Tuesday, January 31, 2012

American Bison, Buffalo, China, Guatemala and Me

I have not always lived in the eternally green and damp redwood coast.
As a baby, born and until I was 21, raised in Wyoming - there were only one kind of magnificent creatures called to my mind when I heard the term Buffalo and it wasn't these domesticated animals or anything safe or controlled.

I had seen these beautiful American Buffalo, alone and in vast herds. I had watched them tear apart a tree to scratch an itchy spot, and form huge bare bowls in the prairie where they rolled in the dust.

I had learned that the very contrasting colors of the red calf and the green grass which made them so visible to my eyes, was perfectly the same tone when seen with the eyes of a predator.

I don't have a picture, well I do, but in a non digital stack somewhere, of the "magical Moon" white Buffalo I was lucky enough to see and feed, in Custer South Dakota. The legends and the fact of these strong and wild animals has been a part of the fabric of my life since I was a baby.

One of my friends had an Uncle with a bull he could saddle and ride in the Fourth of July parade, but over-all I knew the result of getting too close to these animals, was trampling or being gored. So even when I lived with a herd in Custer State Park, I treated them with awe, and respect from a distance, even though one would come and gaze in my window and leave big nose prints on the glass.

My son is farther away from the bison than it looks, and I want to warn people, don't put your loved ones near buffalo to get a picture. I've seen it, it is DANGEROUS!

http://365project.org/pandorasecho/365/2012-01-25

A Series of Pictures that I took for The Same Subject Challenge on 365 Project got me remembering why I had these little mementoes in my life in the first place

and reminded me that it is fun to be playful

Watering Hole

I'm having way too much fun with this. Starting to feel like someone is going to catch me out playing in the mud puddles with my toys.

Return to old watering holes for more than water; friends and dreams are there to meet you.
African Proverb

My water buffalo have gone wallowing in the silk kimono, in front of the 1987 calendar I got when I was a student there. This includes and ancient selfie because the button on the bottom of the calendar is my husband and I in the imperial gardens in Xiamen. I had to include the Happiest Buddha

Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator

The breath of a buffalo in winter

"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."

Caught at play with my buffalo

Then in 1987, My husband and I were lucky enough to be able to attend a college for Teacher prep. in Beijing, China.

This is where I first saw the other kind of buffalo, the hard working, domesticated, seen with birds and children on their back, water loving BUFFALO

They were so different, but equally powerful and amazing. I only managed a few pictures but filled my memory with them

My pottery buffalo came from China and the Wooden one was carved and purchased on a trip I took with my Mom and sons, to Guatemala in the mid 1990's