Reflection on Watching the Wild Ponies on Shackleford Banks

Ponies filing away in the sunset on Shackleford Banks

Maybe man, in all his arrogance, was not above the beast for the power of his mind like he thought he was, but was the only beast that had not been streamlined, did not know how to fit properly into his role in nature, did not know his place in the universe and how to live in harmony with his world. Perhaps he was the beast that did not understand the universal language but instead stuck blindly to the man-made languages he had learned. So impressed by his intelligence and ability to create his artificial world from nature. He has become obsessed with death because he can not stop it.

He never learned how to fully see, feel and listen like the rest. He got far too interested in just his kind and ignored all the others that made the world whole. Perhaps man is not the advanced beast he thinks he is, but the one in need of learning his place, his role, his way to be in the world.

Most men still look down on the other living plants and animals, but they are the ones who understand how to live in harmony. They are the ones that could coexist in perpetuity if it were not for man. They are the ones who understand in simple terms the importance of the one, not the self.

There are people who know this. Those who have fought convention. Those who live outside of the norm. There are cultures that stick closer to the animals, to knowledge gleaned from direct experience with nature, but they are seldom listened to by the masses. This could be the downfall of man. He is running away from nature instead of towards it. He tries to create solutions on his own instead of listening to the whole.

Man believes he has superiority over other animals, but this belief does not stop there; this paradigm leads him to hold his superiority over other men as well. The human ego steers the ship, causing wars and further destruction of nature through disregard for the whole.

This essay came to me from reflecting on watching the complex, beautiful, deeply social lives of the wild ponies on Shackleford Banks. Horses don’t need us. They need us to know who they are without us, and we need them to remind us who we should be.