Cowgirl Style

Last night, nestled in the heart of Texas Hill Country, we sat in circle with a woman’s group of cowgirls that has been meeting twice a month on Weds for years now. This group is tight; dedicated to each other and the cultivation of this woman’s community they are weaving. Their time is precious and they keep themselves on a schedule. They gather from 6 to 6:30 for socializing then they get down to business. Yet even their ‘socializing’ is focused on new discoveries that each of them have made, on checking in about anything that might have been relevant from the last gathering. They get together outside of the Weds night gatherings, do social things, teach each other horseback riding, new gardening techniques, share political activities, go out on the town together. Many of them are dedicated to localizing their community, interested in bringing the production of those goods and services that sustain our everyday lives back to the intimate community as much as possible.

Of course, being cowgirls, they know how to kick it up as well. Forever gifting each other with creative offerings, one of the women made Cowgirl fridge magnets for the group. “What, exactly, is a Cowgirl fridge magnet?” you ask? Well, it’s a thing of beauty. After hearing this you’ll undoubtedly want one for yourself. Each one is different sporting a sepia-tone archival photograph of a fierce Texan woman dressed in, of course, cowgirl boots, a cowgirl hat, a sensible yet frilly skirt and a cowgirl shirt. She’s got her leg up on a hay bail, a saddle or some other staple of the cowgirl lifestyle. And she’s adorned with a quote that speaks to the nature of these wonderful women: “I didn’t mean to shoot him, he just sorta fell into my bullet.” When these women laugh it is from the deep belly. They definitely don’t do anything half-way.

We were interested in having these beautiful women help us with a project. We wanted to create a DVD for women who offer us their stories, so that each woman who so courageously tells her story can see the impact her Truth and Wisdom has on other women around the world. We gathered as we always do, only this time we started with a Wisdom Card, so that each woman could experience what it’s like to speak her intimate story with other women. After each woman spoke about Coupling/Intimacy (the card that was drawn by our host, one of the founders of this woman's group), we got into the story reading segment. It was as if the stories, and the women who had spoken them originally, had been awaiting just such a moment as this: when their Truth would be in a bowl surrounded by women who do not balk at anything (at least, not that I can tell). The bowl is filled with stories of all colors and sizes; stories of first love, of last love, of nature and beauty, of heart break and desolation, of depression, frustration, death, torture, murder...they reflect women’s real lives from around the world. And yet, the stories that got chosen by random selection were almost all stories of tremendous pain: really, some of the hardest stories that have been offered to this project so far found their way into these women’s hands last night. And these women read them, honored them, cherished them...and they offered, on camera, from their hearts, such tremendous gratitude for the courage and Love within each story, within each woman whose story was read. It was more than we could have scripted...of course...it always is.

And, in case you’re curios, the definition of ‘Cowgirl’ turns out to be a lot like the definition of ‘midwife’. Cowgirl simply means ‘Company of Women’ girls...there is a trend here, one with the power to gracefully heal a planet.