I recently read an interesting new book about bears called “The Bear Awakening – Bear as Sacred Symbol of the Divine Feminine”, by Susan MacMillan Kains. In the book she describes how ancient humans once shared their caves with bears, and that the humans learned which foods to eat, and which medicines to use, from following the bear’s example.
I recently read that there is even scientific evidence that early humans may have hibernated in winter, just like bears.
Paleolithic artists painted images of bears on the walls of caves and at the Chauvet cave in France there is even a type of altar to bears – a cave bear skull that rests on a stone.
I live in bear country, black bears abound in my neighborhood. Last spring there was a small bear, probably a young male, who came to my neighbor’s house and climbed onto the back porch. My neighbors had been leaving their trash out on the porch, never a good idea. I saw that same bear walking on a road behind two humans who were busy conversing. They didn’t even see the bear, so I drove right up to it and told it to run and hide, that this was not a good place for him to be. He or she looked at me and then fled into the forest. I believe I heard a bear moaning in that same forest one day when I was taking a walk. I politely turned around and avoided the bear. I feel bad for the bears, we have invaded their living spaces and relentlessly cut down the trees and put up houses.
A few weeks ago another neighbor saw a mother bear with three cubs in his yard. The mother bear came to his back porch and looked right in at him. He said she had amazing eyes, and he could tell she was curious and trying to communicate, but all he could do was watch through the glass. I believe I had an encounter with the same little family. One night I had a strong feeling to go outside and sure enough, I heard something big crashing through the trees in front of the house. I shone my flashlight and found three pairs of eyes staring back at me. At the time I thought they might be coyotes, but I now believe it was the bears.
I check my bird feeders every morning because they have been raided and decimated in the past. My best solution has been to not feed the birds until after the hard frosts set in and to stop feeding at the first whiff of warmer weather. Bears are very smart, they adore bird seed and suet, and I was lucky to have warned them off this time.
As an herbalist I have long been aware of the term “bear medicine”. That is another name for the herbalist’s art because bears know how to get to the roots of things. A bear will tear up a plant by the roots and eat the whole thing – just as an herbalist will look for the root causes of a condition, mental, physical and spiritual, and not just deal with the surface symptoms.
Bears have much to teach us at this time in our human history. When the days grow dark and cheerless, the bears simply go to sleep. We humans, especially Americans, have been conditioned to think that work should be endless – we drink our caffeine laden coffee and charge out into the world. Americans famously have almost no vacation time, compared to other developed nations. Perpetual work seems to be a facet of American culture, we consider it almost a type of morality. To call someone a “slacker” is an insult.
But now we are forced to stop in our tracks, faced with the prospect of infection and even death if we congregate too closely with others. Though some are still in denial, we are all living through a historic pandemic that is telling us to slow down, take care, and pay attention. We can chafe and complain at the restrictions, or we can learn from the bears. Many of us now have the luxury of working at home, or are unemployed, and as a result we are saving huge swaths of commuting time. Why not take that extra time to sleep? And once caught up on the extra slumber, start to find your true life purpose, the deepest roots of your desires and dreams.
This is the time to pen poems, to write a novel or memoir, to compose music, or pick up painting or sculpture again. It is the time to practice a new language. For some it may be the opportunity to work on a craft – carpentry, weaving, knitting, embroidery, pottery, cooking. Now is the opportunity to read more books. There is no shame in slowing down and appreciating nature, in being inspired by the world we find ourselves living in.
They say that this month and next month will likely be the worst of the epidemic, due to the contagion brought by holiday travel. After that most of us will have the vaccine and slowly, life will creep back to a kind of “normal”. This pause won’t last forever. Let’s learn from the bears and dream into the season of darkness, nurturing the light of creativity from within.
BOOK NEWS
The Real Witches of New England: History, Lore & Modern Practice by Ellen Evert Hopman, Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 2018. Review by Nicholas Brink, Ph.D.
My father, Edwin Hibbard Brink’s 8th x great grandfather, Robert Hibbard was born in Salisbury, England in 1613 and came to Salem, MA between 1635 and 1639. My mother, Wilhelmina Willoughby’s 8thxgreat grandfather, Francis Willoughby, was an inhabitant of Charlestown, MA in 1638 and became the Deputy-Governor of Massachusetts. He died in 1671. The descendants of Robert Hibbard and Francis Willoughby, 11 generations later, married on Christmas day in 1933 in Los Angeles, CA to become my parents.
Nehemiah, the son of Francis Willoughby, was born in 1644 in Charlestown, MA. He moved to Salem, MA where he became a selectman in Salem. He died in 1702. With these connections to Salem, MA I was excited about reading and reviewing Ellen Hopman’s book, The Real Witches of New England.
