Tracking my ancestral trails in Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado for a tale unfolding that wants to be told. Like ghost trails of history resurfacing, the stories of the land are alive.
I gave a workshop recently, on Dreaming on the Otherside, where we journeyed with the stories of the land, and a dream resurfaced for me from many years ago.
Spirit of the Wind
I see a Native Spirit hovering over the land with a rainbow streaming through his hair. I am on the prairie where fields of oats grow touching them with my fingers as the winds blow. The spirit tells me the legacy of this land will be mine one day.
In the journey, I see a herd of wild horses and am told this heard is from the lineage of Spirit of the Wind, the mustang my Grandfather Frank Reed bought from Native horse traders in the areas around Southeastern Colorado where he had a homestead along horse creek in Lincoln County. I then see a herd of buffalo on the plains who are also part of this lineage story.
Tracking Synchronicity
Last night, I came upon a story of Molly Goodnight in the Texas Panhandle who together with her husband owned the Goodnight Ranch in Caprock Canyon. Molly is known to history as a conservationist who was able to save buffalo calves and eventually raised 250 Buffalo on their land, during a time when they were being shot and killed toward extinction, she was quietly saving them. The herd in Caprock Canyon Tx. still remains today from her efforts and is said to be through DNA testing the only original Buffalo herd left in the world. This story reminds me of my dream and journey.
Goodnight Cattle Trail
I felt a tug from this story to research the land where my Grandfather Frank Reed and Grandmother Nellie Reed were homesteaders in Colorado along Horse Creek, and my Grandfather was a cowboy along cattle trails in the days of no fences.
I found the cattle trail running along horse creek out of Texas was the Goodnight Cattle trail, which I had just read about Molly Goodnight, known to history as one of the first conservationists for her efforts at rescuing Buffalos.
“The Goodnight cattle trail is easy to find because it follows Horse Creek. Entering from the south, Horse Creek parallels SH 71 for a distance. Just before the mesa, Horse Creek turns west Climbing up the hill. It soon turns into a small stream with groves of trees lining the stream bed. It Crosses SH 94 west of Punkin Center. In the spring the prairie is ablaze with the red and yellow blooms of the cacti. It is a small valley the creek has curved out with cool and inviting shade from the trees in the summer heat.”
Tracing the cattle trails of history and dreaming with the Spirits of the land, has driven me into the lands of my ancestors, where lineages include more than human ancestors of Mustang and Buffalo, along the storied trails of the cowboy. It seems fitting this tale comes through the Goodnight Cattle Trail, where dreams surface to reveal ancestral legacy where the stories of the land are alive.
Sources
Awaken the Sacred Dream 