Bears new novel

A Book for America

Chapter 1

“Grandpa, tell me the story of the bears again, please.” The little girl turned over in her small bed and looked directly at me with her strange animal like gaze. Her eyes were very big very dark and round and she made small growling noises under and behind her breath. “I am not sleepy at all and I won’t go to sleep unless you tell me our story again.” I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her, and then I looked more deeply as I usually do. She was beautiful in her own way, my grand daughter, with her big dark eyes, her nose open, her dark complexion, darker than either of her parents, and more than that her unbridled open bear spirit. I had seen that the moment they showed her to me after her birth. When I looked at her I did not see a newborn baby, I saw a newborn bear and then an older bear, and then a huge female bear, standing on her toes, looking at me and…

“Ok my beautiful little growling bear girl, I will tell you the story of the bear again. You know my little one, it is actually your own special story, the story of how you came to be, the story of your life. as I told my my sweet, you don’t have to understand it or figure it out, you need only to listen, and when you listen, you close your eyes and you dream and see the story in your imagination and you can even fall asleep and see it in your dreams. So , my precious one, here we go… “

“It was the beginning before time and space even existed. There was nothing at all, but the nothing was something and the something nothing.” “Stop grandpa, why do you always start the my story like that with the nothing? I don’t like that, I like something grandpa, not nothing.” “I know my little pumpkin, but that is just the way it starts you know, it always starts like that. But don’t worry my beauty, for you the nothing is something you love. The nothing is the place you go when you growl. When you close your round big eyes and growl, are are the nothing, so you see, it’s not something to be afraid of, it’s something you already know and remember.

After the nothing, the place inside the growl that came before the growl, became the two, sky and earth. You see my granddaughter, when you look up with your little bear eyes you see the sky and when you walk with your paws on the ground you feel the earth. But the earth was lonely, so the sky and earth made love and gave birth together to the spirits and then to the animals and then only much later to the people like us. One spirit was the first, Great Spirit and he needed a wife. So. He looked around at all the animals, at all the people, at all the plants and saw you. He saw bear. She was beautiful beyond his dreams, beyond his spirit imagination, far beyond anything he had ever dreamed.

Great Spirit took this bear for his wife, she was a bear woman like you are and like you will be when you grow up and become a woman, my little love. And she turned into a woman then, but still was a bear so she was a bear woman woman bear turning changing one minute a beautiful woman one minute a strong bear and she could change so fast that a person looking at there could not tell if she were a bear or a woman, and in fact she was neither, she was a bear woman.

And she make love with Great Spirit and gave birth to all the bear people, all the bear clan families, all the bears and all the clan. She was your grandmother from the beginning before there were people and before there were bears my baby.”

But now, she was asleep, her round eyes were closed, her breathing was slow and deep, and her growls slowly turned to songs of love and looking at her, he could see her vibrating back and forth between little girl and baby bear so fast that he knew who she was, what she was to do and honored her deeply and gave thanks to his ancestors, spirit animals, guides, elders, and to his bear clan grandmothers and grandfather of the four directions, and to Great Spirit and  Mother Earth.

Chapter 2

The hospital  was dark, it was the middle of the night. The  doctor sat on the end of the patients bed watching her. She was very old, the wrinkles on her face made her look beyond age into something further away. And she was dying. Clearly the old woman’s friend, pneumonia was taking her this cold dark winter night and she was leaving. Her family sat by her bedside, frightened and crying. The cold impersonal room, with it’s aseptic white walls, no pictures, machines fro oxygen and tubes was as material as it could be devoid of spirit. The doctor has tried all his tricks but in this primitive hospital  with almost no lab x-ray, no electrolytes or culture facilities his western medicine tricks were minimal at best. She had two IV’s for fluids and antibiotics, and she was dying. The doctor knew that from experience of years in hospital in big cities with alcoholics brought in from the snow in much the same condition.

The doctor heard a voice. “Call me.” What was that? He did not know. The voice was around him not somewhere, it seemed to come from the sky and earth and filled the room. He closed his eyes and felt something huge, he felt a giant bear behind him and then, as quickly as he felt it, it disappeared. But the voice continued. “Tell the family to call tall bear now.”  The doctor called the nurse, he did not speak Denai, and told her to tell the family to call tall bear.

The family looked even more frightened and worried now. It looked like they did not understand why a doctor would ask for tall bear and maybe more. The nurse could see they were not going to call, so she called for them. The doctor heard her speaking  in Navaho and she hung up.

The door opened and a man  came into the room. Suddenly the room was filled with a strange light. The light came from everywhere it had no one source and the room was different. It was as if the room suddenly become spacious, the walls seemed to evaporate or move outward at once, the ceiling raised and the floor dropped. The windows become like eyes to infinite space and it seemed to the doctor that it was now not night or day but out of time. The doctor looked at the man or rather tried to look at him and found he could not look directly at him, he had to look to one side and then the other and then move his eyes back and forth quickly from side to side and only then could he actually see him. The man was dressed in simple street clothes without adornment. He was very old, wrinkled like the old woman, he carried a canvas tote bag. He nodded to the family. The doctor could see nurses looking in from the small window in the door to the room. This had never happened before in the Indian Health Hospital, no one had ever called a medicine man to see a patient.

The man opening his bag and took some things out. He took out  drum, some sage, some feathers, a rattle, some tobacco. He took out a headdress of feathers, and put it on. He moved over to the woman in bed. She was unconscious and did not open her eyes but somehow her face changed completely when her reached her side. The room slowly become darker and darker and now it was hard to see and make out details. Through the haze of darkness or of something, the doctor could barely make out what was happening now. Then, the doctor heard a voice. “Thank you for calling me. This is for you. Watch carefully all that is going on. This is school. I  will change  you life now as I do the healing. Watch me.”

The doctor watched the scene, he could watch the man. When he looked at him he was out of focus and blurry and his borders indistinct. The man took out the rattle and started to rattle over the woman. The old woman had now disappeared and become more indistinct than the medicine man, she was now a shimmering shape moving in and out of reality. The medicine man started rattling and chanting in Navaho. The song was a lilting prayer like song that rose and fell like a dream song. As the doctor looked at the medicine man, the man disappeared and instead the doctor saw a huge indistinct bear, moving in and out of reality with lights around it. As the medicine man chanted and rattled a smoke like darkness arose from the woman’s blurry shape and rose and left the room through the window. The woman suddenly sat up in bed fully, looked directly at the medicine man and the room just as suddenly was back to the way It was. The woman, the light, the medicine man the nurses at the door were the way they were before. It was a hospital room in Indian Health. The lights above her bed were dimmed for the night. The family sat on plastic chairs near the wall, but the woman was now totally different. She had sat up, and she talked in Navaho to the man and then to her family. She looked many years younger, the wrinkles in her face had softened. She was relaxed and to the doctor surprisingly calm.

The medicine man took off his headdress and put the rattle and wing back in his bag. He turned and nodded to the family and then to the doctor and simply left the room. The doctor had no idea how long this took in real time or what had happened. It was not until many years had passed for the doctor to even realize and remember any details, then, it was only a fog moving and undulating like the mother’s breath.

Chapter 3

Tell me my story of the bears again grandpa. Grandpa sat with his beautiful grand daughter on the edge of her bed. Her room was decorated with angels, bears, bear/angels, flying owls and all her toys. It was like a sacred sanctuary, peaceful and yet full of special energy. The little girl had this energy since she was born and her mother, with wife of his son said she growled as she came out and looked strange. Umm. This was another night, another chapter of the story, and he began.

“My beautiful bear girl. What happened next is very wonderful. Remember in the last night Great Spirit the sky made love with bear woman and gave birth to the bears. Well you remember too that that was in the beginning before there were many people, animals plants, when all was brand new like daddy’s shiny new car. Well, time passed, many people were born, many tribes formed from the people, many animals were born, many plants too and the earth started to look kind of the way it did before all the cars and big building, it was nature, forests, seas, animals plants and not many people. All the  people lived in peace and in very small groups like big families for of course, they were one big happy family. But, my beautiful grand daughter, it was not always like that. Way back in the way before when animals still could speak and be understood by the people and when people and animals were blurred, and not separate many things happened to people and bears which made their lives one and one. The story I will tell you now is very old. My grand mother told it to me, her grandmother told it to her and I will tell it to you now. And I stopped and disappeared, and my great great great great grandmother appeared inside me around me all over and spoke through my body and voice and she sung in a lilting chant:

“ahh yah he.. art and healing yah hee. Once upon a non time, in the land of the spirits, there was a little girl. (I could see, my  granddaughter closing her eyes and turning into the little girl as I sung this story to her.) the little girl looked was just like you she was the same age .. one day, the little girl was walking in the woods with the women in the small village that they lived in near the coast, below the huge mountains and glaciers. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, summer in the far north where the sun shines and never sets. The little girl walked with the older women she was a feisty little girl with a very strong personality and was fiercely independent. So the little girl and the women started picking berries. They had baskets they had wove from strong grass that were sturdy and strong. They put the berries in the baskets, the berries were hard to pick and took a long time to find and pull of the sharp stalks. The girl started to get tired and cranky. She had picked a lot a lot of berries, she filled her two woven baskets, they were even getting heavy and she was not a happy little girl even though the day was beautiful, she She was getting more and more irritable by the moment. She walked over the next group of berries she saw behind big tree. These berries looked especially delicious to her, they were bigger, softer, more juicy looking, they even seemed to light up and draw her to them. Now, you understand my beauty that she actually was a very special little girl. She would see things and sense them and see lights and hear animals but she also was cranky and a little arrogant, the little girl looked up at a beautiful tall old  tree and then felt herself step on something soft and slippery and then.. she slid and fell down. A woman behind her laughed. Now, the  little girl’s name was Chookaneidí which meant grizzly bear, but they called her chooki, so chooki asked the women, what was that horrible stuff I stepped in? the woman who laughed said it’s the bear poop silly girl. The woman said, well you know, the bear finds the very best berries, and drinks salt water from the sea and.. poops right next to the berries, we all look out for this when we pick berries my beauty. Now, the girl like all people of the Tlingit knew about bear poop but she had in fact actually never seen the yucky stuff up close and she knew that it was dangerous. There were even rules about children and bear poop- Boys could walk over it but never touch it- and little girls needed to close their eyes and walk carefully around it and never touch it,  but you remember that our little girl had a very strong character and was very much her own little girl and she said to the woman“ I hate bears, they are dirty animals who poop next to my beautiful berries and make me fall. I hate them, and I hate their poop.”

