The Sioux Prophecy of the White Buffalo Calf Woman Came True This Year. What Does It Mean for Us?

Sacred, ancient, prophecies do not come true every year; but when one of them does, it is a cause for introspection and quiet reflection. And, maybe, just a little bit of freaking out as well. The prophecy that I am talking about is the Sioux prophecy of the White Buffalo Calf Woman that came true, quite unexpectedly, in the month of June this year. The news received widespread coverage on both mainstream and social media, which prompted me to explore the possible implications of this event for our out-of-balance world. 

The Sioux tribes of North America live in the Great Plains around Lake Superior and are composed of two linguistic groups – the Lakota and Dakota. It is no secret that the lives of the Native American tribes were inextricably linked with the buffalo, which provided them with food, clothing, habitat and nearly every material need. That’s the reason why, their ancient legends and sacred prophecies are also intimately related to the buffalo.

Like so many other ancient cultures, the Sioux people also believe in a Cycle of Four Ages, in the course of which there is a gradual deterioration in our morals and environment. They say that, at the beginning of the current Cycle of Four Ages, a buffalo was placed in the west in order to hold back the waters that inundate the earth at the end of every cycle. Every year, the buffalo loses a hair, and at the end of an Age he loses a leg. When all its hair and the four legs are gone, the waters will rush in and the Cycle of Four Ages will come to a rather watery end. 

Interestingly, as per their beliefs, the buffalo is now nearly bald and is standing on only one leg. This means that the end of the Cycle of Four Ages, is not far away.[1] We are living in a world that is teetering at the brink of a major transformation! But when exactly will this cycle come to an end? What kind of signs, if any, will appear beforehand to warn us of the impending changes, and provide guidance for the great shift? This is precisely where the prophecy of the White Buffalo Calf Woman comes in. 

The story goes back some 2000 year ago, when the White Buffalo Calf Woman gave the Sioux people their sacred bundle and sacred prayer pipe. Joseph Chasing Horse gives us the story.

“The story goes that she appeared to two warriors at that time. These two warriors were out hunting buffalo, hunting for food in the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota, and they saw a big body coming toward them. And they saw that it was a white buffalo calf. As it came closer to them, it turned into a beautiful young Indian girl.

That time one of the warriors had a bad thought in his mind, and so the young girl told him to step forward. And when he did step forward, a black cloud came over his body, and when the black cloud disappeared, the warrior who had bad thoughts was left with no flesh or blood on his bones. The other warrior kneeled and began to pray.

And when he prayed, the white buffalo calf who was now an Indian girl told him to go back to his people and warn them that in four days she was going to bring a sacred bundle.

So the warrior did as he was told. He went back to his people and he gathered all the elders and all the leaders and all the people in a circle and told them what she had instructed him to do. And sure enough, just as she said she would, on the fourth day she came. 

They say a cloud came down from the sky, and off of the cloud stepped the white buffalo calf. As it rolled onto the earth, the calf stood up and became this beautiful young woman who was carrying the sacred bundle in her hand.

As she entered into the circle of the nation, she sang a sacred song and took the sacred bundle to the people who were there to take of her. She spent four days among our people and taught them about the sacred bundle, the meaning of it…She brought us the seven sacred ceremonies and taught our people the songs and the traditional ways. And she instructed our people that as long as we performed these ceremonies we would always remain caretakers and guardians of sacred land. She told us that as long as we took care of it and respected it that our people would never die and would always live.
When she was done teaching all our people, she left the way she came. She went out of the circle, and as she was leaving she turned and told our people that she would return one day for the sacred bundle. And she left the sacred bundle, which we still have to this very day. 

The sacred bundle is known as the White Buffalo Calf Pipe because it was brought by the White Buffalo Calf Woman. It is kept in a sacred place (Green Grass) on the Cheyenne River Indian reservation in South Dakota. It's kept by a man who is known as the keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe, Arvol Looking Horse.

