Written by John Cox, Cascades
“I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.” – Alan Watts

We are at cross-roads today, with Public Lands and our Wild Horses. Both apparently attract criminality, large government misrepresentation and criminal conduct, large non-profits that see money to be made by misrepresenting the issues, corporations that see money to be made by paying off politicians, and States that see money to be made by attempting to coerce government managers’ into transferring ownership.

Good luck for the normal folks, the common folks of this land of ours’, who strongly affirm time and time again that the Wild Horses remain an Icon and symbol of Our Freedom — and finding a resolution rather than impose on them a road to extinction and with outright assaults on their bodies, or outright sent to slaughter, is mandatory.  This is not a question, and we are not asking, we are demanding America’s Icon, the Wild Horse, be left the hell alone!

Just as the Native American’s were almost wiped out toward extinction, it is quite obvious our government has the same mind-set toward our Public Lands and the Wild Horses. The term “Free” bothers’ our government often, doesn’t it – reference their actions. Yet, when pandering to endeavor in War, you better believe the term “Free” is used often, but nothing more than a ploy to establish hatred – yes, a misuse of the term entirely.

But we can also see how the term “Humane” has been lost, somewhere between Love Street and Hate Street there is Humane Street; but only God knows where it’s located, because none of us or our government can locate the truth of it at all.

In Luke 10:4 Jesus urges us to travel lightly: “Carry neither moneybag, knapsack, nor sandals; and greet no one along the road. He is advising us to resist attachments to power, status, security, and wealth. The opposite of rich is not poor, it’s free. The more weighed down we are, the harder it is for us to move when the Spirit says move. When we are encumbered by baggage, such as credit card debt, mortgage, or whatever, we are in turn unable to follow the Spirit’s lead.

This society, this corporate image of itself and imposed onto American’s right now, wants the acceptable image to be, and forcefully remain, the Nuclear Family. It is creating catastrophe in all realms of the American landscape. Our fight for Our Public Lands and the Wild Horses exemplify this situation entirely. It is simply time to move away from this antiquated and unsafe mind-set, which benefits only the extremely wealthy of the world.

Then we can move back to our Creator’s mind-set, who indeed oversees our planet, created human and animal alike, and endeavored for us all to accept one another. The Creator has invested into all of us the capacity to cultivate deep bonds of love and compassion for anybody, and to enter into solidarity with all life on this planet.

We can one day, perhaps something of a wish upon wishes right now, I know, but define all life as one interconnected community. Certainly a radical act, but can become a reality as well – the sooner the better so to speak. Yes, a lot of definitive hoop-la in between, but direct explanation here is more than understood. Grass Roots efforts are Biblical and very successful throughout human-kinds centuries past.

But how can this be – how can something like this evolve? We are seduced into the idea that everyone has equal opportunity under capitalism – but in reality a contrary mind-set prevails: By Damn, I am going to get mine before that damn neighbor of mine takes it!

Yes, so much for Christianity, and welcome the nasty truth (horses to slaughter for pocket change, people buying horses cheap selling them profitably, people’s mind-sets corrupt in total, grab Public Lands for Profit, et al) . . . So here we are, the corporate or rich controls everything and shout loudly — you middle class damn well better feel privileged.

But wait, the poor has the same dream of becoming rich as well, and more incentive to do so . . . all the while the middle class is led to believe to fear the encroachment of the poor, immigrants, or whatever the politician who favors corporations wants to spew, which is truthfully more misinformation to the public. We are misled again and again.

What a wonderful and complex set of illusions. But the reality of fact remains, that economic growth – the goal of Capitalism – is always followed by the increase in disparity between rich and poor, and the withering of the middle class. . . the rich get richer, the middle class come close to disappearing, and the poor become extremely poor.

Meanwhile, the government conjures up the illusion of opportunity while keeping the upward class mobility to a minimum, which means simply the rich get richer. Wealth carries not only purchasing power, but also social and political power, obviously. This means our efforts, defending our priorities, the Wild Horses and our Public Lands, is negated by those who have the most money.

This also means that large non-profits and corporations instill in us, quite often I might add, a lot of buffoonery, or misinformation. Distractions from such organizations we deal directly with — the BLM, HSUS, many of the Non-Profit supposed Wild Horse Advocates (who really are not and can be defined as certainly anti-Wild Horse people) are a cumbersome lot to actually defend the Wild Horses from — but doable . . . but other than fear, we have condemned others, thereby convinced ourselves we cannot organize because we don’t trust each other – again, those mentioned above create this illusion, disenfranchised from the real Horse Advocates, and part of the buffoonery of misinformation, because the real Horse Advocates can trust one another – One Priority of One Mind Set – and that is a tough wall to break!

The Funeral = Resolution

We have a definitive spiritual impoverishment within us all. We are and continue to feel deadened, and many convinced we are and always will be – so we need to have a funeral for this deadness within us – to bury it once and for all, the dead that is in us and our culture! Bury this so-called deadness, and then we can all come back to life, come back to the authenticity of what our Creator wanted of us, the interconnection of all on this planet — Human, Animal, and Earth . . . Alive Again!

If we cannot critique our environments, our wildlife, and our planet within a fact given truth, which is a reality toward resolution, we cannot create transformation or change. The truth is we need to come back to life, to what life is all about, to look at ourselves and feel we are alive once again . . .

The Wild Horses give us that Freedom to do so, and become the antagonists’ to provide us a better future. Let’s Save them, and not allow a few to destroy such a profoundly beautiful animal such as the Horse and our Earth – which indeed are both one and the same.  — 9/6/2015 John Cox