The last day of August, and still summer wrestles with autumn for control. Lows in the forties gave way yesterday to a high around ninety, heat heavy and oppressive, and yet the sharp edge on the wind remains.
Weather, climate, season — all are confused and confusing now, and the wild creatures are as perplexed as we.
Any morning now, I expect to see signs of a visitation from Bear. It would be early for the season, but in such a drought, and with what is predicted to be a hard and early winter in the offing, ordinary patterns seem no longer to exist, much less the usual wildlife migration and hibernation schedules.
A bear sighting, here, is not a bad thing, although you wouldn’t know from way the colonizing culture treats it. We have long had visitations here from members of the Bear Clan, usually in October but occasionally on either side of it, and like Elk and Weasel and Skunk and Hawk, they all seem to have an understanding with our own animals: None bothers the other, and such incidents are marked not by fear or agitation but by mutual acceptance. For years, it appeared that the pen which houses our horses and their stalls was on the bears’ direct path — they leave evidence when they cut across its bounds — and yet the horses have never shown themselves to be disturbed by it in the slightest.
In many indigenous traditions, Bear is a powerful spirit. Visitations by such beings, even in the form of the earthly counterparts, thus seems deliberate, a gift and a sign. But we humans tend to envision such things as purposeful in the way that we understand that word, as though they intentionally come to us. It is, however, a rather ego-centric, and human-centric, way of looking at it.
Even in the spiritual sense, perhaps they do not bother to come to us so often as we would like to imagine.
What if, instead, we are — mostly unwittingly — placing ourselves in the path of the spirits?
If so, the grace they show us by their willingness to teach us is all the more valuable, all the greater a gift.
I tend to think that that is probably most often the case. We humans are a stubborn lot, entrenched in our ways, our vision and senses circumscribed by mundane needs and selfish concerns. For all that mot people give lip service to seeking vision and guidance, what we mostly want is reassurance that we need not change anything. We want the path to be eased without the work of blazing the trail in the first place. And so it’s perhaps natural that humans cast about for signs from the spirits that they are, indeed, focused on us, engaged in the task of helping us, although why they should be bothered is anybody’s guess.
For a being as powerful Bear, any instance of our paths linking up beneficially, at least with regard to most humans, is most likely merely a happy accident. A medicine bear, one who carries the bundle? Even more so.
Nonetheless, we look for such paths, and patterns, and links and lines. Our minds, our hearts, our souls seek naturally the solace that such ephemeral connections provide. And occasionally, they’re right. Which is why so many of our peoples create, hold, and keep tiny monuments to such powerful beings — honorific pieces manifest as art.
In this part of Turtle Island, such objects are called fetishes, an insulting label hung on them by colonial invaders, but one that has stuck. In the Native art market, though, the word “fetish” applies specifically to very small versions of such sculptural works — generally speaking, small enough to hold in one’s hand, and to cover it with a closed fist. Slightly larger works— like the one featured here today—are known as figurative works, carvings, or sculptures. And today’s highlighted piece, while tiny, is most definitely larger than a fetish, and is also infused with a spirit as solid and substantial as the stone from which it emerges. From its description in the Other Artists: Sculpture gallery here on the site:
Taos Pueblo master carver Ned Archuleta has coaxed a little “furry” medicine bear from this chunk of stone: The hair of his coat is carved right into his body. This little guy is This piece really shows the variability of pink alabaster: All of one small block of stone, his face is nearly white, but from the ears back his body shows varying shades of rose, almost purple, in the stone’s matrix. Inlaid bits of turquoise serve as his eyes, and his medicine bundle, tied on with the traditional sinew, is of turquoise and coral beads. At a little under 4″ long, this piece is almost — but not quite — small enough to be considered a fetish; he fits comfortably in your hand, or on a desktop or mantel. Another angle shown below.
Pink alabaster; Sleeping Beauty turquoise; coral; sinew
$125 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This medicine bear — so called for the bundle he carries on his back — seems nothing if not purposeful. The line of his path stands out as clearly in his expression as the lines of his fur, carved in sharp relief in the alabaster. He has a task, he knows where he is going, and he knows why.
We humans have far less innate assurance; our options are too many, our diversions and divergences and opportunities for error too great. But at this time of year, as we watch summer wane, rapidly ceding space to the heralds of winter, we could do worse, in spiritual terms, than to find ourselves in Bear’s path.
~ Aji
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