Bear Medicine: Harness the Healing Solitude of This Animal Spirit Totem
Bear Medicine: Harness the Healing Solitude of This Animal Spirit Totem
As you’ve probably figured out by now, Bear Medicine runs deep with Bear Blend, like Popeye and spinach, Mighty Mouse and cocaine, Barbie and that Indigo Girls’ classic campfire singalong. Bear is the Spirit Name of our Founder, Tony Bear. Bear Magic became a steady spiritual guide early in his life and continues to light the day of his present way.
Although he does not identify on paper as Native American, Bear holds Indigenous roots and finds magic, guidance, and wisdom in Native American traditions and ceremonies. His great-great-grandmother was Apache, and those roots continue to inspire everything we do.
When Bear was a teenager, he backpacked with a friend into a remote region of the Smoky Mountain National Park. One night, they found themselves caught in a torrential rainstorm before they could make camp. Lost in the dark, the two stumbled upon what they later found was an old Native American burial ground. Soaked through the skin and bone, on the precipice of giving up, Bear found wedged in the mud of his soggy boots a small piece of turquoise carved into the shape of a bear. He held onto the talisman and renewed his strength, urged his friend to trudge up the mountain in the spirit of “Hell yeah!,” where they set up camp in the pouring rain.
“The next day we found out that some hikers had died in the floods,” Bear remembers. “I held onto that turquoise Bear for years. It was my power stone.”
Bear’s mother also embraced her Native American heritage and spent some time working with a Shamanic Woman Circle. She had gone on a Spirit Walk – where you walk directionless into nature until your mind is totally clear from distractions and thoughts. Then, you wait until nature calls you to any object. She found a similar stone in the shape of a bear. Looking at the stone, she thought of Bear and had a deep spiritual epiphany of Bear as a Singing Bear, a “bear who sings.
“She told me that I would go on a long journey in an effort to help people,” Bear remembers. “That I would climb many mountains and be challenged again and again to do the right thing. And she told me that the Bear would be my guide.”
The Natural Healing Solitude of Bear Medicine
The Bear Medicine Totem is spiritually personal to Bear and Bear Blend. But we’re not limited to just one Spirit Animal – it’s natural to find guidance and inspiration through many Totems over the course of your life, depending on the challenges and spiritual lessons you’re meant to learn along the way. Spirit animals act as teachers, guides, and messengers. These Totems serve as guides through this crazy rainstorm called life.
The spirit of the Bear Medicine Totem is the Chieftan of strength and protection. It’s a strong, healing medicine that can guide you through sickness and strife. Bears, in fact, are one of the few animals to use herbs medicinally. Bears are traditionally believed to have supernatural healing abilities, simply because they use nature’s resources like herbal healers and are the only animals, aside from us walking, talking monkeys, known to do so.
Bears are revered for their remarkable ability to hibernate, a natural process that allows them to rejuvenate and heal their bodies during long winters. This sacred animal symbolizes the power of introspection and going within oneself to find the answers and remedies needed for physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.
Like medicinal hibernation, Bear Medicine encourages individuals to embrace solitude and self-reflection, fostering a deeper understanding of their inner selves and the root causes of their ailments. Through this introspective journey, those drawn to this totem can tap into their innate healing abilities, making the Bear Medicine Animal Totem an emblem of strength and resilience, with the potential for profound self-healing.
The Naked Bear and Reincarnated Shamans
You might think the myth of the Naked Bear was a San Francisco Folsom Street Fair legend – but perhaps a little less hairy than that dude wearing nothing but a black leather dog collar.
But no, the Naked Bear has Native American roots that may have been passed down from the days we lived in caves.
Known by a variety of names, the Naked Bear mythos appears in stories passed down, word-of-mouth around the campfire, from the Mohicans, Shawnee, Cree, Penobscot, and Iroquois. A man-eating monster legend, it’s a giant, hairless bear whose fur was believed to have fallen out from eating too many people. Its skin had a natural armor against weapons. According to legend, the Naked Bear can only be killed by shooting arrows into its feet.
Many think the legend of the Naked Bear came from the woolly mammoth, first born when we chased our food across the glaciers.
In Inuit tradition, if an Inuit hunter is eaten by a bear, he is thought to reincarnate as a Shaman and carry forth the spirit of the Bear.
Bear Dreams and the Healing of Solitude
Dreaming of Bears can bring power, strength, and protection for yourself or possibly your family. Dreaming of a hibernating Bear could indicate a need for solitude and healing, while a dancing Bear is a celebration and good luck. If you are chased by a Bear in a dream, you may be running from fear or Karma. It’s best to stand your ground, face the fear, and open yourself up to whatever the Bear has to offer. Show strength over fear – fear often retreats.
Bears are solitary creatures. The cosmic challenge of Bear Medicine must be faced on your own terms. Call on the guidance of Bear Spirit to direct your energy with focused wisdom. Find comfort in your space, strength in your solitude, and wisdom in the muscle of your fur. Healing can be strength; solitude can be medicinal. There is wisdom in solace, magic in the mental healing meditation of forgiveness.
And remember, if you’re ever caught in a forest by a Naked Bear, you don’t need to outrun the Bear – just the person you went hiking with. Good luck and Godspeed.
Mathew Gallagher
Wordsmith Specialist
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