Bear Star (Bear Clan)
by L.Cota Nupa Maka
In a time beyond time, I was with my mother Ursula. My walk was not of this land, but one of the stars in the multiverse. My mother took me through the Milky Way, the spirit of the sky world, she showed me where to gather the sweet fruit of the many galaxies. Life was good and we where happy, all was safe and at peace. We were many in those days and we held the sky as our world, the galaxy was our place to sleep and dream.
My mother one day said, "It is time for me to place you in your own land. In time you will be alone and I want you to always have your star to come home too." With this said she bit off a piece of the moon and threw it out into the limitless space of time. I watched as it spun off into the darkness and vanished. Next we traveled to the sun and again she bit off a large piece of this molten liquid and threw this out into space. I watched as the shining light of the sun flew into the darkness and united with the small piece of the moon. They spun around and around until they formed between them a round ball of blue and white. This small ball then flew off on its own dancing and spinning between them.
After a long time my mother took me to see this new blue ball that she had created called Ursula or home of the Bear Star.
It was a wonderful place full of water and trees of every kind like the ones we saw in the long lost galaxies that we traveled. There were many plants and animals and fishes. Birds of all colors and size filled the water and the air.
With her claws my mother dug great rivers and made mountains by pulling the soil this way and that until she was pleased with what she had done. In the side of one of the mountains she dug a deep hole into the heated center of the blue ball.
She went in and told me to follow her so I entered this hole in the blue ball and found it warm and comfortable.
There my mother made a bed for me of soft moss, and told me that I was to sleep for many years. She said that I would sleep here until I was awakened. She said my heart would be like the land it would beat and help this place to be strong. She said that one day I would know when it was time to wake up. At that time I would come out of my sleeping space to travel this land and the sky world again. My mother told me I would dream all that was, or ever would be, on this blue ball into being, and that in time there would come others to share this space.
So I lay down and slept the long sleep and dreamed the creation of this blue ball into being.
In time there came the great shaking of the land and the water became bad and the smell entered my sleeping place. The liquids of the land spilled over into my dreams and I became aware that the time had come for me to awake.
When I awoke there was devastation all around me and the beauty that was in my dreams was destroyed by these strange beings that had come to live on the land.
The sun had faded into a thick layer of white mist and the water was freezing into ice on the mountains and the lakes.
I again walked the land that my mother had created with her powers of the sky world and saw the destruction that had taken place in my time of sleeping.
I sat on the mountains and prayed to the sky world to send my mother back to help me find a way to return all of this beauty to the land. I asked the Creation of all things to grant me a vision to help the land my mother had given to me. For days I sat on the mountain and prayed as the thunder of war flashed in the sky over the deserts of the land. I went in my spirit time to these places where all was being burned and devastated. I saw vast forests on fire and deep ruts dug into the land. The water was unclean and the blood of the land was being dug from its heart and in time there was erosion and the water escaped its place of being. I watched the dream that I had dreamed being destroyed and again I prayed for Creator to help me find a way to restore all of the beauty to the land.
In time there came a great calm and quiet and the sky world opened up to show the sun and the moon. They stood in the sky together and I saw tears on the face of the Moon Mother. Father Sun's face was filled with pain, as together they stood watching their child as she too suffered.
I saw a light come from the Milky Way, the spirit path that I once had walked to other lands and planets. This light came like a white path, and touched the land near where I sat praying. The old ones were walking toward me on this spirit path and they entered the land of my mother. Their black coats were filled with stars and they held the wisdom of the universe in their dream time.
The silent stillness lay all around in the frozen land as the old ones sat in council and spoke to me. They handed me a pouch of sacred seeds and gave me instructions as to where and when to plant them. They placed it around my neck and told me to go and plant the seeds for the time had come to heal the land.
After some time had passed I left my place on the mountain and walked three times around the blue ball of this land. As I walked I planted the new medicine plants that would in time would heal the land of all the pain and suffering.
"From this time on the land will have peace," the Elders had said. "The Bear will return to share the ways of the medicine plants and healing. It will be for the Bear to show the new little ones who come the old ways of healing."
The time has come for the healing; the bear once again walks the land and the stars. Let us enter into our dream time and pray this Earth the one they called Ursula the "Old Bear Star" into a world of love and peace.
L.Cota Nupa Maka
