The Whooping Crane Saga
A crazy story about talking birds and women who wear hats
Once upon a time in a place called Atlantis, rumors were circulating that cataclysm was near. Many meetings were held to try to figure out what to do about the impending doom. A very special meeting was held that was attended by the Atlantean priests and priestesses, the whooping cranes, and the dolphins. Even in this late hour of Atlantis’ history there were still some priests and priestesses left who could communicate with animals and animal spirits. The whooping cranes, the dolphins, and many other animals had lived in peaceful harmony and companionship with humankind through most of Atlantis’ long and colorful history. They, too, were followers of the Law of ONE. It was at this meeting that the priests and priestesses, on behalf of humankind, asked the whooping cranes and dolphins for help. They asked for help in preserving the memory and the energetic vibration patterns of the Law of ONE.
All of humankind’s religions and philosophies had their primal root in the Law of ONE. It is not a religion, though. It is just a law. And there are only three words to it: “All is ONE.” That’s it! “All is ONE.” That’s the whole law in its entirety; just those three words. Anything else that can be said about the Law of ONE is just someone’s interpretation of those three words. The priests and priestesses of Atlantis knew that humankind entered the Earth as ONE, but they knew also that we entered into this plane to experience a whole new dimension of vibration called duality. It was during Atlantis that humankind’s memory of the Law of ONE began to fade. The priests and priestesses knew that this was necessary, however, because it was all part of the big plan.
The Atlantean priests and priestesses knew that humankind was on a downward spiral. Humankind was sinking into a denser vibration so that it could fully experience duality. The big worry of the priests and priestesses was that humankind would eventually get so bogged down in the denser vibrations that all memory of oneness would be lost. Once humankind had fully experienced duality, the plan called for the remembering of the Law of ONE. Being accomplished at duality, mankind would then merge the Law of ONE with that duality, thereby creating a whole new reality. It was a bold plan, with many unpredictable components. The loss of memory was the component that the priests and priestesses were concerning themselves with when they asked the dolphins and whooping cranes to take on the responsibility of maintaining the memory of oneness until far into the future when humankind would finally be ready.
The vast oceans of this wondrous planet are like enormous data storage banks. Vibrations can be stored and maintained in the oceans for incredible amounts of time. The dolphins’ sonar capabilities allow them to access that body of information. Dolphins are like the internet browsers of the ocean’s computer network. The energetic vibration patterns of oneness are embedded in all things, including the oceans. Dolphins can access those energetic vibration patterns and then translate and transmit those vibrations. The dolphins were asked by the Atlantean priests and priestesses to help humankind over the next fifteen thousand years or so by continually broadcasting those energetic vibration patterns of oneness towards humankind.
The dolphins readily agreed to this, knowing that the effectiveness of their task would be limited. The vibrations that the dolphins would be continually broadcasting would only reach humans that were close to the ocean, and only those humans who were open to it, such as small children and psychics. (Many psychics such as Ruth Montgomery and Edgar Cayce were told by their spirit guides that they should live near the ocean.) The priests and priestesses told the dolphins that there would come a time in the far future when communications between humans and dolphins would be re-established. At that time, the dolphins would help re-teach the Law of ONE to humankind.
Another place that information and vibrations can be stored is in the magnetic grid of the planet. Thin threadlike magnetic lines run through the atmosphere of the planet in a crisscross grid pattern. Any information concerning the planet can be accessed through these lines. Although air travel was common in Atlantis, and although the Atlanteans had impregnated the grid system with the energetic vibration patterns of oneness, the priests and priestesses knew that in its downward spiral, humankind would no longer be putting these vibrations back into the grid.
That is where the whooping cranes came in. The whooping cranes were asked to have a massive dose of Law of ONE vibrations embedded in their feathers. Since whooping cranes migrate in a north-south pattern in relation to these lines, they would be putting the energetic vibration patterns of oneness back into the grid every time they migrated. But that was only part of the whooping crane’s mission.
