Outside the window, the earth is as white as the sky. Precious little snow has accumulated, but it’s here nonetheless: tiny dry flurries, the sort that stop and start and stop again, freezing in midair as they descend from a low thin clouds backlit by the palest of suns.
Meanwhile, winter spirits continue their visitations, day and night, accompanied now by the occasional summer spirit, too. For two nights in a row, we have seen the elk, graceful silhouettes beneath a cloud-veiled moon loping easily across the east field in search of the hay that we allow to remain uncovered. By day, it’s the goldfinches still, a clan of migratory beings that normally arrive at the threshold between spring and summer, staying no more than a week or three.
And a week or two ago, I saw what looked like evidence of a bear’s visit, although they should be all be sleeping now. It was, in all likelihood, proof of an unusually large coyote, or perhaps a wolf . . . but there are spirit bears in this place, too, ones whose fur is limned by the lines and shades of winter.
Today’s featured work manifests in the form and shape of these spirits, imposing, powerful, and near as white as the snow now criss-crossing the earth. From its description in the Other Artists: Sculpture gallery here on the site:
This enormous medicine bear by master carver Mark Swazo-Hinds (Tesuque Pueblo) is substantial enough to be displayed on a large coffee table. A museum-quality showpiece carved of very pale sandstone in a subtle version of the traditional Southwest hump-backed style, he’s more than a foot long and extremely heavy. He carries a complex medicine bundle crafted in Mark’s own inimitable style, of macaw and turkey feathers, pieces of turquoise, old pottery sherds, and shells, tied on with fabric to keep it secure. The bear is 12″ long by 5-1/8″ high; the bundle extends approximately 6″ beyond the back end of the bear (dimensions approximate).
Sandstone; turkey feathers; macaw feathers; pottery sherds; turquoise; shells; fabric
$2,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Weight and fragility require special handling; extra shipping charges apply
The wonderful thing about a spirit bear is that it is a creature of medicine: to be respected, yes, but not precisely to be feared; to be honored and appreciated, shown gratitude for the gift of its presence. This is not to say, should you see a large pale bear walking across a field, that you should walk up to it. The spirits themselves are often quite like bears, and there are reasons for the old stories, many replicated across Indigenous cultures, of beings so powerful that for a human to look upon or approach it was instantly fatal.
Our relationships with the spirits do better in hose netherworlds of ceremony and dreams, of visitations that impress themselves upon the spirit even as they leave the mortal body unbothered by risk. That becomes all the more important at this season, when the winds deliver a dangerous cold and exposure to the elements means a death as certain as that resulting from gazing too directly at the spirits.
This bear, one of perfect solidity and substance, imbued with all the weight of the medicine he carries, is a lesson to us to appreciate these spirits of the cold season. Like the weather, they play a role in the world’s well-being, and thus in ours, and they remind us to honor the lines and shades of winter.
~ Aji
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