Bear as Healer – “He Who Frightens Away Illness”

THE NAVAJO MOUNTAIN WAY CHANT

 

 

 

Navajo ceremonial practices emphasize healing human illness, emotional, mental, and physical, while restoring balance and harmony between humans and the rest of Nature. The most sacred of these ceremonies occur during the winter months. The best known of these is probably the Night Chant that lasts nine days and nine nights and is held sometime around the winter solstice – the timing of these ceremonies is fluid. Like the Night Chant the Mountain Way Chant probably stretches back into prehistoric times from 60,000 – 4000 B.C.E.

 

This second and equally sacred although less well known ceremony is also a nine-day/nine night chant that marks a transition between the seasons of winter and spring. The Mountain Way Chant takes place in late winter before thunderstorms strike and the spring winds arrive (around the spring equinox). One of its purposes is to call up the rains. It is also a ceremony led by a medicine man that addresses in particular, the mental uneasiness and nervousness associated with transitions, helping to bring individuals and their extended families back into balance and harmony.

 

Navajo cures target body, mind, and spirit, calling on everyone – the individual, kin, the medicine man, and the Spirits of Nature to help restore harmony. Before a medicine man (they are seldom women), is called, a hand trembler (often a woman), will diagnose the source of illness. Through prayer, concentration, and sprinkling of sacred pollen, her hand will tremble and pinpoint the cause, which then determines the proper ceremonial cure. Then the “singer” (medicine man) who knows the proper ceremony is called and preparations are set in motion.

 

There are nearly a hundred Navajo chants and each is nuanced and complex. All reflect different aspects of the Navajo Creation myth. Each includes purification rites, chants, songs, dancing, prayer sticks, and sand paintings. In order for a ceremony to be effective, everything must be done exactly as prescribed in the Navajo Creation Story. Besides these nine day ceremonies there are others whose ceremonies require four days, and many simpler ones requiring only a single day, each with its own dry-painting (sand painting).

 

In this essay I will not attempt to discuss the entire Mountain Way Chant – its much too complex – but will focus on the roles that the bear gods play in the sand paintings, mention briefly the role of plants, trees, and discuss bear songs that are pivotal to this ritual.

 

To the Navajo, bear gods are sacred and central to the healing of disease and disharmony all year long but especially in the early spring, (curiously, the Mountain Way Chant occurs just before the bear’s actual emergence from the den). The Navajos also understand that bears are close relatives and call them “The Mountain People”.

 

The Dine’ who now number over 200,000 in population, are the largest, and one of the most culturally intact Indian tribes in North America. Reigning over a reservation of some 25,000 square miles in size, the Navajos, like many other tribal peoples have long respected and honored bears as being fellow “beings” with whom they share the land. For the Navajo the bear is the Guardian of the West.

 

Historically there were two main species of bear that resided in Navajo territory: the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) and the black bear (Ursus americanus). While the grizzly bear has been hunted to extinction in the Southwest, the Black bear still inhabits mountainous areas including those within the Navajo Reservation. Bears are believed to be guides and guardians embodying great strength and self-knowledge.

 

The Navajo also believe that bears have tremendous healing powers (western scientific studies are just beginning to tap the mysteries behind a bear’s ability to heal itself, recycle body waste, and prevent bone and muscle loss during hibernation).

 

To the Dine’ the bear also embodies the powers of introspection, soul searching, insight. Additionally the powers of the bear also include death and rebirth. The bear apparently dies in the fall (because it hibernates) and is reborn in the spring; and the female emerges (every two years, hopefully) with new cubs or last year’s yearlings in tow. For all the above reasons bears have played a major role in Navajo tribal legends and ceremonialism. It is hardly surprising that they are central figures in the Mountain Way Chant.

 

On the fifth night of the Mountain Way Chant a dry painting of the bear in his den is created under the direction of the medicine man. Using powdered clays of various colors, the purpose of the ceremonial painting drawn in the center of the Hogan, is to summon up the powers of the bear as healer to frighten the patient, and thus banish illness and disharmony. The name of the first painting is called “Frighten Him On It.”

