To the earliest Western societies, a warrior was:

• One who toils or fights.
• One who embroils in confusion.
• One who guards or defends.
• One who chooses or wills.
• One who speaks out.
• One who becomes.
• One who accomplishes through effort.
• One who is aware.

What strikes us immediately from this list, is that the warrior function is, and always has been, gender neutral. Anthropologist Carlos Castaneda reports that Don Juan, a Yaqui wise man, described the warrior function not in gender terms, but as a certain mind set. A warrior, he says, ''...takes everything as a challenge'' while an ordinary person ''...takes everything as a blessing or a curse.''

The ability to view yourself as the captain of your soul, as a person willing to face and resolve any conflict - and, as a woman, to refuse to see yourself as a victim of man-made or biological circumstances - separates you as a warrior from those ''ordinary'' people, male or female, who are willing to drift with the current and bend with every breeze.