This is an excerpt from Tatanka-Ashes in the Sun by Bridget Trafford. You can find more excerpts to download in the Downloads section of the website.
TEDDY BEARS, ANGELS AND BUFFALO
Teddy Bears- rooms full of teddy bears- and closets, cupboards-
That’s all of the dream she could remember now. That and the fact that she’d been with someone and they were going from store to store looking at teddy bears and cupboards-
An expression of the desire for security – she read.
Secrets-
All those teddy bears – when she was young she’d had a room full of them. She remembered Steve’s comments about them. She remembered him counting them while waiting for her to finish doing something or other. She remembered them spoiling his dramatic exits from her room on countless occasions. She remembered not being able to investigate a junk shop or charity stall without rescuing the teddy bears; not being able to leave them abandoned –
She looked around. The room was still full of them. Pooh, Paddington, Rupert; every bear on the planet – some of them more than forty years old. They all seemed to have a representative here. And every colour. White, brown, honey, chocolate, beige, black. Bears; bears; bears!
Seemingly, despite a lifetime of ignoring or turning her back on security in all its forms she still craved it on some level.
Well thought Sam.
Here I am.
A successful writer, living in a place where the land goes on for ever; where in every direction you can see a horizon; where the rain pulls a curtain across the sky and in no time at all the sun drags it open again.
And I dream of teddy bears!
I have money and I have a home and I have a creative life.
What’s missing?
Am I lonely?
No.
Do I need to share on a personal level what is most important to me to make it real?:
No. I share what is most important to me with millions.
What then?
Fragmentations of us-
What?
Kevin-
Fragmentations of us-
All the me’s that make a whole of me – all the fragmentations of us –
What most people see is just one of the facets.
Mother, daughter, wife, job identity, creative orientation etc etc?”
“You mean I was seeing bits of me reflected don’t you? Even way back then? Even so young. Even in rats! Future mes that is?”
“Well sometimes it’s easier to see a particular fragment if you project it outwards, as a separate entity as it were-”
“Right! So I’m an oversexed risk taker, a corrupt religious fanatic, a suicidal alcoholic, a prostitute, Oh and just so we get a complete picture I’m dead as well?”
Suddenly Sam had a flashback. An amazingly sharp memory of an image or an image of a memory that bore down on her like an intercity express-
In front of her, and to the left and right, there was an arch, so beautiful that, so magnetic it drew her towards it. As she moved closer she could see that it was covered with finely executed etchings.In a room sombre with age and subtle lighting, it stood out like Aladdin’s cave, each carved motif embedded with tiny fragments of crystal which reflected the sullen light like so many thousand eyes. Looking closer she saw that each carving was a scene. She studied some of the scenes and the curious collection of creatures in them. There was a fox and a dog crossing a river; there was an owl talking to a collection of woodland creatures grouped round a tree; there were two hedgehogs!; and many more. And there was herself and Kevin, in each and every scene. But no, this was not quite true. Standing on tiptoe she could see other scenes at the top of the arch where she was absent. They were too high to study easily but she had the impression that they were unfamiliar to her. It made her feel strange to look at them. There was one right at the top. She craned her neck to see; there was a single figure, standing with its eyes shut, its face thin and expressionless. It was surrounded by other figures but all had their backs to the figure in the centre, as if they were shunning it. As she looked the central figure opened its eyes and the look in those eyes was so appealing and familiar that her heart gave an involuntary leap. Just like it had the first time. Her own eyes, in a face much older, looked back at her. The figure then turned its appealing gaze on those surrounding it, but they remained resolutely facing the other direction. There was sadness and even desperation in the scene, but not, she thought, unkindness. Though the central figure was faced with the wall of backs, it seemed that the message was a firm but kind refusal of some kind, for the good of that central, lonely form. The encircling figures wore long robes of white and they all had wings…“We are all fragmentations, little pieces, of us. Some struggle to pull all their bits into a whole, a manageable whole; some concentrate on one or two or a few pieces. At its best this leaves us unfulfilled and at worst makes us feel split in two. If we can, we create opportunities to pull some of these fragments together and make a self. Any thing that moves you towards this wholeness, links you to the biggest whole of all, the universe; any movement towards recognition of the fragmentation – however transitory, fleeting – is a positive one. Life is a progression along this path – stopping, starting, moving, recreating. Death for some is an achievement, a combining with the big whole; for others, it’s the ending of one attempt in order to start another
A whole of me…
So it’s either death- or –
“Water is the spring of life and the mystical gate way to the Otherworld. Water will heal, cleanse, and revive. Water is new creation and feelings and emotion. And in the deepest water you may find dreams and visions you have not yet explored… Water, often bound but never held. There can be no true search without water. Water is a part of your search.”
“Yeah” said Sam “I know the feeling. Water again. We must have a thing about water…D’you reckon?”
Ok. Ok. Owl, Ratboy! I get the message! Water it is!
Bring it on!
And the buffalo still roam. In our memories. In our hearts.
Buffalo brings abundance. The lesson in connection. The lesson is that life is a circle. To live in abundance we must honour what we receive through prayer. We must honour the creator.
Buffalo teaches that we manifest exactly what we need by walking in balance and listening to inner guidance. By walking the path. Buffalo takes the easiest route at the right time. He does not move to a new place ahead of the season and he does not go over the mountain when the pass is easier and where he is meant to be. This way Buffalo is exactly where he is meant to be at any time and in this way he manifests exactly what is needed. Then we complete the circle by giving thanks. Thank you creator. Thank you for the transitory nature of life and the lessons it teaches. That good and bad, high and low, light and dark are all one. Two sides of the same coin. A learning.
Life is not good because of what we have or are or have achieved. Life is not a waiting line for a better place, a somewhere heaven. Life is good because it incorporates the lesson of transience and in embracing it we find peace.
In this way Buffalo teaches that we can have all we ever dreamed of…
Tatanka spirit
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