The Turtle Talks Torah: the book: ChapterOne "Return of the Star Maiden(Shechinah)"

The Turtle Talks Torah

Chapter One: The Return of the Star Maiden(Shechinah)

 

            She comes on a brilliant traveling star filled with the sound of the thunder chiefs. Her name is the White Buffalo Calf Maiden and the Lakota plains Indians call her and her star Wohpe.

            In August of 1994 a female white buffalo calf was born. This was the first female white calf ever known since the legend of the appearance of Wohpe, the White Buffalo Calf Maiden, came to the plains Indian peoples thousands of years ago. Wohpe is always associated with the coming of a sacred star fire - a comet. This return of the calf maiden who said she would return at the end of the age to usher in an era of peace, called the mended hoop, in Plains Indian terminology, has now occurred. How she would incarnate has always been a great mystery. This mystery is being revealed in this writing and the world may be very surprised at who she really is. Connected to this return is the ancient prophecy of the Mesoamerican priests who said something very interesting about the incarnation of the midnight sun, the smoking mirror brother chief called Tezcatlipoca? His real identity would be a big surprise as well, when he returned.

            The pipe of the star maiden - Wohpe, the White Buffalo Calf Woman was a gift to the Plains Indian people(and all peoples). She brought it during her legendary visit thousands of years ago. The traditional story tells us that two Lakota hunters were out scouting game when they spotted a bright shimmering apparition on a distant hill. As they approached they saw a beautiful maiden dressed in calfskin and carrying a bundle. She was the most beautiful being they had ever seen. She lived with the people for a while and gave them an entire spiritual teaching and way of life. She brought seven special rites to the people and the “Chanupa” or sacred pipe was one. It involves a special technology for the interfacing with all the "creature teachers, the stones, the plants and animals". It is an alchemical vessel that was a gift specifically suited to the Lakota culture, people and land. It pulses with all of the elements that the creation is made of. The pipe carries prayer as well as transmits blessing. This gift as well as other sacred bundles being kept in America is a technology to bring blessing to the land and her people. All of the prophetic traditions speak of a new "holy land" from which blessings will flow like beautiful watercourses all over the Earth. It was twenty nine years ago that the star of Wohpe(called by different names in various traditions) headed past our globe of beauty. This brought a new spirit fire. We are in what the native Pueblo elders call the fifth world and this beckons a new level of responsibility. LIFE as embodied in the Earth globe is supremely sacred. The Earth herself is an embodiment of the divine with levels of soul interface that mirror the soul connections of living beings. Americans walk a HOLY land. We will speak more of the series of worlds according to American Indigenous worldview in the chapter about the Hopi tradition and prophecy. The following is now a story of how I first was prepared for the coming of the star “Wohpe”.

            This star was hurdling quickly towards the earth in the fall of 1989. I was holed up in a little trailer on a mountainside in the Sierra Nevada. A voice of Mr. Science himself came on the local community radio station and he told the world that an Australian named Austin had spied a new comet. It looked like a “great” comet rapidly increasing in brilliance - and the hopes of the astronomy world was kindled. I pulled out that little fine binding of a book the Hebrew book Zohar. I read and reread the parts about the fire in the tail of the comet and the precious jewels found in the breast of “high mountains”. Certain jewels are said to be connected to special comets, who’s passing complete the true purpose of the jewels and fine gold. I just knew this comet was the one spoken about in the ancient book Zohar and this would be an area of increased study and contemplation over the next few months.

            The authority on the importance of the "stars with tails people", the comets, during the transition from fourth to fifth world (of pueblos and six nations world view) is

Grandmother Twylah Nitsch. Her book Other Council Fires Were Here Before Ours

(1991) has a lot to say about the sacred fire of the comets. She relates the Iroquois teaching that five comets will pass by the Earth at the end of the fourth world in a series of seven worlds. One of these will "fertilize the egg of Mother Earth" and bring about the millennial era of the great peace and the dawn of the fifth world of Illumination. This one very special star had come to fulfill the beautiful destiny of a healed Earth. The chieftess of the mineral kingdom explains in the story (from Other Council Fires were Here before Ours) how the exploits of a previous world and civilization that had been destroyed will have passed on something that will enable us to move into the fifth world of illumination when the comet beings pass by the Earth. More about this special technology as this story unfolds.

From Storm's book "LightningBolt" with Hebrew soul levels added by this author

            A fuller understanding of who White Buffalo Calf Woman is may be gained by a study of the teachings of Sweet Medicine and the Way of the Brother Arrows which is found in the Cheyenne tribe’s use of the medicine shields and wheels. The Cheyenne chief Hyemehosts Storm has made available these incredible teachings for serious students of the American Indigenous medicine ways. Whereas the Calf woman is placed in the south of the circle called the medicine wheel of the great twenty count(see image), she holds the place of the Spirit of the Plants. Sweet Medicine is in the north and is the spirit of the animals. We will discuss these special Twin beings in a later chapter for they reappear as twin hero males both in the Mesoamerican teachings and in the North American wisdom teachings. Sweet Medicine is considered a great prophet and holy sage who like the Calf Woman for the Lakota, brought the Cheyenne tribe their way to live and pray. The traditional legend includes a story of Sweet Medicine as a young man who is drawn on a vision quest to the holy mountain called Bear Butte. An entrance opens for him to go into the heart of the mountain and there he sits in the cavern and finds himself in the center of a circle of forty four spirit beings(thunders). They give him four sacred medicine arrows, which are the focus of the great medicine bundle of the Cheyenne in the same way the Pipe bundle is for the Lakota. These special arrows are fitted with stone points made of sacred crystal. The Peace Chiefs teach the initiate how to use the sacred Brother Arrows for providing for both material and spiritual needs for the people. Now each of these two Plain’s Indian tribes has a special sacred technology made of special minerals, plants and animals. They are an interface with all the worlds that surround and support our human world, including the stars. We see how the indigenous Americans have been given specific wisdom traditions that involve a deep respect for the Earth and maintaining of a sacred relationship to all of our “relatives” that make up the spectrum of organic life and inorganic substances. Their special relationship to the American continent has given them the insight and ability to have helped prepare the land for the fulfillment of the prophetic visions that have seen the mending of the hoop of all the Earth’s peoples and place the American continent in a central role for this magnum opus. Sweet Medicine holds the place of the north in the medicine wheel, opposite the southern placement of White Buffalo Calf Woman. He is the spirit (collective soul) of the entire animal world as the Calf woman is the spirit (collective soul) of the entire plant world. These two are also embodiment of the sacred twin persons or great persons, called Waahkan and Skan. They together embody the great mystery who is the source of all that is. In their male brother forms among the Aztecs they are called Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, in the American Indian Navajo legend they are called Born of Water and Monster Slayer.

