England and the Equine: A Saga?

On June 4th, the Ministry of Defence announced the “remarkable recovery” of the Life Guards soldiers and five horses injured in an incident on April 24th in London. This event was captured in a poignant photograph of a riderless black horse followed by a riderless white horse, the latter smeared in fresh blood. Rory Cranstoun's analysis of this event can be read here. This most recent photograph, released in a British Army press statement, invites deeper symbolic inquiry by contrasting sharply with the first. This contrast emerges from our individual cultural connections to particular shared ways of thought and being, which we may refer to as hyperagents. Through our connection to various hyperagents, we engage in a bidirectional communication process.

Rory noted in his first article that the blood-stained white horse evokes the St. George's Cross and, by extension, England itself. This imagery, Rory argues, acts as an omen of England, communicating to us not only its about its present and potential future but also its past, as the present and future can only be understood through the context of what has been. Someone unaware and outside of the authentic meaning of St. George, the flag of England, or England itself as a living entity, a distributed cognition—a hyperagent—would not receive this same message.

Thus, we as individuals receive communications from these hyperagents, communicate with them directly, and communicate about them indirectly through our interactions with others. By reading Rory’s article, you are drawn closer to the hyperagent of England, influencing your understanding, perspective, and potential future actions.

For this latest image in our equine saga, there are myriad interpretations. I will list a few here, but as Rory suggests, trust your intuition. Initially, what stood out for me was the black horse, symbolising chaos, standing amidst a field of flowers. Conversely, the white horse, representing order, is set against a plain grassy backdrop, resembling a freshly cut lawn. What we witness here is each horses reconnection to the earth—they are back where they belong, as opposed to the image from April 24th where both horses are floating above the pavement as they bolt through London. If you had only the first image, one might interpret their suspension above the pavement as a detachment from nature, but until you have the second, you wouldn’t know that was the case. However, with both images, it becomes clear this is indeed the case—the hyperagent is communicating with us.

Another striking aspect is the horses' positioning. The perspective of the photograph makes it appear as if the white horse is standing perpendicular to the fence, while the black horse aligns parallel to it. Notably, the white horse is extending itself over the fence. Symbolically, this represents the penetrating of the ordered masculine into the disordered feminine. The perspective situates both horses facing each other on a similar level, and communicates consent, a true coming together of order and chaos.

The fence itself poses more questions than it answers. It serves as a defining, liminal, physical boundary between order and chaos—symbolised in both the horses and the states of the fields—but it is not a wall. The fence is a permeable divider, allowing access between each realm, and while we have the white horse extending itself into chaos above, below we see the yellow flowers in the distance of the order realm. Again, look at the first image, no physical barrier exists, only a technical one, the pelican crossing.

Lastly, and likely one of the most intriguing aspects of the photographs, is the symbology of the names of the horses. In the first image, the black horse is called Trojan, and the white horse, Vida. In the second photograph, the black horse is named Quaker, with the white horse the very same Vida. What does it signify when a Trojan Horse, pursued by a horse named Life, is replaced by a Quaker in a submissive stance?

One interpretation is that this could signify the end of the Trojan horse-like tactics the left has used in our ways of life and institutions. Their long march is over, their facade revealed. Rhetorically, this is evident with Keir Starmer accusing Rishi Sunak of being the most liberal prime minister regarding immigration, stating that even net legal immigration is far too high for our country to cope with. Starmer, a Blair acolyte and not someone to be trusted at his word, may indeed deliver on his promises to cut immigration. It is highly likely that the original Blairite hegemony over both the Conservative and Labour parties is over. It is no longer tenable for those in power to fail to deliver on their political promises to reduce immigration. Hence, the potency of the ‘Zero Seats’ message. Moreover, Farage has taken over as leader of the Reform Party and is very likely to become an MP, possibly overtaking the Conservative Party’s position as the main opposition by the next election. We see similar trends across Europe and in Trump’s America.

What, though, can we make of Quaker? Quaker’s, originally formed as the Society of Friends and founded by George Fox, is a protestant denomination focussed on the “Inner Light.” They became known as Quakers after Fox claimed in 1650 that “Justice Bennet of Derby first called us Quakers because we bid them tremble at the word of God.” The name stuck to the Society of Friends due to the physical manifestation of religious emotion their members experienced in religious meetings, and thus they adopted the name. Before us then, we have Vida/Life, or really God, dominating Nature, before which Nature quakes.