 

The bear as a powerful healer “scares” illness/disharmony away. The bear also appears in the same capacity (in an identical sand painting) during the fifth night during the Night Chant.

 

The sketch pictured as a whole represents the den of a hibernating bear. Colored earth picture bear-tracks leading in; bear-tracks and sundogs* are represented at the four quarters, and the bear himself, streaked with sunlight, is the center image. The twigs at the entrance of the bear den represent the trees, behind or under which bears often dig their dens in the sides of mountains. Everything in the sand painting is supposed to remind the individual of bears. The person enters the painting and sits down on the animal. The room is bathed in deep silence. Suddenly, a man, painted and clothed as a bear (historically a grizzly), rushes in, uttering terrifying snarls and huffs. All the assembled participants join in to frighten the illness away.

 

There is a second sand painting used on the sixth night of the Mountain Way Chant that is supposed to be a representation of the bears’ home in the Carrizo Mountains (not pictured). In the center of this painting is a bowl of water covered with black powder. The edge of the bowl is adorned with sunbeams, and external to it are the four sunbeam rafts, on which the Nature Spirits, the Yei stand. There is a close relationship between the Yei and the bears. In the Mountain Way Chant, Talking God, Water Sprinkler (often pictured as a rainbow) Growling God (bear), and Black God are always present.

 

Bears and Light are related. In the first dry painting there is light that surrounds the bear and light in the form of sundogs that are positioned in each of the four directions. In the second, sunbeams are present in the center and also in each of the four directions providing places for the Yei to stand. It’s very difficult not to draw the conclusion that the light that we are speaking of is an inner light, not an outer one, and this is consistent with the qualities of healing, insight, and introspection that the Navajos associate with the bear.

 

After each sand painting has been created and used for a healing it is then destroyed. With the bear painting erasure begins by destroying the tracks of the bear and moves around the circle obliterating the four directions beginning in the west.

 

Many aromatic plants are also used during these ceremonies to help restore harmony reflecting the importance of the ‘plant people’ to the Dine’ and to the bears.

 

The last dance of the Mountain Way Chant occurs inside a huge Circle of Spruce boughs that are brought in to a circle and then burned at the very end of the ceremony. Although this next point does not directly refer to bears I want to mention it briefly. Although grizzlies did not, Black bears co – evolved on this continent with trees during the last ice age and even today cannot be found in areas where they are absent. Black bears must have trees to climb in order to protect themselves and their young from predators. My point: Black bears and trees co –exist as a unit. And the importance of spruce boughs representing the sacred trees in these ceremonies cannot be stressed enough.

 

What follows are translations of three songs “that the women who have become bears sing.” These women have become holy people.

 

(1)The maiden that becomes a bear

walks far around

on the black mountain.

She walks far around.

Far spreads the land.

(this song is repeated once substituting blue for black –

black represents a male bear, blue a female bear)

 

(2)The young woman who becomes a bear

sets fire in the mountain

in many places; As she

journeys on

there is a line of burning mountains.

 

(3) In ancient times during a year of great drought

the holy ones set fire to the mountains and the waters.

The smoke arose in great clouds from which rain descended onto the land.

The woman who sought the gods found them.

 

Throughout the Mountain Way Chant both male and female bears are present at different times as bears and as holy people.

 

As a Black bear researcher I am struck by the correspondence between the details of the first painting and the way bears actually hibernate. Black bears prefer to den with openings to the south side, and because they walk in their own tracks they can enter and leave a den invisibly leaving no tracks at all. Note that in this sketch of the painting the tracks only go one way.

 

I am also struck by another healing aspect of the bear that doesn’t seem to appear in the extensive research I did for this essay, and that is the bear’s apparent ability to treat itself when it is ill by ingesting certain plants. It may be that these plants are part of the ceremony but are not mentioned by name (or names that I would recognize). Certainly the Navajo knew about these plants and tubers because they were the first naturalists, people who learned directly from animals, plants, trees, through keen observation.

