Her Destiny is Change

by Beth Cohen

  It so happened that when the women left, many of their roles in the Wideness were not filled. The men had seen the women’s jobs as being contrived and wholly unnecessary. At best, a luxury…

  Many of the women had found themselves doing the things that the men would not have thought to do. This included things like keeping a watch for faulty fixtures and defects in the factories’ production line that could prove a danger. In short, many women had been involved, among other things and everything, in quality control. After the women left, the men just did not see the need to fill these positions. They preferred to believe that all of what they had produced was superior and of superior quality. They had allowed the women to monitor and check procedures, but they thought they were just being generous and kind to the women’s requests. They did not believe that any of this could have been necessary. What the women knew could not really have been on par with their knowledge, education and capability. How could it be that checking and saving data would be at all necessary? What could go wrong that would make it all relevant? The men were, in short, obviously wrong…When a person in one of the factories didn’t complete his job, things would fail. These failures had consequences that the men did not expect…It hadn’t occurred to them that any of the men hired would fail at anything. They were, after all, men! It was, after all, just factory work, so easy the women had done it!

  One of these consequences was a leak…a toxic leak of Bad Air. Since the men never acknowledged the need for a system of checking and quality control or regulation, they also did not think of the possibilities of what it would mean should there be an error, a mistake or an accident…Negligence was rampant and it was only a matter of time before this became a major problem…That time was now…The Bad Air….was a problem wholly unexpected by the men…and a total surprise to the women who could not believe that the men were so incompetent that they’d let their egos get in the way of replacing the women in these roles, checking and quality control. Did the men actually believe this had just happened? Could they have actually believed the women so worthless?

  ***

  Jane Double D sat with Dward, who had brought documentation of the Bad Air. According to the maps and charts, the source of the Bad Air was obviously not the Realm, but the heads of the Wideness had either decided to ignore the facts or to blame the Womeness. Perhaps the women had sabotaged the works in question.

  As Jane looked over the “proof” as presented to her by Dward, she had a thought that shook her to the bone. Here it was, right in front of both of them. This proof was, to the men, proof of some evil doing by the women, while it should have been proof of the Realm’s innocence. Jane was incensed and even a bit self-righteous — and justifiably so, I might add. This was so clearly caused by the men’s ego — their inability to recognize the value of the women’s work and contribution!

  The men could have come to the Realm and asked for help in rectifying the situation. They could have come and admitted that they needed something from the women and the women would have helped….But they didn’t. The men of the Wideness instead made this into an issue of power and might, an issue of control and threatening behavior. The men found it easier to blame the women, demand that they admit to attrition and right their wrongs.

  Dward stated the demands of the Wideness. The women were to come back to their roles in the Wideness and do what they were supposed to be doing and all would be forgiven. In the minds of the Echelon of the Wideness, this would serve all of their goals. They were certain that the women would not have had enough time to prepare and would fear the threat of violence. The men were certain that the women would understand that to save themselves and the children, they would need to come back and return to the positions that they had always served. The works in the Wideness would be saved because the women who had sabotaged the works would have no choice but to fix the problem and then continue to make sure that these kinds of problems would not happen again. As it was before, the men believed it would be again.

  And the men believed all of this because they were certain that the women were as miserable as they were in the current situation. Even after all this time, the men had not moved past their belief that the women would be back. They still believed that the women were not capable of living on their own, being content and fulfilled in a world without the men to provide.

  This thought sent a sickening chill though Jane’s body. Jane Double D now understood that the men had not progressed. The men had not moved on. The men had not learned to accept, not believed that the women could accomplish all that they had accomplished and be content in the Realm without their men to watch over them. The men were wrong. And they had no idea. The men were wrong and their error posed a threat for the Realm. The Realm of the Women’s Forward Movement was here to stay. The women would never return to their roles as servants, as servants and glorified slaves.

  Jane Double D understood now that her role was not only to protect the women with her cunning might and brilliant plans of defense, but to protect the women by convincing this man, Dward, that they could not get what they thought they would get out of their demands…This stubborn misogynist and chauvinist man did not understand that the women did not need the men, that the women are indeed content and satisfied and in fact thriving in their new habitat. She had to somehow get him to realize that the women were now home in the Realm and that they would never return to what was…They had no need to return to the Wideness or the protection of the men…That even women like herself who thought that sex with men was something to seek and enjoy had found sexual bliss, excitement and great satisfaction in the arms, hands and mouths of other women.

  Jane did not know how to do this… and for the first time in a very long time, Jane was unsure of what she should do. She knew that she had been preparing for this moment her whole life. She knew that her joining with the men in their work, their games and in their beds back in the Wideness had given her a view, an understanding, of the men in the Wideness that the men could not have of themselves. She had been both a part of them and an outsider at the same time. This position had been truly unique — there were few, if any, women in the Wideness who had ‘enjoyed’ a position such as she did. She had witnessed and experienced many of the things that the men had gone to great lengths to keep from the women — believing that the women had not been interested and did not actually know all that they did.

