the Wild inside them. It takes conscious awareness to remember to check in with our Wild nature on a regular basis so that we can keep alive this integral wisdom innate within us.

Horses suffer this same fate. But sometimes we do not identify the signs and behaviors of a Horse that is struggling to alienate a part of their inner Wild that Humans have asked them to repudiate.  Instead, it is often diagnosed as rebellion, fearful, stubborn, untrainable or rouge. When in truth the Horse does not know what the advantage is to trade its Wild for compliance, and, what part of its Wild will be rewarded if it negotiates trading pieces of Wild for domestication.

 When we lose our Wild, we suffer the perils that accompany captivity. We lose our ‘edge’ our sixth sense, and we rely on the opinions of others to navigate our own life, and these opinions do not always sing us home because they do not know our internal home. Add the complexity of being a different species as Horse and Human and the perils of losing our Wild is even greater.

When discussing the Wild verses domestication, we usually sing out the virtues of compliance and infer that giving up the Wild is a small price to pay for security and certainty, maybe safety. Horses are often told that in order to avoid confrontation, correction or punishment that they must override their Wild and comply.

Holding on to the Wild has its own perils, for Horse and Human. It may bring a life with more challenges, a life with more risk, less security, less community. But more self-expression, more adventure, more satisfaction and balance to an untethered Soul.

When we ask our Horse to give up or override the Wild within them, we need to be mindful of what benefit this surrender will be to them, what will they gain by forfeiting their instinctual Wild? Horse or Human, when asked to sacrifice our Wild, we will lose a part of our nature and we must be careful to replace it with something of great benefit