I know.
I’m a little slow on the uptake. It’s been almost a decade and I’ve only just watched the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’ve been busy, ok? Anyway, a brief sick leave stint gave me the time I needed to finally catch up on my dvd time and I was instantly drawn to the Éowyn character.
She is so strong, so determined, so passionate for her people. And of course she falls in love with Aragon (And which woman wouldn’t? He is pretty awesome). He affirms her fighter instincts, sends her a few mixed signals and then eventually delivers the most devastating words a woman could ever hear from the man she loves:
“It’s but a shadow and a thought that you love. I cannot give you what you seek…”
We have all been there at some point – at the cross roads of unrequited love. It takes every ounce of the courage to remove the dagger from one’s heart, to reform it and use it in battle. And not in a pointless battle to obtain the attention and affection of the object of your desire, but rather a battle to reclaim one’s own identity. Our heroine could have cowered in pain, she could have allowed the sting of rejection to drain her will to fight and ‘died from grief’ like her mother did.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she put on her armour and went valiantly into battle – unbeknowingly riding into the epicentre of the place where her destiny awaited her.
“Tolkien writes that she longed to win renown in battle—more so because she was royal—but being female, her duties were reckoned to be at Edoras. Likening her situation to a “cage”, Éowyn said she feared:
‘…[t]o stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.’
During the battle of the Pelennor Fields, she confronted the Witch-king of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl, after Théoden was injured. The Witch-king threatened to “bear [her] away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where [her] flesh shall be devoured, and [her] shriveled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.” The Witch-king further boasted that “[n]o living man may hinder me,” referring to the 1 000-year-old prophecy by the Elf-lord Glorfindel, foretelling that the Witch-king would not fall “by the hand of man”. Éowyn then removed her helmet and declared:
“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.” (Thanks Wikipedia)
That is without a doubt my favourite scene – a woman who goes from being broken hearted to a woman acting out of a heart that is full of courage and truth. The reason I mention all this – is because the spirit of Éowyn lives in every woman. There is a battle that each woman must fight that takes her into the heart of her destiny.
And as we learn to trust our true voice, as we learn to protect and nurture our authentic, fierce and inimitable spirits, we build the courage we need to slay the demons standing in the way of our personal freedom. Victory comes when we stop cowering in the cages of victimhood and have the boldness to ride valiantly onto the battlefields of our lives and reclaim our personal truth.
Whole Woman 