Who sits beside us as a tender, present witness at every threshold? Deep within our ancient and living heritages, Bear returns again and again—in folklore, ritual, ceremony, and legend—as a living presence in moments of transformation. Whether she appears as lover, mother, child, healer, midwife, shaman, or guide, within the spell of the telling, Bear offers us her hallowed den—a breathing, fluid space where psyche and nature, creature and cosmos curl together as one. Here, in the enduring pulse of her wild presence, she wraps us in her warmth and fur holding us steady as change reshapes us.
Read MoreIn the Belly of a Whale: Archetypal Monsters and Mothers in Maritime Mythology
In ancient maritime folklore from around the world, being confronted by a whale serves as a symbol for life’s greatest challenges. Ancient seafaring stories about whales invite us back into a mythical relationship with what overwhelms us, and we discover what the experience is asking of us. In so doing, we discover whales have not just served our physical survival needs throughout the ages, but they have helped us to psychologically grow. Learning the wisdom of whales we enter back into right relationship with the wild, a timeless and enduring shared human value that weaves us back into belonging with the world.
Read MoreBoreal Bears and Feral Females: Twin Bear Folktales from East and West
From Norway to Ainu lands, two distant stories echo the same ancient pulse: love lost, love sought, and a woman who dares the threshold between the world of humans and the world of Bear. In her quest she does not merely save another, but awakens to the power that has always lived within her. Giving voice to how these stories mirror each other deepens our sense of interconnected history, and rekindles a feeling of belonging to a shared storied boreal landscape, weaving together people, bears, ancestry, stories and hearts. . .
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