Wednesday, August 27, 2014

White Buffalo Day



Today, August 27, is White Buffalo Day.  It honors the story passed down in the Lakota Sioux tradition about living in harmony with all beings and the healing of the land.  This day was first honored in 1994 when a white buffalo calf was born in Janesville Wisconsin.

I journeyed to Janesville in September of 1994 to see this miracle named Miracle.  A friend and her mother accompanied me.  My friend traces her ancestry to the Lakota on her father's side.  Her mother is also of native ancestry and on that day twenty years ago her mother rode as an elder with us.

White Buffalo Day is a reminder and a call for all of us to step back and consider ourselves and our roles as citizens of this planet.  It is a call to our heart wisdom.  The wisdom found in the legend of the White Buffalo and White Buffalo Woman as has been handed down for 19 generations by the Lakota.  It is a call to and from our hearts to listen and learn not from our heads but with our hearts.

Not only a call but a plea for world leaders to stop and listen with their hearts rather than their minds.  Our hearts will lead us in the correct directions to facilitate this healing in our roles on this planet and encourage us to come together as a human race working for these much needed changes.  These changes not only will assure that we will survive but that we can thrive as a part of this entire collective of sentient beings on Earth. 

On that day almost 20 years ago my friend's mother, Dorothy, told us a story as we traveled toward Janesville.  Her sister had to be transported by a life flight several years before this.  She accompanied her sister as she was carried by helicopter to a hospital.  Dorothy told of watching the clouds that they were flying through and having the sensation that they were being accompanied by a herd of white buffalo on their flight.  She said a sense of peace came over her as they flew and that she felt her sister was going to be okay; and she was.


Some will say these are merely stories and legends.  These are people who listen with their heads and not their hearts.  I suggest you sit back, close your eyes and visualize Dorothy with her ill sister moving through the clouds with an airy herd of white cloud like buffalo running along with them.  Listen to an audio recording of the story of White Buffalo Woman, close your eyes, and allow images to arise as you hear the words.  This is listening with your heart. As images arise you become a part of this living story, of this legend.  Learn to listen not with your two physical ears but with your third ear of the heart.

This is how we make our stories, legends, and myths become a part of who we are; by seeing them in our minds eye rather than just hearing them with our ears.  We are a part of them and their teachings impact our lives.  They teach us of our innate goodness and how to live with all other beings.  They impart great wisdom in life to us mortals.  When we hear and see these stories in this way they bring the power of transformation into our lives.  We become hopeful of change, and when we have hope change is on the way.

That day 20 years ago the three of us, like three wise women, left Janesville to return home.  A beautiful cloud of hope enveloped us as we sped along the highway.  Like the three aspects of the Goddess, maiden, mother, and crone, we returned to daily life.  We each had been touched by seeing Miracle and our lives forever enriched by this.  Most importantly we carried a part of this energy within ourselves and knew that the legend of the White Buffalo lives within each of us.


  
It is good - mitakuye oyasin

          

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