Medved in njegovo zdravilo – The Bear and His Medicine

I finally see clearly what the bear is trying to tell me after I’ve been running from him in my dreams for years! He was trying to offer me a safe passage to another period of my life, which I couldn’t receive from the society I live in. The bear is a reminder of the rites of passage which we need in order to consciously pass the bridge from one stage of our life cycle to another. He symbolises the circle which appeares when the old and new come together in harmony.

Beware men, I will speak of blood and menstruation blood now so if you’re brave, proceede, if not, ok too. 🙂

Veda by Aleksander Uglanov

It is my moon time now. This is the time of the flowing blood, a symbol of flowing life and death. Blood symbolises death, because loosing blood means loosing life and at the same time blood symbolises life, a running red river of life, because we need it in order to remain alive. Moon time is a very potent time for us, women. In this time we go deep in our bodies and souls, feel them very intensively, sometimes also very painfully. But we have no choice but to go through it every single month. It is a gift – if we choose not to learn from it, we lose a lot. Menstruation blood is a teacher, initiator, who takes us deep into the underworld, where we receive the gifts of our bloodline – our ancestors.

If we know blood brings deep insights, we look at it differently and take it as a gift of death and life, the gift of the body and the soul. Blood brings the connection between the two and healing. Menstruation allows you going deeper into your body, which shows everything that is going on in your soul. Going deep into your soul enlightens you with insights that help you understand what is going on in your body. And in this way you keep connecting stories of your body and soul, harmonizing them with the light of the mind. You begin to see how your body and soul are one and the same, how you and your ancestor are one and the same. One dead, one alive… but one. The body is dead without the soul and the soul is dead without the body. The body is living and the soul is a dead ghost. The body is a frozen moment of the soul and the soul is a fluid river.

Art by Franz Hein

Med-ved is also someone who “knows” (veda = science, vedeti = knowing) and therefore brings important insights. It represents vedenje (knowing) of the ancestors. Med is honey, it also means “between” in Slovene which is interesting too. Med is symbol of the sun, which is higher awareness, divinity and oneness. As I mentioned in my previous writings, the sun is a bridge between the ancestors and us and ritual fires represent that connection between (med) ancestral hearth and the hearth of our house.

The bees were considered to be the messengers of gods in the past and in Slovenia we have old folk stories preserved about the shaman who layed in deep trance and during the trance the bee left his body through his mouth. The bee hive is a symbolic representation of the divine – heaven hive and can also be seen in a Slavic flower symbol, that is called Perunica here. Her symbolism is very simmillar to the fleur-de-lis symbol which is depicted on artwork above. It shows a divine order, symmetry and harmony in every person as an individual flower and between all people as flowers of the same meadow. It’s usually called the flower of life but it’s also the flower of death.

Bee mandala by Francene Hart

There is a beautiful Slovene “kresna pesem”, song sung on the shortest night of the summer by kresnice, the priestesses. The song was sung by the kres (fire). It beautifully speaks of the two worlds that mirror each other:

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Kaj raste brez korenja? 

Kamen raste brez korenja.

Kaj cvete brez cveta?

Praprot cvete brez cveta.

Letni sneg, zimski cvet.

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What is growing without the root?

The stone grows without the root.

What blooms without the blossom?

Fern blooms without the blossom.

Summer snow, winter flower.

***

Shamans were called kresniki in Slovenia and female shamans kresnice or ladarice. They were embodiments of the two supreme gods Kresnik (also named Svarožič and Svarog or Vesnik, Marko, Devač, Lad) and Kresnica (also named Vida, Mokoš or Vesna, Mara, Deva(na), Marjetica, Lada). Kresnik has two sides in his divine and human form who fight each other and so does Kresnica. Their dark faces are Veles and Morana. Kresnik’s dog has four eyes which points to his duality. Here in Slovenia the goddess of life and death is called Mara-Morana which shows the duality on the female side. It is also seen in her other names; Ježibaba/Jaga baba (winter) and Zlata baba (light part of the year). Veles was seen as coming from Medvedgrad (bear city) and he was often seen as bear (and wolf, snake…). So was Morana. Their light opposites are also connected to bear symbolism. Marko the (tamed dancing) bear is a common character of Slovene Shrovetide or Pust at the beginning of spring for example. Morana and the bear are also the characters of Maslenitsa, early spring Russian festival, where people burn Morana and wake up the bear from its sleep. Devana, the goddess of the hunt, forest and the moon is also connected to this beautiful animal.

