Of Bees and Bears- Part 1

NOTE: This Blog post is not intended to offend, but being of a sensitive nature, I would like to give friends the opportunity not to read on if the aspect of my working with animal hides is upsetting. The story below is a sharing about my work with a bear hide to make a sacred drum……

Photos taken at the Collage of the Melissae and in my back yard.

For about a year now bears have been showing up in all sorts of ways in my shamanic work, while driving in the car, and more recently with my bee work; which at first I found strange because bears generally love to eat honey and in the process destroy bee hives, and yet……

Last June I got a phone call from a good friend of mine, a fellow drum maker, to whom I had extended the offer of studio space should he need it for some of his skins or hides as at the time he was living in a smallish space that did not allow for storing of large hides etc…

On the phone he mentioned that he had saved some bear hides from being thrown in the garbage, something that would not honor the bears who lives had been taken, and could he store them here. I willingly said yes and waited for him to show up….

Here on the coast the local people are allowed to hunt a certain amount of bear, deer and other animals by permit, they are allowed to eat the meat and to tan the hides.

I share this information because I feel it is important to spell out that these hides were legally obtained by hunters who do not “Game Hunt” I am appalled and simply saddened by  “game hunting” of animals, and the deer and elk hides that I use for drums are hunted legally{not game hunted} and most of their bodies are used for meat and their hides for drums, to their antlers for other sacred objects.

I think of the creation of  drums as sacred work, and I like to think that by crafting sacred drums there was some meaning and less waste that went into the sacrifice of these beautiful animals.

The day that my friend showed up with bear hides, he explained to me that they had been hunted for meat, and the hides were more of an afterthought. The fellow had tried to save them for personal use, but the hair fell out. What this meant though, was that the hides had been sitting around and were more likely then not destined for the garbage.

Now I do not, and have not, ever worked with bear hides before, and although I have been in possession of a few claws, each was treated with reverence, prayed over and then then lovingly crafted into a sacred item. Those claws are now all owned by people who work with bear medicine which makes me happy!

However–the day these hides arrived at my home, everything I thought went out the window as I navigated a new set of information, feelings and values, but honestly, as soon as I saw them I was moved into action washing them and lovingly working to make sure that they did not end up in the garbage! Everything else washed away as soon as I saw them.

And so there we were, two drum makers pulling bear hides out and trying our best to figure out how to save them, dry them and treat them in the most sacred manner we could. The task was gruesome to say the least, but once the hides were hung, we sat for a quiet moment and then I pulled out some sage and began to pray and smudge them, promising that they would not die in vain, asking permissions, and explaining that we would make sacred drums and rattles out of them, should permission be granted.

Of course several pieces immediately asked not be not hung and these went into my garden to be buried, and then a month later more went into the garden.

One of the hides Grant pointed out to me was female, you could tell by the patterning of nipples, and this made me sad as I wondered if she had cubs, but there was no way of knowing for sure, other then that she was small, so we guessed that she probably had not. She called out to me, and so my gift was to keep this one hide here to become a drum, while the rest went home with Grant.

For two months this piece stayed outside in the deep heat of summer soaking up rays and drying out and waiting for me to journey and see what it’s purpose would become.

In the meantime, bears continued to show up even with regards to my beekeeping work, which I was a bit confused about, but bees and bears seem to go together do they not, I mean they put honey inside little plastic bears after all!

It was not until I traveled down to Ashland to visit Laura Ferguson the director of the Collage of the Melissae, that it all seemed to come to a point that I could no longer deny that bear was trying to get my attention. As we were walking up the hill towards the bee hives on the tour Laura was giving me I noticed a large bear statue with breasts{see image above} she was standing at the top part of the hill holding a staff and and offering bowl, and had a small altar at her feet. I stopped dead in my tracks and managed to stutter out–why do you have a bear in the bee sanctuary?

The explanation was simple, she was donated to the collage by a local resident and she had become the guardian of the bees. I no longer needed to ask questions, the message was clear, I needed to get my butt home and spend some time with the small bear hide that was waiting for me. I needed to journey to the bear to ask for information about what this drum was to be……