When White Buffalo Calf Woman promised to return again, she made some prophecies at that time. One of those prophesies was that the birth of a white buffalo calf would be a sign that it would be near the time when she would return again to purify the world. What she meant by that was that she would bring back harmony again and balance, spiritually.”[2]

Evidently, as far as the Sioux are concerned, the birth of the white buffalo calf is the foolproof sign that the current World Cycle is on the verge of ending, and the White Buffalo Calf Woman is about to return to purify the world and restore harmony and balance in our lives and the entire ecosphere.

Now, it is worth noting that a number of white buffaloes have been born in the Sioux farmlands over the past century - which caused some degree of excitement in their community - but the elders and the keepers of sacred prophecies did not look upon them as the fulfillment of the prophecy of the White Buffalo Calf Woman, since all these calves were born in captivity where cross-breeding of species is very common. The Sioux have been patiently waiting for the appearance of a white buffalo calf in the wild, and that event occurred in the month of June, this year. On 13th June, 2024, the BBC reported that,

“An incredibly rare white bison calf has been photographed in Yellowstone National Park, exciting Native American tribes who view it as a religious sign heralding major change. It was spotted in the Lamar Valley area, and is the first white bison to be born in the last wild herd in the US, according to modern records…

Montana photographer Erin Braaten took photos of the young buffalo in the Lamar Valley on 4 June while visiting the park with three of her eight children....

Chief Arvol Looking Horse, who is the 19th generation keeper of the pipe believed to have been given by the white buffalo woman, said that the calf's arrival was a sign “we must do more”.

“All nations should come together at their sacred places and unify with us in prayer,” he said. He called the calf's arrival "a blessing and a warning”. “I'm so overwhelmed. It's a miracle,” the spiritual leader told BBC News on Thursday. “It makes my hairs stand up just to even talk about it, because I can't believe this is happening - the spirit of the white buffalo calf woman sending a message to us.””[3]

A few days later, on January 26, the birth of the white buffalo calf was celebrated in a tribal ceremony that was organized on the north shore of Hebgen Lake, just west of Yellowstone National Park. It was attended by nearly 500 tribal members, tourists, and others, who were addressed by representatives from the Shoshone-Bannock, Lakota, Sioux, Northern Arapaho and Colville tribes.[4]

The overarching feeling of the elders was that the birth of the white calf, “was a foreboding message that the world is in a bad place at the moment, but also that it would help bring forth guidance on how to fix things... people need to recognize that its coming means they will have to change their behaviors with each other and with nature in order to save Mother Earth.”

“It’s up to each and every one of you to make it happen for the future of our children. We must come together and bring that good energy back,” said Chief Arvol Looking Horse, who presided over the ceremony, and called the calf’s birth a “momentous time in our history.”

Looking Horse said when he was chosen in 1966 at 12 years old to be the sacred pipe and bundle keeper, his grandmother who preceded him in that role had a warning about Mother Earth and the prophecy of the White Buffalo Calf Woman. “She also told the people that if people don’t straighten up, then I shall be the last sacred bundle keeper, and that is always in my heart.”

I was wondering what might have gone through my mind if, at the age of 12, I was handed a sacred relic of our community by my grandma, that has passed hands in an unbroken succession for 2000 years. “What on earth did I do that made you think that I will keep it safe, Grandma?” would have probably been my first reaction. “Haven’t you noticed all the stuff that I have lost, broken, or exchanged with my friends? That stuff belongs in a bank locker, Grandma!” Perhaps not in as many words, but looking back, my sentiments might have been along those lines.

But Chief Arvol Looking Horse was obviously of a different breed, and he might have felt a sense of responsibility, wonder and excitement in equal measure when the objects were entrusted to him. As the keeper of the sacred pipe for such a long time, his thoughts on the significance of this prophecy being fulfilled are of the greatest importance to us. 

A couple of words Looking Horse said stuck in my mind. He said that the appearance of the white calf is a “blessing and a warning”. As I thought about it, I started to realize why. It’s a blessing because it means that the energies of the Planetary Mother or Divine Feminine are being activated on our planet after a long period of dormancy. Therefore, it will now become easier for anyone who chooses to do so, to tap into this energy field for solace, guidance and illumination. It also suggests that there will be gradual restoration and rebalancing of the environment, leading to more fertility and abundance.