 

That the bear would be so important to Native peoples in the Northern Hemisphere is also not surprising if one considers that Ursa Major, the Great Bear, is among the oldest recognized patterns in the sky. This prominent cluster of bright stars is circumpolar for mid-northern to polar latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Interestingly, throughout the Americas Indigenous people of all tribes called this constellation the Great Bear.

 

Although today this star cluster conjures up other images to other peoples – stories about this particular constellation may date back to the Ice Age when ancient people could cross over the Bering Strait to North America. At that time, cultures in both Siberia and Alaska shared a common heritage. It is even possible that the constellation Ursa Major actually got its name 50,000 years ago because of a Paleolithic bear cult that existed in Europe.

 

Maybe the next time you look up into a velvet night sky towards the North you will see the Great Bear and think of him as being one of the most important animal healers of all time.

 

 (1) For those that don’ t know – sundogs occur when ice crystals acts as prisms, separating the sunlight into different colors and forming a sundog. … Mainly, sundogs are visible while you are facing and looking towards the sun while rainbows occur in just the opposite location. Here in New Mexico one sees them frequently.

 

Postscript: It is important to note that although the Navajo have lived in the Southwest for about 1,000 years, they are related to the woodland Indians of western Canada and Alaska. They speak Athabaskan, the language native to the western sub arctic and once lived in the boreal forest and made their living much the way Athabaskan peoples do today. When they migrated south along the Rockies they ended up in Arizona and other Southwestern states, and took on attributes of the Pueblo peoples. But the foundation of their culture lies in the North Country. It is theorized that they may have reached this continent by way of Siberia. However, some sources suggest that Native peoples have been here all along. Navajo people did not hunt bears unless they were starving because they considered all bears their relatives and complex rituals surrounded any necessary kill.

A Beary Peaceful Day

 

It is overcast and a few drops of rain are falling. I have been out talking to Tree Bear (TB), a yearling who has brightened my life in these dark soul days. Tree Bear comes up the mossy pine strewn path to the clearing and peeks at me from behind his white pine intermittently as he snacks.

 

There are so many old felled trees full of tasty grubs and ants now that the spring grasses have matured and gone by; soon the berries will ripen and Tree Bear will begin to put on weight. Acorns will be the choice of food for fall. Few people know that Black Bears are mostly vegetarian.

 

The other night I watched TB in the cherry tree, sitting in the branches like a monkey calmly combing out his thick under fur as he munched on cherry leaves and hard green cherries. He is a healthy looking and very beautiful yearling with brown eyebrows and a bump in his nose that is only visible from some angles. He probably weighs 50 – 60 pounds and has some brownish fur in places.

 

He was recently separated from his mother who left him because she needed to mate and his little sister has also disappeared. His face is so full of compassion that it takes my breath away. I say compassion because my personal experience has taught me that some (if not all) of these animals understand human suffering and respond to it by taking concrete actions. One slept outside my window while my dog was dying, another came to sit by me one night while I was wildly weeping outside in the dark. Stark and hopeless depression brings them in. Empathy flows like a deep underground river between us – why – because bears like other animals have deep feelings that are not mediated by abstract intellectual rational thinking.

 

This is not to say that all bears respond to humans this way. But some do, and Tree Bear is one of these animals. Bears are demonized by humans, shot and wounded on sight (legally and illegally) often in the gut so they will die slowly and painfully. In Maine we hunt them for three months; with hounding ‘practice’ three months become four. What is truly amazing is that these animals do not retaliate in kind, except on rare occasions. A human has a million to one chance of being killed by a bear. These animals use remarkable restraint, utilizing peacekeeping practices for themselves and humans alike. If bears ruled the Earth there would be no wars. All bears utilize a matriarchal family system with mothers and daughters sharing territories; males roam the peripheries.

 

This morning I quietly spoke to TB while slowly approaching his tree. I know his language; he huffs to remind me how much he disapproves of close encounters. Yesterday, he eluded me each time I tried to film him. He’s wary, full of curiosity, and uncertainty. Fear when it comes to other bears. He stands on two feet in alarm when he glimpses his own mother. He does not trust me, but allows me to approach him if I do it respectfully. He moans when I get too close even though I keep reassuring him that I am his friend.

