Wild Horses

There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Like horses, we were born to be wild. The adrenalin rush pushed through my veins. I reach out for memory and what’s to come but yesterday’s forgotten before it even had the opportunity to begin. The ancient thoughts tumbling down into a continuing spiral of self-doubt, pulling me back up with a blood-curdling scream, they find a way out. Suddenly I am free, again, wild with delight, trashing about in the early morning. Absolute moments of madness that turn my world on its head. It could be a late Arsenal goal to win a big game, a crucial Dublin point sailing over the bar in Croke Park, or Bohemians beating Shamrock Rovers. It happened last week. 1-0 to the Gypsies. A football club full of restful souls, untethered by what’s seen as normal. That’s all it takes—moments of pure ecstasy and joy lost in the monotony of the routine that squeezes the life out of us. The boredom is suspended for a short while when nothing else matters, but now.

More wild. More wonderful. More ecstasy. More sucking diesel. More light. More laughter. More fucking heart. More loud. More silence. More contemplation. More madness. More mystery. More crazy. More funky fashion. More music. More time. More patience. More flow. More pints. More of what’s inside. More upside down. More of everything is good. More trips into town. More curiosity. More wandering around. More kindness. More or less. Less or More. More of what matters. More colour. More vibrancy. More creativity. More jokes. More good times. More presence. More listening. More good signs. More understanding. More letting go. More precious moments. More memories. More conversation that goes deep. More enlightenment. More coffee. More beer. More love. More freedom. More revolution. More space. More of more. More stepping back. More stepping in. More stepping out. More letting go again. More of our dreams coming true. More you. More hope. Less doubt. More of what matters.

Wild is when it gets interesting. Wild is when chaos triumphs over science and structure. Wild is when we lose control. Wild is being in the moment no matter what. Wild is forgetting all the things that hold you down. Wild goes wherever it wants to. Wild goes against will. Wild walks the other way. Wild knows when to be still. Wild knows when to wait. Wild knows when to crash against the coastline. Wild is overloaded. It runs against the tide. Wild currents are intent on changing direction to submerge the ordinary. Wild is wonderful. Wild is mayhem. It’s a rush. It’s an adrenalin rush. Wild can be weak, but it can also be strong. Wild won’t let on. It might only last a fleeting moment, but one that’s never forgotten. The feelings it engenders when we remember taking us back to something precious. Something to hold onto when the going gets tough. Wild tells us that there’s something else out there. Wild is worth living for. It’s what keeps us going. It’s what we’re chasing. Wild grounds us. It lets the tension out. Wild is when we’re truly ourselves.

The places where I sense the wildness are the places I want to be. Hill 16. The North Bank at Highbury. Simon’s coffee shop. Walking in the Phoenix Park. It’s about the people I find there as much as the place. They are entwined. Each is dependent on the other, drawn by the push and pull of mutual attraction. Talking to Samuel about the creative space. His mind was a mad whirl of bursting activity. Roaring on Bohs in Dalyer. An Emotional Fish gig in Whelan’s on Dublin’s Wexford Street. A conversation with someone who gets it. I felt it walking across the Burren with Prosser, Quigley, Stuart, Niall, and Trev, to the soundtrack of The Pogues. I felt it drinking pints in O’Donoghue’s with Ciaran and Ger, the ghosts of the Dubliners providing the backing music. Precious moments caught in time forever imprinted on my mind. It’s in West Cork and Dingle and Connemara. It’s alive in our landscape, our literature, our music, our jokes, our crazy, and our words. It’s as dangerous as it’s welcome. It’s reflected in the wildness of our weather. Four seasons in one day. It’s always been that way.

The wildness is in us. It’s brazen disregard for self in the pursuit of something bigger. It upsets us, it knocks us off our perch, it’s out of kilter with what we were told and taught to expect. It holds itself in our collective depression. The Famine. The Troubles. All the bad days. The things we’ve lost along the way, some would say thrown away. Our freedom. Our confidence is strangled by self-doubt. It’s in our moods. We laugh about it, joke about it, and smile but it remains. We’ll never be rid of it. It’s what makes us stay committed to our emigrant way. We are wanderers, dancers, chancers, people lost in time. We are always reaching out. We are running to a standstill again and again. We roam the highways and the byways of our scattered history. We have always struggled with our freedom, so much so that we constantly toss it away. To the British. To Rome. To the European Union. To WHO. We are our own worst enemies. But among us there have always been the clever ones who know what it is that counts in large amounts. Pearse, Connolly, and Collins, Cuchulainn, McGrath and Keane, our writers, our musicians, our poets, they are leaders still. They would be so angry at the fingers on the greasy till. Beckett, Behan, and Wilde, speaking to our inner child. They turn in their graves still. Brendan Kennelly stresses the importance of always beginning again. These are the people who embraced our wild side and let it run free. But to do so many of them had to run away to freedom.