Elizabeth Hubbard, one person mentioned in the book (pg. 65), claimed to be “tortured” by Mary Town Estey who was accused of being a witch and died by hanging on September 22, 1692. Robert Hibbard had a daughter Elizabeth. Such changes in spelling from Hubbard to Hibbard are not uncommon in tracing one’s genealogy, so I am speculating that Elizabeth was a distant cousin. Elizabeth Hibbard’s brother, also Robert, was my 8th x great grandfather.
The Real Witches of New England was fascinating and elucidating. I was especially intrigued about what contemporary witches believe and do. They are very much Earth oriented and listen to the spirits from beyond, the spirits of the ancestors and of the Earth, so in this sense they can be considered Pagan, though some venerate other deities, often Celtic or Egyptian. I can closely resonate with these beliefs in my practice and teaching of ecstatic trance. I do not think of myself as a witch or a shaman but teach shamanism, believing that we all can experience the powers of the shaman or witch. For many or most witches, they celebrate the eight holidays of the year, the solstices, equinoxes, and the Celtic celebrations of Imbolc, Beltaine, Lughnasadh, and Samhain, the circle or wheel of light that witches call Sabbat. Again I celebrate these eight holidays as Earth circles the Sun. I prefer to call this circle the Wheel of Light, rather than Sabbat, a word that I do not find as beautiful as the Wheel of Light.
Hopman’s book is essentially divided into three parts, the early history of witchcraft, followed by the history of witchcraft in New England, and then the beliefs and practices of contemporary witches, stories that comprises more than half of the book. Hopman interviewed with a specific set of questions for both the contemporary ancestors of the witches of the 1600s in New England and those who now identify themselves as witches in the 21st Century. These interviews widely open my eyes to ways of the contemporary witches.
The persecution of witches in Europe and elsewhere before the 1600s was intense with many burnings, hangings and other executions, but in Europe, country after country ended these executions beginning with Holland in 1648 and Denmark in 1693. Witches were feared as heretical devil and Earth worshipers, and were recognized by their use of medicinal herbs and spells for healing. Midwifery was often thought of as a sign of being a witch . This fear and persecution grew as Christianity spread throughout Europe. In the 14th century the Black Death was blamed on witches. During the years of the Inquisition the torture and execution of witches was especially severe. Witch hunts peaked in the late 1500s and early 1600s. As the Protestant Churches took hold these churches were associated with witchcraft and sex orgies.
The first witch trial in the New World occurred in 1649 in Massachusetts, and the hysteria began to spread. More than 200 men and women were accused of witchcraft, with 35 executions and 5 dying in jail. In Salem, 28 of the approximately 165 accused witches were convicted, with 20 executed. Above I described the accusation, conviction and hanging of Mary Estey. Of her many accusers, one was Elizabeth Hubbard who I speculate is one of my distant cousins.
I used my practice of ecstatic trance in an attempt to go back to Elizabeth and understand her so called torture by the accused witch Mary. As I have frequently described in my writings (see the Facebook Page “Nick Brink’s Books”) Felicitas Goodman researched the body postures used by hunting-gathering shamans and found that different postures had different effects on the ecstatic trance experience, trance induced by rapid stimulation to the nervous system by drumming or rattling. Some postures brought healing energy into the body, and others were used for divination, for shape-shifting, for providing a death-rebirth experience, and for spirit journeying into the underworld, the middle world or the upper world. I frequently use a realm of the dead posture to commune with my ancestors. In my ecstatic experience I first saw Elizabeth shivering while holding a blanket tightly around herself. She was feeling tortured by Mary’s outspoken words against her family. I then saw Elizabeth and Mary coming out of church as the preacher greeted them. Mary was saying to Elizabeth, “How can you consider yourself a Christian when your thieving father is laying claim to his neighbor’s land and planting on it.” At the time, good Puritan women were supposed to be reserved and quite, and those who were outspoken were often considered witches.
Ellen Hopman’s interviews of six identified descendants of accused witches includes Jennifer Marie Russo, the 9xgreat granddaughter of Mary Estey, (also spelled Easty). Jennifer is very proud of being a descendent of Mary because Mary had the “courage and strength in the face of enormous terror. Her petition to the court is one of the most inspiring things I have ever read (pg. 71).” After being released from prison because of her good behavior she was again accused and “pled eloquently on behalf of other accused witches: ‘I petition to your honors not for my own life for I know I must die and my appointed time is set but the Lord he knows it is that if it be possible no more innocent blood may be shed’ (pp 65-66).” The witches of the past were generally falsely accused as being of the devil because of such behaviors as being outspoken, using herbal medicines, having an interest in astrology, and fortune telling with tea leaves or Tarot Cards, or of being old and single or widowed.