 

Sometimes TB is a clown. Late yesterday afternoon he lay on his back with a can positioned between his paws poking his nose into its cavity. Next he chased it down the hill. I have to find other toys to amuse him.

 

His trickster aspect is most evident when he sees me with the camera. He turns his head away, ducks behind a branch, runs down to the brook or disappears down the path in a flash. TB is also developing a habit of peering around tree corners to see who I might be talking to.

 

TB and I both love trees. Black Bears are native to this continent and co evolved with trees. They cannot live in treeless places because they are a prey animal who must have trees to protect themselves and their young.

 

Obviously Black Bear territory is shrinking.

 

TB and I have such a brief moment in time to be together. Even now each gun shot, or semi automatic blast slams a hole in my heart. The future for this bear is grim. Most of the bears that are slaughtered are yearlings (18 – 20 months old) when they are first on their own.

 

All this to become a trophy or rug, a badge of “manhood” on some idiot’s wall.

 

Perhaps because of the rapidly approaching hunting season each moment spent observing TB’s behavior is that more precious. Befriending this bear brings me to the edge of possibility.

 

We could find a way to live together, if only we would.

 

I close with a quote from Leslie Marmon Silko that mirrors my own experience:

 

“It is very peaceful with the bears; the people say that’s the reason human beings seldom return.”

When the Cranes Come

(Cranes calling my name)

 

 

I remember the day he was born

 

Nothing but winter gray…

 

That night a pearl

 

white moon blossom

 

rose full and round

 

And the deer lay down

 

in the shadow of a towering tree…

 

 

He was taken from me.

 

 

I wondered then

 

About Peace,

 

If it would ever come

 

If pain would lift to the sky.

 

 

A lifetime later

 

my heaped up heart leaps

 

when the cranes

 

rise up from the river

 

singing songs so full of love

 

and joyful community

 

that haunting cries

 

and soul flight

 

heal what’s broken.

 

 

 

Pueblo people say that humans were once Cranes who lived in the clouds… they came to earth and danced for joy in the rain… Cranes watched over Ceremony, also acting as Guardians for the People easing transitions from life to death and beyond….

 

To this day Crane dances are part of Indigenous rituals…

 

The lives/migrations of Cranes speak to the powers of Love on a level that humans can barely comprehend…

 

Yesterday I found a Zuni prayer that speaks to the powers of these birds, revered throughout the world; Cranes move us towards that Love.

 

I offer this prayer to a deeply troubled world on Valentines day this year….

 

“When our Earth Mother

is replete with living waters,

When spring comes

The source of our flesh –

All the different kinds of corn

We shall lay to rest in the ground.

 

With their Earth Mother’s

Living waters,

They will be made into

New Beings…

 

That our Earth Mother

May wear a fourfold green robe

Full of moss

Full of flowers

Full of pollen,

 

That the land may be thus

(S/he has made you)

I have made you into living beings.

 

Postscript:

I no sooner finish these words when I hear a joyful cacophony outside my adobe (which mutes most sound) and run to open the door… The cranes are crying out with such exuberance that I am forced once again to witness how writing about a non – human species with deep feeling brings them in. We are bound by a love that literally passes all understanding. I know, that they know I love them…And this, is enough.

For Love of Dogs

 

(Hope in the Foreground, Lucy at the bottom of our bed)

 

End of the year reflection….

 

I have been a naturalist all my life and except for the years I spent as an undergraduate I have always had dogs. Dogs were the first animals that taught me about unconditional love. They routinely demonstrated that I was always good enough, and always accepted for who I was even if I was “different,” severely directionally dyslexic, failed every math class, couldn’t remember which side of the road I was supposed to drive on when I first got my license, was harshly criticized by patriarchal parents, and later, after my little brother’s suicide, overcome by guilt and grief so overwhelming that it catapulted me into the underworld for ten years.

