Quotable
Excerpts from She Flies Without Wings
Please Note:
all quotes below are from She
Flies Without Wings, by Mary D. Midkiff, now available
for purchase on Amazon
and bookstores worldwide.
For signed
copies click here.
Read
the publisher's Press Release
Read a poem from the
new book
Women have
been riding horses into myth and fable and imagination as long
as women have sought to be free. When I greet my horse, when I
stroke her warm coat, when I lift myself onto her back, I join
not her alone but all the women and all the horses who have run
wild together since the dawn of memory, and I am made whole.
Commitment
is like gravity: an invisible force that prevents us from floating
apart in the open spaces of our lives.
The horse
is a catalyst for a woman's creativity because it carries us through
the doors that stand between the familiar and the unfamiliar;
limitations and freedom; and introduces us to experiences we might
otherwise miss.
The horse
had carried the girl into danger, as it may carry any of us, but
her triumph conquered her fears and gave her courage for the new
challenges that lay ahead.
The lady rode
despite the risks because it was in her to ride and because riding
addressed her deepest yearnings. Riding swept her beyond the walls
of the manor and into a greater natural world where she was free
of all but the rhythm of the horse's hooves on the earth. Riding
carved a time of self-indulgence into her day and gave her an
unconditionally loving friend with whom to spend it-her horse.
On a horse,
a woman is Frau Gode leading the hunt on her white horse in German
fable, the Norse goddess Mani driving her Alsvider across the
night with the moon, Velvet streaking across the finish line to
victory. On a horse, a woman is reborn as a mounted Valkyrie who
until that magical moment lived only in dream. She is a savior
riding to set spirits free, her own among them.
When I am
with my horse I feel more than analyze; move more than ponder;
accept instead of judge.
Women know
a better way to claim the bird's freedom. Women ride. Freedom,
Epona thought, hungrily. Passionately. Freedom such as the horsemen
must know, sitting on those beautiful animals as they run across
the . . . what was it called? The Sea of Grass? Imagine a sea
of grass. Not sailing ships but galloping horses, and a horizon
unlimited by mountain peaks.
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