The bear at Maslenitsa, Russia. www.istockphoto.com

Devana by Andrei A. Shishkin

The spear is the symbol of fire and the bow symbolises the moon. As a goddess of death (moon) and fire (spear) Deva or Devana (also Živa) is just another name/face of Morana, the leader of the ancestral souls. Deva kills the animal (soul) so it becomes alive as a human and Morana kills the human so it becomes the dead (soul). They are both connected to blood. Not long ago I had a rather scary vision; I was just going to bed in the evening and the woman in a white dress with bloody mouth appeared before me. She came from the darkest corner of the room. My first reaction was fear but then she calmly said: “Why are you afraid of me, we spoke so many times…” After saying this she dissappeared. After the vision I remembered the stories which are still known in some parts of Slovenia (as an echo of older seeings probably). They speak of bloody woman in white dress who scares people walking through the woods or past cemeteries in the night. She can be evil or nice. I knew that this was Morana, who tried to tell me she can be seen as good and helpful too. She brings blood of transformation and can be also named Večerna Zarja (Evening dusk). Her sister is Jutranja Zarja (Morning dawn), also named Sončica or Devana who was believed to be born from the morning dawn or Zlata baba… But the most important thing is, that they are the same deity, who is dying and reviving herself over and over again. This is represented in woman’s monthly menstruation and in the moon phases. Morana is the new moon and Deva or Mara is the full moon. That is why Vida is described in literature as the light of the moon. Their connecting thread is blood, embodied life of a human, who can achieve happiness by finding the middle red way between the light and the darkness. This is why the red thread is the symbol of the goddess and is traditionally considered to bring luck and protection to the one who is wearing it around the wrist or around the waist as a red belt with embroidery.

Cate Voynova, Morana

In fairytales blood or life is also represented as the golden thread of the Golden goddess (Zlata baba) or Mokoš. She connects the two worlds and that is why her symbol is romboid ♢, two triangles reflecting each other. Instead of golden thread the symbol of life is also shown as a baby in the golden cradle (Svarožič) who is protected by three sojenice/rojenice, the representatives of the triple character of the goddess. As monthly moon they kill you (new moon), give new golden insights which rise out of blood, darkness and pain and then give birth to new you on the full moon.

My insight today was about the bear and his symbolism. The bear is somehow the representation of the Earth – our body/being as a whole, a circle. Bear is one of Slavic mythical ancestors, such as also wolf, snake, birds, bull, goat, horse and so on. Bear is bringing the message of the great Whole inside of us as other animals do too. But it is doing this in its unique way. It shows how to hibernate, incubate, rest, sleep and dream in the winter time (new moon, usual time of bleeding). How to renew in the dark death of light (awarness) under the earth and become in touch with the world under (the soul, the inner world). I also call the soul vila (fairy) and the underworld vilinski svet (the world of vilas). The bear talks to us through the dreams and visions who speak the language of vile, our souls, our ancestors. He is the leader of the souls (as Veles or Morana), which means he/she represents the best of them, the centre (central fire) of their wisdom and their gifts of abundance. Their fire, their sun, their honey. The bear is therefore the voice of the ancestors who initiate and give precious insights. He is the whole uninterrupted cycle between life and death, the living and the dead.

Veles by Maksim Sukharev

The Bear has been chasing me constantly in my dreams from my childhood until today. He was chasing me through the forests and usualy I would find a deserted house, hide in it, shut the door and windows and tremble for my life. Through the years when I began connecting consciously to my vila (soul). One time the bear visited me in the vision and said strictly: “Why don’t you dream?!” I gradually stopped running from it in my dreams and in one of the recent dreams I would just stare into its eyes with child’s curiosity and respect. But last night I dreamed I had a brother (which I don’t have in this life). He gave me a gift – a painting, which was more like a window or a mirror, it had depth. I was very grateful for this thoughtful gift. In the painting I saw another world. I saw hills and trees as I would look through this window I finally entered into another dreams through it. And within these dreams I met the bear! The bear told me a story about who he really is. Brother represents the inner masculine energy for the woman, which is a friendly helping force, a bright and nonviolent, protecting face of the masculine – a kind bear in the contrary to the hunting bear I was seeing before. In last couple of days I was experiencing odd darkness, absence of visions and absence of my inner voice. I thought I’ve lost my sight and knowing. But I waited for this mystery to uncover and finally realized – as many times before in my conversations with the different forms of the red and golden goddess – death is life and life is death.

Morana by Alicja Gorna

After my childhood I gradually forgot how to die and revive my being. This happens to all of us. As children we are very fluent beings, crying and laughing and crying again. When we come in the age of adolescence and girls get our first blood, we are not properly guided. In the older times girls would go through initiation rituals and get support from their family on this side and on the other. They would know that blood brings purification like fire and that dying is a part of life (and life part of death). The blood brings new life, new turn in the cycle. The bear was trying to give me the gift of life but I didn’t get the proper guidance and a ritual to be able to receive it. My life chose the darker path through the forest for me, but the bear never gave up on me. The bear reminds me how important the rites of passage are for us and for our healing. If we are not recognized as beings and guided by our ancestors we are like flowers who are forgotten by the bees and cannot create new life and enjoy the honey taste of it.

Art by Alexander Uglanov