Freedom, fire, and fate: 3 horse songs for the Lunar Year of the Red Fire Horse… 2026 … a year of movement, courage, instinct, passion, and sudden turns of fate …
As 2026 welcomes the Lunar Year of the Red Fire Horse, three horse songs of living, loving, leaving, and returning come to mind. Each song has a different kind of wisdom for the year ahead. There’s a tenderness in the 1971 song “Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones that often gets mistaken for sadness. It isn’t really about loss; it’s about loving without possession. … “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. Wild, wild horses, we’ll ride them some day” … Some things, like people and dreams, were never meant to be held too tightly. Relationships change shape, paths in the road fork unexpectedly, and plans may loosen their hold. The wisdom of “Wild Horses” is: Don’t exhaust yourself trying to control what’s meant to move freely. Freedom doesn’t always mean loss. Sometimes it’s the deepest form of love. Then there’s the haunting beauty of the 1989 song, “The Horses” by Rickie Lee Jones, and in 1990 a number one hit for Australian singer Daryl Braithwaite, my preferred version. This song sounds like surrender, but it’s really about trusting the journey once the gates are open. … “We’ll be riding on the horses, yeah, way up in the sky, little darlin’. If you fall, I’ll pick you up, pick you up …” The message for me in this song is: Let life carry you sometimes. Not every leap needs a plan. Not every answer needs urgency. Some of the best transformations in life happen when you stop wrestling the reins, stop steering every turn, and let the horse go where it wants to go. And finally, the wandering soul of “A Horse with No Name” by America. This 1971 song is about drifting, but also about simplicity. The desert in the song isn’t emptiness; it’s away from noise, expectation, and the endless news of the world, where the song’s narrator finds peace by being present. For me its wisdom is: You don’t have to understand the whole journey to travel it well. … “You see, I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name. It felt good to be out of the rain. In the desert, you can remember your name, ‘cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain” … Taken together, these three songs give me a survival guide for a year of freedom, fire, and fate. “Wild Horses” is a song of freedom of the heart; the freedom and grace to let go of expectations. It represents letting people and dreams be what they are. “The Horses” and its soaring version by Daryl Braithwaite is a song of inner fire. Transformational fire represents momentum after stagnation, new opportunities, and renewal, like the legendary phoenix rising from the ashes. “A Horse with No Name” is a song of an unexpected path, a turn of fate. It represents detours that become destiny, losing direction but finding peace, and sudden confusing shifts that become liberation. The trio is a life compass for this year. Release. Rise. Trust. Can’t see the whole article? Want to view the original article? Want to view more articles? Go to Martina’s Substack: The Stories in You and Me More Paris articles are in my Paris website The Paris Residences of James Joyce You're currently a free subscriber to The Stories in You and Me . For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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Wednesday, 18 February 2026
Freedom, fire, and fate: 3 horse songs for the Lunar Year of the Red Fire Horse
Friday, 13 February 2026
From medieval to modern love in Paris: who would love Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, now?
From medieval to modern love in Paris: who would love Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, now?… love in Gothic times and now, what now? …
This Valentine’s Day, I am in the shadowed bell towers of Paris, reading Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, a novel that is, beneath its Gothic drama, a meditation on love in all its fragile, distorted, but radiant forms. Quasimodo, the bellringer of Notre-Dame Cathedral, is described as deformed, deafened by bells, and feared by crowds. Yet within him lives one of literature’s purest hearts and the most famous, albeit fictional, bellringer in the world. Published in 1831, the novel is set in 1482, medieval times during the reign of King Louis XI. Quasimodo was raised in the Notre-Dame Cathedral by its archdeacon Claude Frollo after being abandoned as an infant. He began bellringing at the age of fourteen, and by the end of the novel he is about twenty years old, rising to the position of ringer-general. Hugo writes, “Notre-Dame had been to him successively, as he grew up, the egg, the nest, his house, his country, the world.” Quasimodo serves his cathedral with reverence. It is his home; its bells are his voice. He is devoted, almost blindly, to the man who raised him. He loves Esmeralda with tenderness. She was a gypsy girl who showed Quasimodo kindness. In a society that shunned him, a cup of water that she offered in mercy felt like love to him. That single act becomes his constant thoughts. But, who loved Quasimodo back? In medieval Paris, difference was destiny. To be physically different was to be morally judged as well. Deformity was seen as divine punishment, evil, or something to laugh at. If Quasimodo lived in Paris in 2026, he would not be paraded in public stocks in the village square but he might still be stared at on the Metro. Modern Paris would protect his rights and uphold the principle of inclusivity. He would likely have a diagnosis such as spinal curvature, hearing impairment, and facial difference. He might still struggle on dating apps where he is judged by first impressions based on appearance. But would modern Paris offer him love? We live in an age more tolerant and yet often more obsessed with perfection. Quasimodo today might be included but inclusion is not the same as intimacy. Who would love him now? Perhaps someone who understands being unseen, someone who values loyalty over aesthetics, someone who looks beyond appearances, someone who recognizes the beauty of gentleness, or someone who admires his skills as a bellringer. Love is not always returned. Love is not always rewarded. But love is never wasted. Perhaps the real measure of a society, medieval or modern, is how it loves. The tragedy of Quasimodo wasn’t his body. It’s that the world was too cruel, and too shallow, to recognize his extraordinary soul. Can’t see the whole article? Want to view the original article? Want to view more articles? Go to Martina’s Substack: The Stories in You and Me More Paris articles are in my Paris website The Paris Residences of James Joyce Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy The Stories in You and Me , share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe.
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