Several weeks ago I met In New York with Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the leader of the Lakota clan of the Sioux nation, the 19th generation Keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Bundle. Chief Arvol, the leader of the Horse Nation, invited me to meet him in New York, he believes I am an answer to the prayers of the horses in New York.
I will never know for sure if that is so, but I do know I have been called to this story by forces much more powerful than me.
Chief Arvol, the holiest man in the Sioux nation, told me that he believes that the appearance of white animals in the world signals the re-uniting of humanity, the re-connection of human beings to spirit, Mother Earth and an end to fear, abandonment, loneliness and conflict. He believes the horses must stay in New York, their work and sacred connection to human beings affirmed and respected. To banish them would, he said, be a catastrophe.
The white animals have come to bring humanity together and to help humans understand the urgency of saving the earth.
The appearance of white animals, said Chief Arvol, speaks of a time of great urgency. They have come, like the horses, to bring healing to Mother Earth and to humanity, both in desperate need. Chief Arvol said he understood my reluctance to accept the idea that the horses were calling to me to tell the story and share their message, but he said I would come to accept it, and I would receive messages from other animals in my life. This is happening.
A day before I met Chief Avrol, two white lambs were born here on the farm to Ma, an older ewe I decided to euthanize until a country vet, an animal healer, persuaded me to try and take additional steps to heal her. I did, and she has survived and has struggled, but is growing healthy. The results were two lambs – we called them Deb and Jake – unlike any other lambs I have ever seen. They are spirit animals, profoundly spiritual creatures, calm, beautiful, frail with a presence an aura that has touched me deeply. I have been photographing them ever since they arrived, the light follows them and comes from within them, they carry it with them wherever they go.
I showed an Iphone photo of them to Chief Arvol, and he laughed and smiled. Sacred animals, he said.
This morning, Maria held Deb and the two exchanged heartbeats, I could have cried watching it.
They became one in just the way Chief Arvol predicted would happen when the white animals come. In his essay “The Sacred White Animals Of Prophecy“, trainer and author Scott Alexander King writes that the white animals “are here to fulfill an ancient prophesy to invite us to follow them into the forest – into an unfamiliar place of deep healing and personal acceptance so that we might finally emerge into the other side as rebirthed and reformed individuals, whole and healthy beings in an interrelated world. They are reminding us to reclaim our beauty, our soul-essence and our Personal Power; to find a place of trust and acceptance within ourselves, to know our Sacred Self and to systematically and forever banish the world of “evil” in its unlimited guises.”
Chief Arvol’s prediction for me has come at least partly true, I knew it the minute I pulled the lambs from Ma’s swollen belly and saw them struggle to their feet and come to life. They had come for a reason, they had come with a prophecy of their own. In my long journey of rebirth and renewal, blinded by so many years of pain, anger, fear and abandonment, I am finally learning to see what it is front of me, and to accept what I cannot understand or even explain. I am finally strong enough to look anyone in the eye and say the animals are talking to me, and I am listening to them. I have shed my fear and skepticism of such an idea, it is no longer a question for me.
The journey began for me years ago, when I left my world behind and came to my farm and the animals there and began listening to them and hearing their messages for me, and feeling their healing of me. On the hero journey, guides often appear in the form of animal helpers to get us through the darkness and back into the world.
I know a lot about animal helpers. A dog brought me to my farm, a dog brought me to Maria, a donkey taught me the meaning of compassion, a spirit dog has entered my life as a guide, the horses called me to a deeper understanding of myself and the role of animals in the world. Animals brought me to rebirth and renewal, and animals are here again in my life, the journey is never done. If you listen to them, whole worlds will open up to you, so I suppose it is not really all that much of a surprise that the horses are talking to me, I’ve been talking to animals for years.
The New York Carriage Horses are shrouded in controversy and surrounded by hate and danger, yet they have brought me nothing but connection and meaning and passion for my work and my words. And they are helping to unify their divided city, to show the people that they can all come together to save the earth and the animals. Now come the white animals, just as an Indian Chief predicted in Central Park, and I am called to go deeper in my search for rebirth and understanding.
I have lambed a dozen times, seen the birth of scores of lambs. These two are different, they have a message for me, they are calling me to personal acceptance. This morning, I awoke trembling and said to Maria that I wanted to go further in my spiritual life, and then I heard a lamb calling from the pasture, to her mother, perhaps to me. I see why they are here, I am anxious to hear their prophecy.