Well my dearest granddaughter, at that very moment the world cracked a little.” “What does that mean grandpa,” chooki said. “well my beauty there is this world you know. It sits there and is what it is. And then, once in a while or maybe all the time, cracks appear and let in the other world that surrounds it. it’s like a bowl cracking and suddenly light comes in and you can peek through the crack and see beyond to the land of dreams. And when .. the world cracks, there is a noise like a cracking clay bowl, and the light changes, and gets open and brighter and the sound changes, and gets warmer and softer and the smell changes and gets like orchids and then.. anything can happen. Ummm.

Chapter 4

For the next days, the doctor got more and more depressed and more and more anxious. As he drove his government jeep to the hospital his world started to fall apart. First, he noticed that the gray government houses, started to become blurry when he looked at them, and at the same time, the orange red mesa rocks behind them became clearer and cleared. Then as he drove there was a strange quiet and and slight shaking of the jeep. Then, he would get to the hospital  and see the Indians lined up in their plastic chairs waiting their turns to see the doctor and the hall would get wider and darker and he would find himself looking out of the large windows at the end of the hall at the clouds blowing across his life.

And, he was having his dream again, and again. In the dream, the earth was cracking apart. He saw clearing the crack, the jagged edges appear on each side, the rocks falling down into the abyss as the crack widened. And he could see the red light of what appeared as fire below. he could hear the cracking noise like it was an egg opening but a huge egg made of rock and he could feel the fire’s enormous heat and smell the sulfurous gasses emitting from the new crack. But in the midst of this upheaval, he was calm, almost beyond calm, restful, at peace and even happy. In in the center of the calm quiet space he heard a woman’s laughter. The dream was coming more a more often now, after the visit of the medicine man, it seeming his nights were spent with the deepening crack and woman’s laughter.

One day, as he left the hospital  and started his drive back to his house, he found himself turning left instead of right at the turn toward the housing where he lived. The road left went off the reservation towards new Mexico and led really nowhere for a long way. He drove without knowing why and without thought and suddenly felt himself turning right on a dirt path that was more a track then a road. It led towards a hill ahead and turned, went into huge puddles of water and mud, turned again. To either side were cactus, huge boulders, red earth and the distant mesas rising suddenly like walls to either side. He realized it was becoming a box canyon and it was getting narrower and narrower as he drove up the canyon floor. Then a stream appeared on the right of the track  and got larger as he drove further and further.  He could hear the noise of the water in the stream even over the whirring of the engine. He drove up this canyon, with the stream gurgling beside him, with the sun now getting lower in the sky until it hit the top of the mesa to the right. Then, he saw, two people in the distance. They were sitting on a big bolder on the side of the track. They were Hopi Indians, he could tell this from their dress, as he got closer, he could see it was a man and a woman and as he got even closer he recognized them. The man was Povagi an elder who he had treated in the hospital  for diabetes. He did not knew much about this man, but knew he was involved with a breakaway group of elders who were are a path different from tribal council. He remembered that he had originally picked up this man hitchhiking on the highway and he had told him about the Hopi prophesy. With him was a woman, she had been with him each time he saw her in the hospital. She had never said a word, he did not know if she even spoke English, she was always in front of him to one side and seemed powerful.

The man spoke, “Hey doc, what are you doing here on this abandoned old road where no one comes. Then, he laughed and the woman laughed too. The laughter was a lot like the laughter in the dream. This put him in a strange state where he was losing track of reality. He said, “ Hello Povagi, I remember you of course from the hospital and from your teaching about the prophesy when I gave you a lift that day. I was just driving home and found myself driving here instead. I don’t know why.” Povagi said, “Doc, we were expecting you here. Me and the woman were waiting for you here. You are supposed to go on the path, follow it until you reach the clearing and then follow the signs. We will direct you from there. this is important, it is time now.” And Povagi and the woman started walking away from the road across the sagebrush and cactus and berries towards the high mesa walls. A small dog came from behind a rock and came up to the doc and stood by his side.

Doc went back to his truck and the dog jumped in next to him. Doc let him, it seemed like that was supposed to happen. As doc drove he started to get more and more sleepy and dreamy. Then, the dog started barking and would now stop. He watched the dog and watched what the dog was barking at. And he looked up and  saw an eagle circling above. It was a white headed bald eagle, it circled very high in the sky, almost beyond vision. Without the dog, he would have not seen it at all. And then another eagle appeared. It flew with the first one, they were outlined on the canyon walls beyond, their shadows making them double visions. They circle lower and lower until they were not far away. One of the eagles dove down and narrowly missed his jeep and then shot up in the sky again. Ahead the road forked and doc did not know which turn to take. The eagle flew clearly to the right and he turned right. This happened again and again, there was a fork in the road, one of the eagle couple would drop, fly over one side of the fork and he would follow. This dance was beginning to appeal to him and went directly into his heart deeply. He felt now he was on the path of the elder and the eagle and was in some kind of ceremony.

Finally he reached an area where the single track opened up into kind of a circle. It was like a clearing and then after the track seemed to end. This was the destination of the path and the place Povagi had directed him too and he felt it’s energy in his heart immediately. Then without waking up, he got out of the jeep and started walking to a small wall on one side of the clearing. He could see when he arrived that the wall was actually one of many that went beyond the clearing into the underbrush. He walked over to the wall and stopped. In front of him, he could see the flat area like a courtyard or square. In the center of of it was a depression. Next to the flat area he saw a woman.

She was young about his age, dressed in informal camping clothes that were elegant, she looked like she was from a magazine. She had long blond hair, a hat, and a small backpack. She did not look up when he looked over the wall. She seemed to be intently looking down into the depression in the flat area. He climbed over the wall and walked over to her. It seemed to him like it was natural that she would be there, like she was part of the story that was emerging in front of him. She looked up at him, also not surprised. He said, “Hello, how are you today?”, small talk, insipid and remote, as if he was putting out a feeler tentatively. In fact Doc was shy and at first did not speak much. She looked him directly in the eyes and did not look away. She said, “ I am looking down into this dark area below. it is very strange. I am drawn to it deeply.” The eagle circled over us and was joined by the second eagle. They started to circle together first up very high, then dropping down in the circle slowly towards us. The dog came up behind us and started barking.  The eagles landed on the center of the depression where the darkness came from. It was getting dark now, the light was fading and it was getting hard to see clearly what was happening. The dog went directly over to the eagles and sat beside them. They seemed to be talking together like it was a meeting. As it got darker, they noticed a light coming from between the dog and the two eagles. The light seemed to come from a whole in the earth. It was not a normal light, it was moving like it was shaking and alive and it became brighter and dimmer in a rhythm.

Together they walked over to the source of the light. It came from a hole in the earth. The hole was square and made of stones. They could see now, the the hole was actually on top of a small mound or rise in the earth. It looked like a navel in a pregnant belly. It was clearly not natural, it was made by someone and it looked ancient and abandoned. They walked over to the mound and climbed it’s gentle edges and now looked down into the square hole. They looked into the red pulsing light and could not see anything. As they looked down, doc felt his body vibrating and becoming warm. He felt light and almost not there. his mind was above his body and he could see the whole scene like it was in a film, like he was looking at himself from far above.

Awatovi he heard. Awatovi he heard, over and over again. And then he had visions, quickly before his eyes he saw a huge pueblo. He looked down, he saw a whole village with houses and paths between them. He saw people dressed in Hopi clothes but different walking between the houses. He saw children, women, men elders, people sitting on wood benches between the clay pueblo buildings. In the center of the village was the mound and the square hole. He could see a ladder sticking up through the hole and smoke rising from inside through the opening and drifting upwards. He could smell the smoke, it was aromatic from cedar and sage and it went up and up to the sky where he was looking down. It drew him down towards the hole. As he drifted down, he could see his body standing next to the opening and also see a woman standing next to him. But he was not himself, he was an Indian dressed in ceremonial dancing costume of a Hopi bear kachina . And she was not herself she was dressed in the same ceremonial costume of a Hopi bear kachina. The two figures were kissing.

Chapter 5

Grandfather, I am not sleepy at all and I want to know what happened to the little girl, what happened grandfather please please. He went on with his story. “Well my little bear granddaughter, as I told you, the earth cracked in that moment. Well, the little girl picked more delicious berries and more and more until her basket was getting full. Just then as the earth cracked a little more, all the berries spilled out of her basket. Now she was hard headed and obstinate and did not follow instructions, like to walk around bear poop, but she was very careful with baskets and with berries. So.. when the basket suddenly turned over on it’s own and the berries she had picked so carefully spilled out she was surprised and even more angry.

Now it seemed she was older in a moment and she saw a young man she had never seen before. He was very very handsome and she was now very very beautiful. (it’s a story my beautiful granddaughter so magical things can happen you know, but she was always a very beautiful little girl like you so it’s not magic for her to turn into a beautiful young woman too.) the man was very tall and strong looking, but strangely enough, she could not look directly at him in the normal way. She would look at him sideways and back and forth not focusing and then see him like he was made of light. Well, my beauty his face was painted with red stripes and it was red on one side and white on the other. His hair was long and in a braid, he was wearing a bear skin over his back and was so totally beautiful that chooki was hypnotized by him.

He had a beautiful voice like a musical growl and he said, “Well beautiful young woman. Those berries you spilled were not good anyway. They were covered with dirt and poo and I know much better ones down the path a little way. I will walk home with you, you can leave the other women, and I will show you the berries.” She followed him and felt all tingly all over and very happy and he led her to the berries and they picked them together. The day was sunny and warm with no breeze, the sky blue, the berries fresh and succulent, and she was beginning to be very very happy. When they filled the basket half full together he said, “I know another bunch of berries a little further down the path, let’s go and pick them, they are the best berries. So they walked together hand in hand down the path a good distance and found the berries and together picked them one by one. As they picked them, she looked up at him at his beautiful  handsome face, and felt so warm inside and happy, she had never been like this in her young life, he had melted her heart.

