Bear medicine is about transformation. Bear is the guardian of the underworld while being a true giver of life. The bear, as the walker between two worlds, remains fully embedded in society as it gives rich and diverse meaning to life through language. For example, we bear responsibility, bear the love of, bear watching, take bearing, bear on, bear tidings, bear shape, bear arms, bear in mind, and bear misfortune. Within our ancestral heritage, bear medicine has been used in ceremony to seek protection from bears, to seek protection by the bear spirit, the evocation of warlike themes, to invoke healing, to welcome seasonal or fertility rites, to invoke sacred initiation ceremonies, and to support the formalities of a judicial nature.
The most venerated ceremony is that of the slain bear. As an spiritual practice following the successful kill of a bear, the spirit of the bear is honored for providing power, clothing, food, and healing gifts to the hunter. As a first kill of a young man, it is a rite of passage. As a spiritual initiation into the healing arts, it is a ceremony of gratitude to the great bear spirit for stripping off the old skins of the initiate, effectively killing the beliefs that prevented the person from accessing the powers of the unconscious for healing self and others.
Bear medicine is about going into the inner sanctum of oneself to find the wisdom of who you are. It involves going into hibernation, often called a little death, where one becomes still in the silence of oneself to more fully birth who you are. It involves surrendering to the primal instincts that know the thoughts that have yet to be known. Bear medicine can teach you to go deep within so that you can make choices and decisions from a position of internal authority. Bear medicine awakens the inner wisdom of the soul, and by bringing it out into the open and applying it, the depth and breadth of life can be known. AHO
Monday, April 25, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
The Importance of A Women's Circle
The Women's Circle
You’re sitting cross-legged in a circle of unfamiliar fire-lit faces; all attention is on one woman holding a stone. You listen as she speaks your thoughts, your prayers in her own prayers for self, family, the world, then lights a candle and passes it to a woman on her left. Again you hear your own pain, joy and desires in another woman’s voice. By the time this heart and hand-warmed stone is in your hands, you feel a sense of gratitude and belonging you’ve seldom known, yet one that feels strangely familiar in your bones.
By the time the circle closes, you feel a deep sense of calm and renewed hope for yourself and the planet. You leave with more of yourself than you brought in, a little stronger with this sisterhood in your psychic pocket. You are not alone.
In a grassroots effort to create global peace and find inner serenity, women worldwide are returning to the ancient and universal practice of sitting together in circles, where they co-create a safe space to offer their joys, sorrows, hopes and dreams for the world and themselves.
In a circle, there are no cheap seats and no front row spots reserved for celebrities and the press. Rank and title are left at the door. Everyone walks in with equal status and takes a seat equidistant from the center. Every face is seen, every voice heard by all and the center is occupied by no one, as it is reserved for an altar, candle, or group intention.
In the context of our hierarchical and competitive culture, sitting in a circle can feel restorative, refreshing and a bit revolutionary. There is no goal, no leader, no agenda. For many women, it is a precious respite from a life of striving to do more, be more, get more, like sinking into a warm bath of trust, acceptance and unity after a long day of mental or manual labor.
Throughout history, the circle has been a universal symbol for unity, the cosmos and the perfection of the divine, from the Tibetan Wheel of Life to Hindu mandalas to the perfectly balanced yin yang symbol. Formed by the seamless connection of the beginning and end of an unbroken line, the circle speaks to the timelessness of life, the wholeness of the moment. In sacred geometry, the circle symbolizes the number one and is the source of all subsequent shapes. Any number multiplied or divided by one retains itself, the way unity embraces the diversity of each individual while preserving each member’s identity, the way a good women’s circle welcomes each voice as an essential link in an unbroken chain.
Even without a conscious awareness of the circle’s inherent power, the effects are felt subconsciously. According to Michael S. Schneider, author of A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe, “The message of the shape bypasses our conscious mental circuitry and speaks directly to the quiet intelligence of our deepest being. The circle is a reflection of the world’s – and our own – deep perfection, unity, design excellence, wholeness, and divine nature.” Try sitting in a straight line. Then a triangle. How about a square? Notice how you feel.
As Barbara Marx Hubbard states, circle participants tend to feel safe. Perhaps because you can see everyone; everyone is equally vulnerable. Or maybe it is because the pervasive patriarchal hierarchy is replaced with an authentic recognition of and respect for your contribution. Or perhaps there’s a body memory of childlike simplicity, when you could spend a day sitting around playing jacks, facing the game and each other, instead of the next place you needed to go. Sage Knight
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You’re sitting cross-legged in a circle of unfamiliar fire-lit faces; all attention is on one woman holding a stone. You listen as she speaks your thoughts, your prayers in her own prayers for self, family, the world, then lights a candle and passes it to a woman on her left. Again you hear your own pain, joy and desires in another woman’s voice. By the time this heart and hand-warmed stone is in your hands, you feel a sense of gratitude and belonging you’ve seldom known, yet one that feels strangely familiar in your bones.
By the time the circle closes, you feel a deep sense of calm and renewed hope for yourself and the planet. You leave with more of yourself than you brought in, a little stronger with this sisterhood in your psychic pocket. You are not alone.
In a grassroots effort to create global peace and find inner serenity, women worldwide are returning to the ancient and universal practice of sitting together in circles, where they co-create a safe space to offer their joys, sorrows, hopes and dreams for the world and themselves.
In a circle, there are no cheap seats and no front row spots reserved for celebrities and the press. Rank and title are left at the door. Everyone walks in with equal status and takes a seat equidistant from the center. Every face is seen, every voice heard by all and the center is occupied by no one, as it is reserved for an altar, candle, or group intention.
In the context of our hierarchical and competitive culture, sitting in a circle can feel restorative, refreshing and a bit revolutionary. There is no goal, no leader, no agenda. For many women, it is a precious respite from a life of striving to do more, be more, get more, like sinking into a warm bath of trust, acceptance and unity after a long day of mental or manual labor.
Throughout history, the circle has been a universal symbol for unity, the cosmos and the perfection of the divine, from the Tibetan Wheel of Life to Hindu mandalas to the perfectly balanced yin yang symbol. Formed by the seamless connection of the beginning and end of an unbroken line, the circle speaks to the timelessness of life, the wholeness of the moment. In sacred geometry, the circle symbolizes the number one and is the source of all subsequent shapes. Any number multiplied or divided by one retains itself, the way unity embraces the diversity of each individual while preserving each member’s identity, the way a good women’s circle welcomes each voice as an essential link in an unbroken chain.
Even without a conscious awareness of the circle’s inherent power, the effects are felt subconsciously. According to Michael S. Schneider, author of A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe, “The message of the shape bypasses our conscious mental circuitry and speaks directly to the quiet intelligence of our deepest being. The circle is a reflection of the world’s – and our own – deep perfection, unity, design excellence, wholeness, and divine nature.” Try sitting in a straight line. Then a triangle. How about a square? Notice how you feel.
As Barbara Marx Hubbard states, circle participants tend to feel safe. Perhaps because you can see everyone; everyone is equally vulnerable. Or maybe it is because the pervasive patriarchal hierarchy is replaced with an authentic recognition of and respect for your contribution. Or perhaps there’s a body memory of childlike simplicity, when you could spend a day sitting around playing jacks, facing the game and each other, instead of the next place you needed to go. Sage Knight
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