Meeting the medicine of the moment
The essence of Bear invites us to listen to, and honor, the rhythms of life both within and around us.
Mama Bear, Watercolor & Ink, Nona Jordan 2024
My dad and stepmom gifted me a soul retrieval.
They gave me the gift the day I graduated from college. You’d have to know my dad to know what a weird and wild gift that is. In retrospect, it was one of the best gifts they ever gave me.
My stepmom circled with this particular shamanic practitioner for many years before they gifted me this healing experience. I drove down to Eugene, Oregon, and pulled up to a nondescript, single-level suburban home—not really what I expected from a shaman performing a soul retrieval, but okay.
The woman was lovely and warm. I was young and dysregulated. We lay down on her well-worn carpet, our shoulders touching. My body was tense (even though she encouraged me to relax), and every sense was on high alert, wondering what was happening as she lay next to me with her eyes covered. At some point, she started snoring, so I questioned whether she or soul retrieval was legitimate.
When she sat up, she “blew” the retrieved parts into my throat chakra, heart, and solar plexus. I began weeping and couldn’t stop. As a person who doesn’t cry easily, I was alarmed. For hours – I cried. As I sat with this woman, snotty and ugly-crying, she told me what happened on her journey. Three parts returned with her; one was a young part with a bear companion. That young part of me and the bear have been with me ever since.
Bear, your medicine is not just welcome but celebrated.
Bears are known for so many qualities, aren’t they? But what I think they are known for most is their hibernation habits - the very picture of rhythms attuned to nature. Additionally, bears are the largest apex predators where they are found, with polar bears being the largest. Bears are solitary beings, except mothers, when they have cubs - the fierce mama bear.
Bear has been nudging me, asking me to pay attention.
In recent months, I’ve seen bears in logos and images, in dreams, and meditation. I’ve been drawing and painting her many faces in my art. From polar bears to brown bears to my most beloved “mistake”, Gorilla-bear.
Recently, when I sketched the mama bear in the center of this collage, she had words for me.
She leaped onto her hind legs and told me that she stands at the cave entrance, the fire is warm, and the skins are laid down. She tells me it is time to honor the threshold of the season change. I felt the truth of this deep in my body.
I fight the seasons of yin, of quiet, of darkness and fallow fields.
I recall anxiously telling a fellow coach many years ago how worried I was about my work. I felt quiet, out of ideas, tired, and maybe burnt out, if I’m honest. She said something that never left me—all fields must go through fallow times.
A part of me knows that. KNOWS IT. But my mind fights it like I can beat it and stay on a trajectory of ideas, endless energy, inspiration, and productivity every day for the rest of my life. But wow, that isn’t how life, or nature, works as much as I’d like to prove it wrong.
It has been a year, and it’s not even over.
My one and only daughter left for college and is thriving, by the way, and I am learning a new rhythm of being an open-nest parent. I received a diagnosis of M.S., which required some rearranging of my psyche to accommodate. I am mid-stream in a master’s level therapeutic yoga training. We have done quite a bit of travel and will do more, but what bear, my body, what life calls me back to time and again is to honor the rhythms of the greater season of my life. To acknowledge the shifting tides. The cooler air. The call to slow down and listen.
Bear encourages remembrance.
I believe we come here as souls unfettered by the limitations we find on earth - gravity, death, illness, resource limitation, etc. I believe we come here for the exquisite experience of life lived in a body among other bodies - to know the particular delights of feet on wet, dewy morning grass, the enlivening shock of jumping into a cold body of water on a hot day, the shaking of muscles exhausted at the height of effort, the joy of meeting our beloveds through birth or by chance, the grief of their leave-taking. The realities of grappling with our mortality. The joys of music, dancing, laughter, bird song, and puppy breath. There is so much to present to outside of work and productivity, right?
Bear calls us home to the truth of life in a body on this earth. Bear is a quiet and fierce teacher wholly committed to the rhythms of nature, the ebb and flow of energies in a way that current society has forgotten. I tend to forget until I’m reminded.
Our bodies (and, therefore, our lives) are fortified when we remember the nature of our assignment. To experience the fullness of life on earth, intimately tied to the rhythms within and around us.
Contemplate bear for yourself.
If bear has lumbered into your awareness, it is time to take stock of what you know deep in your bones. It’s time to listen to your body. I know, I know, that statement is so cliche, but do you know what it means? It is a call to action that might be inaction. If you find yourself craving time in a forest, make time to follow that impulse. If you find yourself wanting to curl up in bed an hour (or two, you night owl!) earlier with a cup of tea, do it. The same goes for art or implementing a sweeter movement routine. You know what your body and your life are telling you better than anyone else. Stop looking for quick fixes and hacks to escape yourself. Slow down. Stop overriding your deepest knowing and act in concert with the truth of your animal self. You will be better for it in the coming seasons.
Coming for October: Soul Nourished
If you feel called to honor the change of season, connect with an animal ally or guide, slow down, and listen to your life, you might consider Soul Nourished—a month-long energetic retreat with live calls, yoga nidra, active imagination, and the most amazing women. This work is better when we are together - six spots remain, and I expect they’ll be gone soon. I’d love to see you there.