--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bronte Baxter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Good song. But kittens don't always figure out how to get down. Some of them > do starve in the tops of trees. Damsels sometimes are in distress, and heros sometimes rescue them. Remember "Pretty Woman"? Great story. She and he rescued each other. > > As a woman who's been on my own a long time in the world, I relate to both > sides of the equation. I can be one tough broad when I need to be. I kick ass. I'm the union steward, the defender of the underdog. I get my way. People don't mess with me. But there's another side, a vulnerable side, that doesn't often get to be expressed. Only when something tender is in the environment, making the atmosphere soft and safe, does that tender side come out. > > Edg is the kind of man who brings out that side in women. He once said to > someone who wanted me off the forum, "What if Bronte is the butterfly that will light on the idea- flowers of your mind?" What a touching image, and one I don't deserve or live up to, but that Edg could think of a woman as potentially being like that touched my heart. It reminded me of that ethereal part of me that the kick-ass persona guards and hides. It is in every woman, even us liberated types. > > In a world where women know they can't rely on anyone but themselves, we > have learned to be tough as any man. But our hearts long for the kind of man who sees through the armour, who can honor and cherish the innocent little girl that never disappeared, that lives inside us, often forgotten even by us. I saw an embroidered pillow the other day that said "Grandmas are just grown-up little girls." As Edg would say, "like that." > > Edg is the old-fashioned prince-type, a hero without a respectable cause in > this world that makes fun of causes and rescuings. To place oneself in his camp is to invite ridicule, as he is the subject of ridicule himself for his protective ways. He senses the sensitive, and the world tells him that doesn't exist. He's living in the Middle Ages. Women aren't like that anymore. But Edg is right. And the man who can see and value the softness in a woman, even the kick-ass ones, is the man who can win any woman's heart. > > I once had a boyfriend who saw this in me for a limited period of time. He > got scared of his powerful feelings, so he closed down his heart, and then his intuitive vision ebbed, naturally. He became an average guy, and we started having average-type problems. In time we broke up. But while our hearts were open, we had this wonderful vision of each other: that tenderest part of another's personhood, that level of the soul, the first sprouting of individuality. He and I called it "the bear" in each other. As in "teddy bear." The bear became our symbol. > > Because I've experienced this level, which is not universal ego but also > not anything dependent on worldly content -- a spiritual entity in itself, a pure innocent personhood -- that's why I'm so adamant about "the individual" existing as whole and eternal and divine and good, a pure spirit within the mind of God. I'll never forget how that man made me feel, or how I felt about him. It was the realest, purest thing I've ever known. And losing it was the greatest loss of my life. > > So if Edg wants to "tilt at windmills" and stand up for delicate damsels > that most people say don't exist, we women hear him and a tear wells up in our eye because we understand. I am not surprised he enjoys a relationship "on the level of ritam" with a woman, them finishing each other's sentences and experiencing one another's thoughts arising before they're spoken. A man with his vision of the tenderest side of human nature is capable of that kind of union and that kind of love. > > Truly, as he says, the rest of us "don't know jack about intimacy." And for > all the glories of individual freedom, the glees of kicking ass and being independent, the delights of discovering nubile young folks half our age who show an interest in us -- nothing beats being loved for who you are by a person who will love you long after the "dripping shakti of youth" has dried up and left. > > I saw "The Nanny Diaries" the other day, a movie partly about gorgeous > women who marry the most prized men, and what happens to these folks. The men they married loved them for their youthful "shakti." When it fades, the men look for their shakti somewhere else. I always envied these "perfect" women, but the film gave me a new perspective. I came to see their glory as short-lived, how they wind up as hurting as much as anyone else. > > They thought they were loved by the best, so their love would last. But no > one ever saw or loved their inner tender person. These poor women get tossed on the garbage heap by the time they're 40, as their husbands seek out and purchase a new and improved model of the same. I'll bet that never happens with Edg's girlfriend. As it never happens in those wonderful relationships we all admire, where the old man and old woman walk hand-in- hand down the street at evening. > > Someone wrote on this forum about men who can't get an erection for women > over a certain age, because of "physical toxins" in older women that turn men's stomachs. I read it and thought, so the older men don't have physical toxins, I suppose? Hey, aging is a process of tamas taking over, physical toxins growing to the point where the body can eventually no longer sustain life. I believe that process is not essential to living, that physical aging can and should be stopped. I think we can be immortal. > > But until the human race figures out how to do that, will we close our > hearts off to people our own age because they aren't as shaktified as they used to be, because their bodies are wearing and tearing? If we do, then all we're going for in the opposite sex is a body, not a soul. And the body will fade and die. We're loving the material and the impermanent. We're missing the essential, which, as Saint-Exupery said, is invisible to the eye. > > "A dessert is beautiful because it hides a well. The stars are beautiful > because they hide a planet that holds a rose." - from The Little Prince > > - Bronte
What a fabulous post! Reading it, I felt refreshment - as if a cool oasis had been bestowed upon a weary and parched desert traveler. Congrats to you, Bronte, for creating it. -Mainstream > TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > All this talk about women and the need to "protect" > them got me remembering the best song I've ever heard > on the subject. It's by Ani DiFranco, and in the world > of women's music it's considered nigh unto an anthem. > > I think you can listen to the whole song here (but I'm > not sure because it won't play for me from outside the > US): > > http://www.rhapsody.com/anidifranco/notaprettygirl > > Here are the lyrics: > > I am not a pretty girl > that is not what I do > I ain't no damsel in distress > and I don't need to be rescued > so put me down punk > maybe you'd prefer a maiden fair > isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere > > I am not an angry girl > but it seems like I've got everyone fooled > every time I say something they find hard to hear > they chalk it up to my anger > and never to their own fear > and imagine you're a girl > just trying to finally come clean > knowing full well they'd prefer you > were dirty and smiling > > And I am sorry > I am not a maiden fair > and I am not a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere > > And generally my generation > wouldn't be caught dead working for the man > and generally I agree with them > trouble is you gotta have yourself an alternate plan > and I have earned my disillusionment > I have been working all of my life > and I am a patriot > I have been fighting the good fight > > And what if there are no damsels in distress > what if I knew that and I called your bluff? > don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down > whether or not you ever show up?