The 25 interviews with contemporary witches were very enlightening. Witchcraft is generally very Earth oriented with the eight celebrated holidays throughout the year, the equinoxes and solstices and the four Celtic holidays. Communing with the spirits, divination using astrology or Tarot, the use of healing herbs, spells and ecstatic rituals of witchcraft are all part of the magick. Venerating the Earth and worshiping the Earth God and Goddess are common. Witchcraft in New England is quite well organized in covens, or other forms of meetings as in temples and even in the shops of witchcraft paraphernalia where classes may be held. There are a number of initiating traditions, e.g. Alexandrians, Gardnerians, Minoan Brotherhood, and the New England Covens of Traditionalist Witches. The names of the founding witches were quite frequently repeated in the stories of the 25 interviewed witches. Some see witchcraft as a craft more than a religion, and some see it more as a religion, but most commonly it is seen as a combination of both.
My response to all that I read is “Wow!” I would feel quite comfortable in relating to witches, though I still think of myself as a pagan that practices much of what witches practice, following the cycle of the eight holidays of the year, listening beyond myself in calling upon the spirits both from the Earth and of ancestors, using the ritual of ecstatic trance for divination, and seeking harmony within each person, the community, and the world which is central to healing.
For me, The Real Witches of New England was an important book to read, a book that opened my eyes to a whole new world, the world of witchcraft. I have often said that my practice and teaching of ecstatic trance is only one small part of all that is needed as we move into the New Age, the Era of Time-Free Transparency, or the Aquarian Age, and that many other disciplines or practices are carrying others into this New World. I now have learned that The World of Witchcraft is another major avenue on this journey. Thank you to the author Ellen Evert Hopman whose journey into the New Age is the way of herbalism and of the Druids, but she too has opened herself to the way of witchcraft and also to my practice of ecstatic trance. This open-mindedness to the different ways on this journey opens each of us to the importance and acceptance of this diversity.
Nicholas E. Brink, PhD
Author of
- Ecstatic Soul Retrieval (publisher – Inner Traditions / Bear & Co.)
- Power of Ecstatic Trance
- Baldr’s Magic
- Beowulf’s Ecstatic Trance Magic
- Trance Journeys of the Hunter-Gatherers
- Grendel and His Mother (publisher – Routledge)
- Applying the Constructivist Approach to Cognitive Therapy: Resolving the Unconscious Past (Routledge)
Available from Postmark Books in Rosendale, NY or your preferred bookseller
Facebook Site: Nick Brink’s Books
EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS
- Saturday, January 30
6 PM Eastern time
Transcending Roots Zoom Class
Ellen will speak on The Druidic Wheel of the Year
Register here - March 5-7, 2021
WitchCon a livestream video conference
Ellen will speak on the magical techniques of the Druids
Join the largest online magical conference in the world here - 10th Anniversary
Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference (virtual this year)
Ellen will speak on tree medicine and lore and Celtic spirituality
May 7, 8 and 9, 2021 - October 26, 2021
Wild Ginger Herbal Center
6-8 PM Eastern
Ellen will speak on The Sacred Herbs of Samhain
A Zoom webinar
*Reminder* you can always find my books here
Below you will find the past Moonth’s gleanings; Archaeology, Herbs, Health, Climate, Nature, Celts, Fairies, Arts , Ethics and more. Enjoy!
ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS
- What science now says about ancient women warriors
More… - In search of the historical Mordred (Arthur’s nephew)
- The Legend of King Midas (video)
HERB NEWS
- Buckwheat kasha with dill, wild mushrooms and onions
- Boswellia uses and benefits
- How to eat your Christmas tree
HEALTH NEWS
- Facts about the new fast spreading Covid variant from the UK
- MMR vaccines may be protective against Covid-19
- Covid-19 found in a wild mink in Utah
CLIMATE & NATURE NEWS
- The growing footprint of agriculture means loss of habitat and species
- Massive bird die-off in the American Southwest explained “Ultimately, Hayes and Desmond say drought and the bout of unseasonal, extreme weather point to one ultimate cause of the die-off: climate change”
- 10 discoveries about aliens in 2020
CELTIC NEWS
- Hogmanay in Edinburgh (video)
FAIRY NEWS
- Who is Aengus Mac Og? (video)
RELIGION NEWS
ARTS NEWS
- Prehistoric Pointillism in 38,000 year old cave art
- A world archive of digitized art under the Arctic permafrost that is hopefully “futureproof”
POLITICS & ETHICS
- Co-ops in Spain’s Basque Region Soften Capitalism’s Rough Edges
- America’s acceptance of Trump’s behavior will be his vilest legacy
- Biden’s historic cabinet picks highlight the environment
May your New Year be blessed and better than last year!
I am very intrigued by your description of the book… thanks for the information. Bears are nurturing, fiercely protective., and know how to use their resources wisely..
We can learn so much from them.