The White Buffalo, A True Story
“The path is this way, through that door,” the attendant at the Woodland Zoo pointed out.
As I walked out, a woman with golden hair was taking off her sandals and beginning the journey up the path as well, slowly, as if walking with Grace up a mountain, as the hills and trees formed a lush cocoon around her, with nothing to keep her soles from the Earth.
There seemed to be a connection between her and this place, as if the spirit of the forest was making way for the lace-white skirt and black-topped Presence, a relationship of respect, though it was hard to figure out why I felt that.
I noticed how she stopped at each of the animals and greeted them with a childlike innocence that the Himalayan bears and cockatoos responded to, putting on a show for her. It looked like their connection with her heart had for a moment set their hearts free from the cages they were imprisoned in.
She seemed to be in a solemn procession, I thought. The monkey, kangaroos, lemurs, animals from around the world stopped and made eye-contact.
It was late in the day, but for some reason there was no one there. A silence between her and our forest relatives, not to be disturbed, as the clouds formed thick and dark coming over the mountains close by.
Two teepees came into view in the open space between the wolves and the deer. One had beautiful markings of the buffalo on it, the other plain white, standing taller.
She had descended slowly, carefully, down the hill’s path, unhurried, as if time did not exist. Crows in the trees seemed to beckon her on, forward, as if this world and the next were close together, as One in this moment.
A beautiful, white female elk was resting in her pen. She turned toward her and their eyes seemed to pierce each others. The expression on the woman’s face made me wonder what she was hearing. The expression on the elk, so quiet and at peace, said ‘yes, yes’ to her, but why?
Next to the white elk there were two pens with an opening between them. One had antelope in it, so prevalent in the West, and above the empty pen was the word ‘Buffalo.’
There was a slight look of dismay upon the woman’s face, as if to say ‘where are they?’ But there was no sign of life, just a shelter whose opening was pointing away from view.
Behind her were the teepees, and fastened to the fence were countless prayer-ties that Natives had left. This was the home of the Sacred White Buffalo, one of three that legend said would be born.
The sky was now starting to darken with an impending storm. The man she was with leaned over the fence and took out a cigarette, carefully unfolding the tobacco, as if saying a prayer as the Wind took the shredded leaves as offering to the Great Spirit, Mother Earth, and the Sacred White.
The woman took some tobacco and gently knelt down to give her offering, inside the wires that separated her from the space she wished to be a part of.
A calm came upon her, her head bowing, her white skirt dressing the soil around her. A few moments passed, a yearning emanating from her. With a second of searching within herself, she suddenly found what her heart needed. Gently she removed a beautiful stone bracelet from her wrist, something that obviously meant something to her, and she placed it inside the fence, as if magically connecting with all the prayer-ties slowly moving in the breeze.
She prayed to the Virgin Mary, the beads of the bracelet given to the Earth bonding the Sacred connection between woman and soil.
A few drops of rain began, and then a lightning bolt in the distance.
Suddenly the head of a black buffalo calf showed itself and began walking toward her. Then, following, the fully grown white buffalo emerge.
The black calf slowly approached the fence, within the silence, as if every bird, animal and tree had stopped to watch something sacred.
The calf stopped and bowed its head three times to the woman. The black buffalo calf, the color of the third calf transformation by the Legend that brought the Peace Pipe to the People, before vanishing into the herd 2000 years ago.
The calf’s countenance was not rushed, but wanted the Moment known to her. His head bowed as he stood before her, as if he knew what he was doing, that this was the Moment, and he was the chosen child of the Buffalo to bestow an honor, an acknowledgment, a recognition, the buffalo representing all our relations of the Earth in that space without time.
Then he moved on, and the fully grown White Buffalo moved toward the woman. He too stopped, facing her, and with the same grace as the calf bowed his head three times to her, in slow, deliberate manner.
Her arm reached out, over the fence toward the legendary coat of white, standing so tall and powerful, as if just groomed by the Heavens, with his large black eyes of Eternity gazing upon her, into her, as her head tilted to rest on her outstretched arm, mimicking the movements of the buffalo’s own.
He moved closer to his fence and began rubbing against a post, not roughly, but as if to say ‘if I could be nearer to you, let my affection for your heart brush together as One, gentle spirit of mine.’
The smile on her face was that of a child that lit up all the world around her, her beam of light becoming One with the gleaming White, two spirits joining, recognizing each other.
She had known deep suffering and loss in her life, but in that moment it seemed all so frivolous, as if its drapery just slid right off of her. She had borne so much, but her heart had remained pure and true to the Love that she knew was the essence and Truth of all Reality.
The White Buffalo, with his eyes not blinking, seemed to speak to her. ‘Yes, I know of your suffering, and I honor you.’ As if her suffering was that of the whole Earth, all that was living within Her bosom. The woman had stood fast, despite everything, her heart never wavered, no matter the trials and tests. The white bison’s Presence told her he recognized all that she had been through. And he honored her. And the silence of all Creation around her solemnly did the same.
The buffalo stayed in the Moment with her for the longest time, until she knew that he was there for her, to tell her something, that she already knew, but that she needed to hear, from the White Buffalo himself.
But it was between her and him, that Moment. The Words seemed to echo from him. ‘It is so, it is so.’ She was Peace. Her Light beamed from her. Her Love became All.
The calf had come to bow to her. The White Buffalo was no longer a calf. The White Buffalo had grown, like the heart tested beyond what any normal person could stand, and now she had Become.
At the moment when the Sacred White moved slowly on, the Heavens opened and a shower of rain poured down upon her, as if the past was washed away, and all that remained was the purity of her heart, who She was, that nothing in life could soil, for Her Heart was Eternal.
Her eyes were sky blue. She was of the Earth as her spirit touched the Sacred White. The Sky opened up, and Heaven and Earth became One.
Legend says that three white buffalo would be born.
Lightning shimmered in the Sky.
The Great Spirit had Spoken.
The Great Spirit is All.
Gray Owl © 2009
