For my write-up today on Circle of Life: Traditional Teachings of Native American Elders,
I'll quote something that James David Audlin says on page 37. The
context is a story about a Messenger from the Creator who appears as a
beautiful woman, and a Don Juan sort of man and a shy man respond to her
in different ways.
"Both boys in this definitive moment went to
the extremes of their wonted behavior. The one, overly bold with women
to the point of turning them into objects for Conquest, here treats a
Messenger from the Creator in a most dehumanizing way. The other,
overly shy with women to the point of denying the humanity they share
with him, fails to see the essential goodness of this Beautiful Woman.
There's a particular lesson in all this for men: we men should treat
woman in all her individual varieties as if she were the Beautiful One
herself, and we also should attempt to get past the outer appearance of a
woman to see her essential goodness, her essential humanity."