            White Buffalo Woman brought seven special holy rites to the Lakota people. This number seven holds a lofty place in wisdom traditions around the world. Among the first ten numbers the number seven is a prime that has no other factors (except one and 7) or products within the first 10 integers. This was of extreme importance to the ancient schools of sacred math in Greece and Mesopotamia. It always refers or is related to the "Great Mother" of all beings. The number 7 is also the diameter of a circle with a circumference of 22. This 22/7 is the closest whole number approximation of the value Pi. In the Jewish tradition there are 22 Hebrew letters and the seven of the seventh is like the diameter of the sacred circle, connecting everything together. In the western religious traditions it appears as the basic seven day ceremonial cycle, the three religions if Islam, Judaism and Christianity all having one day out of seven as a holy Sabbath day of prayer. The most beautiful of stellar constellations is the Pleiades who are also known as the seven sisters. Some elders will say that it is from these stars, the stars of the ancestors that the calf woman came from on her journey to the Earth peoples. One of the seven rites was that of the Chanupa or sacred pipe. She is perhaps most closely identified with this instrument than with any other aspect of her visit. The bowl of the pipe is made of a red form of hematisized clay called catlinite. The Calf woman showed the people the quarry from where to make the bowls. She said that this red stone contained the very blood of the people within the mineral world of the Earth. The importance of the element iron that colors the substance red will be an unfolding theme in this book. The stem of the pipe was made of wood and this represents the plant world, which grows from out of the earth. Twelve eagle feathers hung from the stem. These represent the animal world, which grows from the plant world, which is rooted in the mineral earth. The human takes and holds the pipe. These four aspects of the pipe, mineral, plant, animal, and human connect us with the four ‘worlds’ in the Jewish wisdom tradition called Kabbalah. We will also develop this connection throughout this writing. These four worlds schema is of great importance and serves as a basic frame of reference for an unfolding journey. The human takes the holy pipe and with the fire of spirit touches the plant material in the bowl. The breath of the human makes this spirit fire visible and it travels through the bowl and stem of the pipe as the holy spirit of mother life breaths throughout the entire creation. The four worlds that are seen reflected in the nature and substance of the holy pipe of the buffalo calf maiden are also represented as a succession of stages in the history of the development of the Earth and the human world. White buffalo Calf Woman left the Lakota people and told them that she would return to the earth to bring them into a new world of peace. One sign of her return would be the birth of the female white calf. The present keeper of the calf maiden is a Lakota by the name of Chief Arvol looking Horse. He states in a message on his website, “Following the birth of a White Buffalo Calf in 1994, the Keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe for the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota Nations, Arvol Looking Horse, was directed to honor the Four Directions with ceremony on June 21st. According to Lakota Star Knowledge, the birth of Miracle, a female white buffalo, signaled a time of earth changes and the coming of the mending of the Hoop of All Nations. “ It is the very return of the calf maiden which is signaled by the birth of the female white calf that marks our entrance into the fifth world of Native American wisdom teaching. The medicine shield maker and author of the best seller about the plains Indians wisdom tradition, Seven Arrows is Hyemehosts Storm. This quote is from his letter/essay called, ‘The holy Tree of Life” about the plant world, the great Tree and the divine “Greatperson(s) or great mystery,

           

            “Yes, we have reached out to you -- GreatPersons -- as you Danced with us -- when you were Rose Bushes, all the Berry Bushes, the Herbal Family, every Tree and the Dance Tree -- this is where we touched your heart.

We are humanity and we will Dance with you Tomorrow.

And so we lay our Medicine Blankets at your roots (Leaves-Fall-Down - End of a yearly Cycle -- beginning of another) -- and we cry. We sit our children with us in deep contemplation -- like the Snow we are gathered from Clouds. We have seen people rise up and burn the delicate, rape the unsuspecting, kill the innocent and cheat the Spiritual.

Explosive Slings, Arrows, war and brutal feudalistic bondage was thrown against every hope and all human achievement -- yet, your Dancers somehow prevailed.

This was done because we saw the Moon, the Stars, the Sun and Greater WahKahn - SSKwan in your Medicine Leaves. The Dance is not alone in this short time -- but is a Long-Count-Dance that will be danced when everything has gone by. Fifty Thousand years is this Dance Time -- and we will Dance with you -- Sacred Tree. Yes, this is our Fifth world and we are smiling. “

            Yes, the return of the White Buffalo calf Maiden to the Earth world signals our movement into the epoch called the Fifth World amongst many Native American wisdom teachings. We will more deeply discuss what this means for a new humanity, a peaceful and wondrous world being born and a new people awakening to this awesome rebirth.