With a full basket of berries, he said, “My beautiful maiden, you must be hungry after picking all these berries in the sun, I will cook you some lunch now to make you even more happy.” And he captured a rabbit and held it over something he made that looked like a fire but was not a real fire it was hot energy and cooked her delicious lunch that tasted so good she could not believe it. and as she ate she could not take her eyes of him even though they were crossed and she could not look directly at him, she would move her head back and forth and see deeply his beauty. They ate and ate and she had never had such wonderful food or such a good time. after they ate he said, “ My beautiful maiden, it’s much too late now to go home. So I will make you a camp here and we will sleep right here, next to this stream in this wild spot. So he made her a wonderful camp, he spread soft pine branches on the ground and put leaves on top of them and bark around the edges and then he put dandelion flowers all around. They they together side by side on the bower he had made them and he said, “ My beautiful maiden mine, if you wake up before me, don’t lift your head and don’t open your eyes. Let me wake up first and then I will wake you and open your eyes so you can see.” So they went to bed. She snuggled up against his huge body, against his long long hair. She went under his bear skin robe and felt his body against hers. She was young and had never been with anyone and she melted into him and fell asleep quickly and did not remember her dreams that night at all.

Chapter 6

Now it was dark, he was back in his body kind of, on raised mound next to the square hole. He was with a woman with long blond hair and they both were looking down the hole at the light coming out of it. He stood there next to her and looked in her eyes. She looked in his eyes. He heard himself say, “I recognize you.” This time she said nothing but just looked back at him and smiled. Then, he looked up and saw a star in each cardinal direction and another star in the center right over the hole. When he closed his eyes slightly he could see lines that led from the stars down into the hole. The lines were made of fire not bright more like candles in the darkening dusk sky.

Then, the two eagles walked from their perch on the rock and dropped down into the hole and quickly the dog followed. An energy came from the hole now that was more intense and powerful. Quite suddenly he took the woman’s hand and they walked to the edge of the hole and jumped into the red warm light. He did this without fear or hesitation, it was as if something moved his body for him and he surrendered to it as he breathed in. To his surprise they landed quickly on soft earth. It was not far down, they guessed about six feet, the ground was soft sand and they were not hurt. It was as if something caught them as they were falling. He looked around him. Now the red light had disappeared and it was completely dark. He rested for a moment and felt her and still in his. He got used to the dark and now could see faintly their surroundings. It seemed to be a huge circular room. He could not even see the edges, he though he could feel them but they seemed soft and far away, maybe even moving he thought. The roof which he knew was not far up now seemed very far away and he could see stars like it was not there. the hole they dropped through was nowhere to be seen. The floor was soft sand raked clean and there was a fire pit in the center. Suddenly the fire pit lit up and a strange fire ignited. It was not flames more like glowing rocks without much heat, like rocks glowing from energy within. The light was eerie like fairy light or star light.

He looked at the woman next to him. In the red star light she was beautiful. Her face was illuminated and seemed to glow from within. He could see her third eye open and her throat chakra open. In the strange red glow he could also see her body under her clothing like her clothing was transparent. It was as if she was illuminated and her clothing was no longer necessary or effective in covering her. It was as if here in this place nakedness was the truth of being. He looked down at himself and it was the same. His clothing no longer covered him and his body looked strong and healthy and like hers was lit up. Then, her body floated onto him and the two light bodies were superimposed on each other and merged with a popping sound. At the same time he saw his physical body and her physical body in their clothes standing next to each other and saw the merged light being between them like a phantom. Now, he turned to her and spoke, “Do you see?” She turned towards him in her physical body and said, “Yes, I see our merged light bodies. That is the Spirit Lovers core form. I know this vision, I have never seen it with my inner eye, but I have seen it in my soul essence.”

They stood together their physical bodies next to each other. They were still holding hands like children. They looked down at the pit where the red stones were glowing and looked up at the starlight above. Then he saw the star beams coming down and the red stones beams going up and they met in the center of the chamber and formed a bear kachina like the ones he saw in his dream. And then, the merged light being that was their two naked bodies as one slowly turned into a bear kachina and started dancing around them. As the dual being danced, they began to see beings forming from nothing appearing around them. They were in a large circle and doc and the woman were in the center and the light being kachina was hovering above them. The figures started to gather form and become women and men, elders in ancient Hopi costumes, children playing, all were sitting in a peaceful group in the circle.

One of the elders spoke. “ Welcome to our cememonial kiva. This is a bear ceremony. You have been brought here as a dual bear spirit being to do work. There has been a terrible happening here and it needs to be healed backwards and forwards in non time and non space. That will be your work together. We will teach you what you need to know, you will see it in visions and in dreams and you will know what to do. We cannot do this from spirit space so we have called you as dual bear spirit to come to us now. Thank you ancestors, spirit animals, spirit guides, teachers, lovers, grandmothers and grandfather of the four directions, Creator/ Mother Earth for this sacred meeting, the plan, and the work we will do together.”

Chapter 7

She woke up and she was sleeping next to a huge soft shape. It was still dark so she could not make it details of what it was. She remembered the night before when the beautiful man told her not to open her eyes before he did, so she closed her eyes. But, she put out her hand and felt him. He was soft and seemed to have very long hair. She took her hand and slid it down his back, she felt the bear skin he was wearing but now it was warm like a bear’s skin. She slid her hand down further and he woke up with a start.

Ok, my beauty, let’s eat breakfast now and get moving. We have a long walk to get you back to your village and we must start. We will eat the left over rabbit cold and then start walking. On the way we can pick more berries, I know many wonderful plants that are on this path. They picked up their packs and started walking. As they walked the girl talked about her village and the women she was picking berries with and about her family. The man said, “ Don’t be afraid, I will take perfect care of you, come my beauty.” And then he put out one hand and tapped her suddenly on her head, and then moved his hand slowly around her head clockwise and then suddenly she stopped talking about her family and forgot they existed and there was only the beautiful young man with the half red face and her berries and the walk.

This went on for some days. Each day they would walk, pick more berries, make a camp, eat rabbit, and then sleep. Each night she would not open her eyes until he was up but each night secretly she touched him gently. The first night she felt his bear skin back, the next his hands which in the total darkness felt like claws to her, the next night his face which had a cold nose that was really large. Each night as she touched him she felt happier and happier, she felt like this was her home now, he was her husband and she was his wife. Each night they snuggled closer and closer on the soft boughs he had laid for her, each night her body fit more and more closely with his until they were like one being. Each night seemed like a night to her but in was really a month so soon they had been traveling many months and autumn was beginning to arrive and it was getting cold. Each night camp was colder and colder, but for some reason, she was warm and comfy all the time with her husband.

Then he said to her, “My beautiful wife, it’s time to make camp for winter.” And that day they walked through a dark place which looked to her like they were walking under a fallen tree but they actually walked right through a mountain and they did the same the next night until they had walked higher and higher through many mountains. He said, “My wonderful wife, here is the place we will make our camp for the winter. I will dig out a big cave and you will gather branches and boughs to make a soft nest for us the sleep.” He started digging with his hands and his hands turned into huge bear claws and the small skin on his back turned into his fur and his nose got longer, and fur got longer and she knew finally in her heart that he was a grizzly bear. This made her very happy because she loved him deeply after their time together walking picking berries and sleeping together as one. And.. also she noticed changes in her body. She was growing long hair on her arms and legs and even her back and her nose was getting longer and she had longer teeth now. These changes happened very very slowly over all the days and nights they had been walking, which were really months so she had not paid much attention to them but when she saw her husband digging the cave with his huge paws and claws and saw his fur and bear skin was now his whole body and saw his nose was long and he was very very big she understood perfectly what had happened. She had married a bear.

He dug the den and she found boughs to make their bed and cover the door to the den. He told her that the boughs were not good enough, she had to cut bigger ones and hide the cuts so no one would find them in the winter when they slept in the den. That gave her an idea which she had not had and made her think again of the family she had left behind when they started to pick berries long ago. Even though it was from a different life suddenly she found herself remembering her brothers and she remembered that they hunted bears in the spring. When she looked around at where they had made their winter den suddenly she noticed that it was the very place she had come with her brothers to hunt bear and she knew they would find her.

Now this was getting complicated in her girl mind/bear mind which were she found were both there but for some reason separate. One moment she was back to a girl, the next back to a bear, then both at once and then none at all. So when she picked the boughs and put them next to the door for her grizzly bear husband to close, she rubbed her smell all over the boughs and put little cuts on them so they would be seen by her bothers when they came in the spring which she knew they would. Now, this was not really thought out she did not know the implications for her actions in her conscious mind, she did not think about the consequences and what would happen in spring if her brothers found her but she did it as if in some kind of dream. It was clearly as if some force beyond her was driving her and in fact this whole story was the dream of that being.

For days and nights her husband hunted rabbit and bought the freshly killed rabbits home and cooked them on his non fire of magic stones and they ate and slept and were together and hunted ate slept and this went on for many days. During this time, she was very very happy. She loved her grizzley bear husband more than life itself, she loved her new fur and long claw like nails, she loved being able to smell things everywhere. She loved how strong she had become and simply loved being a grizzley woman wife more than life itself. And as a grizzly wife to him her bear husband she began to see, smell, feel, hear new things. And she could love her husband in a new way that was intense and physical and her animal would come out of her and make wild love with him and his animal would come out of him and he would love her beyond her imagination and it was mythical and wonderful.

Chapter 8

Hopi prophesy

Many years ago, many years after, doc picked up a hitchhiker on the road on the way to the hospital. It was an old man, doc recognized him from the clinic, he was wearing traditional Hopi clothes, a red bandana on his head, the necklace. The man looked directly at doc and then around the gray government jeep. He recognized doc from the clinic too. He paused and waited and then looked like he was listening or praying. He held up his hand and gave three shouts then put corn meal on his forehead and on doc’s and then began. “Hopi means peaceful in English. Great Spirit creator has given us the job of taking care of earth and it’s plants, animals and people for the divine power. We are not to do this for greed, wealth, or military power ever. Creator gave me a prayer feather and the job to deliver a message all over earth about peace. The creator made four worlds. The first world was made in perfect balance, all people were one, spoke one language and got along in peace. But then, they broke the rules and misued their spiritual powers and this first world was destroyed by earthquakes. Only a handful of people survived and they were given the work of making the second world. This world started good again with one language and peace but the people repeated their mistakes and this world was destroyed by ice and freezing. Only a handful of people who held the old ways of peace survived and they went to make the third world. Again, this world started with one language and with peace and love and balance. In this world were spiritual powers for good and many machines were invented too. This world too went from spiritual prayer and balance to material greed and then it was destroyed in a huge flood whose story is told in many religions. Again, elders led people of peace away who survived and they made the fourth world, the world in which we live now. In this fourth world, creator gave us many language and sent us in the four directions of the earth to settle. He told us to take care of mother earth and all that is in it. but as you know, doc, the world is in a terrible state.

