Lightning Medicine Cloud. Image Source: The Watchers.
In the lore of the Druids, white cows were sacred, sacrificial animals. The Romans, however, on conquering the British Isles, brought dark-coloured cattle with them. White cows were henceforth seen as signs of bad luck, an ancient belief that has survived in the form of a superstition in some farming communities, even to the present day.
Perhaps the mythology of white cattle and conquering powers repeats in North America. In Native American traditions, especially among the Lakota people, the incredibly rare birth of a non-albino white buffalo calf is an auspicious and momentous thing. The Lakotas see the calf as a 'Messenger of God.' The legend of white buffalo is explained by Lakota Ranch:
One summer a long time ago, the seven sacred council fires of the Lakota Sioux came together and camped. The sun was strong and the people were starving for there was no game. Two young men went out to hunt in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Along the way, a beautiful young woman dressed in white appeared to the warriors and said, "Return to your people and tell them I am coming." This holy woman presented the Lakota people with the sacred pipe which showed how all things were connected. She taught the Lakota people the mysteries of the earth. She taught them to pray and follow the proper path while on earth. As the woman left the tribe, she rolled upon the earth four times, changing color each time, and finally turning into a white buffalo calf. Then she disappeared. Almost at the same time as her leaving, great herds of buffalo could be seen surrounding the camps. It is said that after that day, the Lakota honored their pipe, and buffalo were plentiful. ...
The Native Americans see the birth of a white buffalo calf as the most significant of prophetic signs, equivalent to the weeping statues, bleeding icons, and crosses of light that are becoming prevalent within the Christian churches today. Where the Christian faithful who visit these signs see them as a renewal of God's ongoing relationship with humanity, so do the Native Americans see the white buffalo calf as the sign to begin life's sacred hoop.
"The arrival of the white buffalo is like the second coming of Christ," says Floyd Hand Looks For Buffalo, an Oglala Medicine Man from Pine Ridge, South Dakota. "It will bring about purity of mind, body, and spirit and unify all nations—black, red, yellow, and white." He sees the birth of a white calf as an omen because they happen in the most unexpected places and often among the poorest people in the nation. The birth of the sacred white buffalo provides those within the Native American community with a sense of hope and an indication that good times are to come.
Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe. The leader of the Lakota Dakota Nakota Oyate, of the Sioux nation, speaks about the white buffalo legend (2010). Video Source: Youtube.
In August 2010, Lakota Chief Arvol remarked on this legend as it pertains to current world affairs and the state of the environment:
This image of a planet plundered by soulless people is poignant enough. But the additional appearance of a white calf at the turn of the Millennium is seen as a blessing and a warning: it hails a time of great change. As a result, there was enormous excitement when a non-albino white buffalo bull calf was born 12 May 2011 at Lakota Ranch in Greenville Texas. The calf was named Lightning Medicine Cloud.A Great Urgency: To All World Religious and Spiritual Leaders
My Relatives,
Time has come to speak to the hearts of our Nations and their Leaders. I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, to come together from the Spirit of your Nations in prayer.
We, from the heart of Turtle Island, have a great message for the World; we are guided to speak from all the White Animals showing their sacred color, which have been signs for us to pray for the sacred life of all things.
The dangers we are faced with at this time are not of spirit, mistakes that we cannot afford to continue to make.
I asked, as Spiritual Leaders, that we join together, united in prayer with the whole of our Global Communities. My concern is these serious issues will continue to worsen, as a domino effect that our Ancestors have warned us of in their Prophecies.
I know in my heart there are millions of people that feel our united prayers for the sake of our Grandmother Earth are long overdue. I believe we as Spiritual people must gather ourselves and focus our thoughts and prayers to allow the healing of the many wounds that have been inflicted on the Earth. ...
So let us unite spiritually, All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer. Along with this immediate effort, I also ask to please remember World Peace and Prayer Day/ Honoring Sacred Sites day. Whether it is a natural site, a temple, a church, a synagogue or just your own sacred space, let us make a prayer for all life, for good decision making by our Nations, for our children's future and well-being, and the generations to come. ...
Chief Arvol Looking Horse sees a great danger threatening "Grandmother Earth" and a great hope for restoring her wholeness. So he is calling all nations to prayer of any kind in an effort to return the planet to balance, the people to spirit. I asked him why this path is the right path to take. "A man or a woman without spirit is very dangerous," Looking Horse explained in a recent phone interview. According to this Sioux chief, the absence of spirit is causing suffering everywhere. "We are in a time of survival," he said. "But we don't want to believe it because we have forgotten our spirits. We have forgotten that Grandmother Earth has a spirit." Disconnected souls are hurting others without even knowing they are hurting others." Those being hurt include animals, trees and waterways.
