Learning to be the Earth's Companion

My favorite line of Dobie’s piece called “The Mustangs” is the first: “The earth does not think and does not care what people think, but it gives and takes with undeviating justice, and it remembers.”

The significance of this line, to me, is that that earth sees us all as being equal. It does not pick or choose who has greater reason or greater agility and it certainly does not distinguish between man and animal. The earth is frustratingly uncontrollable. No matter how many buildings we construct, how many grounds we cement, or how many living beings we eliminate, the earth will never belong to us.

But what is most powerful about this line is that it does not accuse the earth of anything – it admits that there is “justice” to everything the earth does. It is our responsibility, then, to take what the earth gives us without complaint or resentment.

What seemed so fascinating about the Mustang to me is that, despite its size, it treads far lighter on this earth than we ever will. At a massive 850 pounds, the Mustang Dobie describes seems gentle and free. He, like the earth, cannot be contained.

Mustangs: True Companions of this Earth

Dobie expresses that mustangs, with all their freedom, are true acceptors of this earth:
“The sight of wild horses streaming across the prairies made even the most hardened of professional mustangers regret putting an end to their liberty. The mustang was essentially a prairie animal, like the antelope, and like it would not go into a wooded bottom of a canyon except for water and shelter...He relied upon motion, not covert, for the maintenance of liberty.”
The mustang, unlike man, accepts the earth for what it is. He does not hide under the canyon the way many humans hide in buildings, but instead fearlessly faces the earth. He knows he cannot find freedom in hiding.


These cityscapes have become our landscapes, and exist because of our resistance to be companions with the earth


The notion of the free mustang is as fascinating as it is fearsome. As humans, we seem to want to control the ground we tread on. We want to believe that this world belongs to us – not to the trees, the insects, or the animals that inhabit it. But watching the mustangs, Dobie reveals to us that even the mustangers admire the animal’s inability to be contained. He is a true citizen of this earth.

Dobie writes that “Only the sense of being in place gives natural horse or natural man contentment.” This line is perhaps the most important piece of advice Dobie offers the reader. He suggests that contentment for horses and humans cannot be found in “covert.” On this uncontrollable earth, it is our responsibility to find ourselves “in place” and realize that it is the buildings we construct and the living beings we destroy that makes us “out of place” in a world as free as it is unforgiving.