Then, he held up a ceremonial rattle he was carrying. Doc had seen him carry this before in the hospital  and when he walked in town to buy groceries at the trading post. He continued with the rattle in the air, shaking it slowly back and forth, making a sound like corn growing. “This rattle is mother earth. The line running around it’s edge shows we are getting near the end of the fourth world. Humans are poisononing the earth, at war and strife, poisoning the seas and air and their own food. The temperature rises and sea ice is melting.  And greed is rampant and materialism the law of life for many. At the same time as there are people richer than ever before with the greed and materialism, children starve in the streets, families are  homeless and have no medical care or education.

So with our prophesy there are two roads, this was put on a sacred stone and rock painting on our sacred land. One road is technology and materialism and greed and war, separate from the earth nature and spirituality and on the rock ends in a jagged line of chaos. It  will lead to destruction of the fourth world. The other road is peace and love and oneness and creativity in harmony with natural law and will lead to the fourth world continuing and getting better leading to paradise in this world. Each person needs to choose the road and be on it absolutely with their whole heart body spirit and act without fear in each breath for this path to creator. There is a bridge between the two paths, we can move back and forth on that bridge to choose our path and be on out correct path. It is time, the final signs of the Hopi prophesy and here and it’s totally time to choose and be on it fully right now.  On the creator’s path you need to speak for the rocks, plants, animals and humans on earth and for mother earth herself and with the voice of spirit  and path of spirituality. When you are not separted from nature, mother earth can speak through you to save her body and children.

Native people hold the world together with prayer, fasting and ceremony. The land on the Hopi res where you live doc is the sacred center of the earth and must be protected at all costs or the whole thing will come apart.

There are the signs now, the world is cracking apart. Some people will be safe and they will rebuild for the fifth world. But I am old and dying and I will not live to see this. You will doc and you will play a role in this so pay attention. Things will come to you soon that will direct you on your path and help you. Creator will send you visions that will instruct you on what to do. Follow them. The old man got out of the jeep at third mesa and walked away. He stopped and waved, a dog came up to him and several children and touched their heads and walked away in the distance.

Chapter nine

And then he said it was time for the long winter sleep, and they should go into the cave he had dug with his claws and sleep and dream for winter. The snow was beginning to fall, the ground was white, they had eaten many rabbits and were both ready. She felt herself loving him from inside his bear nature from her bear nature. She began to understand what a bear dreamed and how it changed the world. Bear was healer, she knew that now. Bear would heal sick people, she could feel this in her body deeply. She knew how bear healed and she knew she would be a bear healer somehow. This did not make sense to her especially her human mind which thought about her brothers, but she knew in her bear grizzly heart that this was true.

They slept in the bear den together as bear lovers all winter.  Each month they would wake together and kiss and get up and eat food he had stored for her and then sleep again. Each month seemed like one day to her and all month she dreamed and he dreamed and they dreamed together the same dreams. She dreamt of being a bear shaman woman healer and teaching her people this. He dreamt to become a bear shaman healer and as he dreamed he became the bear shaman because of her dreams. She dreamed the bear shamanic right into him as she saw in her own dreams how bear healed. this was a woman bears vision, the healing came from the first bear woman and now was passed in the dreams to all the bear wives and then to their husbands as they slept together and made love all winter in the den.

Soon, between dreams, when they woke between months of dreaming to eat, chooki bear found she was pregnant. She saw in her dreams, she was carrying two cubs, the cubs of her and her lover and the bears in the stars who dreamt the two of them each night month winter. And she could see these two cubs, her sacred bear babies and she knew that this was the reason she was here. One night in her dream, she saw star bear dancing in the sky and saw the baby bears come from his making love with his bear wife in the stars and saw the babies drop in the tube of love and land directly in her belly after she made love with her beautiful husband. Now each night month in her dreams she talked to her baby bears from the stars. She showed them how to dance, how to be sacred and how to be bear shaman when they would grow to brother and sister bears and be born before the spring.

The star baby bears were born in February in den. Chooki bear woke for the beautiful birth, she grunted for some moments and her muscles contracted as her two cubs came out, she licked them awake with bear mother love which came to her from bear mother on earth and from bear mother in the sky. And then she put the cubs to nurse and went back to dream. In her dream she saw the star bear dancers now with dancing cubs going round and round clockwise in a circle with a drummer, and singer, and fire, and she saw mother bear above them covering them like a blanket with love.

Her husband would sing in the night. This began as she dreamed him a shaman. He would sing and chant bear songs and chooki knew these were to songs that would be sung during bear ceremony forever. She listened to his songs, sung some of her own woman’s songs and went back in her dream.

Chapter 9

It was time, he knew. He was in the kiva with his dual spirit and they were seated on the floor of the huge room next to the glowing rocks under the star line and rock line meeting. The bear kachinas still hovered above them like holograms and lit up brightly when the elder spoke. He continued, “I will tell you a story, but more than that, I will show you the story but putting you there. I will take the two of you to the place where it happened and you will see for yourself the truth of this story. For years lies have been told about this, it is now the time, it’s important now to find the truth and tell the truth because without healing the past we can’t heal the present or prevent it from happening in the future again. So hold on to your hats, let’s go.

Then the kiva got brighter and brighter and the walls and roof opened up and doc found himself alone with the woman in the center of an underground chamber that was bright, new and well taken care of. It was daylight, the sun shone down from the hole in the roof lighting the huge room. The walls were painted with murals of figures, animals, plants and an language he could not understand was  echoing around them. Then he understood suddenly. He knew he was supposed to start walking downward on the path that was lit up with small glowing stones. It led from the central kiva room downward to the right. He took the hand of the woman next to him and they started walking. They were now in a tunnel that led away from the big room and they were changed completely. He was younger and much stronger and was dressed in Hopi ceremonial clothing. He was carrying a rattle wearing a necklace of tourquise and shells and a shirt of colors. The woman was walking next to him. She was now younger too, and had long hair which was now black and she was in a dress that Hopi women wore, long dress with patterns on it. they were holding hands when they walked and he could clearly see their light double in front of them leading the way.

The path went downwards and became narrower and in front of them was a doorway with stone pillars on either side. Now there was a dog with them and two eagles. He could see the light bodies of the eagles as one eagle in front of them. Two each side of the door were huge serpents. The eagles went up to the serpents and talked to them. The serpents moved aside. The dog barked and the door opened. The eagles and dog and light bodies went in and the man and woman followed like children being led by loving parents.

They walked downward and reached another room. This room too was round and had sloped walls and a domed roof. It had a fire in the center and around it were elders in traditional Hopi dress. Now the man looked down at himself, he was now wearing a bear skin and he looked at the woman and she was too. They were both bear shamans, he could see that, bear dancers, they looked like bear kachina in the village dances. And elder in a bear skin stood up and spoke to them. “Welcome. We have called you here across time and space. This pueblo is about to be destroyed. The people in it had broken the rules of the fourth world. They have taken up new spirits, the women have left their husbands for other men, the ceremonies have ended, the people are only interested in their crops and corn. Great Spirit has told me, as head of the village, to go down into the secret kiva below that is kept for this, and wait. The whole village will be destroyed. We have called all those who have held true to the ancient ways before the kachina, the ways of the spirits and of healing bear spirit. Before kachinas animal spirits were and we have followed this old way down in this second kiva. We can turn into animal, we can be in more than one place at once, we can go out of time and space, we can heal and even bring back the dead. Now, the katchina people above call us sorcerers and we see in visions sent to us by family kachinas that they will come and savagely destroy the village. We will stay underground in second kiva with our animal helpers. But. You must go up soon because the same thing is happening to your land. Greed materialism and disregard of the sacred will caouse the destruction of your land like it will cause the destruction of ours. Go now, go back up and take you message to your land with your lives.”

And the elder bear chief danced into the center of the circle with his bear wife. They both wore skins and danced around clockwise slowly to the drum beat and songs that came from the edge of the sacred circle. It was a ceremony that was profound deep and healing. Now, no one spoke, people sang. Doc felt himself led into the circle. He was wearing a bear skin too now as was the woman. They were led together. “What do I do?” thought doc. The chief said, “Just follow the bear in front of you.” By now, there were several elders in bear skins dancing, and women and children in small bear skins too. Doc did what he was told, docs are good at that and started circling with the others in skins. And then, a magical thing happened. Doc turned into a bear. He felt his fingers growing claws, then his feet, then he felt himself growing fur, then his heart changed to a bear heart, then his eyes to bear eyes and he could only see what the bear could see. As his bear looked around, he realized the others were bears now, not Hopi anymore. He found himself growling, scratching and sometimes getting up on his hind legs and roaring. He was not interested in the other bears much, he was interested in the fire and he felt bear spirit above him looking down with happiness and helping his bear move inside him. He did not have to do anything except get out of the way.

Then, a surprising thing happened. The chief told doc they needed to heal him, to heal the skin he had been given to heal his life. they sat doc down on a tree stump in the center of the circle and the bears started to move around him. They sniffed him, they seemed to suck on him, they hit him with their paws. He felt something let go and he heard the words.

The chief called in people who were sick and some people came from the circle into the center. Then the songs started, the drum started and the people in bear skins danced into the cirvle and starte growling and bumping against the sick people and then doc saw bears in the air, spirit bears flying around pulling things from the people, then he saw things dark leaving them and some people fell to the ground and cried and some threw up and things dark left them and bears danced and drums and song accelerated and the energy swirled and it was wild. And doc and his new skin came into the cirelc ena danced too and he found he was not there any more just carrying a bear, and his bear and the spirit above in the air came up to people and pushed htem and scratched them with claws and things came out to them and were washed of his bear by eagles flying and then real bear came and real eagles and he stopped knowing.