The Lakota are a proud people. Their 19th century leaders were so important in their struggle against the expansion of white man's America that they entered the popular mind in history and legend: Crazy Horse, Rain-in-the-Face, Sitting Bull. A descendant of Sitting Bull saw this calf as a reincarnation of Sitting Bull's spirit, a hope for all nations.
Sitting Bull's successor describes the significance of the prophecy. Video Source: Youtube.
It was horribly distressing, then, when the poor young Bison was found killed on 30 April 2012. Its mother died the next day. Rumours that the calf was skinned have been denied by local law enforcement. The Sheriff has declared the case closed, with the cause of death attributed to a bacterial infection (amid accusations of cover-ups). Others believe the case is an unsolved crime, now the concern of the Native American Rights Federation.
Whatever the cause of death, it seems this is a persistent omen, for another white buffalo calf was born 16 June 2012 at the Mohawk Bison Ranch owned by Peter Fay in northwestern Connecticut. This baby was named Yellow Medicine Dancing Boy. While recognized by visiting Lakota, this animal appears not to be seen in as potent terms. Perhaps this is because breeding lines can be manipulated to improve the chances of a white calf birth. It is implied, although not stated outright, that Native American owners would not play with breeding lines. Thus, there is a suggestion that a white calf born on a Native American ranch would be truly a gift of nature, not of research in genetics. Even so, this latter calf was named in a sacred ceremony on 28 July 2012, which was blessed by a big thunderstorm.
Yellow Medicine Dancing Boy (centre) with his mother and other Buffalo. Image Source: Peter Fay via Indian Country Today.
I live in Hunt County quite near to where the calf was born. It has been interesting to see the play of events surrounding both the birth and the death from different view points. Being a mutt of various cultures including 1/4 Native American, I have my own mingled view of the world and beliefs. I would say that I lean towards Mother Earth though. For me, this is an anxious time. My soul is filled with hope, projecting such positive intentions as I can out into the universe. The colder, more "logical" voice within me is skeptical and finds the big picture frightening.
ReplyDeleteAs a whole we seem to be a selfish race, an invasive species that destroys the earth beneath our feet and the skies above our heads. We drive out all other life, expecting it to conform not just to our needs, but to our wants as well. Even within our own species we turn a blind eye, one group gorging on wealth while another starves.
The universe has given us a few minor shakeups over the past decade, but I'm not so sure we've carried much away from them. Perhaps we need to be swagger down and forced to struggle for survival as we are forcing so many others in order for our beautiful planet to once again thrive. We are just a tiny piece in an enormous organism. And we appear to be bent on destruction. It is my hope that we open our eyes and thrive while we still can.
As always, I find great pleasure in your blog and appreciate the time and thought you place into each of your posts.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Anon. I agree that there is a serious disconnect between human mentalities - especially economic and political attitudes - and reality. Fukushima is an example of this, so is the evident desire toward conspicuous consumption wherever the economy rallies, as though we have not been passing through a distressing recession, which was caused by micro-vanity and macro-mismanagement. When confronted by disturbing signs, such as the disappearance of honeybees (which could threaten our whole food supply!) people are weirdly complacent or oblivious. Finally the cause has been traced to a high-tech pesticide: “Past a certain point, we can’t make nature conform to our industrial model. The collapse of beehives is a warning – and the cleverness of a few beekeepers in figuring out how to work with bees not as masters but as partners offers a clear-eyed kind of hope for many of our ecological dilemmas.” http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/04/09/mystery-of-the-disappearing-bees-solved/
DeleteToB,
ReplyDeleteI am in total agreement with you. There is a movie I watched within this past year that talks about the bees and I wish I could remember the name of it. I will look into it as I've told several people about it and am just having a brain freeze. It talks about several factors that are contributing to the disappearance of honey bees, including the pesticide you speak of. It is something that has bothered me for years now, as we have seen a change in the bee population that visits the few acres of our homestead, which is strictly organic, pesticide free and is purposefully planted with native plants many insects, birds, mammals, lizards, and amphibians take great joy in. Which delights me.
Back to the point. I was shocked, but then again not so surprised by several practices mentioned in the movie. It would seem that several larger companies are as cruel to the bees they, I'll say "tend" though I'd rather say "torture", as supposed ranchers are to livestock. The disrespect of the very lives we consume so that we might live is a disgrace to our species in and of itself.
