'Young Arya'

Arya — in Sanskrit, one of the oldest living languages — means noble, honorable, one who lives according to dharma. The Arya Samaj, the reform movement founded in nineteenth-century India, used the word to mean those who seek truth. It has nothing to do with ethnicity. It is a quality. A way of being in the world.

In Norse tradition, the shieldmaiden was real. Archaeological evidence has confirmed it: the Birka Viking warrior grave, long assumed to be male because it contained weapons and a horse, was found in 2017 to contain a woman. High-status. Military leader. Fully armed. She was buried as a warrior because she was a warrior. "Not today" isn't fiction. It is a very old refusal.

This is for the woman who is young in her power, even if she is not young in years.