This is an excerpt from a piece written for a formidable woman I know. It came together in celebration of all the village vanguards, righteous warriors, soul survivors, and courageous charges in our midst.
The women probably told stories around the campfires of the jungles, savannahs and plains. When twilight slipped beyond the horizon they passed their possessions around the circle: babies, food and crowns of flowers, and words that inspired a different sort of exhilaration. Each personalized verse slipped past lips, unbridled. Spoken in a dialect men could not fully understand.
Dahomey warriors of West Africa. Image from Culture x Tourism.
Hooch passed from hand to hand as the women cackled until dawn. They whispered secrets and shouted indignities while holding up their palms to catch moonlight. And when their voices grew hoarse, and the night turned to pitch, they exchanged words for knowing glances, casting them above dying embers. Mirrored reflections summarizing the odysseys that had taken up residence under the flesh.
They had a certain something, these women—the archetypes and village vanguards. Armies of sisters who may have loved their men but found true grit and solace in their absence. The evolution came in steps, brought on every time husbands, sons, lovers, friends and fathers disappeared. The men departing for weeks, sometimes months, because of their interest in adventure, annexation, and the pursuit of fresh meat.
The Saca warrior women of Central Asia. (Source)
The legions left behind had no alternative but to keep the wheels turning. Women gathered, reared and nurtured. They laid the foundation of villages that became towns, and the towns we know as cities. They birthed ideas along with children. Individual lives were woven together in a tapestry of collectives. These women crafted comfort from solitude and threw fuel onto the flames raging inside of them. Defenders of all they knew to be sacred, wild and feminine, the women flourished in tribes.
They understood the power one could harness from multiple pussies.
Sadly, at times it seems those women are relics of a past long forgotten. I always wanted sisters, you know, but had to settle for a squadron of brothers instead. In response I’ve spent a lifetime seeking out a sisterhood, swashbuckling around the world for campfires to gather around. And although I encountered much failure, I eventually learned the women of concrete and plenty exist. Modern day furies of earth, wind, steel and glass have many monikers.
You just have to know where to look.
[…]