At the same time, it is also a warning, since the process of purification always entails a lot of suffering. Not only will the process of cleansing require the purification of our ecosphere, which has suffered a lot of abuse over the past few hundred years of the Industrial Revolution, but it will also call for the healing and dissolving of our egoic selves, which brings about so much misery not only to ourselves but to everyone around us. It is only through the purification of nature and the collective shadow self that we can truly move into a new era of divinely guided harmony, balance and prosperity. 

This means that the White Buffalo Calf Woman may create the conditions that force each one of us to look within and introspect and do some serious inner work so that we might find the wisdom and the light to heal ourselves and guide us through the portal of initiation to the new era. This, essentially, requires us to swim against the tide of spiritual darkness that has engulfed the world and is taking us ever closer to the precipice. However, since the divine energies of the Planetary Mother are getting activated on our planet, help is at hand, and it may not be as much of an uphill task as earlier.

I was wondering who the White Buffalo Calf Woman might represent in the context of the mythology of other ancient cultures, and I was reminded of the Egyptian goddesses Isis and Hathor, both of whom were shown wearing a headdress of cow horns. Hathor, in particular, was also depicted as a cow, either protecting or nursing the pharaoh. Both Isis and Hathor were goddesses of water, milk, nourishment, fertility, magic, music, love and maternal care. They were also regarded as psychopomps, who roamed between worlds, helping the souls of the dead on their way to the afterlife.

Interestingly, the Egyptians associated the star Sirius with a goddess called Sopdet who was identified with Isis and Hathor. Since the heliacal rising of Sirius preceded the annual flooding of the Nile, the goddess Sopdet, and by extension Isis and Hathor, were also associated with the Nile floods, which restored fertility to the arid lands. Sopdet was long thought to be represented by the cow on an ivory tablet from the reign of Djer (First Dynasty), which ties her strongly to Hathor, Isis and the White Buffalo Calf Woman of Sioux legends.

As I reflected upon this connection, it occurred to me that, it may be no coincidence that the sighting of the white buffalo calf has been followed by a spate of global flooding incidents this year, in places like Spain, parts of the US, Eastern Europe, UAE, Philippines and elsewhere. While some might attribute such events to human-induced climate change, a couple of them are conspicuous for their extreme rarity. 

In September this year, the Sahara experienced its first floods in half a century, when more than a year’s worth of rain fell in two days in south-east Morocco, filling up lakes that have been dry for decades. Dramatic images from the desert town of Merzouga show that the rare deluge carved new lakes into the sand dunes. The Guardian reported that,

“Two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas of south-east Morocco and caused a deluge...Satellite imagery from NASA showed Lake Iriqui, a lake bed between Zagora and Tata that had been dry for 50 years, being filled up.

“It’s been 30 to 50 years since we’ve had this much rain in such a short space of time,” Houssine Youabeb, an official of Morocco’s meteorology agency told the Associated Press. Such rains, which meteorologists call an extratropical storm, may change the weather conditions in the region in the coming months and years.

Celeste Saulo, the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, told reporters on Monday that water cycles across the world were changing with increasing frequency. “As a result of rising temperatures, the hydrological cycle has accelerated. It has also become more erratic and unpredictable, and we are facing growing problems of either too much or too little water,” she said.”[5]

Yet another bizarre climatic incident of this year has taken everyone by surprise. In a scene straight out of the movie “Day After Tomorrow”, Saudi Arabia’s desert received its first ever recorded snowfall in early November, transforming the arid region, traditionally known for its scorching heat and golden sand dunes, into a winter wonderland. Snow blanketed many parts of the Al-Jawf region in the northern Al-Naf'd desert, following a series of severe weather events that swept through the region, including heavy rain and hailstorms. The event sent waterfalls and rivers flowing through the region, making the landscape barely recognizable. According to a report in Newsweek,

"Meteorologists have linked the unusual weather to a low-pressure system that moved from the Arabian Sea to Oman...Climatologists suggest that such atypical weather events may increase in frequency due to shifting atmospheric conditions associated with global climate change."[6]

While watching this YouTube video about this unprecedented weather event, I came across a number of comments which claimed that the Prophet Muhammad had predicted that Saudi Arabia would turn green before the end of this age. As per one person, Muhammad had said, “The Hour (of the end times) will not begin until the land of the Arabs once again becomes meadows and rivers.” It seems that this prophecy, too, might be on its way to fulfillment.