 

During this period except for waitressing, and attempting unsuccessfully to mother young children, I withdrew from the world. I couldn’t bear to spend time outdoors because every tree, frog, stone, reminded me of my beloved companion, the brother I lost. If I hadn’t had dogs when my brother died I wonder how I would have survived at all. Their sensitivity to my moods astonished me and for a long time I believed that “something” had graced me with the brightest, most loving, most attentive canine friends in the world.

 

Totally isolated from people and from the rest of Nature, my dogs slipped through the crack and accompanied me on my deadly journey. They slept beside me at night, and when I awoke from endless nightmares in unspeakable grief and hopelessness or blacked out in despair I would run my hands through thick fur as they snuggled up even closer to me covering my face with kisses. Even through the dense fog I felt their love permeating my body – a great underground river of love with a capital “L”.

 

Sammy, a malamute became my first “teacher” as I began the mountainous climb out of suicidal darkness. I had been numb for so long, and now that I was beginning to grieve my brother’s dying, she helped me stay with the agonizing process. Together we began to walk into the forest, down by the sea, often late at night after I returned from work. She was my protector, I believed.

 

One September afternoon while racing around in a haze of mindless mother frenzy I happened to notice her lying in the tall grass outside the window, scenting, silent, alert, her nose to the wind. It was a beautiful blue and gold fall day and I wanted more than anything to be out there too… I asked myself how I could begin to make sense of my stupid life – as a single mother I was drowning in boredom and busyness – The moment I asked the question Sam turned her head towards mine and answered clearly. “ Be present for this moment.”

 

Disbelief permeated my being but was not powerful enough to dismiss the message. Sammy was reading my mind. I tried to rationalize what had happened and couldn’t so I concentrated on the message. What did she mean I pondered for weeks afterwards, gradually reaching the conclusion that ‘being in the moment’ meant that I had to begin to create space for a person I didn’t even know, myself. What a terrifying thought. This was a radical notion for someone who had up until that point been a robot, following the culture’s dictates, had no sense of having personal autonomy, and failed to “fit in,” to the society she was socialized into. Choice was simply not real to me. No one was home.

 

What I had no way of knowing was how this message from my dog would begin to affect the remainder of my life. Sam not only opened the door to the void in myself but she helped me acknowledge that there was something called interspecies communication, and that I had been ignoring the messages I had been receiving from plants and animals ever since I was a child playing in the woods with my little brother… Although it would take years to believe what I intuited and was told by animals and trees as an adult, (my western conditioning constantly interrupted my experiences, discounting them), a path through the forest had opened. My dreaming body helped lead me, as did Nature who began to speak in tongues of fire at each new dawn.

 

Dogs remained my constant companions as I struggled to discover who this woman was as she emerged from beneath a death shroud to traverse the spiral way, sinking under the waves, surfacing, and being swallowed again. Lacking clear conscious direction I turned turned more and more towards Nature for clues and confirmation and was never disappointed although I frequently mis – read messages, a vulnerability I carry to this day. If I was on the right track I often received dreams of confirmation that helped. But without the constant presence of dogs my intense loneliness would have defeated me, for mine was a path few traveled, and this remains true today.

 

At midlife I fell into the underworld for the second time when my first grandson was born, and I was prevented from seeing or becoming a grandmother to him. The grief from this second intolerable loss threatened to unhinge me, and had I not had my beloved dogs and Nature as a whole to sustain me, I believe I might have died from grief.

 

Coming to terms with a lifetime of loss of children and grandchildren gripped and literally almost crushed the life out of my soul- body self for the second time. This time though, because the deaths weren’t physical I hung on to hope, refusing to give up. I made every conceivable effort to repair the damage even when waves of hopelessness tumbled me into predictable cycles of depression that worsened as time wore on. Finally in the year of 2011 after a horribly abusive and ongoing rejection by my youngest son late in December, I reached the point where I was forced to conclude that nothing was going to change because both my sons were getting something grim out of blocking my every attempt to reconcile. With a stunned horror engulfing me I suddenly understood on a visceral level how much pleasure my anguish and torment was bringing them. How could I have been so blind? I had reached the end of my “long winding road”… Now the question became: was I going to be able to survive these losses too. The loss of four more children seemed too much to grapple with. Was it even possible to move beyond this ocean of mother grief?

