Sketches and designs, prior to carving.
In the timeless storied landscape of the arctic tundra, where icy winds blow and life moves to the rhythm of seasons, we find her: an Inuit grandmother, an elderly woman with a curved arched back as though bowed in reverence to the earth. She sits with gnarly hands cradling and nurturing a baby polar bear.
This story of a wise old woman caring for a bear is not just Inuit, it is far more ancient and universal, and weaves its way into all of our heritages, seeps through all of our bones. . . . Sometimes the old woman cares for a polar bear, other times, a black bear, or simply a wild creature. . .whatever it is she is cradling, the act is one of defiance, a selfless transgression that contains within it timeless wisdom. . . .where a relationship of hunter and prey transforms into one of reciprocity and interdependence. A relic of our humanity captured in story, the retelling of which is a sacred ritual of continuity of mothering the wild and in turn being mothered too, in a world that has long forgotten such values.
The old woman cares for the bear with quiet determination that defies her frail appearance. Its is an act of defiance, that contains within it timeless wisdom. She does not ask for recognition. She does not need it. But we do. We need to remember women like her, to remember ourselves back into relationship with the wild earth, the mother of us all.
Starting to carve out the seals and fish…
In the face of this story we can’t help but wonder: who will do this caring when she is gone? Who will carry her quiet strength, her unspoken wisdom into a future that barely knows her world?
Polar Bear Son, is inspired by a timeless heartwarming Inuit* folktale about an elderly childless woman who finds a lost polar bear cub and raises him as her own. When she grows too old to look after herself, he brings her food. This is such a charming story of reciprocity, interdependence and mutual thriving.
The artist’s linoleum with the first layer of black ink applied before printing.
I love how this folktale shows us that mutually beneficial relationships require a consistent and passionate tending to. In other words, we have make the effort to cultivate them. However, in reality today the labor of tending to relational harmony is often invisible, it frequently gets relegated to women, and we don’t often recognize the enormous amount of work and skill that goes into it. . . . whether this means not over harvesting wild foraged foods so there will be an abundance in the future, or taking only resources you need so future generations will still have some, or doing the hard labor of bridging our differences and finding our way back into relationship with each other human-to-human. Though it is an ancient folktale, it speaks of a skill we could still put into practice more even today.
Pulling the hand tarnished print off of the inked block of carved linoleum.
Vanessa Charkour, herbalist and environmental activist, writes in her book Awakening Artemis: Deepening Intimacy with the Living Earth and Reclaiming our Wild Nature (2021), that the media infiltrates us with stories of doom and catastrophic climate change statistics when really what we need are more stories about our interconnection. She talks about the power of myths and folktales in shaping our psychology, what she calls "our inner ecology” and sense of identity in relationship to the wild. Our connection to Mother Earth is not out there to be discovered, but rather retrieved from the inside, because it is already within us and stories like Polar Bear Son help us to retrieve this precious sense of belonging. She says, “Ancient myths speak to our need for connection, share in our suffering, offer hope, and help to guide our moral compass. . . . Revisiting traditional tales across cultures reflects the fact that there are places - inside and outside of us - that are worthy of protecting, sanctifying, and remembering” (xi). Certainly Polar Bear Son, with its themes of interdependence and reciprocity between human and more-than-human worlds, is one of these stories that can reconnect us and remind us of our kinship with the wild.
Polar Bear Son handcrafted linocut print. I loved designing this linocut around the story’s theme of circularity, reciprocity and interdependence captured by the embrace between the polar bear and elderly woman with a magical-folktale feel.
Folktales about reciprocity between humans and more-than-human worlds weave their way through many cultures under different names (one example is Sky Woman, a Haudenosaunee Creation story of reciprocity, retold by Robin Wall Kimmerer in her bestselling book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants). I believe these stories collectively reveal how reciprocity is an ancient and shared human value, a thread of connection that has been deeply buried and hidden from us due to divisive history telling that favors borderlines over relationship building. Through the age-old craft of hand carving and hand printing I hope to bring more visibility to this cohesive planetary love story to meet our vital human need to re-story ourselves back into relationship with the wild.
*I first learned of Polar Bear son through Lydia Dabcovich’s retelling of it in her children’s book Polar Bear Son. However, I understand she learned about it through “The Bear Story,” collected directly from the Inuit and transcribed by German-American scholar Franz Boas, often called “the father of American anthropology.” I have since searched for an Inuit version of the story because I truly believe that it is important to hear and acknowledge this story as it is originally told from the voice of someone who self-identifies as Inuit, but have not yet found one, but want to acknowledge how grateful I am for the wisdom the story has offered me even in its retelling, and to acknowledge how much I don’t know because I am learning about it second hand through the filter of my own cultural lense.
References:
Chakour, Vanessa (2021). Awakening Artemis: Deepening Intimacy with the Living Earth and Reclaiming our Wild Nature. London: Penguin Life.
Dabkovich, Lydia (1999). Polar Bear Son: An Inuit Tale. Clarion Books.
Blog post cover image photo credit: Erik Karits on Pexels
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