  *** During the last months in the Realm, her time with Zana had also given her an added view of life…and the other women…until she had met Zana, Jane’s world had revolved around physically protecting the women and the Realm…and Jane had been expert and phenomenal in her role of

  developing the Judoshii-Juniors and the Upper Stratus…. She had come so far as to be recognized for these accomplishments. As Senshii, she had been given the right to make the necessary decisions without having to consult back with the Upper Stratus.

  Once she met Zana, her life had again taken on a new and refreshed perspective and direction. She began to learn from Zana that the physical safety of the women was not only dependent on the physical well-being of their bodies. She came to understand that the well-being and safety of the women, the children and the Realm of the Women’s Forward Movement as a whole was no less

  dependent on the soul of the beings who made up the Realm than it was on their physical well-being. Zana taught her that when the soul was free and light, the body was free to follow. She learned from Zana that the free soul was the key to a truly free body and that a free body and soul was and is the truest source of strength.

  Jane Double D understood that she was free and strong and that her strength lay in her ability she had spent all of her life cultivating and that she had no choice but to speak to Dward, not of her life in the Realm, not of the wonderful and promising direction the Realm was following…but of the Wideness. She needed to help him and reflect back to him the Wideness as it was. The challenge for Jane was not only to find these words and ability
to express these things that she was so privileged to have seen and learned about the Wideness — but the challenge was to be able to reach Dward and touch him with her words in a way that he could absorb and understand. She knew that if she could do all of this, Dward would be able to go back to the Echelon of the Wideness and make it right with them…and then perhaps they would be able to let go of the women and move on themselves… (But the Wideness’ future was not her primary concern.) Senshii Jane had been given her first job as a diplomat. Jane had to make herself understood. At the same time, she had to get this thick-headed Dward to see and understand what the Wideness had become and that it had become this way by the overpowering egos of the men. Their overpowering egos had caused a blindness — the inability to see the women as equally intelligent, equally capable and equally strong, each woman in her own way. He needed to understand that these women, when joined together, all were in every way protected, loved and unified. Unity is not a word that men like to use. And certainly not a word that was ever used to include a woman and man together.

  Jane focused as Zana had taught her to. She asked Dward to leave her for a period of one quarter…While he did not understand why Jane Double D would want him to leave her alone, he knew her well enough to know that Jane Double D never did anything without reason and he still trusted her enough to know that she would not be asking if it was not necessary.

  Once Jane Double D was alone, she sat on the cold stone floor and closed her eyes. She let herself hear the words of her Love and Zana’s voice came to her…and led her to the quiet place — the Green Shrine of Deep Thought. At that moment, One-Eyed Ike was also contemplating the Powers of All Around. He and Jane were in this contemplation together. Jane brought in Zana, Ike brought in Anna. Their power of thought was strong. Their collective minds beyond conventional wisdom.

  *** Jane Double D remained in the Green Shrine of Deep Thought for a full quarter, and Dward was waiting for her when she opened her eyes and came out. He had been staring at Jane Double D. He thought he knew her fully and was amazed to discover Jane Double D, Senshii, sitting on the floor, legs crossed, meditating…He started to wonder what else he didn’t know about Jane Double D…and he soon came to the realization that there was plenty.

  The Conversation that Changed Things

  It was good that Dward had these thoughts before he and Jane Double D sat down to discuss his proposal. It was good — because had he not had that hint of self-doubt, he might not have been able to accept what was to follow. His small, tiny bit of questioning his knowledge of Jane Double D allowed him to actually hear what Jane Double D had to say.

  Jane’s collective meditation gave her the strength to lead the ‘negotiations’ or discussion of the request/demand of the Upper Echelon of the Wideness. Jane was on another level. She was not aloof but she was fully connected to the collective wisdom of the Powers of All Around. Jane led the discussion and so it began.

  They did not discuss the demands of the Wideness at all. Jane Double D laid out the charts and maps that Dward had brought with him as proof of the Realm’s guilt. First, she went over the maps and the coordinates. She showed him what she saw…she pointed out to him the source of the Bad Air, as was evidenced. She pointed out the source and she began to talk. She showed him what was really happening. Dward became enraptured, caught in Jane’s words. Jane’s strength and will kept him silent throughout.

  Jane Double D spoke about the Wideness. They discussed how goods were produced, how processes took place and the various roles involved in these processes. She explained how without certain roles, certain steps in the processes of production would not take place to their fullest extent.

