Daily Signet

Drawing of Mother Buffalo by Anne-Marie at age 8

In the Mystery of Grace and Love High Service, the Lector reads: “In the ripe silence of the night, I heard myself ask, ‘Whence cometh my grace?’ ‘From death,’ intoned a voice. The answer was as unexpected as grace itself.”

It was six years ago this week that I took a pivotal trip with my dear soul sister Genevieve Boast to Sacred Ground International outside of Billings, Montana, to participate in a sacred buffalo hunt that gifted our community with Buffalo Mother. While it was she that experienced a physical death, we all experienced an initiatory death—a direct look at the cycle of life and death, the cost of what it takes to sustain and nourish our bodies, and the importance of our gratitude for what is physically and spiritually gifted us through death. Even greater than the meat provided was the grace bestowed upon us and our children through their questioning and our immense outpouring of love for the buffalo. It was as if we gained a secret power that should not be a secret—that when you take from the world with permission and gratitude you feel a coursing within you, a connection that enlivens and gives a grounding purpose to your life.      

Alexis Drabek