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Dragon's Lair Pagan Parlor
ANIMAL SPIRIT GUIDES: THE BEAR
Shamanism, the world's oldest healing tradition, is found in all cultures on Earth.
Shamans work with their allies - the animal spirits. Learn the wisdom of these spiritual teachers. They are many and their wisdom will appear to you before they do.
SPIRIT BEAR
My most special guide is White Bear or Spirit Bear.
He is a strong spirit, and not one to argue with, yet he is gentle and caring too.
He often visits me at night, giving me strength, love and protection.
He is a provider of a great healing energy and helps me in my healing work.
The bear is a symbol of power. It is also a shape-shifter; there are stories of bears turned into humans and humans into bears. It is associated with the huntress and the goddess Diana. Bears are ferocious carnivores and will eat almost anything. Their medicine is to go within (hibernation) to find the resources necessary for survival in order to make choices from a position of power. Bears are associated with trees. For myself personally, Bear is the ability to shape shift, to be the aggressor and to eat anything in my path. This is particularly helpful in extractions or de-possessions (removal of energy or entities from the client). The cunning and resources of bear allows for powerful shamanic work.
As a deity or ancestor, the Bear represents many things in ancient Cultures, more often than not the Bear is seen as a deity, as in Artio (A Bear Goddess of the Continental Celts) or Mudjekeewis (The Spirit Keeper of the West to some Native Americans). Also Bear is seen by many ancient cultures as an ancestor to humanity. In some cases the ancestor Bear is female, more often however it is male, and the link to the bear as an ancestor can be found in it's many names. Babgai (a Buryat Mongol word for Bear) means Father, Mato (A Lakota word for Bear) means Grandfather. Like us, the Bear has five fingers. This brings us our love of the Ancestors ways and our wish for inter-cultural peace and understanding.
Bear splits the Veil - Whether through the medium of shape-shifting as in the Berserkers of the Norse or through it's creative dreaming, the medicine of Bear is that of piercing (or in some cases completely rending) the veil between the world of man and the world of nature, and between the world of the physical and the world of the spiritual. In fact wherever there is separation, Bear is there to bring connection by a direct communication between both sides. This brings us our reasons for practicing Druidry with a Shamanic twist.
Bear as a forager. Naturally Bears spend much of their time rooting through the earth for roots, tracking down berries and, well searching for their favorite thing... food. but in this searching, the Bear also has built up a knowledge of what plants make it feel better when it's stomach as been upset or it has a pain etc. The Bear is a natural healer. The Bear can also smell roots underground... from up to four miles away!
In order to gain this amount of knowledge, the Bear needs to have an intimate relationship of the land in which it lives. Bear territories are huge and so this points to a vast memory. To be at one with the environment and as we have said above, the world of spirit, makes the Bear an ideal Druidic or Shamanic guide. These two parts give us our emphasis on environmental awareness and protection.
The bear is often the totem of mothers since they have a reputation for fiercely protecting their young from any kind of harm.
If a man is sick, I turn into a bear,
The Great Bear of the First Creation.
My fur is all white, but no polar bear,
I'm the Bear of the First Creation.
I lick my paws all over, seize hold of that man,
Squeeze him tight wherever it hurts him,
Then I blow all over his body, with my healing breath, The First Breath of the First Creation.
***** Reindeer Chukchee (Asiatic Eskimo), c.19
THE GREAT WHITE BEAR
In Native American traditions the Great White Bear is "Extremely healing." In many mythologies the bear is the shamanic part of oneself, and its ceremonialized death and resurrection is an initiation into a shamanic system (Shamanism). This white bear traverses all three shamanic worlds, upper, middle and lower, and stands at the axis due North, just as the Great Bear constellation points to the Pole Star. The Winter Solstice is a gateway to these worlds. The dawn midwinter sun brought rebirth to the dead and the darkened world, yet the darkness itself brings stillness and peace.
White Bear also symbolizes the death of a highly significant part of your life. What one requires for rebirth, to break a continuous cycle of repeated patterns, is forgiveness, absolution, the power and blessing of love, whether from an external source or oneself. Perhaps for the first time in your life, you feel a whole person, reborn.
The White Bear is of the brown bear family. Its parents are brown and its brothers and sisters are brown. Every now and again one of the bears is born white. It is not an albino, just simply white. As such, it is given the name `spirit bear'
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HELPFUL PAGAN PARENTING LINKS & RESOURCES
PaganParenting.net: The Pagan Parenting Page
Mama Witch's Pagan Parenting Home Page
Raising Pagan Children In Non-Pagan Communities
Flame RavenHawk: Raising Pagan Children
Pagan Digest: Raising Pagan Children
WitchVox.com: Legal Smarts For Pagan Parents
Blackburns: Pagan Parenting Recommendations & Links
Elowyn's Pagan Parenting Cauldron
The Glass Temple: Pagan Parenting
The Witches' League: Pagan Family & Kids Links
About.com: Pagan/Wiccan Religion, Family Links
The Real Freedom of Choice: Why Aren't We Raising Our Children As Pagans?
Medea's Chariot: Pagan Parenting Page
Technomom.com: Pagan Parenting
Rosebud's Garden: Pagan Parenting & Homeschooling Links
AriadneSpider.com: Pagan Parenting & Pagan Teen Links
PPP - Raising Pagan Children In Non-Pagan Communities
PPP - Pagan & Non-Pagan Holiday Celebrations
PPP - Fun Stuff To Do With Your Kids
PPP Family Rituals
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The source of all creation;
May the Goddess, the Lady of the Moon;
And the God, Horned Hunter of the Sun;
May the rulers of the elemental realms, Earth, Air, Fire and Water;
May the powers of the Stars above and the Earth below,
Bless this web site, and this time, and I who am with You.
I ask for you to protect these pages,
And that no harm to those who visit here.
So mote it be.
I am always looking for new material to add to my web site. If you have Pagan-friendly stories that you would like to submit to moondragon.org, please e-mail me the story and I will place a page for each story along with your name, as author, and a link to your web site, if you have one. If you already have stories on your website, please e-mail me your link with a description of your story and I will be happy to include a link to your pages with your stories. I have many Pagan parents looking for stories for their children and this is a great way to get some recognition and bring some people your way. If I supply a link to your website, please inform me if you change links or take down your website so I can make corrections.
Thank you and Blessed Be.
Leather Dupris, Domiciliary Midwife & Pagan Priestess
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Salem, Massachusetts
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