  Then she discussed and reflected with Dward some of the experiences they had shared, had been present for and witnessed together, before the Great Split…She spoke. He listened — really listened to her words and even seemed to hear her voice… (Jane Double D always had a knack for actually, and on more than one occasion, being heard by some of the men….not all…but some….and luckily for both of them, Dward was one of those men.) Then he spoke and she listened…

  This discussion went on for many hours and maybe even days…neither of them had much of a sense of time and in the cave, the sun was not there to remind them of time’s passing. The collectiveness Jane had experienced with the Powers of All Around has taken away the self-imposed restrictions of time as hours and days.

  First, Dward came to question in his mind and then out loud to Jane Double D. It had not occurred to him that there was value in the women as women. It had not occurred to him that the nurturing and caring that was an innate part of the women was necessary for anything beyond the raising of children and the maintaining of a home…It had not occurred to Dward. It had not occurred to the Upper Echelon of the Wideness. It has not occurred to any of the men in the Wideness. The men in the Wideness had not progressed, not grown even one step forward, not moved or changed to meet the reality they had been ignoring. The women are intelligent, the women are equal and the women are strong. And in the Realm, the women are independent and share respect.

  As the hours went by…Dward saw that production, management and earnings also benefited from these womanly traits…He had never seen a business, a factory, a government office as something that needed a watchful, caring and nurturing eye…In the time that he traveled through the discussion with Jane Double D, Dward began to see the Wideness as it was before the Great Split and how it was after…He began to see that the Wideness without the women’s roles was not as strong and secure as before. He began to see that while his superiors — the Echelon of the Wideness — were right to believe that bringing the women back would solve many of their problems, it was a weakness on the men’s part that they did not fill in the women’s roles after the Great Split. They had been too arrogant. They had been shortsighted, even blind.

  Dward was many things…and one of these was having a distaste of weakness, especially in men or anything of men. He had seen the violence that ensued during the Great Split and while he did not want the women to leave, he saw the violence propounded by the men as a sign of their

  weakness…The women in Dward’s mind were the weaker and did need protection…and strong men had no business using physical strength on anyone weaker…including the crazy women who were trying to leave. Dward did think the men superior and he couldn’t understand why the women would want to leave and he didn’t understand why these men who owned these women didn’t just convince them, explain to them that they should stay…why the men didn’t use their superior intellect and just way of life to explain to the women what their life would be like without the men to protect and provide.

  In time, Jane was able to lead Dward to a new understanding. Dward came to understand that needing the women back was a sign of weakness…he believed that the women would never willingly come back to the men and the Wideness as long as the men were so weak as to not be able to take care of the full production and providing by themselves…He came to understand that if the men wanted the women back, they would have to stand up and be strong enough to take care of themselves.

  Dward was unwilling to share in any violence against the women. He came to understand that the women would not accept the demands of the men and that the threat of violence would indeed have to be real for them to return under the circumstances that existed. He saw that the men suffering from the Bad Air was a true sign of the men’s weakness and this could not be. Their own arrogance and false sense of self-worth was holding them, locked in weakness, alone with only themselves to care for each other. And they were awful at that. Dward did not know if that caring empathy was in itself a weakness, but he understood that without it, the Wideness would surely fragment.

  Finally, Dward understood that this would not and could not be solved with or by the women of the Realm. He understood that the Bad Air that the men suffered needed to be solved by the men

  themselves…if the women were to come back without
violence, the men would have to develop and show a wider range of strength.

  It is this message that Jane Double D, Senshii, succeeded in passing to Dward. It is with this message and understanding that Dward left the cave and went back to the Echelon to explain.

  *** Jane Double D was confident…and relaxed and completely exhausted…Jane Double D went from the cave into her transporter and spoke into her panmitter…Mission accomplished…I am coming home…

  Part 9

  The Grateful Homecoming The Green Shrine of Deep Thought — and One-Eyed Ike…

  The mission was, by all accounts, a great success. Jane Double D had succeeded, with the Powers of All Around and the safeness of the Green Shrine of Deep Thought, in awakening within Dward some level of understanding that had been missing…Jane Double D knew that she had many to thank for this success… One-Eyed Ike, who although had never interfered with policy and decision, had brought the concept of his wise wife and partner. Although Anna had not lived to see her daughters and devout husband move with the women to the Realm, she had left with him her legacy and he in turn had brought the concept and the practice of the Green Shrine of Deep Thought to the women — and Zana.

  It was a known fact that Ike had gone into the Green Shrine of Deep Thought at the exact moment that Jane Double D received the order to meet with Dward. It had been so from the beginning. Every incident or almost incident that had even the possibility of bringing harm to the women of the Realm brought Ike to the Green Shrine of Deep Thought and it was there that he would do as Anna had done before she was taken from his life and the life of his daughters. Every danger was brought to his consciousness, by something he could not name. Every danger and he would enter the Shrine and do as Anna had requested when she first learned that her life with Ike and her daughters was coming to an end.