 

Up until this point discovering the scholar, accruing degrees, teaching, writing, and counseling, my love for my dearest canine companions and the rest of Nature had sustained me. I loved the peace of my own company and joyful moments were frequent as I communed with non – human species, wild or tame. Being with Her kept me in balance. I had crafted my own life and the better I got to know myself the more respect I developed for this courageous woman who had emerged out of deep suffering, triumphant, and willing to stand alone.

 

But I couldn’t ignore the signs year after year… During the spring and summer the rains didn’t come, and the water level dropped in my brook to an alarming low. My beloved trees were showing signs of stress, dropping leaves too early. The poplars were diseased. A couple of my fruit trees stopped blooming. Maine was logging so many forested areas that we had only 16 percent ‘mature’ forest left in the state. A mature tree was considered to be 30 years old, not even adult enough to produce nuts or fruit. I noticed that a number of species of birds had disappeared. Bears were becoming scarce because so many had been shot.

 

Most baffling were my dreams that had been dark and ominous since I had first moved to this precious Earth – a small oasis bordered on three sides by a brook and peppered with a mix of deciduous and conifer forest, embracing an old field and 20 acres. In these dreams which began almost immediately disappearing brooks, slaughtered trees, barren granite mountains and mean neighbors whose cold hatred of me astounded me all forecast a future that was incomprehensible to me even as the Earth continued to communicate her deep distress. In 1994 neighbors moved in…

 

Every attempt I had made to reconcile with sons, was now being mirrored by these terrifying neighbors, whose viciousness made me cringe. I was forced to face human ugliness on a level that mirrored my children’s behavior: these people also took pleasure out of tormenting me. I couldn’t grasp the implications behind the torture because I didn’t believe in evil. The question that haunted me was why…I spent years trying to get along with all of them and failed. There had to be something wrong with me…

 

Nothing made sense and by the spring of 2012. I began to flounder. I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. Unbeknownst to me, my dog Star developed cancer that summer although I didn’t dream her illness until the following September when it was too late. Although my beloved Vet operated on her immediately, the first night we slept together on the floor after her operation I saw a falling star and knew she would die… Four more intolerable months of hell followed before her death.

 

I acknowledged then that I needed a dog more than one would ever need me. I lamented. As soon as the monstrous grief peaked and let go, I acquired Bridgee who almost died in a fire the night before I got her and had stomach issues when she arrived that ended in her death as a young dog…Then I found Hope who came to me in the form of a three pound Chihuahua. Together, we survived the following winter during which time I came to the realization that grief had been pouring out of every cell in my body for so long without reprieve that my nine year old dog absorbed it, and had become ill and died. When I chose Bridgee, I chose a dog who was already compromised… ( again the haunting: was there something wrong with me?) I did not blame myself. But I asked Nature what I could do with this knowledge. I wanted Star’s sacrifice to matter.

 

Anyone who has had canines knows that dogs love unconditionally as a matter of course, and when their people are experiencing intolerable distress they take on their pain. My anguish manifested in Star as cancer, and it killed her (with Bridgee I didn’t know). I kept this information to myself because I knew that no one would believe me if I said that dogs can die not only from grieving for their lost humans, but also from carrying human pain, but I knew it was true.

