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The Peoria Bisontennial is celebrating the last 150 years of our incredibly formative and storied recent history, and there is much to celebrate, learn, and enjoy. Peoria has been and is a vibrant city representing all that we are. “If it will play in Peoria, it will play anywhere” speaks to our diversity and critical acclaim to not only the western migration, vaudeville, farming and industry, and to our religious and cultural diversity. The better test is just because it plays well elsewhere doesn’t at all mean it will be accepted in Peoria. Many ideas, plans, hopes, and dreams have died on that false assumption. We have a common thread of all humanity that is reminding us this year of the need for a belief, a faith, and a dream for all of us.
The idea of celebrating the White Buffalo as an integral spiritual and real inspiration reflects not only the joy and awe of our Native American friends of today and our past, but of our own spiritual dreams. To our Native American forbearers, the White Buffalo was, and is, a message from a greater being of hope, prosperity, and freedom from ravages of life. The White Buffalo is the sacred promise that one’s dreams may come true. It is a very powerful symbol and represents hope, renewal, and a time of plenty and abundance. The White Buffalo is viewed as an omen of good times, a sign that your prayers are heard. Among Native American cultures, especially the Lakota and Sioux, the White Buffalo is a highly revered sign of spiritual rebirth and renewal. It is a call to respect the physical world and spiritual world and be respectful of and protective of each. These include blessings, purity, divine intervention, and are holy symbols.
The White Buffalo Calf Woman (a most sacred living thing) is a central part of many of our Native America friends, tribes, and beliefs. She is believed to have brought the sacred pipe and teachings to the tribes. She came as a prophet to teach us how to walk the earth civilly as a human and gave us a way to pray.
The medieval world, with all of its religions and people, from fortresses to modern chateaus, is represented in this amazing architectural castle displaying various long past cultures of design and faith. Particularly pertinent today are the spires of the past, reaching skyward with the heavens asking ones God for peace, protection, abundance, and a life of worthiness and upward mobility. Inside most every fortified castle was a chapel. A faith was always present and influencing peasants and kings and queens alike. Wars, countries, and borders changed over the millennia. The towers of the castle are a permanency topped with turrets, domes, and finials reaching to the heavens and acknowledging a greater being of a faith and ascendency. The vertical towers of religious meaning, and the finials represented not only a spiritual aspiration, but upward mobility. Churches rivaled and outdid castle architecture in many locations.
Dreams, hopes, prayers, and a spiritual power is a real reflection of all human beings, long past, recent, or today. All peoples and all generations have sought spiritual strength. The White Buffalo on the lawn at a medieval castle during Peoria’s Bisontennial is a combined reflection of people of all walks of life of our hopes and dreams for strength, hope, and better lives.
Health, Happiness, Prosperity, and Love.
Pass it on!
We welcomed friends and family to enjoy the holiday magic of the Castle!
The Soderstrom Family welcomed Connie Randall to the Castle to host a special event to raise funds.
Each year, the Soderstrom Castle celebrates Halloween, welcoming children and adults alike for a night of fun.
