The Great Mother lies still on the cold ground. The steam dances in the winter solstice air – rising to the Creator from her bloody wounds – ripped wide open to the sky. A warrior’s call home.
The Yellowstone River is nearly silent. Her alto howl will never reverberate its monotone again. No more moans, just the echoes now of a long goodbye.
Man and nature invited the death, but it always comes. Man moved her family here to repopulate the Earth to heal their destructions upon virgin ground. Man corrupted the soil and has been making reparations ever since. Still, no fire, no bullet, no man took her.
The wolfpacks now keep the elk on the move so the willow trees aren’t raped from overgraze. The beavers multiply using the willow branches. This is nature’s way. It dilates Mother Earth to multiply her life.
The raven circles by in mournful remembrance. A close friend, now a possible dinner guest. Nature’s cruel intricacies abound. While its creatures refuse to harken death’s warning.
Her father stood the line when the rival pack surrounded a taken Bison. He was starving and near death himself. Looking defeat in the face, he never ran. She too never wavered, even when she lost an eye and time aged her earthly shell.
The Great Mother went out of her element to meet death on its own terms. Usually, the nearby den mother stayed with the pack’s pups, after hardened time and battle wore her bones. But on Christmas Eve, a bison feed took the pack across the river. The rival pack seized their opportunity and subsumed pieces of her body as their own.
She spent a bit of time telling earth goodbye, breathing its cold mountain air with weighted breath. The valley held her, as it had so many times before. After the sun rose on Christmas day her spirit rose with it to the Great One. He takes special adoration over a sacrificial mother.
Her mate was a dog from a rival pack. He belonged to the pack that killed her father. Perhaps he even helped. But sometimes, nature is merely indifferent to anything that isn’t hunger.
Her quiet ease and large family allowed her passage through rival packs, many times. Her 10 litters of pups showed her to be supernatural, confirmed by her age tripling the average. As the runt of the litter, she was motivated by a desire to live. Her son is now the alpha of a rival pack and two of her daughters lead others. Her legacy continues with the gift of life.
She quietly submitted to former alpha females through subtle physicality, showing her deep understanding and love for the beauty of the pack and its loyalty to it. Her father had died for this – a sacrifice of oneself for the continuation of your creation in kind.
907F was the name mankind called her. But it was not her name. The Creator watched the Great Mother’s playful spirit dance over Slough Creek Road and knew she was one of His own. In the spring of 2013, the Yellowstone had life with the power of femininity, in nature’s way.
After Christmas Day’s goodbye, the wilderness met man once again. The wildlife biologist journeyed to retrieve the body of the Great Mother. One final reparation to be made, for her life and service to us all. For the Great Mother’s family had been placed on these lands by man, to mitigate their sins. And with man, the Great Mother’s body returned.
Her duty to the wilderness is now complete. Her ultimate sacrifice paid, though it was never hers to owe. The Great Mother was also a great warrior, as they sometimes are. The morning melancholy has a reason today, although she has no formal service to attend.
Cassie Craven can be reached at: ccraven.law@gmail.com