 

I vowed to keep this knowing close; to stay aware, to make sure that I didn’t unknowingly create a situation in which I ignored my Hope at her expense. I took great pleasure in our daily playing, made certain she never got left home alone, mentally attempted to create a boundary between my pain and this dog. When Lucy, another unwanted Chihuahua needed a home I agreed, hoping that having two of them might lessen the intensity of my need for a deep human- dog relationship which might give them some protection, or at the very least they were company for one another. Maybe having two might help keep them safe from the ravages of depression and grief that I couldn’t control? I also began thinking I needed to leave Maine…

 

To digress a moment, it is not well known that there is impeccable scientific research being done on the relationships between dogs and humans. Dogs can sniff out cancerous growths in the people they love and others, they can find human bodies under mountains of debris as the world witnessed in 2001, they can predict earthquakes and changes in weather; they heal people with mental illness, help those diagnosed with PTSD (like me) deal with anxiety, provide steadfast companionship without betrayal, they ease the loneliness of the aged, relate to autistic and abused children. In short dogs are Animal Healers who will literally give their lives to save humans from further suffering, as Star did for me.

 

I began to dream of returning to the desert…I needed to find a way to make my life meaningful to me again, and once before the desert had helped heal me enough to go on after a painful divorce.

 

It took three more years before I moved to Abiquiu, New Mexico with Hope, Lucy, and Lily b my telepathic Dove. Initially, I fell in love with sky and stone, the ways of the Indigenous Tewa. I have been here two years, and have recently moved into a little adobe that I have made my own. I have made new friends, and over two years have developed as intimate a relationship with the scrub, juniper cottonwoods and Red Willow river as I had with my patch of land in Maine.

 

The first year I thrived. Skies that caught fire at sunset, wild and unpredictable summer rains, seductive Datura, tufts of wildflowers popping up in unlikely places, impossible sand cliffs, snow tucked safely in the mountains, the winter sun, all became my lovers…

 

This last year has been just the opposite. I have been ill with diverticulitis for much of the time, a condition that is chronic as well as becoming antibiotic resistant. Most of last winter, spring, and early summer I spent housebound. Living on a new edge with ongoing stomach issues, including attacks of severe colitis, resulted in me making a physical adjustment. It is uncertain if I can ‘manage’ my diverticulitis without surgery. I have never been more aware of my mortality, or that I am living the last segment of my life.

 

For the remainder of last summer I became housebound for another reason. I discovered that I cannot tolerate the wall of heat from a merciless summer sun, and as it became clear that the drought I thought I left behind me in Maine was manifesting in front of me because I was living it. I crumpled. The dark side of the desert is its killing heat, which is so deadly without rain. Daily I witnessed the withered scrub, shrunken wildflowers, squawberry bushes dropping leaves in July, dead rabbit bush, wild grasses, and snakeweed, stones appearing in what was once a rushing river, heard the cries and felt the desperation of the cottonwoods and junipers as they sunk roots deeper into parched desert ground… At night cicadas screamed. When the trees caught fire by the millions I couldn’t breathe, whether for them or me, I do not know. Only the ‘edge woman’ lived – the one that rose long before sunrise, dragging herself to the river in the dark, mourning the loss of cover in a dried up bog, aching for the sight of even one frog. Where were the Cloud People; where was the rain? Each trip outdoors opened the doors to hell; I felt dazed and dizzy; some days I could barely stand up and I wondered then if I was dying too. I remade my will prepared for the event should it happen. For a while during summer torment my stomach issues abated, then…

 

When Lucy became desperately ill in August with what turned out to be colitis all my alarm bells went off. Oh no, not again. I have done everything I know to keep my illness my own… but Lucy is so sensitive, and so dependent upon me, perhaps the more vulnerable of the two dogs. One more attack followed two months later. The Vet here does not know what’s wrong with her but I think I do. I pose the question to Nature: Is there anything I can do to protect these dogs from illness that doesn’t belong to them? I adore my animals. I do not want my dogs to sacrifice their lives for me. Nature does not answer. But my stomach issues returned in November…

 

I think of years past, when Sammy had convulsions while I was beaten up, when Rinkie developed irritable bowel disease and died from it after I lost my grandson. Star developed cancer of the spleen after Dee’s brutal 2011 betrayal. Bridgee came to me barely surviving a fire, had stomach issues and died from unknown causes that also were stomach related. And now stomach issues may be threatening my life. It’s almost as if each dog was carrying some element of my grief in their bellies for years before it manifested in an illness that one day would become my own.