Chapter 10

One morning bear husband woke up before she did which was unusual and he paced the cave. He sun his new shamanic songs and he even drummed on the cave floor for a while. Then chooki bear woke up and saw him dancing and waited for something she knew would come. He looke at her, directly into her eyes, and loved her so much and wanted to make love but he did not. He stopped , paused, and said, “ The love of my life, my beautiful chookin bear wife, I need to talk to you about something important. Spring is coming. The cubs are born. And I am going to leave soon. But, I can see that your brothers are coming up here to hunt bears before the snow melts. I can see and feel them coming. I have not spoken to you before about this, about your family but I can see them in one part of my dreams all winter planning to hunt bear in the spring. I am going to do something that you wont’ like. I am going to kill your brothers when they come to kill me.”  Chooki bear cried a little and was very sad. She knew this was coming of course, she remembered in a part of her consciousness that she had brothers and a family. She did not clearly remember what that meant because the brothers and family was human and she was bear now and her husband had circled her head and made her forget them but never the less she remember a little. And she knew she did not want her grizzley husband to kill them even though she remembered putting her scent on the cave door boughs to lead them to her. Remember she did not know why she did that, she did not think of the consequences or what would happen and now.. she was there plumb center of the what will happen and it was sad and hard suddenly. The idilyic life they had led, dreaming, eating rabbit, making sweet love, haveng cubs was now abruptly over in a flash.

She said, “My grizzley husband who I love more than life, I love you and have had a wonderful winter dreaming and carrying your cubs and making love and dreaming love bear dreams but don’t do it. Don’t kill my brothers, your brother in laws. If you really love me, you would love them too, so do not kill my family.  Then she got a strange frightening idea. “ Let them kill you. Don’t fight them, let them kill you. You lived with me,  you love me, we are bear husband and wife, how could you kill my family? You treated me good, why would you do this if you were going to kill my family?”

“All right he said, I won’t fight them, but if I don’t I want you to know what will happen.” He showed her his canine teeth. They looked like huge knives to her. They were enormouse, sharp and deadly. “Please don’t kill them. If they kill you, I will still have our babies and have you through them.”

Then, they went back to sleep, as they fell asleep they made sweet bear love and kissed each other and then went back into their bear dreams. They dreamt of streams high in the mountains. Of the cubs playing with their mother, of wandering alone on mountain tops and seeing the whole sky and stars at night. As they dreamed, they each had the same dreams, they dreamt of bear loving and of falling in love and of healing people and of bear shamanic dances, and they had different dreams. He had male grizzley dreams of wandering alone strong and independent and she had bear mother dreams of cubs, getting food, protecting them from other bears and playing in the sun. And when she woke she heard him singing again. He was chanting ancient bear songs to call in bear healing spirit, to make him bear shaman healer, to heal the humans and bears and their relationship with each other. Then he said to her, “ I can feel your bothers coming close now. I can see them approaching our den. I will not fight them. I will let them kill me. When they kill me, I want you to have them skin me in a sacred way. I want you to have them take my head and clean the skull in a sacred way with songs. I want you to build a big fire, then sing my bear songs you heard me sing that I heard from your bear woman dreams. Then chooki bear sung the song to him and he shuffeled his feet and danced standing on two legs and said, “when you sing, and I dance, it heals the people. That is what this is about bear wife.”

They went back to sleep for another month and for her in her dreams it seemed like one night. But neither of them slept well and their dreams were rough. He dreamt of dancing and of blood and of black things departing, she dreamt of her brothers, and the family in the village but for her too was blood and illness and crying.

He woke up and woke her. “It is time my bear love, go outside now and see if the snow has melted and come back and tell me.” She went out of the den, she pushed the boughs aside a little and saw that the ground was now mud and sand and the snow had almost melted. She took snow and sand and rubbed it all over her body and then rolled it down the hill. She knew her brother’s hunting dogs would smell it and lead them to her. Again, she did not have a plan or a reason. It was as if great mother bear above was directing her and Great Spirit Mother earth were directing every move they both made now. It was out of their hands and in the hands of something much greater. He knew she did this, he asked her why and she told him it was to be.

They slept another month that seemed like one night and he sung in his dreams, now more songs. And when he awoke he was singing the bear songs he heard from her and she heard from momma bear. He said, “ My bear wife, my teacher, my love. This is the last song you will hear from my voice. From now on the song will be sung by you and your people to worship bear and heal. My shamanic power will go directly to who carries my skull and skin in a sacred way. Then he said, “Well I think I will kill them, I changed my mind. I am a grizzley and that is what we do.” She said, “They are my family. They will help me with our bear babies. I can’t raise them alone, I need a village. Think of our cubs, the little boy cub and the little girl cub born this winter. They need to be taken care of. My brothers and their wives will help me with the cubs. Let then live, my love.”

They slept another night and when the woke up, he said, “ I hear them now, they are close. It is time.” He put in his teeth sharp and knives and said, I want my knives and I will kill them.” She said, “Please don’t. if you wanted to kill them why did you take me and make me a wife, you knew I was a person with family, why did you go this far my love? Think of our cubs. ” and she cried now.

He stood up to go out of the den, he said, “ my bear wife. This is the last time you will see me alive in my body. He left the den and growled and went out. As he went out, he slapped a small bear dog into the den. Then knocked the dog into the den and through gloves in too and arrows.  Chooki grabbed all of it  and hid it under their sleeping boughs. She put the dog under their bed to hide it. She hid the arrows and gloves too. She did this for a reason.

Then she went out of the den. She heard her brothers down the hill. She knew from their voices they had killed the grizzly bear. Then she sat down on the ground and cried. She felt so sad and felt very bad. She could not imagine what had happened and what she did and what her life was now. She went back in the den, and took the glove and aroows and tied it to the back of the dog and let him go.

The dog ran down the hill to his masters. They were skinning the bear. They recognized their dog and saw the bundle on its back and said, “No bear would do this, we need to go up to the den and see who did this to our dog.” They got the idea that their sister who had disappeared a year ago might have done this. They sent the youngest brother up to the cave. Only youngest brothers could talk to sisters. They told the youngst brother. You remember our sister disappeared in may. Maybe a bear took her so you go up the den now. Don’t be afraid, we killed the bear so there will be nothing in the den but her if she is there.

The youngest brother climbed the hill. He was afraid but he did what his older brothers told him to do. He found his sister in front of the bear den. She was sitting on the ground cryng and crying. When she saw him she cried more. She said, “You killed your brother in law. You killed your own family. I went with him in the spring.  You need to go down to your brothers and tell them I told you to save the skull and the tail and skin. Save them for me, I will deal with it in a good way. The youngest brother had never heard anything like this before but he was happy to see his missing sister and he said yes.

And when you go home, you need to tell our mother that she has to sew a dress for me to wear and small dress for my baby girl and pants for my baby boy and little mocassins. I can’t go home without clothes for me and my children, I can’t come in the village without them.

He went down the hill and said, “ Brothers, there is our sister up there. she was taken by the bear. She wants the head and tail an skin. Save them for her. The brothers did this and went home and told their mother they found the missing sister, they found her daughter, she was taken by a bear and she wanted her to sew some the clothes so she could come home now.  The mother got busy and sewed and sewed and had the clothes ready the next morning. The brothers took the clothes and went back up to the den. In front of the den, she dressed her two kids in human clothes and her in human clothes too and then they all went down to where the grizzly was killed. She took the head and the tail and the skin and burnt the head in a big fire and sung the songs she had dreamed and then took the skull out and they cleaned it as she sung more songs. And they cleaned the skin and tail and she sung again and then all that was let was ashes and the skull and skin.

They went down to the village, but she told her brothers she could not come into the village, she told her brothers to build a house for her and the children away from the village and she would come down and live there when she was ready.

Chapter 11

She had traveled far to get to Hopi ancient first mesa ruin. From Italy to Greece, from Greece to Tibet and Nepal, from there directly to the ruined pueblo in north eastern Arizona. She was standing on the edge of the ruin looking down at the flat area in front of her. This was where she was she knew. This was where she got to after her life’s journey of pain, suffering, abuse, rape, and her period of growth and transformation and now her pilgrimage to the unknown. She was Italian by birth, had grown up in Paris France, had traveled as a girl with her family all over the world. He father had been a physicist, her mother a feminist writer, her sister a famous rock singer and she was an artist, beekeeper, priestess and healer but she was lost and wandering, trying to find herself and get out of a relationship where she was abused, not seen, taken advantage of, taken care of by her rich husband, and now a wandering pilgrim.  She had worked hard to get to this place, she thought. Women’s groups, moon groups, therapy with many therapists, dance classes, healing body work classes and now her teacher in Tibet had sent her here.

Her name was Nadia. She spoke her English with a slight accent although it was not easy to tell where it was from. It had some Italian, some Greek, some Turkish, a little more French and more than a little English and it had emerged, like she did from being a person of the whole earth. From her earliest memories, she was not from one place, she was always a wanderer, always a pilgrim although she did not of course as a little girl know what a pilgrim was or where they went, she was always a dreamer a little girl who lived in a world of visions, a little girl whose visions came true and changed the world that she lived all over in completely. In fact she was without knowing doing, just being, a magician priestess woman.

Now, no one had told her this, she did not know this as a playing little girl jumping over ruins in Italy or Greece or turkey, she did not know this in her body when she was being raped by her boyfriend in college, when she was not seen by her husband in their huge mansion when he came home from work. And the fist time she found this out consciously was when a woman shaman in Siberia told her during a workshop on healing shamanism. So. Here she was, in the high desert completely alone waiting.