The Atlantean priests and priestesses told the whooping cranes that although they had been living and migrating in Atlantis for tens of thousands of years, they would have to relocate their migration patterns to a new land that was rising to the west. Atlantis, as they knew, was sinking into the ocean. The whooping cranes were told that far into the future humankind would once again have a great civilization and that civilization would be centered in this new land. But even before this future civilization arose, refugees from the Atlantean cataclysm would go to this land and live there until that future. The whoopers were to look after these people and help them learn of the Law of ONE. They were to play a part in their mythology and spirituality, leading them to the time when the rest of humankind would come to this land and begin that civilization. Great troubles would come in that future time and the whooping cranes were charged with the task of not only maintaining the energetic vibration patterns of the Law of ONE, but they also had to figure out a way to instill those vibrations into that new future civilization. When the whooping cranes asked the priests and priestesses how they were supposed to do that, the priest and priestesses shook their heads and replied, “We don’t know. You’ll have to figure that one out yourselves when the time comes.” Filled with love for humankind, the whooping cranes agreed to undertake their mission.
By the end of the great Atlantean civilization humankind had totally entered into physicality. The Law of Duality had polarized humankind into two camps, but both of these camps were dispersed with the demise of Atlantis. Atlanteans, along with the karma they had built up during Atlantis, migrated to all parts of the globe, including North, Central, and South America, Europe, North Africa, and even India. They intermingled with all the other peoples of the planet. The Atlanteans were only one of five races of humankind. The Asamee soul group reincarnated into all of these races and continually appeared and played important roles in all the various civilizations that sprang up.
One of the first great civilizations to spring up after Atlantis was pre-dynastic ancient Egypt (10,500 B.C.). Amilius reincarnated into this time as Thoth-Hermes, the great teacher who is alleged by some to be a builder of the great pyramid. (His symbol was a white ibis feather.) Later, he reincarnated in ancient Persia where he started the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism. And of course there was the incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth, when he perfected his understanding of the Law of ONE and attempted to teach it to humankind. Humankind wasn’t quite ready, though, and ended up distorting his teachings and using them to build a powerful hierarchical structure that dominated people rather than setting them free. It wasn’t all bad, though, because members of the Asamee soul group were able to work through this system, so small fragments of the Law of ONE were still disseminated to humankind.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, in the land known as Turtle Island, refugees from Atlantis had been living for thousands of years. After being stripped down to bare survival after the Atlantean deluge, they slowly built up their own civilizations. These civilizations were based on humankind’s relationship with nature. For the most part, these civilizations were peaceful and spiritual. Up until this point it had been an easy job for the whooping cranes.
But that would soon change…
At the time the White Man arrived and began settling the east coast of Turtle Island, the whooping cranes were grouped into three main flocks: The Florida flock wintered on the gulf coast of what is now Florida and summered in the Great Lakes region. The Mississippi flock wintered on the Gulf coast of Louisiana and summered near the headwaters of the Mississippi in what is now northern Minnesota. The Texas flock wintered around Padre Island on the Gulf coast of Texas and summered in Canada. There is scientific evidence of a fourth flock that migrated up and down the east coast, but by the time white settlers got around to cataloging birds, these whoopers where already gone.
All the native Turtle Islanders that lived along the whooper’s migratory flight paths considered these birds to be special. Although most plains tribes had legends of White Buffalo Calf Woman coming to them as a buffalo that turns into a woman, several Mississippi Basin tribes have legends that describe White Buffalo Calf Woman coming to them as a whooping crane that turned into a woman. The Shawnee tribes of the Ohio River Valley also considered whooping cranes to be messengers of the Great Spirit.
And now for Crazy Horse: Perhaps the most famous of all the Turtle Islanders, Crazy Horse was born in the Black Hills of what is now South Dakota (some say on Rapid Creek, others say by Bear Butte). Although he was born there, he spent a huge chunk of his formative youth growing up around the hills of the Pine Ridge just east of present day Chadron, Nebraska. Although there is a plethora of historical writings on Crazy Horse, none of these historians noticed that these beautiful hills where Crazy Horse grew up are located very close to the migratory flight path of the Texas flock of whooping cranes!
So what does all this mean? Well, technically, all it means is that there exists a mathematical possibility that Crazy Horse may have had an encounter with, or at least a sighting of, whooping cranes during his youth. Of course, it is a slim possibility, especially considering that the whoopers were in the area for only two to six weeks out of every year. But the possibility does, in fact, exist, and I hereby go out on a limb by making the assumption that it did. Going a little further out on that limb, I will also say that even if Crazy Horse was not aware of the whoopers, they were certainly aware of him.
