TITLE: Buffalo and Falcon

DESCRIPTION: There I stood directly before the buffalo herd, strumming a drone with my left hand while my right hand wove patterns in the air. Three bulls stepped forward then sideways, their bodies essentially blocking my entrance to the herd. They watched, listened, sniffed the air. The cows and calves soon ambled together behind them. I stood my ground. The most uncanny thing occurred. I beheld a glow pulse out from the herd, parallel to the line created by the bodies of the three forward bulls. Then it curved like a ring, like a smokescreen, like a fence expanding around the entire herd. It was luminous but not composed of light; rather like individual bubbles or bundles of energy, dots on fire. And it stopped its outward progress just in front of where I stood, like a barrier or perhaps a signal that defined the group's territory: a boundary, a social aura, an extension of the herd's body language. Yet the ring had no real substance. I felt it would disappear if only I blinked. Did it serve as a warning to me? Or perhaps it was meant only as a marker for the bulls, to help them determine the limit of their own defense. That I actually saw what I believed I saw was in no doubt. When I put my left foot down directly on the ring, the largest bull, who stood less than a hundred feet away, began to paw the ground with his hoof. I pulled my foot away. The bull stopped pawing.