In Tibet she had wandered aimlessly up into the mountains to seek a teacher. Random people had directed her up and up and finally she was in a cave very high up where she found an old man. It was like a cliché in an old book but it was real for her. When she entered the cave he looked at her, told her he had been waiting for her, what took her so long, umm and asked he to sit. He said, “ I don’t take any visitors. I saw you and sent for you. I wlll not talk long and you cannot stay long. You are a priestess healer magic woman. You already know allot and theres is not much I can teach you. You can in fact teach me.” He laughed a full open laugh and went on, “I am directed to send you to the Hopi reservation in North Arizona. The Hopi have an ancient story they are holding. They say that the stone tablets of the yellow race of people are kept by us, the Tibetans. Of course we know that. We know that from Tibet. If you go straight through the earth from here, the Hopi Reservation is exactly on the other side of the world, you would come out in a ruined pueblo in North Arizona. The Tibetan word for “sun” is the Hopi word for “moon” and the Hopi word for “sun” is the Tibetan word for “moon”. We are backwards brothers with them and although you came her to see me, you if fact need to go there and see him. So you path is there, leave now.” He gave her a piece of paper with a number on it. He said, this is the gps coordinate of where you are to go. Go in peace, take my message with you. You are a woman on a mission to heal the earth. He went on, many years ago, a Hopi leader met with one our our rimoche leaders. The Hopi gave us a prayer feather. I give this back to you to take with you to them. You go and give it to them now with our precious substance powder to heal them. We know Hopi is coming apart now like we are coming apart in Tibet. We are all losing our external worlds and only the internal world of compassion and love will heal the world now against the forces of destruction, greed, and materialism. So go, beautiful healing priestess woman. Know who you are, what you are to do and do it clearly with only love.  ”

So here she was after her novel like journey to the guru. She had been told that all gurus are conneceted and now she was understanding it more. All gurus communicate with each other by thought forms and all are one bodisatva to heal the earth and now she knew that that was who she was too, she had a mission but in fact had no idea at all what it was and what she was to do. So. She waiting on the rim of the ruin, just sat patiently and watched, listened and waited.

She was there for several days. The first day was sunny and beautiful with incredible clouds blowing the the wind over the distant mesa tops. The rocks shone red, the ground echoed the color back up to the skky. As she closed her eyes, she could see earth and sky kissing and making love. This vision shocked her, she had never seen this before, had felt it, read it but never seen it. Then, mother earth under her feet spoke to her. “My daughter, welcome to the navel of mother earth, of my beautiful body. Touch your navel now and then feel mine. We are one. Your center is my center. Touch you body now and then feel mine, your body is my body, we are one. It’s time now for you to find father sky and make love and be one with him. You were one with him before you were one with me. I will find him for you and send him to you soon. The time is ready now.”

And then clouds increased and it got darker and darker and then a sudden thunder storm arrived faster than she could imagine. The thunder was loud and lightnight suddenly lit up the high mesas and shot down like canons and exploded in the earth like pure power. The lightning made her sleeply an dreamy and she heard, “I am father sky speaking to you beautiful woman healer. We have followed you and protected you on you journey to us on you pilgrimage home.” The thunder crashed again splitting the sky asunder and the lightning hit with a huge crash like glass breaking and he went on, “I am sending you my son to become one with. He will arrive soon like I did, inside darkness and thunder and lightning. He will take you on the journey after he arrives. Be one with him like I was one with your mother earth, my daughter, I love you.”

Her eyes opened and she saw she was on the mesas in arizona and was soaking wet from the rain. She went back to her rented SUV and opened her pack and took out a towel. Then, the sun came out and the sky lit up like it was inside the sun and she turned and stood in the full sun, threw her head backward and closed her eyes. “We all have many aspects, we all are storms, lightning, thunder, full sun, warmth, cold. It is all my power and energy manifest as love on earth in the external world. You are my daughter and are my power and energy manifest on earth as the inner world and outer world as one. Blessings and welcome.”

It went on like this for days. Each day she would wake and hear mother earth and father sky. Each day they seemed to get closer to her and closer together until one afternoon, as the sky turned red and the earth changed her color to his or he changed his color to hers or they changed colors as one at once she felt them kiss and begin to make love. As she felt this she put her hand down and touched herself on her jeans over her vagina. She realized she was getting wet there and was breathing heavily and starting to make love in her soul to her Spirit Lover who had not yet arrived in physical space.

Chapter 11

Chooki stayed outside the main camp all summer with her two children. They dressed as humans in the clothes her mother had sewn for her. She could not go down into the camp because she could not stand the smell of humans. She now was used to her handsome husband’s rich odor, the sweet attractive odor of her children and not these strange humans. She also found she did not like their ways, their games and their talking. They smelled bad and were unpredictable, they fought with each other, were jealous nad killed animals with no knowledge of the animal world. She understood that she was much happier as the bear in the cave in the dreams, the songs, the prayers and healing near this camp where humans hunted, killed without respect, fought and had a social structure she had forgotten where brother could not talk to her, only the younger one, where her mother could not freely do things with the children and where there was garbage and old things thrown everywhere. The place was not clean, did not smell like the boughs of her sweet cave, the humans cut down trees, threw things everywhere and were not prayerful. But she had somehow been sent on this task, to go with a man who was really a bear, to live with him as husband and wife. To turn slowly into bear. She has become the link, her husband too, the two bear/human lovers were one, he turning into human shaman she into bear woman and as one they would link bears humans sacred space of ancient time where humans and bears could communicate respeact each other and do ceremony together. Maybe she thought that was what was really going on. In her bear/human mind she saw the oneness, the ceremony the healing. She knew well now in her bear/human heart that her job purpose in life, was to share bear ceremony with humans, his job her bear/shaman husband was to share human ceremony with bears, so together they could make a new medicine to heal.

In the spring, she moved down to the camp and was living there with her children amonst the humans. This proved to be a difficult time for her. She did not get along well with humans. They distrusted her, they could see she knew more about bears than they ever dreamed of, her new ceremonies to hunt were not easy and needed a whole new way of looking at bears that they were not anxious to adopt. So the bothers watched her, learned her ceremony, and were not at all at home with this strange half woman/half bear that their sister had become. So, pushed to their limits of understanding.  They could feel her strange power and mystery and it was beyond the limits of their comfort as humans. They knew she was now something not ordinary  and this made them edgy. So,  one day  her brothers came up to her. They told her they had killed a female bear, a mother, and killed her two cubs. They had taken the heads like she had shown them, and the skins and now they asked her to play a game with them. They asked her to put on the skin of the mother bear, and asked her to put the skins of the cubs on her children, her little boy and little girl.

She told them she did not want to play this game. They told her that their children, their little boys  had toy boys and arrows and they wanted her to put on the skin and they would play to shoot her and the cubs with the toys arrows. They told her to pretend to be a bear, and to growl and scratch like a bear and their little boys would pretend to be hunters. She told them she absolutely did not want to play this game with them and her children and their children, she did not want to.

Then she said, “ Brothers, you do not understand what is happening in the world. If I put on the skin and if my children put on the skins I will turn into a bear, and my children will turn into cubs. You can see this is happening already. I have long hair over my body, my finger nails are long, my children have long hair under their clothes. We will turn into bears and I am afraid what wil happen them to you. I was turning into a bear when I lived with my bear husband who allowed himself to be killed by you for me and my children. Another summer and I would be a bear. If I put on the skins I am afraid what will happen in the world.”

The, the little boys sneaked up on her and the cubs and suddenly, they threw the skins over her head and her children’s heads. Then, the miraculous happened. Immediately she went down on four legs. She growled and scratched. She shook herself and scratched a tree. She was a bear. It just happened. She had turned into a grizzly bear. Her children also went down on all fours, they scratched and growled and started playing like cubs. They could not do anything to stop this once they were wearing the skins.

Then, her brothers children shot toy arrows at her and her cubs. She had to fight just like her husband the grizzly had to fight when the brothers came. She attacked them and killed them all. She even killed their mother who was behind them laughing at the game. She did not kill her youngest brother who had found her. Tears ran down her face. She was crying with sadness about what had happened but was happy she had turned back into a bear. Then, she left. She started lumbering up the mountain with her cubs in tow. She did not look back, she turned and stood on her hind legs and growled and then walked slowly up the mountain towards their den.

Chapter 12

Nadia waited next to the ruins, where she was told she was to go for more days and nights. In this time, her visions of father sky and mother earth making love made her incredible horney. She found herself sexually excited all the time, she was rubbing herself through her jeans, putting her hand down into her jeans and rubbing her panties and as she did this she saw felt was making love to father sky above as mother earth below. from her life, she realized this was a profound teaching, maybe what she was sent here for.

Then late one afternoon she heard a car. She did not turn and look, she looked down at the flat area nad the raised area in the middle and it lit up as the car noise came to her consciousness. She watched the red light come out of the center of the raised area with fascination and amazement. Just then a man walked up to her, but she did not see a man, she saw the sky, she saw a huge spirit bear behind him and she got wet immediately again.

This stopped her and she paused for a moment. She remembered her teacher in Tibet and what he said and now she saw much more. As she stood on the edge of the ruin and looked down at the red light below she saw mother earth making love with father sky, she saw a huge bear making love to his bear lover and she saw the animals and humans as one, the sky and earth as one, the mother earth, the sky, the male bear and the female bear, her body, this man’s body next to her all turning into a red purple light and illuminating a huge room and a ceremony being done.

She turned to the man now, and said, “ I am looking at the red light coming from the area in the middle, do you see it.” She looked at him and saw this huge bear and saw herself now as a bigger female bear and they were making love. She was getting wet again and could not help touching herself as they walked down towards the light together, but now, she knew allot that she did not know ever before in her life about the world.

She seemed to be waking up now. She was very sleepy still and in a deep trance. She was in a dark underground space. She opened her eyes and looked around. As she woke, she remembered going down into this space with the man she had just met, she remembered a ceremony with bear dancing and now she shook and looked around. The man was asleep next to her. He was beginning to wake slowly. He looked at her and he looked around at the underground room they were in. it was huge, rectangular. They could see the tunnel they had walked down in the ceremeony leading away from them on one side. They could see colored paintings on the walls that were indistinct and looked spirit like. They came in and out of focus. They could here drums that were spirit like too. They came in and out of hearing sounds.

Nadia felt him looking at her before she saw his glance. She felt his eyes like they were a touch of an angels wings on her body. She felt him look and touch at once with a transparent veil gossamer touch her face, her eyes, and her lips. She felt and saw now his gaze travel downwards to her neck, her breasts and her belly. She felt naked before him, she felt his gossamer touch on her neck, like the softest kiss, she felt him caress her nipples, moving around them softly until they were erect. And then she shape shifted and was a bear. He shape shifted and was a bear and she felt him sniff her belly and then sniff her vagina and backside. She could feel his wet bear nose on her pussy, on her backside and she turned herself away from him and went on all fours and put her backside up in the air like a grizzly bear ready to mate.

