Creating a Chiefs Bison Buffalo Teeth Collar A Vison Revealed

First Version, one strand with graduated pipe stone inside

 Anyone thinking that designing and creating designer jewelry is easy ought to try it some time. It's not as easy as it looks.

Add in a Vision and Dream that insist you create something and you have a huge amount of time invested in an item long before you even get the proper materials gathered to complete it.

This Chiefs Collar is a case in point. I was at a friends and saw these Bison teeth and immediatley I remembered a forgotten dream about a necklace made from them.

The dream was fuzzy, but I could see the placement of the teeth as well as red and green surrounding it much like the old Grizzly Claw Collars worn by Western Plains People.

Second version, large pipe stone beads added

I purchased the teeth and later the same day ran across another old friend who had the turquoise and red coral beads hanging in a dusty corner of his shop.

Then began the agonizing process of trial and error sorting that took ages because while the dream did not tell me what was right, it did tell me what was wrong when I tried it.

I spent several days trying this and that until finally it started to make sense. I knew it was finished when I tried to add an additional element and a voice clearly spoke and said, "It stands alone as it should now".

I then strung it up, hoping this necklace would be for us, but sadly it spoke again and told me it was not and to offer it up to whomever may need it.

It is most difficult to trust ones inner voice to make an item such as this, doubts creep in about ones worthiness to even create it and one begins to doubt ones sanity.

Third version Red Coral Added

Fourth Version Second strand and old shell bead added

 I'm not the first to feel this way and I won't be the last. I know for certain that if I had not done as I was told to do, the voices would never have let me go on with my life until I did.

I am just as certain that the person who needs it will see it and have to have it, if they don't, they also will have to answer to their inner voice.

Hopefully this will help you to understand what the process is to create something from the heart, it is never easy and clear cut, one sort of stumbles around until one hits on the right combination that stills the voices and releases you from your artistic debt to the ages.

I feel very honored to have these gifts of visions sent to me, but it is also a double edged sword that makes one wonder if madness is just around the corner.

I choose to trust the voice and to continue for now, to do else wise now seems a worse alternative to me.

I thank so many people who have encouraged me to make my dreams into reality, I have inquired deeply with Elders as to my worthiness and they seem to feel that at the very least, I am doing no harm and at best I am bringing those things long slumbering to light.

Without their encouragement I surely would have slid into the abyss of madness as the visions come unbidden and will not relent until I obey their instruction to create that what you see before you now.

I know it seems all mysterious and such and I don't mean it to be, it's really not that mystical and spiritual, I just get relentlessly nagged to death until I do something about it.

I would have to do a great deal of drugs and booze to get them to be silent, something I am no longer willing to do in my old age.

I must become what I am and do as I was meant to do. I know it means something somewhere, but I don't really concern myself with the end results, I just keep creating and what happens after that is beyond my control.

If you have been fighting such and inner voice, perhaps you should stop and really listen. If it does not lead you to destructive or dangerous things, it may be well worth nourishing. We all owe it to ourselves to develop our inborn talents at some point and by doing so my life has changed for the better and I am finally free to live my life as I was meant to do.

It's not an easy path, but it is mine. You should find yours too.

Final result, magnificent!