She is a shadow. A faint memory of some ancient wisdom. This girl is a piece of the intuition all women share. Beautiful, wild, free and strong. She is the girl we all used to be. The girl we were before the truck payment, the house payment, going to work, cooking dinner, cleaning the house. She was so delightful.
She is the girl who danced in the rain, sang her favorite songs over and over and didn’t wear make up. I often wonder what happened to that girl? The girl who was fearless and didn’t worry about the future. What happened? We get so bombarded with the day to day in our adult lives I feel like, no matter how much we all loved and adored that girl, we shove her away. We tell her she’s grounded, to go to her room, and at some point we don’t ever let her back out. We have things to do. Commitments to keep. We don’t have time for her play.
Oh she was wild. Raw and beautiful, long unkempt hair, dirt on her hands and a smile that makes you feel alive. Why have we let ourselves cage her? She was so beautiful. We long to let her back out, to be her again, but we don’t dare. For she is untamed, and powerful and beautiful and that means she is dangerous. She knows her heart, she knows her mind, she follows her truest self, and that is dangerous. It is not safe, contained in the day to day. And we are afraid of what we cannot control. We love horses for their raw beauty, power and wildness, and yet the first thing we learn is we must “be the boss”, and control them. Control them because they are dangerous in their natural state.
Are not women the exact same way? We must be controlled because we are dangerous when we are free and our souls on fire? I must believe so because for centuries there are two things man has perfected controlling and that is women and horses. Perhaps that is why we are drawn to them so much? Because we understand what it is to be this beautiful, strong willed, wild being, trapped by bit and bridle, responsibility and laundry. What on earth would happen if we were turned loose? What would happen if we allowed for self expression? What would happen if we lost the bit and quit the job we hated? I wonder if what we would see would be beautiful? I wonder if we would see our horses dancing and our lives worth living? Would not the world be better for it?
It is a new year, a new time. I challenge all the women I know to let that girl out of her room. Be that girl, full of life, passion, freedom. I challenge you to take off the bridle, trust and see what happens. Because she is still there, in her room, dancing. Just waiting for someone to open the door and say how lovely she is. Riding freely, like a warrior princess, she charges on into the day of battle. She rides swift and light, her horse a spirit of the wind itself. Set them free….
Photo credit: Baylee Shepherd and her horse Nic