Crazy Horse was a man of very, very strong medicine. What many people do not know is that Crazy Horse was NOT a chief! Although he was briefly a shirt-wearer, he was never ever a chief. Like Jesus of Nazareth, however, Crazy Horse was a de facto leader of his people due to his incredible energy, which his people looked to for salvation. There were times in his life when Crazy Horse was irritated with his own people, but he bore the responsibility of protecting and saving his people with admirable determination. He came to be the personification of the Red Man and his spirit. He has been called by some the Jesus Christ of the Indian nations.
Historians have described Crazy Horse’s assassination in early September, 1877 as the day that the Indian nations fell to their knees in defeat. The white man records that day in history as a day of victory, but the Turtle Islanders remember it as the day the Indian Spirit was broken. Although Crazy Horse had traveled all over Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado during his life, he was killed at Ft. Robinson, Nebraska; just about fifty miles west of those beautiful hills where he spent his youth. With the migratory flight path of the Texas whooping cranes being rather wide, Ft. Robinson also falls near that migratory flight path.
At the time of Crazy Horses’s assassination the whooping cranes were in the process of migrating from Canada back down to the Gulf Coast. This means that on the day Crazy Horse was assassinated, there exists a mathematical possibility that whooping cranes could have been flying overhead when it happened. I will inch out on my limb a little further and assume that it did. (There’s that saying about the word assume…)
At the time of Crazy Horse’s assassination, whooping cranes were still quite plentiful and not at all endangered. When the whooping cranes flew over Ft. Robinson that day and witnessed the murder and felt the ensuing sorrow that spread through the Turtle Islanders like wildfire, they were very alarmed…
So they called an emergency meeting.
In the meeting, one of the whoopers said, “We have instilled the Law of ONE into the Turtle Islanders, and we have helped maintain that vibration, just like we had promised, but now the Turtle Islanders are a defeated people with not enough spirit left to carry that vibration into the new civilization being born. What the heck do we do?”
Another crane responded, “I think this is the time the Atlantean priests and priestesses were talking about when we would have to figure it out for ourselves. It is obvious that we must turn our attention to the White Man and instill the vibration in him.” This was met by much clucking and honking and laughter. “The White Man?” asked another whooper, “How do we do that? The White Man seems to be the very antithesis to the Law of ONE. Just look at how he treats his own people, not to mention the Turtle Islanders and all the animals on Turtle Island. There is no hope for this White Man!” Then a whooping crane in the back suddenly spoke up and asked, “What about White Woman?” This was met by silence as everyone stared at this odd bird.
And so it came to pass that the whooping cranes hatched a very bold, brazen, and dangerous plan.
The white man’s history books claim that the demise of the whooping crane was due to loss of habitat, pesticides, and hunters. The real reason for the demise of the whooping crane is WHITE AMERICAN WOMEN! Before you get upset with me for saying that, please bear with me….
Just a mere decade after the assassination of Crazy Horse, America was swept up in a fashion craze. It began in the Gay Nineties (1890s) and lasted for almost 40 years. Suddenly, every woman in America was wearing really big hats — hats with feathers in them. With millions of White American Women (and yes, other races, too) wearing big hats with feathers in them, the demand for feathers skyrocketed, and the price skyrocketed, too.
The winter months were a time of little work for the migrant farmers of Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, since crops were not planted or harvested at that time. Whooping cranes (and other birds) wintered in these regions, though, and provided desperately needed income with their feathers. No feather was more highly prized than the whooping crane feather, so milky white and large as they were. The wing tip feathers, with their black tips, were the most sought after feather of all. Because of this demand for feathers for hats for women, the wholesale slaughter of whooping cranes began. The entire Florida and Louisiana flocks were completely wiped out because of the feather trade. The Texas flock was almost wiped out. By the time of the Great Depression, when women’s hats became small and featherless again, there were only 14 whooping cranes left in the entire world!
Sounds sad, doesn’t it? But allow me to ask everyone a very important question. What would be the result of millions of American women wearing whooping crane feathers on their heads? Allow me to answer my own question. The result of millions of American women wearing whooping crane feathers is that those millions of women were impregnated with the energetic vibration patterns of the Law of ONE! The whoopers knew that the pendulum would soon be swinging back towards the feminine, and realized that their last hope for the Law of ONE vibrations was with women. Of course, it would take a generation or two or three for the vibrations to gestate before manifesting, but when they did manifest, the Law of ONE would be saved and returned to humankind... through women.
The whooping cranes had successfully fulfilled their mission!
Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. See All My Latest Stories Here