 

We know that there is something called a gut brain.; that we think and feel and sense truth from our bellies. My truths were deeply hidden in the bowels of hell and although I have spent a lifetime uncovering what is real, and am doing everything I can to heal my own mind body split, will it be enough to help us all survive?

 

I have no answers; only more questions.

 

Now that the winter season is upon us I can look out the window and remind myself that the plants are resting. I continue to water my trees in the ongoing drought, but I don’t have to witness the withering… I wake up before sunrise and bring the day in with gratitude through deliberate and joyful attention. I can walk outdoors any time I want, and have the freedom to hike where I choose – the gift of winter’s repose. I never tire of kneeling before the wood stove, lighting a fire from wood that was dead when it was gathered, while giving thanks for trees. Each day brings more joy as the sun warms the tiles on the floor and casts rainbows through the crystals hanging in the windows. My indoor plants are thriving, green and lush, especially my Norfolk Island pine who has grown a foot in the last six weeks since beginning my winter ritual of celebrating the Tree of Life, and the life of every tree on this planet. Lucy and Hope are happy to have my attention whenever they need it, and I am thankful for each passing day. With the solstice turning only two days away I am acutely aware of changes that will come… for change is the only constant.

 

Winter is our brief reprieve – Nature’s and mine… Soon we will be facing the heat of a merciless spring sun that without adequate rain (and this is the pattern) continues to kill the desert plants as they struggle to return to life.

 

When I put my house up for sale last summer I had no sense of wrongdoing. I was leaving Maine behind, I thought. But to my surprise in the interim I have become homesick for the North Country and I long to return to my other home to hear the songs of frogs, to visit with toads and deer, to be with my little forest of trees, to be able to walk out my front door without running into a fiery wall of intolerable heat, to walk in occasional rain, to visit with my cardinals… Of course the desert has made the choice for me because my poor body cannot endure 90 – 100 degree temperatures or the ravages of forest fires. But this time I will return to Maine for the summer with a new level of acceptance. I realize now that the anguish of ongoing personal and Natural grief pushed me over the edge. I came here in part to escape drought and walked into a burning furnace. How ironic.

 

I know now there is no place to go.

 

I must find a way to adapt – to allow the grief of what is happening with me and my beloved planet to flow through me without denial or hope for unrealistic change. My equally deep love for the desert has been tempered by its dark side. This is a hard place – a harsh place of wind, sun, and stone. Wild beauty abounds and the sky is cracked with stars and my love for cactus is deeply personal because I need to become one to survive! Thicker spines and a tougher exterior are much needed; No wonder I love them so!

 

In the two years I have been here I have also witnessed the dominant culture embrace hatred as normal. Because I am precognitive, I understand that what I endured at my children and neighbors hands was probably a precursor of what would come to be a cultural reality for all, just as the loss of my brook water and trees mirrored by Climate Change. Once again I remember the dreams that forecast it would be so.

 

In my 74^th year I remain an outsider but am a woman who speaks her truth, always unvarnished and often unwelcome. We are short on staying in the truth of what is, these days, and expressing my truths, which are inexorably tied to those of the culture is what I have to offer. Weaving back and forth between the two, I continue to advocate for women (and myself), especially the victims of sexual assault without apology. And my love for this beloved Earth, her creatures and trees is the driving force behind every word I write.

 

And yes, my grief lives on too, the greatest underground river of all, but when I stay in the truth of what is, deep joy is the gift I receive from all Nature and in particular from the unconditional love from my dogs…

 

I also remember my tale is only one of millions, and the eventual outcome of our personal stories and the ravages of Climate Change which are intimately connected, like it or not, is as yet unknown.

 

Meanwhile, Blessed Be the Animals, and especially our steadfast companions, all dogs….

 

 

 

On this coming solstice night as the Earth turns towards winter, I look to Her for comfort and winter peace even as I scry starry night skies searching for the old woman in an ancient Italian tale who comes riding on her broomstick leaving gifts for all, a story that is thousands of years old – predating “Saint Claws” by millennia…