It is quite a coincidence - if coincidence, at all, is the right word here - that two extremely unusual flood and snow events, one in Egypt and the other in Saudi Arabia, occurred one after the other in the same year, soon after the prophecy of the White Buffalo Calf Woman was fulfilled, who, as we have discussed, is also Isis-Hathor, the goddess of the Nile floods. It’s almost as if some unknown climatic switch has been suddenly activated making everyone scratch their heads in wonder. 

There is another reason why these two climatic events are really intriguing. Till around 4000 BCE, both the Sahara, as well as the Arabian Peninsula, used to be covered with lush green vegetation, rivers and vast lakes. Large herds of animals roamed freely across the plains. The African Humid Phase ended at around 3900 BCE, and by 3500 BCE sand dunes had started reclaiming the Sahara and Saudi Arabia. “The end of the ‘Green Sahara’ came about quite suddenly around 5,500 years ago,”[7] states climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

As per the Yuga Cycle framework that I have presented in my book Yuga Shift, the time period from roughly 4000 – 3700 BCE was also the time of transition to the Kali Yuga cycle – the lowest point in terms of our consciousness, in the Cycle of the Ages. Since then, human civilization has passed through two back-to-back Kali Yugas, which span most of recorded history. The descending Kali Yuga, which started in 3676 BCE, is what historians refer to as the Bronze Age, while the ascending Kali Yuga, which began in 676 BCE is known to us as the Iron Age. As per this framework, the ascending Kali Yuga ends in 2025, thereby pulling down the curtains on an extended Kali Yuga cycle, when humanity becomes disconnected from its Inner Source, from each other, and from the environment.

Looking at these events from the perspective of the Yuga Cycle, it seems that, just as we are about to emerge from the Kali Yuga cycle, a climatic reversal has been initiated, which could very well turn the Sahara and the Arabian Peninsula into the kind of lush green grasslands they were before the beginning of the Kali Yuga cycle. 

It is becoming increasingly apparent that these large cycles of time are real, the shifts are real, and the scientific data is validating what the ancients have been saying all along. The fulfillment of the prophecy of the White Buffalo Calf Woman is a timely reminder to us that the wisdom and prophecies left behind by our ancestors are not simply old wives' tales meant for our amusement, but that they encode precious information about the momentous events of the long bygone ages, and provide much-needed guidance about the epochal planetary shift that we are going into right now.
 
References

[1] Sandra Ingerman, Hank Wesselman, Awakening to the Spirit World: The Shamanic Path of Direct Revelation, ReadHowYouWant.com, 2010, p. 335.
[2] Joseph Chasing Horse, "WHITE BUFFALO CALF WOMAN Brings The First Pipe", http://www.kstrom.net/isk/arvol/buffpipe.html
[3] Max Matza and Madeline Halpert, "Native Americans see omen in Yellowstone's rare white bison", BBC News 13 June 2024, https://www.bbc.com/articles/ckrrlpdlzj7o
[4] Blair Miller "‘Sacred Return’: Tribal ceremony honors birth of prophesied white buffalo calf", Utah News Dispatch June 29, 2024, https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2024/06/29/tribal-ceremony-honors-birth-of-prophesied-white-buffalo-calf/
[5] Eromo Egbejule, "Dramatic images show the first floods in the Sahara in half a century", The Guardian Fri 11 Oct 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/11/dramatic-images-show-the-first-floods-in-the-sahara-in-half-a-century
[6] "Saudi Arabian Desert's First Ever Snowfall Shown in Photos", Newsweek Nov 11, 2024, https://www.newsweek.com/saudi-arabian-desert-first-ever-snowfall-photos-1983839
[7] Anuradha K. Herath, “How Earth's Orbit Shaped the Sahara”, Space.com, 21 December 2010, https://www.space.com/10527-earth-orbit-shaped-sahara.html