Return Sacred

The Birth of a White Buffalo, Jesus and the RNC

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Hello friends. “Sawasdee krap” as we say here in Thailand. Aloha. Buen dia! Namaste. It’s good to be together again. Even if only through an exchange of digitally offered words. Even if only for a few short minutes. I pray you be met with an open mind, with peace in your heart as we journey again into uncertain terrain.

It is indeed very much unclear what lies ahead for our world. For the rivers, for democracy, for communism, for soil, for air, everything is in flux. I won’t bring up the embarrassing Kid Rock/Wrestle Mania event that just went down in Milwaukee. It is what it is and is absolutely what a nation built by slaves on stolen land deserves. We all are responsible for this. It doesn’t matter if it’s specifically our fault or not. The future is still up to us regardless of whose to blame and it’s our responsibility now to dream better.

I won’t say I have become disenchanted by politics as a result of the shitstorm brewing around us all now. To be sure, my disenchantment fully blossomed many years ago. Yet I won’t suggest that any of you should refrain from voting. By all means, vote! Vote for who you truly believe in and do so with gusto. I will. Regardless of my feelings about voting, it’s still my duty. But we’d all be wise to not put all our chips in one basket. Any system whose very existence relies on the oppression of others, any institution incapable of following the basic laws of Earth, well, such systems do not deserve our full attention and by nature will eventually collapse from within.

The views now held by many of the most materially powerful in our society are dangerous. They are not concerned with right relations or the natural laws of reciprocity but of watered down messianic prophecy, greed and extreme nationalism. Because these people wield so much power, nearly half of the U.S. population now believes the ones literally doing the least good are fulfilling prophecy. Nearly half the population of the United States now genuinely believes Trump is an “answer to prayer”, that Jesus Himself is placing the former POTUS again into a place of power, protecting him from assassination attempts and legal battles, enabling him to do “His will”.

“If you didn't believe in miracles before Saturday, you better be believing right now. Thank God Almighty that we live in a country that still believes in the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega. Our God still saves. He still delivers and he still sets free. Because on Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle. But an American lion got back up on his feet.”

-Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.

To believe in such ungrounded superstition is nothing new. Virtually all cultures do this in one way or another. Countless myths speak of a second coming of this god or that whom will usher in an era of peace in some distant time. The world is cluttered will similar narratives. More “rational” folk believe technology with save us from our ultimate demise, which is a prophetic view too. Some are certain Democracy will come to our rescue, others place their faith in Bitcoin. It’s comforting to have a hero.

Humans seem hardwired for placing faith in some kind of prophetic tale that in some ways let’s us off the hook. We don’t have to do any of the work ourselves if some great hero is coming to do it for us. It’s in so many of our stories, both old and new. The Lisan al Gaib in the wildly popular story “Dune” for instance is believed to save the denizens of Arrakis. To the Fremen, the Lisan al Gaib is also known as Mahdi, translated as "The One Who Will Lead Us To Paradise." Sounds a bit like he might be able to Make Arrakis Great Again.

Native Americans have their own prophetic visions too. Recently, the Associated Press shared a heavily trimmed down version of one of the most well known of their tales offering hope for a better day;

Some 2,000 years ago — when nothing was good, food was running out and bison were disappearing — White Buffalo Calf Woman appeared and presented a bowl pipe and a bundle to a tribal member and said the pipe could be used to bring buffalo to the area for food.

As she left, she turned into a white buffalo calf. She promised to return one day, when times are hard again, as a white buffalo calf with black nose, black eyes and black hooves.

The recent birth of a white buffalo calf in Yellowstone National Park surely offers hope to countless native peoples now, who have been unthinkably oppressed by the U.S. government for centuries.

As many of you know, this last week, for the most part, as much as I was able, I rested. I took a break. I spoke to very few in my community. I listened to no media. I read nothing. But every day I touched the earth. Every night, just after sunset, I slept. No Netflix. No RNC. Nada. In the morning, just as the dark, star-filled sky turned hazy blue, I arose. I walked to the edge of my garden with my daughter and we sang songs together to Grandfather Sun. We offered gifts of cornmeal and we prayed for his safe journey across the sky. We walked slowly through the forest and observed. That’s all. No agenda. Nothing to do but observe and listen and feel.

This is my practice now. To observe and listen and feel. I understand it’s a privilege to be able to do this. So many have to hustle endlessly just to cover the basic costs of daily life. There is no time for resting for many. I sacrificed much to live the way I do. I’ve been making curious choices for over twenty years, choices society highly encouraged me not to make, that have allowed me the freedom to be able to now live differently. I am grateful, but it hasn’t always been easy. And it won’t be easy for others to make the changes now needed either, I am sure of this. Modernity is a motherfucker. We are all very much addicted to it, deeply intwined in its slimy tentacles that keep us tied in to its crooked view of endless productivity. Yet to walk away from the dying world of modernity is what is required of all of us now if we are ever going to see clearly again. It is time to allow modernity to die. Whether or not we are ready for these changes, it doesn’t matter. Ask any parent if they were ready to have a kid. We are never prepared for the things that matter most. Yet life calls. It’s time now to walk another road. It’s time to let go. Time to rest. Prophecy or not, all things must pass.

Observe. Listen. Feel.

Yet how do we go about hospicing a view? This is my prayerful question now. Thankfully there are people like Vanessa Machado de Oliveira Andreotti who have dedicated their lives to helping us answer this question. (Pleeease explore her work! links below). Maybe these people are answers to prayer, fulfillment’s of prophecy. What the heck do I know? I know I don’t wish to fight anymore. I only wish to learn, to feed, to be fed, to know peace and be at home.

