Watch Over and Bless Us All! by White Sparrow
1. The Beginning: My Dream: There’s a Buffalo in My Bedroom
2. The Middle: The Sacred Circle: Emerging as White Sparrow
3. The End: My Calling: One Lost Sparrow and One Great Canadian Chief
In the year 1905, exactly one hundred years ago, Civilla D. Martin (lyricist) and Charles H. Gabriel (composer) collaborated on the hymn titled “His Eye is On the Sparrow.” The refrain:
I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
For his eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me.
Matthew 10:29–31: “Are not two sparrow sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. So, don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
1. My Dream: There’s a Buffalo in My Bedroom
It had been over three years since I had slept in my own bed, in my own bedroom. I had spent three years of sleeping on a living-room couch. There was no logical explanation for this. Nothing that I could say. This is the reason why.
Somehow, there was comfort from the back of the couch when it pressed up against me. I have been on my own for longer than most people stay married. I thought I had a full life. I was working full time, was a published songwriter, and had two grown sons out in the world making their own way.
For a momentary second, I was starting to question the state of my mental health. I mean really! What would prevent a grown woman from sleeping in her own bed?
Then, I began to dig inside myself for some straight answers. Like, when exactly, had I stopped sleeping in my bed, and why?
Three years earlier I decided to change the décor of my sleeping quarters. I decided to undo the Native Indian decorating, but something stopped me from completing this task. So there sat my bedroom, half one way, half the other!
Convincing myself I was on to something, I set my sights on putting the room back the way it was. You know, as an experiment. It still wasn’t nearly finished, but somehow with even just a few changes it had already began to give comfort to my restless spirit. So I made up my mind to try camping out in it once again.
That first night, before falling asleep, I prayed for a sign! Not just any old sign, but something big and profound. Something that would unquestionably answer my searching. What I wanted and needed to know was if I was headed in the right direction. Well, I think I may have prayed just a little extra too hard. Here’s what happened.
That night, I quickly, calmly, and quietly fell asleep. The next thing I remember was the earth shaking under my queen-size bed. I looked out my large window to the east and could hear what sounded like a freight train headed straight toward me. I looked hard with searching eyes. Nothing was in view, only more rumble and shaking.
Finally, there came the image of a huge black buffalo. It was travelling at an enormous speed, and the dust was swirling under its thundering hooves. All I could think to do was roll myself quickly in towards the window. By doing this, I thought by the time it had reached me it would jump over me, rather than landing right on me. I rolled over once and than twice. Then there was a horrific smashing of glass. As I turned and looked up, I witnessed a full-grown black buffalo leaping above and across my bed and over me! Before it crashed and disappeared into my double closet, it immediately changed colour from jet black to pure white!
I instantly woke from my dream and sat straight up in bed looking over at my closet. “Woe-wah,” came spilling out of my mouth soon followed by a wide grin. It was the exhilarating answer to my prayer. Just as I had requested, the Great Spirit had sent a message so large and so life-like that not even I could miss his message!
My answer was “Yes!” I was moving in the right direction, on the right road.
This is by far the most profound and vivid dream I have had to date. Other dreams come close, but this one was definitely over the top! Within days, my bedroom was added to one article at a time — until, it had the look and feel of home for me. Native Indian!
2. The Sacred Circle: Emerging as White Sparrow
Who would ever dream one’s rite of passage could or would ever arrive in their mailbox, and for free? Well, I am here to tell you that this is how one of mine came to me. Now, that’s just about as close to your own doorstep as life can deliver.
One day, while surfing the Net, I bumped into the website for Alan Greywolf. I didn’t know at the time that the event would become a key to my life’s journey and would result in my new legal name!
At the time I was researching anything and everything on the subject of Native American Indian history, culture, legends, you name it. This was an obsession. I suppose it still is!
When I began to read through Alan’s site, I became engrossed in the subject. I ended up spending the next seven or eight hours there without a break. I read every sentence, every line, and every word! After covering the site from top to bottom and from start to finish, I decided to email him. Actually, it was more like I was compelled to email him.
It was not long after my initial email of self-introduction that Alan mailed out to me one of his own guided and self-produced meditation CDs. More precisely, the CD was The Sacred Circle.
For those who may not be familiar with this term, with Alan, or with his CDs, allow me (with his permission) to capture the essence of this CD and the purpose for which he created it. The purpose appears on the back of his CD jacket cover in these words:
Within your own centre you will create one of the most mystical and powerful symbols for life, your own personal Medicine Wheel, the Sacred Circle of the Native Americans. Here you will connect to elemental spirits, and the Spirit Keepers of the Four Directions.
Through these connections, you will find the power and the means to enhance and change your life. New directions, growth, abundance and prosperity, your own truth and wisdom, all are open to you as are many more possibilities.
Well ... let me clarify this as one of the biggest understatements that I have encountered in my lifetime! If Alan ever needed a testimony for his ability to guide one through a meditation that delivered every single thing that he said it would, then mine is a given!
Neither Alan nor I believe in such a thing as coincidence. Our paths were designed to connect, and they certainly were successful in completing this mission.
Prior to receiving this CD, I had never listened to or read a single article on meditation. Quite honestly, I didn’t understand the topic, and I certainly didn’t put great stock in it. For the record, so to speak, I have no desire to ever listen to another one. Why would I? Alan’s had succeeded in changing my life forever. Forever!
Picture, if you will, me, tearing the shrink-wrap off of the CD. I immediately was drawn to the beautiful photo shot on the front of the jacket cover. This feature alone brought me to a place of solid, solitary grounding. Next, I popped the CD into the player and hit the power button on the machine. Didn’t have a clue how one goes about meditating, but I was willing to give it a shot. Then I quickly whipped over to the couch and lay down as if I was
