Who's gonna ride your wild horses?

Had a great evening with Davor the other night. Went to see an exhibition of Expressionist art that's on in Zagreb and the moment. And despite Davor's initial misgivings ("They're ugly!", he told me when I asked him if he wanted to go), the exhibition did not disappoint. Quite the opposite. Most of what we saw was far from ugly. Quite beautiful, allegorical and emotionally charged in fact. There were a few wood carvings of horses that I wouldn't mind having next to the Magritte, Kahlo and Chagall that I plan to buy when I hit the jackpot.

Horses, horses, God damn horses, hubby would say. He asked me a strange question the other day. Strange 'cause hubby doesn't care too much for my blogging, facebooking and all the rest of this internet mumbo-jumbo, as he puts it, that I've gotten into of late. Has yet to read one of my posts. Now don't get me wrong, he's a good man hubby is, but a bit on the serious side. I guess you'd have to be, to be a scientist. Likes the black and white, the tangible, the physical. So, his question put quite a smile on me face, almost made me laugh. "Why do you use a horse as your blog photo?", he asked. I wasn't quite sure how to answer. The simple answer is, I'm striving to be more like a horse. But it doesn't sound quite right when you say you wanna be a horse in Croatian. Calling someone a horse is a bit derogatory in these here parts. But really, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. Be more like a horse.

Like I've already mentioned several times during the course of writing this blog, I've really gotten into a book lately called "The Tao of Equus". Perhaps I'm just an wide-eyed, impressionable person, but this book has really changed the way I see life, death and everything in between. It has made me realise even more the importance of seeing with the heart, how the essential is invisible to the eyes. So I'll try to cull the main findings of the book. And try not to go on, as I am wont to do...

The first reason I wanna be a horse is that they're more in tune with nature, with their instincts, with their intuition. They have the power to discern the true nature of a person, despite the mask they may be wearing. I already told you the story of a lady called "Joy" in the book who, while talking about saving a doomed relationship, made the horse buck. Because despite the verbal message she was giving, the spiritual message her body was giving was something entirely different. I believe that we humans have this gift - why do we "buck" when we enter a room that is filled with negativity? Why do we feel empathy for others? But we need to develop this gift much, much further.

The second reason is that horses have two legs in this world and two legs in the "other" world. They are in tune to the universal memory, a memory that has existed from the beginning of time, a memory of our past lives and what is yet to come. We too have this gift but, again, it has been dulled since the onset of the mechanical age and we need to regain it. The only way I see us regaining this gift is to become closer to nature. She has all the answers we're looking for.

The third reason is that they are synonymous with all things feminine. Now, many fellas out there would tend to disagree with me. What can be more masculine than a powerful thoroughbred horse at full speed, they say? Or a bucking rodeo horse? But then, why are we chicks so drawn to horses? Why does my 6 year old daughter go completely and utterly nuts at the sight of a horse? Because it is mirroring many aspects that she as a chick has - intuition, empathy, strength, being in tune with nature.

I too loved horses as a kid, always wanted to have one. That unfortunately died down a bit upon the discovery of boys. But last May, I went to Vienna and completely on a whim, went to see the horses of the Spanish Riding School. While watching them, I was so awash with tears in my eyes that I could barely see them through the blur. I later realised that I was crying because I saw all that I had lost in losing my interest for horses. I had lost some of my innocence, some of my feminine traits, some of my strength and will power. I have since tried to regain these - through reading, through having a better relationship with Mother Nature, through interaction with others, even through writing this blog. Because in telling eachother our stories, we open our hearts and minds. And like the saying goes: Our mind (and I would say our heart!) is like a parachute. It works much better when it's open.

But enough of my going on. Although I like U2's "Who's gonna ride your wild horses?" well enough, I'll leave ya with my all-time favourite "horse" song, namely Patti Smith's "Horses". I've often wondered what it was really all about - teenage homosexuality coming of age? rape? suicide? murder? From what I found on the net (thanks for the tip Davor!), it seems that it's a bit of all of the above. The only quote I could find from the venerable Ms. Smith on the subject was "When I was talking about doing the pony maroney, I wasn't talking about dancing". I imagine so...