Honor Mother Earth - Return of the Buffalo

08/20/2026

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The Fire We Carry Quietly

The elders taught
that strength is not always thunder.
Sometimes it is a quiet hand,
a patient heart,
and the courage to stay gentle
when the world has not been gentle with you.

We inherit more than names.
We inherit unfinished prayers,
old promises to the earth,
and the duty to leave something good
for those who will walk after us.

There are seasons
when the spirit grows tired
of carrying what cannot be changed.

Then we must remember:
not every burden belongs forever.

Some things are meant to be forgiven.
Some are meant to be released.
And some become wisdom
only after we stop asking them
to return what they took.

Walk in a good way.

Keep your heart near what is true.
Honor what gave you strength.
And never let hardship convince you
that tenderness is weakness.

The deepest fire
does not burn the world around it.

It simply keeps enough warmth
to guide the spirit home.

🎨Artist and storyteller: Dorothy Vera

08/16/2026

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The Road the Spirit Knows

There is a road
the feet cannot find,
but the spirit remembers.

The elders say
we do not walk alone.
Those who loved the earth before us
still travel in the quiet places—
between one heartbeat and the next,
between the fire and the stars.

Some nights will ask you
to leave your old name behind.
Some winds will carry away
what you thought you needed.

Do not chase what leaves.

The river never begs
the fallen leaf to return,
and still it reaches the sea.

Keep your heart gentle.
Keep your promises close.
Walk where kindness leaves no wound,
and listen when silence speaks.

For the strongest spirit
is not the one that conquers the road,
but the one that learns
to belong to it.

And when you no longer know the way,
trust the part of you the ancestors never forgot.

🎨Artist and storyteller: Dorothy Vera

08/16/2026

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"When the time comes, withdraw from the world. Don’t regret it. Did you accomplish enough? Did you become famous enough? Prosperous enough? Lauded enough?
None of that lasts.
All the while, the creek, the mountains, the Great Dipper, the lake, the woods, and the moon have always been there. We went forth, we got our educations, we made our careers.
Perhaps we even saved other people and changed the course of civilization. The end result, though, is the same: trouble swamps us everywhere.
Withdraw when the time is right: be fortunate enough to know when it’s time to be an old person." -- Deng Ming-Dao
--- --- --- --- ---
'THE PEACE OF WITHDRAWAL' - Deng Ming-Dao
"Peaceful thoughts, uninterrupted.
Sailing and following whatever comes.
The evening breeze blows my boat:
a flowered journey at the creek’s mouth.
At the edge of night, I turn to West Valley:
gaze at Brother Mountains and the Dipper.
Everything dissolves in the lake mists.
Moon slants lower behind the woods.
Trouble swamps us everywhere:
be an old man with a fishing pole.”

Image by Hubert Shuptrine

08/16/2026

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The Keeper of Quiet Things

There is an old kind of wisdom
that never raises its voice.
It waits beyond the noise,
where the heart can hear
what fear has been hiding.

The elders knew
that not every truth arrives with thunder.
Some come softly,
like a thought carried across the plains,
asking only that we become still.

Walk carefully with what you know.
A sharp eye is nothing
without a gentle spirit.
To see deeply
is also to understand when to remain silent.

The earth remembers those
who listen before they speak,
who leave enough kindness behind
for another traveler
to find the road.

Night is not the enemy of light.
It is where patience learns its name,
where the unseen gathers strength,
and where the spirit discovers
that darkness can also teach.

So trust the quiet within you.
Let the world rush past if it must.

The wisest soul is not the one
who sees everything—
but the one who knows
what is worth carrying home.

🎨Artist and storyteller: Dorothy Vera

08/16/2026

🦬🦬🦬🦬

08/16/2026

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Where the Sea Remembers Her Name

At the edge of the tide, she stands without fear,
wrapped in the colors of dusk, calm and clear.
The sea lifts its old songs into the air,
and the mothers before her are already there.

In the deep blue silence, their memory flows,
through cedar shores, through salt, through the rose of dawn’s glow.
She listens with her spirit, not only her ear,
for the ocean speaks plainly to the ones who draw near.

It tells her: Remember the land, remember the wave,
the hands that once fished, the hearts that were brave.
She carries her people like fire in the rain,
their pride in her blood, their hope in her name.

And this is her teaching, simple and true:
When we honor the earth, the ancestors walk through us too.

08/16/2026

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“Behold this day. It is yours to make”

~Heh’aka Sapa~
(Quote: Black Elk Speaks)

Moon at sunrise (Ti Ikceya) ca 2026