But speaking on the pesticide in particular, if I remember
correctly, the film speaks of how Europe had the same problems with their bees disappearing. I think it was France in particular. There was this specific pesticide group of two I think that they discovered was causing a mutation. (I could be slightly off here as there was a lot of information and it has been awhile.) They managed to get proof via filming the bees. Again, more detail within the movie which I will find the title for you. It will disgust you to no in. On the plus side of things, their government outlawed the use of those particular pesticides and within a year their honey bee population was once again thriving. That made me so happy to hear.
On the downside, of course ours will not follow suit. To regulate big business to such an extent just isn't doable. Note the sarcasm. They have managed to block one form, but it isn't enough.
I'll Look up the title and get back to you as well as read your link. I wouldn't be surprised if you had already seen it though as informed on different topics you are. :)
Found it. The movie is a wonderful documentary from 2009 called "The Vanishing of the Bees". I'm thinking it has been over a year since I watched it after all. The last few have been a race, I tell you. If you by chance have not already seen this thought provoking film, I sincerely hope you are able to take something away from it.
ReplyDeleteMy first intimacy with a honey bee was around age 3 or 4. I stepped on one accidentally while helping out in my grandparent's garden barefooted. Their neighbor was a wonderfully kind beekeeper. Of course it was the most horrible of events to me at the time. As was the idea of allowing my grandmother to slather snuff on my foot. I was a grossed out child, but it did the trick. What I would give to see that amount of honey bees happily dancing about our yard. We do still have some fortunetly, but I'd say they number 1 for every 10 of the curious wood bees that frollick amongst the butterflies and hummingbird moths.
I just read the article. You will definitely appreciate the documentary as it goes into more detail. And obviously since it was in 2009, these aren't new conclusions or ideas. It speaks of the shipping and feeding of the sugar and corn syrup as well as the horrid way in which colonies are manipulated via the artificial insamination of queens to the brutal murderer of them. Those specific companies have literally jacked with their life cycle. Plus the film shows the actual response of the Beeton the chemicals as two crops of sunflowers were filmed. Watching the two different takes between an organic sunflower and one with the particular agent on it broke my heart. You immediately see just how intensely it affects the bee.
ReplyDeleteOf course you also learn where the company Bayer come from as well as a few other nice nuggets of information. I think with this reminder I am going to climb aboard my bandwagon and once again tell those I know about the film. Thank you.
Thanks very much for your comment, Anon. I have not seen this documentary but found some trailers for it on youtube - will track it down. Colony collapse disorder is certainly one of many signs that policies in the 20th century had unforeseen consequences. In a funny way, the 20th century was sort of like the 19th century, except on a time delay in terms of real consequences. In the 19th century, critics could see the factories belching smoke and child labour and so on. But in the 20th century, superficial improvements in labour relations, marketing, transportation and communications made us miss the real dramas and real failures beneath the polished surface of progress.
ReplyDeleteFukushima was a ticking time bomb that ran for 40 years; there are other nuclear plants similarly on the edge of trouble. We have tested nuclear weapons, polluted much of the planet, have crumbling infrastructure; but because the standard of living for people rose significantly over the 20th century (despite warning signs in repeated recessions, which suggest that that level of mass consumption is unsustainable), most people did not notice what the real cost of that raised standard was. Global warming - ? A hyper-marketed policy joke compared to serious discussions we are not having about the wide-ranging problems that confront us, such as colony collapse disorder.
Thus, while we must applaud modern advancements in science and technology, especially in the sphere of food production, we have to understand that all of those advancements have come at a cost. It is interesting that the signs are everywhere, screaming at you if you know where to look. But people are so overloaded with information and politicized and marketed messages that they can scarcely turn the volume down enough to live their lives and be barely productive in their jobs, let alone perceive any big picture.
Bayer: yes, I know.
http://www.11points.com/News-Politics/11_Companies_That_surprisingly_Collaborated_With_the_Nazis
The impact of Nazi atrocities and experiments during the Holocaust on today's biomedical and other industries is a dirty secret not widely discussed.
On bees: as a child, my parents knew a bee keeper who kept hives on our property. He used to pay them rent in the form of jars of honey and huge cakes of beeswax, 6" thick, 2' long, 1' wide. I still have some of these beeswax cakes wrapped in brown paper, still smells beautiful. They are something utterly real, an antidote for the fake-fake stuff that surrounds us.