As the American Dream crumbles, as empires curious version of what it means to be human slowly vanishes from our dreamtime, how can we allow its remains to churn, as writer Sophie Strand often says, into good compost? Can we muster up the strength to veer our attention away from its loud, awkward efforts to hold on just a little longer before its inevitable demise and listen instead to the eternal Song of Creation, while calmly blessing it, allowing it to pass peacefully…

This photo shows a white buffalo calf born on June 4, 2024, in the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park, a spiritually significant event for many Native American tribes. Jordan Creech/via AP

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On June 4th, a white buffalo calf was born in the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park, a spiritually significant event for many Native American tribes. The calf was named Wakan Gli, which means "Return Sacred" in Lakota. It seems silly for many western educated peoples to believe the Earth Herself is conscious and speaking to us, that She sends us signs and revelations, that somehow the birth of a bison could usher in an age of hope. Yet I imagine it must be strange too for many to believe that a man named Jesus who lived on earth some 2,000 years ago, incidentally about the same time White Buffalo Calf woman came to offer her medicine to the people, would return to earth to also bring peace. Humans ability to create stories and to convey hope is limitless. And there are just as many ways to lead. The ability to lead seems to go hand in hand with the ability to tell a good story. Yet for most of the human story leadership was known in a wildly different way than it is understood today. Leadership came not from tough speaking businessmen, wrestlers or rock stars but from elders able to demonstrate deep devotion to the will of The Land.

Arvol Looking Horse is the current spiritual leader of the Lakota, Dakota and the Nakota Oyate in South Dakota. He is the 19th keeper of the sacred White Buffalo Calf Woman Pipe and Bundle. He shared recently in an interview with one of my friends and mentors, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, that the white buffalo calf's appearance in Yellowstone is both a blessing and a warning about our relation with the natural environment.

It is my understanding that the Earth speaks to us through riddles. The answers of such riddles must be lived into understanding. They cannot merely be grasped intellectually. The lessons I receive from an encounter with say, an elephant in the jungles of Thailand will mean something far different to me than they would to a rancher from Montana. My years in Thailand have offered me a different framework with which to view elephants, who are indeed believed to be sacred to the Thai people. I imagine to some, the birth of a white buffalo means nothing. Yet to many, whose very life depends on the presence of buffalo, such an event is the fulfillment of prophecy, reminding us that we are not in control, that Earth is calling the shots and if we are to survive, we’d better review the ancient ways.

It isn’t my place to discuss more here about sacred indigenous view. So many white guys like me vomit their bullshit interpretations of spiritual wisdom about without truly knowing what they are talking about or without asking permission to talk about any of it. I haven’t asked permission and I won’t head down that path. Hell, I’ve likely already said too much. Forgive me if I have unintentionally offended anyone. But I will share that, after spending more time away from the noise of social media, slowly reviving a symbiotic rhythm with the sun and moon, I can say with confidence, from direct experience, that I am again starting to feel the waxing/waning conversation between my “self” and the living, ever-changing planet that birthed me, which to me, seems to be the whole point of all spiritual practice, story, dogma, whatever, in the first place; to find union again, to find home. This is ultimately what we all want. Union. Yog. Whether we are for team MAGA, whether we are from Brazil, we are Lakota or Thai. Whether we are Chinese, democrat, black, white, gay, straight, or anywhere in between. We all just want to be at home. We just want to be home.

At some point I abandoned the sacred friendship I once had with Earth. The stresses of growing up made me more rational, more committed to financially supporting my family, etc. Ironically this all took place on a farm, while teaching people about deep ecology. Yet my heart wasn’t truly into it. For a few years now I haven’t heard Her. As any neglected lover can attest to, going through the motions isn’t enough. But modernity tries to make us perform everything, to sell everything. As we do this, we lose the connection.

Slowly, as I commit to listening again, not to the pundits, but to the Wind, I am relearning how to become more disciplined in how to meet Her where She is, on Her terms. I am trying to stop my habitual colonizer effort to just get what I want from Her. I am just trying to just hear Her again. To learn to love what She loves. Slowly, I am beginning to find confidence again, confidence in an ancient way of being, one still speaking clearly for those with eyes to see and ears to hear through dreams, the laughing of children, rushing rivers and crickets chirping. A still small voice presents a third way, suggesting that answers will not come from any new technology or political leader. That the only leader truly capable of showing us a way out from the mess we are now in is The Living Earth Herself. She comes as a white buffalo, possibly so too as a lion.

I’m listening more now to the choir of frogs at night. I’m listening to the stories elders are willing to share. I’m listening to my daughter, to the rise and fall of her breath as we lay in bed, kissed by the rays of the waxing moon. I’m listening to my own heart, the memories of my ancestors as their unmetabolized grievances play out now through me. I am listening to to the multidimensional world beyond the screen, the one responsible for miracles.

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Thank you for all the heartfelt emails this week friends. Some of them were so beautiful, like poetry. Although I cherish the private messages, I encourage you all to share your words publicly too. I think others will benefit from hearing from your experiences as much as I have. We are all connected, we all inter-are. Don’t be shy. You are safe here.

All blessings.

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-Thankfully for us, there are stories that some elders are willing to share. Martin Prechtel is currently sharing lectures biweekly. Profound watersheds of much needed, memory-inducing beauty. Come and Sit By My Fire.

-I cannot recommend the work of Vanessa Machado de Oliveira Andreotti enough. Her book Hospicing Modernity is a MUST READ for all humans of these curious times. Hospicing Modernity

-Tiokasin Ghosthorse recently interviewed Arvol Looking Horse on his radio show. First Voices Radio

-My dear friend, writer and ethnobotanist Kelly Moody is offering field courses in the mountains of Western Colorado soon. I took one of her courses last year and learned tons. Kelly Moody Field Ecology Class

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#maypeaceprevailonearth