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 MoreBoreal Bears and Feral Females: Twin Bear Folktales from East and West
The Norwegian folktale “East of the Sun West of the Moon” and the Japanese (indigenous Ainu) folktale entitled “Crescent Moon Bear” are folktales featuring fearless young women who dare to engage in greater intimacy with a bear whether it is marrying a bear, or having the courage to pluck the whisker of a bear. Both involve traversing a formidable boreal forest landscape to save their husbands from a “spell”. These folktales are so strikingly similar in theme and shared values, giving voice to their parallel nature 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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