To Lose the Madness. L.M. Browning

       Cimarron Valley, New Mexico

      The stark golden prairie stretched out to the base of the eastern slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Among the overgrown grasses, dry wooden fences rose. The posts were strung together by braided barbed wire that carried from one pole to the next. Just beyond the wire, we saw them—hulking, horned, billowing heavy breaths through their wide nostrils into the chilled December air.

      It was the day after Christmas. We traveled down u.s. Route 64, en route to Taos. We were just outside of Cimarron Valley in northern New Mexico when they came into sight. “Buffalo!” exclaimed Mallory and I simultaneously in the otherwise quiet car. A herd of brown, thick-coated bison flew by the drivers-side window. Mallory quickly pulled a U-turn on the deserted country road. We got out of the car and slowly approached them.

In the language of the Lakhóta, the name for the buffalo is thathánka. The buffalo was held in sacred regard by the tribe. The great animal gave everything it had to the people—its flesh for food, its hide for shelter and clothing, its bone and sinew for everything from needles to tools. The buffalo stands as a symbol of self-sacrifice—it gives until there is nothing left—and in doing so makes life possible for the people.^[1]

      As I stood there—my creased leather boots breaking through the stiff, frosty grass—I looked dark eye to dark eye—a single female buffalo moved out of the herd and began walking toward me. I was reminded of a painting I saw as a child by Robert Bateman of a buffalo emerging from behind a veil of thick mist. I was transfixed. Here I was broken—a shadow of myself—and she a wild thing, untamed, and strength untold. Some otherworldly grace encircled us. In the space between us, we spoke of the ineffable things—of what it is to sacrifice all of one’s self, of grief, and gratitude—and of the terms every living thing must come to.