Chronicles of the Mass Exodus Episode 3: The Bear Story

I was looking at some modern New Mexico sculpture on day and ran across some pieces by Frank Andrews. He is an interesting artist who is not shy about sharing where he gets his ideas for petroglyph sculptures from. "I hike into prehistoric rock art sites in the desert Southwest, take photographs and make drawings, then convert them into sculpture patterns in my studio. My raw materials are copper tubing and copper welding rod. I bend different sizes of tubing to the image of my pattern, hammer the pieces flat on an anvil, then assemble the figure by welding the elements together with an oxy-acetylene welding torch. The design is then coated several times with copper welding rod to build up a texture that replicates the texture of the original stone image." His pieces are nice, the kind of thing you would find hanging on a wall somewhere.

This got me thinking about the different Native American symbols prevalent in these cave/wall carvings. Avia Venefica wrote this about the symbolism of the bear: the bear imparts this advice to both our ancestors and us today - Because the bear is cautious, it encourages discernment to humankind. Because of a fierce spirit, the bear signals bravery to those who require it. Because of its mass and physical power, the bear stands for confidence and victory. Because it prefers peace and tranquility (in spite of its size), the bear calls for harmony and balance. These seemed to me to be such strong yet gentile images, I felt drawn to them. Years ago I had bought my DW some green Jade bear fetish earrings. This past Christmas I bought her 2 more different pairs as well as a couple of hand-carved bear stones to make into a necklace.

This summer we had a visitor. I got a call from our next door neighbor and he said a bear had attached his bird feeders and made off with one of them. A couple of my DW’s early morning walking buddies had seen a bear, near a creek where we live, with a couple of young cubs. They dashed across the road. No more early morning walking for a while. We also heard about a couple of reports of a bear sighting no more than a couple of roads away from our house. It was against this backdrop that my story about the bear is set.

I am in the habit of drinking my coffee while sitting on our deck off the front of the house. I look into the forest that surrounds our property and listen for the birds and various rodents of the day. I only do this when the weather is not too cold, not too wet, not too hot and humid. That is about 6 days a year in Massachusetts. No, I kid you Commonwealth, it really is a few more days than that but not too many more. One Saturday morning, working on cup #2 (or maybe #3) I heard some noise coming out of the bush. I looked carefully, seeing nothing at first, but then a large black shape broke out of the woods. My initial thought – wow, look at the size of that dog. My second, more correct idea – WOW, LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT BEAR! He was in a full four paw gallop across the edge of our yard, up the driveway for about 40 feet and then made a sharp right turn near the old abandoned pop-up camper. This sight was interrupted by a phone call from our neighbor telling us the bear had struck again and was last seen headed for my yard. For the next couple of minutes there was the crashing of a large animal through the underbrush deep in the woods before the silence indicated the coast was clear.

Now, I never thought that I was in danger or anything like that but I must say I was enveloped with a sense of calmness. Earlier that morning the DW and I were discussing the possible move to New Mexico and how interested we were in the Native American culture. This bear sort of was the exclamation point to our discussion. A sign that we were doing the right thing.