Afterword

Hope for the Bear’s Return

Grandfather bear, Golden Paws,

King of the Forest, King of the Animals,

Anima’s Lover, The Goddess’s Lover,

Bearer of the Stars.

Your strength moves the wheels of the heavens,

the seasons, life itself.

May your place in the forests, dear wild brothers,

in the mountains, and in human hearts, be granted.

Heavenly bear! Do not desert us!”

Author’s poem

Thoughts are energy. If one concentrates one’s thoughts on an object, whether it be a rock, a plant, an animal, or a human, one touches it. Invariably, one will be rewarded with an answer. Not long after I finished this book, some bears—to be precise, it was the Bear Tribe Medicine Company—invited me to come to a medicine meeting in Schwangau, Germany. I had heard of Sun Bear, the Chippewa medicine man and visionary, and knew he had prophesied the end of the consumer society that is based on technocratic megalomania and had offered the traditional wisdom of the Native Americans for healing. Against the opposition of other Native American medicine people and shamans, he also shared his knowledge with the children of white people.

Emblem of the Bear Tribe Medicine Company

I expected a symposium at which environmental problems and those of peoples facing extinction would be discussed, so I prepared a lecture titled, “Bear herbs, the strongest healing plants.” I was not prepared for what I saw at the meeting. I felt myself almost sent back in time, into the Stone Age Magdalenian when the people of Europe to North America lived as big game hunters and paid homage to a bear cult. Whole families were staying in tents at the foot of the snowy mountains. Bundled up in furs and knitted woolens, they sang songs for Mother Earth and Father Sun: “The Earth is our mother and with each step we touch sacred ground.” They treated each other like brothers and sisters. They also sang for Grandfather and Grandmother Bear, accompanied by a genuine shaman drum. They summoned the bears to let our strength and wisdom return to us.

In the evening, the bear tribe people sweated in a traditional sweat lodge. They incensed their bodies with prairie sage, offered sweet grass and tobacco to the spirits, passed the sacred peace pipe around, and sent their prayers to the Great Spirit at the medicine wheel.

While I was talking about healing plants, a huge, long-haired young man with lots of amulets, crystals, and runes hanging around his neck came and stood in the door to the tent. This guardian of the threshold was called “Breitschaedel” (a German name that means “broad skull”). It was his real name and not a name he had given himself. He was as good-natured as he was wild—a berserker having difficulty with the times he was born into. It came to my mind that an incarnated bear spirit was there in front of me. Here, in the shadow of the Alps, where the Bavarian kings had built their castles, I had found a “place of power” where a bear vision could come to me.

The Earth, and our near relatives, the plants and animals, talk to us all the time—this was Sun Bear’s message; we must only learn to listen again. They are not just objects that can arouse scientific interest but the expression of spiritual archetypes that live in us and outside of us in nature and can take on many shapes. Here, the bear archetype appeared to me, talked to me, and touched me.

But not only the bear’s spirit can present itself in these historic times of change. Real bears, shaggy, grumbling bears, are also coming back to the sacred mountains of Europe, to the Alps. Thanks to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), bears that migrate from the Balkans are no longer shot as a matter of course. And in 1989, a bear was set out near Oetscherberg, Austria. Against all expectations, she was seen in 1991 with three cubs. Since that time, the population has grown to twenty-five. More bears, coming from Slovenia and Croatia, are expected to be set out in South Tyrol and Lombardy. In Trentino, Italy, where some of the last Alpine bears live, no less than ten bears were sighted between 1999 and 2002. The bear population has increased at a natural rate since then but unfortunately the human population observes this with mixed feelings. Beekeepers have justified apprehensions about bears being around, but hikers should not be worried; the authorities reassure the public that the animals are rather shy and tend to be peaceful.

The crises of our civilization—the hole in the ozone, pollution, climate catastrophes, the extinction of species, etc.—seem absolute and unstoppable. However, as a Native American from the Klamath tribe assured me, scientists equipped with monitors and the most sophisticated computers do not know everything. Their perspective is ultimately only that of an ant. The Earth itself is a bear. Stinking factories and huge cities are like fleas and ticks on her. Soon, she will shake herself and scratch the parasites off, cleansing herself. Then humans and animals can live in harmony again and all can enjoy life.

“A nice dream,” I said.

“Dreams and visions create realities,” he answered.

That wild animals are returning—the bears in the Alps, the wolves in Saxony—is for those who read signs, a sign of hope. It is the hope that is expressed in the song of completing the medicine wheel:

The dawn of a new time is coming, Golden light is flowing all over the earth.