I'm playing the "Slinger's Theme" from the "Bastion" game and dreaming of riding.
I'm remembering being much younger and fearless and thinking that all feminists should not only ride, but teach other and especially younger women to ride. One of my little girl students trotted without me for the first time tonight, and she didn't turn a girl's face to me when she was done. She looked down at me with the face of a woman who's tasted power for the first time. Slainte and hail Epona, girl.
A woman who loves horses gets up and leaves the house like a wraith. A woman who loves horses doesn't care who might be looking for her when they get up - she left a note on the fridge or the coffeemaker (before there was texting, or texts, now). A woman who loves horses shivers in the cold dawn in the winter and sweats in the first rays of the sun in summer. Riding English or Western, a woman who loves horses is competent. She deals with a crisis, getting help when there is some and dealing as best she can when there isn't (walking through the pasture today, rope around one horse and my t-shirt through the halter of the other, hoping my little-girl student will learn something about women and horses by watching my trek back, wearing only a sports bra and breeches, mud up to the ankles, closing the fence back up).
I say my prayers to Epona every time my students mount. I say my prayers when I put my equine charges back in the pasture and give them their well-deserved dinners. I thank her for this time, for however long it lasts, in which I am teaching other women, no matter their age, to ride and love the horse.
Tomorrow. Up with the sun and out like a breath. I do not know how many more rides I get, but I intend to make them all count. Hail Epona, slainte Epona, go raibh maith agat Epona. Lady of the Horses, bless me and them, and let us all run safe in the pasture.
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