At Thunder Ranch Thunder is seeking to find her own healing & empowerment as being a woman...She has had Woman's Circles, Grandmother Circles, Women's Councils & for the last six years has led a Woman's Dance. Nearly 120 Women were at the last dance.
In the six years that the dance has been ongoing...Thunder & her sisters have built a Woman's Temple...complete with a hot tub...well the hot tub still needs a heater...this was built completely from the funds & the physical labor of the sisters. Thunder's sons -Richard, John & Rick-have brought together a gold glass 8 sided building with add-on's of a massage room. Still Needs a good Roof & the massage room needs to be finished but it's pretty amazing.
Here
are some smaller dancers...This is the reason we dance...for our 7th
Generations...Here we have Mia Solie Collins (in purple), Marrissa Sierre Erin
Marshall (Thunder's granddaughter in white) & Jessica Gershenfeld (in blue
from Philly) getting ready to enter the Dance Medicine Wheel Circle.
The White Buffalo is a sacred apocalyptic symbol of Native American Culture. The Buffalo, Tatanka, is revered by our Indian people; an animal which once roamed the continent by the millions, providing everything from food to clothing to shelter. Because of European settlement & slaughter by hunters, the buffalo population dropped to a few hundrend by the early 1990's.
NOW, A SIGN HAS RETURNED BACK FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT...On a farm in rural Janesville, Wisconsin, right off Avalon Road (Mists of Avalon?) on River Road, 20 minutes from Lake Geneva (Remembering the lake where I drove around merely a month before in Switzerland while at United Nations...a place where there never had been war on its shores...the lake & land of Peace?) "Miracle" The female White Buffalo Calf, was born on the Dave & Val Heider farm on the morning of August 20 1994.
"Miracle" is considered to be the first White Buffalo calf born since 1933. She has been accepted as the return of the Spirit of the White Buffalo Calf Woman by Arvil Looking Horse, The Pipe Keeper. People of all colors; religions; faiths; are flocking by the hundreds of thousands to see her.
"This is like the second coming of Christ on this island of North American," said Floyd Hand "The Legend is she would return & unify the nations of the four colors-Red/Black/Yellow/White!"
The dream of my lifetime & a vision that many of my Elders had for me, was realized that day when I saw "Miracle" As she walked down the hill, white & fluffy, I started praying for each & every elder in my life that had shared these ways of life & thoughts with me. I remembered that several of my elders & friends who were now gone into Spirit, Henry Crow Dog, Grace Spotted Eagle, Grandmother Kitty, & Buddy Red Bow (Why could they not of been here that day?) had said that I would actually see & touch a White Buffalo in my life but they would not. Had they known they were going to prepare the way for her?
On October, 1994, with 12 Visioners on the hill about 20 minutes away in Wisconsin, & with my husband Horse, who is a Sundancer taking over my spiritual responsibilities for that time...I reached out & touched her nose. She did not even flinch, & for what seemed like eternity, we got to feel her & send her our prayers of gratefulness. We were blessed. Starr Devee Grimes, little Richard Dakota Grimes (Three weeks old) & I have touched the White Buffalo, she is here, she is real & she loves us.
Starting in July, in 1994, I had three Visions.
The first came on July 20th, 1994, during the time that 21 comets were hitting Planet Jupiter. I sat hot, tired, & dizzy beside Grandmother Victoria Chipps right after her, Marilyn Chipps & I praying & feeding the Tree of Life at the Ellis Chipps Memorial Sundance in Wamblee, South Dakota. Grandmother Chipps took my hand & the Tree of Life started to begin to get blurry & wavy. Then out of nowhere I started seeing a vision of a beautiful woman, not especially an Indian woman, in white with long dark hair who was walking towards me. She stopped, then turned, & with the sweep of her left hand she showed me a vision of women dancing, wearing beautiful flowing dresses in colors of white & yellow. She was so very beautiful & smiling so wonderfully. She told me many things, one of which was that I should bring together women to celebrate, then she would come through me to them & that this gathering would be not only for Indian women, but all women. Then just as quickly as it came, the woman & the vision vanished. Grandma Chipps was kind of looking at me, & I told her about the vision. She said, "You have had a vision. I feel it is good, I will tell Charles. We both looked up at Charles Chipps, somehow he knew & smiled.
The second time was at Crow Dog's Paradise, Rose Bud, South Dakota. On August 5th, 1994, Grandmother Kitty calls & they get ahold of me. I leave Crow Dog's Paradise & talk with her from a pay phone...having our last full conversation together in this life, she says goodbye & then tells me to remember the promises I had with her about a Woman's Ceremony. I return to the Sundance & at the Tree of Life while praying for Rich, John, Butch, Charlie, & Grandmother Kitty, The exact same Vision of the Woman in White appears again.
On August 20th Miracle is born in Wisconsin...but I did not know.
On August 29th, I returned after 11 years to Big Mountain Sundance Grounds, where I had Sundanced, received the visions, ran my first Sweat Lodge for the Sundance Women. I also saw a little girl I had helped deliver 11 years ago, & there at the Tree of Life...The Vision of the Woman came again for the 3rd & final time.
On April 13 through the 17th, 1995, here at Thunder Ranch we held the First Woman's Dance where the White Buffalo Calf Woman came to Dance with us. Chairs were put in our circle for Grace Spotted Eagle, Grandmother Kitty, my Grandmother's Mary Elizabeth Crickmore, Crystalbelle Brannon, & the mother I never knew...who has passed into the Spirit World, Gladys Crickmore.
When she returns...We shall be one heart, one mind, one people, one spirit,
& we shall stand for Peace together.
Grace Spotted Eagle-Lakota
Aho Mi Takaye Oyacin!
We now are heading into our 6th year of dancing...As many as 150 women dance here at the ranch for a vision for our future.
Much Love Thunder