In the name of the father. In the name of the son. Wild is what wakes us in the middle of the night. The part if us that yearns for something else outside of the everyday. The little bit of inspiration that will light the way. It’s in us all. Wild is what’s inside. Wild is our original sin. The spirit we were born with that gets educated out of us. Beaten down, we do our best to resist. The wonders that we’ve forgotten are remembered still. In the name of religion. In the name of Liam Brady. Wild hair. Wild jigs of joy when he danced his way through a blue wall of French shirts in 1977. The wild heart is beating still. We are our history. When we finally throw off the shackles imposed by the politics of state we’ll be the ones to be reckoned with. Wild is our consciousness. And when everything changes, it will be a peaceful revolution, built on kindness, empathy, and love. We’ll march on forests and hedgerows and celebrate what’s always been in us. Beaten up. Beaten down. In the name of what’s below us. In the name of what’s above. Wild is our truth. Wild is our hope.

Wild is tattooed on our arms. It’s written in our heads. Wild will always win. It’s living in the dead. They are not forgotten. The mother and child. The victims of church and state. The scandals are filled with hate. They’ve had to fight for justice. They’ve had to fight to be remembered every step along the way. They’ve had to hold their silence when they’ve been ignored and forgotten. Their grief separated and choked. Wild is their brave resistance to what’s been done. The Stardust families and friends wait years for their loved ones to come home. No apology can make up for what was wrong. They never returned until now, and neither did their memories. Vicky Phelan and the cervical check women. Let down by the state. Let down by us for accepting the way they were treated. It’s not okay. It never was and never will be. Often we’re too passive when authority gets it wrong. The trouble is that we’re used to being dumbed down. We turn on ourselves instead of fighting the real enemy.

Wild is not taking no for an answer. Wild is kicking the door down. Wild is the light. Wild is the darkness and wild is the cracks that let both in. Wild is straight ahead. Wild is going off-road. It depends on what you’re looking for and how badly you want it. Wild is putting the foot down regardless of what lies ahead. Wild bursts the banks of reality. Wild is clarity. Wild is simple. Wild is confident in itself. Wild asks no questions. It only sees possibility. Wild is intuition. Gut. Feeling. It doesn’t bend to the will of someone else. It itches, it scratches, it tears at your soul until you finally listen. Wild is action. Wild is the early morning sun and the crescent moon. Wild is everything. The rivers, the mountains, the valleys in-between, free of human touch. Wild is pure. It’s the flatlands, the badlands, the Wild Atlantic Way. Wild like the flowers that grow in the grikes of the Burren. Wild is a surfer riding the waves. Wild is in every one of us. Wild is a beautiful smile. Wild is what makes living worthwhile. Wild is the unnatural shadows that bind us to who we are. Wild is our way to self.

Wild is the gorse. Wild is the whisper of the wind. Wild is the weather that blows in off the sea. Wild is what will never go away. It’s in us. Born to us. In it’s midst, we are calm. Wild is where we go back to when we die. Wild is what won’t go away. If we ignore it, it taps us on the shoulder and says hey. It’s why we’re a restless people. It’s why we never give up searching for that elusive dream. Wild is a wander along the quay looking out a sea of endless possibility. Wild is always just out of reach. It can weigh us down, and make us fret because hope is a heavy load. it’s Boston, Liverpool, Manchester, London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York. It’s all the places we’ve ever been. Wild is elevation. It’s an eruption. It’s isolation. It’s a sensation. It’s temptation. It’s those beautiful moments when it all makes sense. It’s the clash of the ash. The Lansdowne Roar. Guttural. It comes from deep within. It makes us laugh. It makes us cry. It makes us smile. It creeps up on us and overwhelms us without our knowing. Wild is fierce and melancholy, dark and brooding. Wild is what we can’t put our finger on. It just feels right.

In the end, the wild is the only road to take if you want to be alive. Wild is the ability to question. To never give up hope. To never give in. It’s to cry without weeping, to talk without speaking, to scream without raising your voice (U2). Wild is doing what’s right every day. Wild is the inner revolution that will lead to a collective rebellion. Wild is a change in consciousness. Wild will get us out of the mess we are in. Wild is the river tumbling downstream. Wild is in our bones. Wild is restless and unrestrained. Wild is a choice. Wild is what we’ve forgotten. Wild is the hell we’ve lived in and the heaven that lies above. Once you go there, there is no coming back. Wild is what is still to come. Wild is kind. Wild is thoughtful. Wild is what we’ve left behind. It’s time to go back and get it. It’s time to reclaim our past so that we can learn from the shame, the guilt and the joy we carry for what others have done in our name.

Wild is our landscape.

There’s no reason we can’t be the same.