by Gwagwagwe
After a good dry day the bisons expected a couple more weeks of blessings from our warm maiden of the south. We wished dearly to meet up with those who had committed a little of their time to help us in our new lifestyle, but, alas, old man north took his cold bony fingers and started scratching under the blankets after the moon had made it's nightly appearance. When we choose this transitional lifestyle, we decided our biological urges would lead our rational minds. Cold (and the search for shelter) was top of the list. So after three days at this place where two rivers meet, it was time to find warmer hunting grounds. This place was a village of majesty. Two hundred foot black cottonwoods and maples lined the valley. The lichens draped over each branch created a soil blanket for the deer-fern to grow. A joyous occasion and life for a plant spirit that grows so close to the ground. The prickly Devil's club grows thirty feet high, each leaf large enough for a basket, rain-hat, or other things it may tell us it wants to be. On one foraging trip when we found the merged rivers path the waterfalls filled the air with sound and spray. Bison-yellow-ball needed a drink, so we decided to climb down the bank. Well the gods almost took the spirit from gwagwagwe. Just like the banana peel on the tile floor, over he went. If it were not for the bundle of firewood strapped to his back, the bisons would have been eating cranium soup for supper. The wet wood was no treat to lite, thanks to the hollow stems of the elderberry plant spirit, we were able to start a warming fire. Thanks to the red alder for our warmth and fuel. Thanks to the squirrel, crow, deer, chipmunk, winter wren, and slug people for keeping us company. This place like each place before, and each one after has become part of the spirit of the bison band, as we become part of the spirit of This Place.
Well back to old man north. His cold blue eyes on his bony bald head gripped us for five suns, each night his grasp grew tighter, so as the sun rose from the ground the bison picked up a moved south. We stopped every couple hundred miles and asked the birds spirits how cold it was getting in their place, and each time the told us "it's getting a little nippy", so we kept going. We pasted forgettable northern Oregon, past the dry and colorful central, and once we met the mountains of the south we heard redwood tree calling our name. That's how we got to the river of song, where here I sit, candles alit, writing you in the heat of the evening, just a tee-shirt and shorts to embrace the wind.
P.S. For those regular readers, this story falls in between the lake of tranquility, and the river of song.
It's now the twelve moon cycle, and this was during the tenth. Stay tuned for a overview of the first three moons of the bisons great adventure.