This new drum from the Journey Oracle has layers of story, just as the bear does by healing itself with plants that grow within, and on, and above the ground. Bear medicine brings the strength of introspection, just as the bear goes within the earth for rest and renewal. The power of bear medicine is in dreams, in guidance that comes from going into solitude to find ego-less confidence and balance.
As I am putting the last wraps of doeskin on the
interlacing handhold in the back of a new drum,
and oiling the blacktail deer skin surface
with makwa pemidi, the white gold of bear.
I am taking moments to gaze into the drum face,
like looking at the shifting flow of dreams
moving through the night sky.
A creature emerges, a bear.
Gazing away from me
with an expression at the same time
wise and child-like.
A round shape appears, a drum.
Upon its surface is another bear.
This one fully engaged in
confronting the viewer.
And between its paws is a stone figure,
a tiny bear.
I know this little bear.
I think I am being shown
it is not alone.
It has never been alone.
Sometimes I am quite sure it is we humans
who are the drums.
We are bound into the wrap between the
human world, the spirit world and nature
with knots that can fray but never let go.
And someone is always watching.
Because,
it's bears all the way down.
You can hear this drum being played with a felted beater by
The Bear Medicine drum is offered for sale in my Etsy webstore.