It was all getting away from her now. Her sexual passion rose, she was incredibley wet now and ready to mate. Her odor became strong. She felt him mounting her from behind. She felt his paws and huge claws on her back and on her neck. He dug his claws into her fur and pulled himself up onto her. He was heavy and at the same time had absolutely no weight. Then, she felt him come into her from behind. She felt his bear penis enter her body, her vagina easily, she was soo wet when had been preparing for this for days in her visions. He was erect and large, he slid into her easily and entered her deeply. He dug his claws into her fur and pulled himself up onto her completely so he covered her like a blanket. She smelled his strong bear odor and felt him moving in and out deeply and banging against her back legs and thighs with his. She heard him growl and the growls became louder. Then she hear a sound come out of her, that was something she had never heard before. It was a combination of a growl and a song of love. It was low and high at once, bear, human, earthlike and unbelievabley beautiful. For a moment time stopped, space went away, there was no bear, no woman, no man no earth no sky only the beginning of creation and when she opened her eyes she would see everything on earth and in all times and saw and was all at once everywhere.

She awoke again, from her half dream, half vision half trance. She was in a huge underground room. She was lieing on the floor in the soft sand and a man. She was naked and he was too. She had rolled on her back and he was lieing on top of her. She looked into his eyes. They still were dark bear eyes but were changing slowly to a man’s eyes. He was unbelievably beautiful. He was turning more and more into a human.

She said, “ You are my bear lover. I am a spirit bear. When I make love to you the universe changes and we heal ourselves, others, community and the earth and stars. That is who we are. That is what we are supposed to do here on earth now. We have been chosen and sent here to heal the Hopi the Tibetans, the bears, the relationship between animals and humans, spirit and matter. It is no easy job. We do this by making love as bears. This is and will be our work together. It will come to us.”

As she spoke it was as if she heard a voice coming through her that was not hers. It was coming from somewhere profoundly deeper than her human personality and woman’s experience. It was coming from the very center of space and time, from HER on earth. She knew this and was completely sure of this new voice, of who she was now, and of what she was supposed to do. Of course she did not know how it would work, what exactly would happen now with this man and Arizona and Hopis and Tibetans but she had the beginning, the trust, the voice, and the visions to proceed on this gifted path now.

Chapter 13

Chooki was climbing higher and higher in the mountains with her two cubs. She found her den, and found the places where her bear husband had caught rabbits, ground hogs and picked berries and dandelions and roots. Winter was coming and she knew she needed to eat and eat and get ready for her long dream hibernation. The fed the growing cubs her milk and also fed them groundhog gopher and rabbits that she had learned to catch from her husband. They all got fat and happy as bears in the forest. She readied their den, cut fresh aromatic boughs and put them next to the door to await the coming snow. With each day/month she became more and more bear and less and less human but was not bear woman with a difference. It was increasingly  clear to her that her role was to unify bears and human into a ceremony to heal.  So as the first snow fell, she took her beautiful little bear cubs into the den, closed the door and settled for the long winter.

As they played on the soft aromatic boughs, rolled and pawed each other she saw how bears and humans were alike, they played like her nieces and nephews that she killed, in her mind as she slowly fell asleep fell into bear winter hibernation dreams her cubs and human children moved together until they were one. And her first dream of the winter came to her of a bear dance with mama bear, her, and cubs, human children all dancing together in a circle. This dance was very beautiful. In her dream, she waw a drum and people singing the songs her bear shaman husband had learned from her and taught her to sing and that she had taught the people of her village. She saw women and men dressed in ceremonial bear skins healing people. She saw bear spirits of the bears whose skins had been taken with respect in sacred ceremony hovering over the heads of the humans who were dancing. She saw the bear spirits come down into the circle and heal the humans of illnesses that she had known as a lttle human girl and she saw the humans in small cave like lodges praying for bear, learning from their prayers a new way of being with bear, a way of being with respect, not hunting or eating bear, living together and  helping each other.

She would dream this bear dance, and wake up and go out and hunt and come back and feed her babies and eat, and go back to sleep. As she went out, she marveled at the fresh snow, at the beauty of winter, at the trees covered with white puffs on their branches. Seeing out of the eyes of bear, she saw the forest, the mountains, the trees, animals she could catch, she did not see things to hunt, fear, houses, villages of the human world anymore.

And in her dream she heard, “ Chooki bear woman. You are mother bear goddess now. You were chosen by star bear ancient parent of the bears and her mother who birthed all the animals to rekindle the link between sacred bears and human in prayer. In the first days, humans and bears lived together in mutual respect. First came bears of course. We did our huge bear ceremonies, dances to heal the forest and animals. Then came the two leggeds. They treated us with respect. We had meetings together did ceremony, helped gather food. Then came the time humans stopped being polite an started to kill withut respect, all animals in the forest and we left them and did not speak anymore. Then star bear chose a special little girl you to make the link again. And star bear grandfather choose a special huge young handsome grizzly to be the link from the bear side and brought you together with tasty juicy berries over a basket and then you fell deeply in love and made you bear babies and slowly joined bear and woman into one.

But then, your family got lost and went back into fear and distrust and were punished but this will pass and we will now enter a time of bear dancing medicine respect and ceremony. You will be the leader , the teacher of the songs, the dance, the prayers, the healing dance ways. Your husband will be the taught of the bear medicine to men, you will be the taught of the bear medicine to women.

So bear woman woman bear bear mother. It is your purpose to be the missing link. The one who brings bear and woman back together again. That is why you were born, why you were a wild little girl why you disobeyed and stepped in the bear droppings, why fell in love with this handsome stroang man we sent you. And you husband chooki is your opposiete for men. He is the bear missing like that will lbring bear and man as one for the medicine to heal the earth , to heal bear, human, mother earth and father sky by dancing bear spirit. So. Welcome to dream time, to hibernation dreams of healing, transformation and new growth, it is time to heal. I am bear mother, I am your guide now. I will speak to you always as long as you live. I will be there with you to teach you and help you as you teach and as you find women to be bear mothers. I am you spirit guide and you can call me when you want to. I love you. I found you, trust me and the process that sends you forth as he on earth.”

And all winter in her dreams, bear mother taught Chooki bear the bear secrets of mother bear. Chooki already knew the practical things, after all, she had lived with her bear husband, was turning into a bear, had cubs, for a whole fall and winter. She knew what bears eat, how to hunt goundhogs, how bears make love, she knew that well, how to make a den and what bears dream of. Now she was learning deeper secrets revealed by bear hibernation healing dreams.

First her dreams showed the ancient times where humans first appeared and when they shared the forest with bears. In the beginning of wnter, she  saw the bears before humans came, she saw and was part of huge bear festival dances that bears held for the animals to heal. By that time, bear had become the healer of the forest, all the animals knew this and they came to bears when they were sick or needed balance. She would dance in her dreams with these bears before people came, when bears shared the berries with only birds and when small animals were as powerful and big ones and where animal spirit spoke to each other and changed shapes easily.

Then she dreamed of the time when the bears invented the bear dance. in these deep primal dreams, she was dreaming and seeing in her dreams how bear heals, of how bear spirit appears above the bear and comes down, how bear repairs cells, how bear goes up the star tunnels to star bear and brings down the cubs, of how bears enter the skins when they are in ceremony.

Then, she was given the dreams to teach her of the first coming of humans. These first humans were respectful and shared the berries with the bears. They spoke bear and bears spoke human so they could communicate with each other. They dreamed alike and bear taught humans how to heal with bear medicine. In this time, humans could shape shift back to bears and be bears and be together in the spirit world and do ceremony togerhte their the humans would wear masks and skins and bear spirit would come down into them and in the spirit world they could be one. All these dreams were coming to her from her guide bear mama all winter and would be taught to her cubs when they emerged to spring flowers when snow melted in the high.

Chapter 14

Doc awakened very slowly in the huge underground room. It was almost completely dark. He seemed to be lieing on the soft sandy earth. He was very tired and still half asleep. He reached over with his hand and felt someone next to him. He turned his head and looked. In the semi darkness he could see a beautiful woman lieing next to him. She was awake and she was looking at him. He remembered slowly  what had happened. It was as if waking up now was waking to be in a whole new world. Each time he woke, it seemed he would have to orient himself to the new world and then remember how he got there and even now who he was.

So, he put it together to come apart. He was doc, doctor on the Hopi res. He had driven down a  road to a ruin. He had met a woman who was there looking at the red light coming out of the hole. They had gone down into the room, them a tunnel and then he had a bear dance ceremony. She was there too.

Then he remembered more. As he looked into her deep eyes and far beyond them, he remembered seeing her naked spirit body and his and then merging with her as one spirit. He remembered dancing with her in bear kachina costume and them merging as one bear. He remember being called dual spirit by the elder in bear dance medicine ceremony.

It seemed to him, that that was who is was now. That was his life and it was more real than the hospital  or who he was and he was new. And before anything else happened he felt her and felt them as one. This was the new reality. It was simple. He just left his body slid over onto her body then went inside then they merged and then the merged dual body rose and was above them and then his physical body rolled on top of  her and without a word started making love. He kissed her lips and his hands caressed her face and then her neck and then slid down to her breasts. She was naked lieing under a blanket or bear skin cover as was he and he went under the cover with her under the huge bear skin and they made love inside the bear.

But this was not ordinary  lovemaking at all. As he touched her breasts he started to disappear and she disappeared and the merged lovers above sung to them, sung bear songs in an ancient tongue. He was in his body making love in a deep and beautiful way. He was full of desire for her human form and was also seeing down from above from inside the dual Spirit Lovers form of bear lovers. He crawled down under the bear skin until his mouth found her vagina. Her odor was unbelievably strong like a bear in heat. He thrust his mouth into her vagina and his tongue came out and he licked her juices. She flowed and flowed and he drunk them like ambrosia. She tasted of honey and bear root and something more mysterious that he could not indentify. He pushed his head up into her and in his visions saw himself licking her cervix and ovaries and then the inside of her body and then the inside of her beasts and then kissing her from inside her mouth. At the same time he could see they were one inside the belly of the bear. A huge pregnant bear was growing them inside her uterous as they made love.

