The Bear Goddess

Celtic, Norse, and Germanic mythologies have a tradition of a Bear Goddess.

The Bear Goddess is curious to me because she represents the woman shaman. She goes underneath the surface, builds a winter den, and falls asleep in the fertile dark. As in a shamanic death, she seeks hibernation in underworld darkness, deep into the universe inside, with only a subtle knowing that she will emerge.

Then, in spring, after her long sleep with the stars, wiping the crust of the dark moon from her eyes, she emerges into the clear light of knowing. That which was lost can now be remembered:

The power of the shamanic female.

Women by their very nature are shamanic. Woman is the original shaman, according to a Chukchee proverb. Sacred feminine indigenous wisdom runs deep, it’s a primordial, survival power. It contains within it all of the archetypes of the Great Mother principle: loving and fierce, protective and wise.

Becoming receptive to the shamanic feminine and reclaiming this empowerment means deprogramming the patriarchal conditioning of the mind. To evolve beyond the ways in which consciousness has been manipulated requires a great opening of the heart.

The depth and truth of female gnosis and power has been stolen and hidden. One example: belly dancing was traditionally used in ancient cultures to help women during childbirth by tuning into the wisdom of their own bodies. Belly dancing was taken from women and eroticized. In the great lie, her body turned into property, she lost the birthright of her ancestresses’ ancient wisdom, and became a disempowered sex object.