Mustangs are the descendents of domesticated horses, imported from Europe, who escaped a bloody battle or simply wandered away from a conquistador's camp one night. Occasionally, someone uses this as an excuse to round them up and exterminate them. This person invariably marvels at the public outcry. We don't, after all, consider feral cats, dogs, or parakeets symbols of the American West. But no domesticated species seems to thrive in the absence of human stewardship like the horse, and for this reason alone we must protect the right of some herds to exist on their own terms if we want to tap the wisdom we ourselves lost so long ago.

Through his luminous photography of horses. Tony Stromberg works to bridge what he calls "'modern life's disturbing separation between people and nature." This gorgeous book of full-color photography is filled with one hundred and forty of Stromberg's extraordinary portraits of horses, both wild and domestic, along with accompanying quotations from teachers and writers exploring equine wisdom and its intersection with spirituality. Stromberg believes that horses can be profound teachers, bringing deep awareness to a world dangerously out of balance. Through the power and mystery of the horse. Stromberg seeks to reignite qualities of freedom, spirit, power, grace, and harmony in people's souls.