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What on Earth Have I Done?
For Robert Fulghum*, it began the morning he heard a mother yelling at her son from beyond the solid fence that separated him from the schoolyard. "What on earth have you done?!" came a woman's voice, followed by a "Naannggnnhhh!"
Of course, a plethora of images flashed through Fulghum's mind. What had the kid done? Did he carve his initials in the back seat of his mother's car? Did he throw up all over the back seat?
And then he began thinking of the questions his mother used to ask.
"What on earth have you done?"
"What in the name of God are you doing?"
"What will you think of next?"
Fulghrum extrapolated. These are the Universal questions, the same questions we ask ourselves.
"What have I done? What in the name of God am I doing? What will I think of next?
Once I read a story about a wolf mother being pounced on by her pups. They chewed her tail and ears and wrestled—a mass of puppies all over her body. Finally, she stood up and let out a great howl.
The cavalry came bounding over the hill in the form of a bachelor male. He was like an uncle. He took on the kids, wrestled them, and chased them until they dropped in exhaustion and all napped.
How did it happen that human men, raised by mothers, grew up to be abusive to females? Didn’t they have girlfriends, wives, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, or girls they liked? Did women drop the ball? Did those mothers have a chance with those boys? Women were often suppressed, downtrodden, beaten up, and sometimes killed for expressing their natural intuition. It's been a long, steady climb for women to pull themselves up from the ribbons of their satin slippers, or no slippers at all. And in many cultures, the mothers had to turn their sons over to be taught by men who believed power made right.
Monty Roberts, “The Horse Whisperer,” when he finds a mistreated horse, says, "someone should apologize to this horse." Abused women often find solace in Robert's presentations with horses. In his book, The Man Who Listens to Horses, Roberts tells of watching a wild mare deal with an errant foal. She was obviously older, with a big belly indicating many foals. And she was the Matriarch of the herd. (Stallions aren't the day-to-day bosses; they are the protectors, the sentinels, and the studs.)
Roberts watched as this kid foal went around harassing the younger horses. When he took a bite out of the backside of a young filly, the matriarch mare sidled up to him and kicked him to the ground. When he scrambled up, she kicked him down again. Finally, she let him up but pushed him out of the herd. Horses have body language that tells another horse to stay away and another body language to say it's okay. She pushed him out every time that little bully tried to return to the herd.
For a horse, being ostracized is the worst punishment. A wild horse alone is lion fodder. Finally, the Matriarch tested him by letting him back into the herd; when he behaved, she gave him plenty of rewards, scratching with her teeth, his back and neck, and withers. This was heaven.
That foal became so sweet he began wandering around, asking, "Do you need any grooming?"
*You may remember Robert Fulghum's poem, which gave him prominence in the United States. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1988). The book named after the poem, is a collection of essays that stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for nearly two years.
Find a little sweetness and pass it on.
The future never comes because when it's here, it's today.
Today is fresh, new, beautiful. I want to believe it's a fresh start. Since I'm writing this, I can say whatever I want. If you want to listen to me, come on in, it's a great day to be alive.
About aging, what can I say? I got so excited when I began reading Christiane Northrup's book, Goddesses Don't Age, and thought, Wow, we need this. We need women encouraging each other to be strong, not to accept standard views, to stay ageless."
We can't really be ageless; the body goes on with its changes, but our attitudes affect that, and our attitudes can be ageless. We can stop saying things such as "At my age." We can stop giving our age entirely.
When someone asked my mother-in-law her age, she would say, " I forgive you for asking that personal question." I thought I was following her example, but a doctor's office is different, isn't it?
Once, I gave my age to my Naturopath. I figured she knew anyway, but she either hadn't done the math or looked at the number. I don't know why I gave away that information, except we were talking about my recent birthday.
She whipped out a Polst page--I didn't know what that was, but I soon learned that it is an advance directive of what I want if a medical team finds me unconscious, or not able to speak for myself. (It stands for Provider Orders for Sustaining Treatment) I was totally insulted.
A Polst is a good idea, but at that moment I knew that she saw me differently. Before, we were contemporaries, but now I'm older. See, people, even doctors, judge you by your age.
So, people, men and women, we need to stick together. We need to encourage each other to live in an aura of agelessness.
That's my desire.
I posted this on my other site today--that is Goddesses 50 and Beyond. I thought I would offer a little preview.
https://goddesses50andbeyond.blogspot.com