He turned her over and come into her from behind. She lay on her side and he entered her from behind, slid into her wetness like there was nothing there. he was now deep inside her body, into her bear mystery dreams, into her Tibetan dreams into her pain and suffering, into her Divine Feminine  nature and was swirling and twirling with her energy spirit body in a vortex that was slow and fast at once and made them beyond one forever. In the energy oneness inside pregnant bear they were lovers far beyond time and space into the new time and space of the fourth dimension.

He moved in and out and she raised her backside up and he mounted her and held on to her neck with his claws and bit her back and neck and back of her head and he growled and scratched and came in and out more and more rapidly and his energy rose and she sung and moaned and sung again in a high growl and turned her head and bit him and he moved in and out faster and faster  and she screamed and let go and opened more and more and then relaxed as she came deeply and then he came in a srcream that merged with hers and seemed to go on forever.

He opened his eyes and looked aournd. More and more the dream, the vision, and the outer physical world were merging and swirling together and becoming indistinguishable.  Now he knew if was time to emerge from the dream back into the physical world. He turned over and looked at the beautiful woman laying next to him on the soft earth. She opened her eyes to him and smiled and then laughed. She reached over next to her where her clothes seemed to be. She put on her jeans and shirt and headdress. He found his clothes too and got dressed. He stood up, she did too and then they held hands and walked to over to the opening in the roof of the huge room. They looked up at the blue sky and saw the clouds floating overhead like they had been there all along. Suddenly a ladder dropped down to them. It was an old wooden ladder that looked like it had been here forever. He gestured to her to climb up. He watched her climb slowly up to the sky. He watched her backside in her tight jeans move up the ladder and he was filled with the desire to touch it as it rose. He climbed up to and they found themselves standing on the raised flat area in the ruins on the valley of the mesas in Arizona in the bright sun. it seemed to be morning. Doc guessed they had been down in the hole overnight at least.

The old Indian couple who he had met on the road was there. it was Povaji and the elder woman who had directed him here. They greeted doc and the woman and said, “Have a good rest?” and they both laughed and laughed.  “I see you have met.” They laughed again. “We directed her here too before you, doc. We were expecting her too and now you are both here and both together we see.” Doc looked at the elder and the woman. It was not a surprise somehow but it was too. He looked at the woman now. She was looking at him wide eyed and seemed to radiate a soft joy and peace. Her face was soft and open and a little vacant looking at the same time. Doc felt a deep sense of peace and completeness and fulfillment and also a dreamlike sense of unreality.

The elder woman spoke, this was the fist time she had said anything to them. “I am Hoonaw. I am bear woman. I am bear clan woman. This man is my husband. I found him to help us. Now, this woman is being given my role as white bear clan woman. She has found you to help her. That is the way it is. You are bear lovers now. There is nothing you can do about this. It is done. It is done by star bear and great bear spirit woman. She comes to us and tells us how to be with bears as humans and how to do healing as medicine. This medicine had been lost or taken by men. It needs to come back to save the earth. In the prophesy my husband told you, it is time now. It is time too for bear woman to come back and we need a white woman to help. You are she.”

She looked at the woman standing next to me. Hoonaw came over to her and opened a medicine bag that she wore around her neck. She took out a bear claw necklace and put it over the woman’s head. “Your name now is Qootsa Hoonow Wutti, white bear woman. We will call you Wuttinow. A good name for you.” We will take you down in the kiva again to initiate you as white bear woman. This is the second step. The first step is for  you to make love with your bear husband as bear. You have done this but you need to to this again with us teaching you how. We will leave you now. You will see us soon. Don’t call us, we will call you.” She laughed and laughed and they started walking away across the desert floor towards the high mesa beyond like it was a walk in the park.

Doc looked at her again. He saw her as total beauty. He saw her as a baby, a young girl, a beautiful young woman, as the ewoman she was now, as an elder and as a bear. He saw all this at once, each image overlapping the last moving quickly like a film frames until it turned into white light and sucked him right into it. he entered the light and found himself deeply kissing her lips. He was inside a light, and he was very large and she was the same and as he kissed her they slid into each oer and were one again. This kept onhappening as the spirits made them one, it was a ancient ceremony. They both understood this and surrendered to it completely. She kissed him deeply she opened her mouth and sucked his tongue inside her. She took his hand and put it on her breast. He felt her nipple get hard and he squeezed it to make it even harder. She moaned and kissed him more deeply. She took his hand and put it slowly down her body until it was over her vagina. He pressed his hand into her and pushed it against her body and rubbed it up and down. She moaned and said, “Don’t stop, rub harder.” She pulled down her jeans quickly and put his hand down her panties so he was touching her. He rubbed her vagina and put his finger up into her wetness. She was completely wet he slid right in and she kissed him more deeply. He pulled down his pants and put himself inside her. He was hard and he slid in easily. They kissed even more deeply and he moved in and out and made love standing right where the couple had left them. It seemed that was what they were to do.

As he moved in and out he felt himself turning into a bear. He looked at her and saw she was now a bear woman. She had fur and claws

Chapter 15

Chooki was waking up to her new life as spirit bear mother. In this new life, she knew she would teach the bear dance to humans so they could be in a new way with bear and with nature and with other animals. She would stay up in the high mountains in winter and Hibernate and come down to the forests in summer and eat salmon, berries, dandelions and groundhogs and help her cubs learn how to find food, defend themselves and more important she knew be dancing bear spirits for bear and human alike.

She understood when she woke up in the spring with the first flowers poking their heads up through the melting snow, with the first warmth sneaking on breezes and melting more snow and water beginning to rush downhill in the new melting streams, she melted too. She now knew that a great mother bear had chosen her, a little berry picking mischievous girl and father bear had chosen him, a young strong male bear to carry the new way of being with bears and humans to people.

Then her bear husband spoke to her. “ My beautiful bear wife, who I love with all my grizzly heart. I am happy to come back to you now after your long winter of dreams. I am with you and have always been with you in this long story of becoming a bear shaman woman, a bear shaman bear. We are together, Spirit Lovers, bear lovers, in this journey. We have been sent by bear great mother, bear great father, star bear grandmother, star bear grandfather to heal. You work now is to appear in visions to human women and teach them the bear dance medicine. I will appear in the bear spirit world to bears and teach them. Together, we will make the new relationship of healing with human and bear and bring them back to where they were in ancient times when the first humans came and when bear had ceremony already and when they lived in respect. I love you and will make love to you as spirit bear.”

Her bear husband then met with spirit bears in the great spirit bear meeting in spirit bear land above. He told them of great bear father’s vision of the new relationship between human and bear and he taught them the songs his human wife had heard with him when they were dreaming together in hibernation in the cave while they were making love in their dreams and awake times. He taught the bears the songs of bear dance, and what to do with the skulls and skins when special bears would sacrifice themselves for the relationship. He taught them how to come down into the humans who were carrying skins, giving themselves up to bear spirit and healing. He taught them to hover above during the dance, and enter the skin and heal the humans as ancient father bear spirit on earth. This teaching was long and took many meetings of spirit bears in the land above.

Chooki meanwhile was feeding her cubs groundhog and rabbit and berries and was getting closer and closer to human encampments in the forest below. she began to smell humans and to see them picking berries in the places where she had picked them before when she was a little mischevious girl. One day she saw a young woman picking berries. She was attracted to this woman’s energy. The woman was beautiful and somehow she was different than other young girls. She was more serious in her picking, she seemed to speak to the berries and she seemed to look around for something missing. Chooki recognized her from the village. She was the daughter of the medicine man and herb woman. Chooki had known her and always admired her for her gaze and energy.

So, chooki made a decision. She would appear to this young girl and teach her the new ways of relationship. As the young girl bent down to pick berries chooki crept up behind her with her cubs and watched. Then chooki made a bear scat where she knew the woman would go next. She hid the scat under the berries so it would look like a bear was picking berries and went poo. The young woman went to that group of bushes but she moved slowly like she was in a dream. The woman stepped into the bear scat and stopped. She did not get angry. She held up a hand with berries and seemed to make a prayer. Chooki heard what she prayed. Chooki realized she could hear the woman’s thoughts like they were her own. So, chooki prayed herself. She prayed, “ Bear grandmother, bear grandfather, thank you for this prayer. Thank you for this beautiful day picking berries with my cubs. Thank you for this beautiful young woman who you have chosen for me as my student.”

The woman gasped and looked startled. She stopped picking berries and looked around her as if to find something. Then she prayed again, she held up her basket of berries and prayed, “ Mother earth, Great Spirit, thank you for the voice I have just heard. Thank you for this new spirit animal guide who is appearing to me in my visions. I accept this guide and accept her teaching. I have been waiting and I am ready for this new role as bear shaman woman.”  She looked around her again and turned her head to look backwards and behind her she saw something wonderful. There was a beautiful female bear standing on her hind legs looking directly at her. Behind the bear, were two cubs. They were watching her too. Nothing moved. The bear just stood there and stared in her eyes. The cubs stayed behind their mother and looked at her too. Then, the mother bear dropped down on all four and walked slowly to the bush she was picking berries on. The young woman did not move at all. She stood still. The bear came right up to her and started picking berries. The bear can pick berries with it’s huge claws in a way more delicate than humans, picking each berry one at a time without harming them. The little girl then started picking berries again. She picked some and turned and looked at the bear picking next to her. She could smell this bear and feel the heat of her body. Chooki could smell the young woman and feel the heat of her body.

Then, something amazing happened. Chooki felt herself sliding out of her bear body and into the body of the young woman. The young woman felt herself sliding out of her body and into the body of the female bear. They met above the two physical bodies, bear and human and were now one. The one vibrated and became one bear/woman.

The bear spoke, “Welcome to our new being bear woman. We are one in this being and can share our thoughts, prayers, desires, experiences and lives. Together we will change the relationship of bear to human, of human to bear. I will teach you my songs of bear healing so you can bring them to your father and the people. I will teach you how to dance in a skin and have bear spirit come down to you to heal. All you need to do is listen. Every time I appear to you, we can merge and make one bear human and do this work. Thank you for being here, for accepting my challenge. You have a lot of courage and goodness. That is why mother great bear spirit chose you and chose me to work with you.”

Chapter 15