Women, She-Bears, Bees and my Ancestors….

by Nikiah Seeds

Bear talisman found in Finland estimated to be from 5100 bc

Many years ago, when Blogging was a “thing” I wrote almost daily and weekly blog posts about my life, and the unfolding of myself as priestess, mother, spirit worker and so on, mostly it was about our seasonal altars and my practise, as my children grew up, but slowly over time, they became teenagers and my work got busier and things shifted in the world of social media until the blog almost became obsolete.
I have, however missed writing, and sharing longer posts, outside of the small number of characters that instagram offers us and so I have decided to pick up where I left off here.

It is, also with some sadness that looking back now, I let go of so many wonderful posts I wrote all those years ago, as had wanted to refer to a two part one here that I wrote almost a decade ago about my unfolding work with bears and bees, however I shall just have to wrote about those posts here and recount what I can from my memory.
She-Bears and the Feminine mythology:
There are many ancient stories and myths surrounding the lore of women and bears, one of the most famous story being of the woman who married a bear which is an ancient Tlingit story that tells of a woman who falls in love with a bear in human form and marries him, but sadly the story does not end well.

In ancient Finland the bear was deeply respected and worshiped, and there are many archeological finds that we now know of that prove the existence of the ancient bear cult.
In fact there are many peoples the world over for whom the bear carries a deep connection and often the bear was linked to women in the stories, mythology, statues and talismans.

In northern Eurasia among several different clans there was belief that people were descendants from an union between a human goddess and the cosmic bear god, and in the earliest layer of Saami mythology moon goddess Háhtežan was married to the cosmic bear which I will speak of in a little bit..

Images of clay pieces made by Rosie Rees, along with cave bear painting and ancient statue.

My own journey with the bear spans about a decade now and it has been a wonderful and ongoing relationship that has expanded my own understanding of my ancestors and myself as I have deepened both my spirit work and personal connection to the bear, most especially within my ancestral Romanian ties.
As mentioned above, I wanted to share some of the content of those now gone blog posts about the bees and Bears as they first came to me, for it was really was through my relationship to the bees as a sacred beekeeper that brought me to the bear.
During this time I kept seeing representations of the bear as half woman with breasts and a pregnant body, which intrigued me as a priestess and so I decided to dive in and see what I could discover there.

It was during this time of research that led me to the Vinča culture that existed within Europe about 7,000–9,000 years ago that made what appears to be deity-like sculptures depicting a pregnant she-bear that could easily pass as a version of Artio.

Artio was a Celtic goddess associated with nature and fertility, represented as a bear or a woman in bearskin. She was worshipped at least as far back as 2,000 years ago, and it was believed she slept during the winter and reawakened as the plants and animals repopulated the land in the spring.

Some say that Artio is related to Saint Ursula often called “little female bear”, while other scholars speculate that Saint Ursula was actually a reinterpretation of Artio, spurred by Christianity’s spread throughout Europe, but the truth is we may never know.

Swinging back to Saami mythology, we have the goddess Áhcešeatni holds domain of winter time, and is the goddess of cold night, the shadow side of the mountains and black magic. She known as the protector of wild reindeer.

Whereas the goddess Njávešeatni is the goddess of the sun, and of birth, and she is the guardian of bees and butterflies and other polluting insects that keep the balance of life in order. She is also the protector of helping spirits and reindeer.

According to the myth Áhcešeatni was married to the bear and was the ancestor of the bear people. Njávešeatni was married to the reindeer. The bear and the reindeer appear in the shaman drums in a celestial hunting scene. Bear who is dressed as a hunter is chasing the reindeer who represents the sun in the Milky way. In Siberian myths reindeer carries the sun in her antlers.
Before I move on , I will add that there are so many myths from all around the world that connect women and bears, beautiful legends from Japan and China, to Greek mythology {think Artemis} and pretty much anywhere we can find bears on this earth we have folklore linking them to women.
Our understanding of the She-bear, the primal mother who will protect her children against all odds is a powerful archetype for many women and shifts the patriarchal perspective of the unreasonable woman, to the mama bear who no one wants to mess with!
I have many wonderful books and resources that I have drawn inspiration from over the years and will leave a list at the end of this post for anyone interested in following the links as well…

Bees and Bears:

It was a delicious surprise to have one of the first things I saw upon my first visit to the Collage of the Melissae a wooden carving of a bear figure with breasts of a woman! This led to many wonderful discussions with Laura Fergusson the creatrix and director of the Collage whereby I discovered that I was not the only bee priestess having dreams and confusing revelations between the bee and the bear, and she felt that this dreaming was an ancient connection to the bee and the bear, for it is widely known that bears love to eat the honey and the sweet buttery larvae, but my confusion came from not understanding why this ancient connection when bears are known the destroy bee hives and seem to be the nemesis of the bee.
However I have since come to understand that there is an important symbiosis between the bear and the bee, mostly because the bear’s omnivorous diet is dependent on the availability of fruit trees and therefore, the fundamental role which bees play in pollination.
I also learned that both the Marsican brown bear and the Italian honey bee have been threatened by the alteration of ecosystems caused by humans. If the bear is critically endangered and on the verge of extinction then the small bees are not safe either.
“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the earth then humans would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more humans.” Einstien
It is well known that bees are said to be emissaries of both birth and death and that they can transverse both realms, ushering souls both in and out, and this too has been my own experience of working with the bees over the years. So it then also makes sense that the destruction and birth of the bees and bears would carry a connection, perhaps beyond our human understanding that tends to see things in black and white–good and bad, and sit instead somewhere in the middle place of holding both within their magic…

*This next part, for some may not be comfortable, especially if you disagree with hunting of any kind, but I can assure you, dear reader that what I am about to share is about as ethical as it gets with regards to this…. {Reader Beware-I speak of hunting}*

During this time, a dear friend of mine asked me if he might use my back-yard to process some deer hides from hunting and I agreed, not knowing when or if he may ever pop by. Well the day came, but not as expected, he called form the road to say that he had some bear hides that were given to him from a local First Nations man and could he use my yard to process them?
{Our Canadian Indigenous people have bear hunting rights, and hunt a small number each year for food}
I agreed and although I wrote more about this day in that blog that has since gone, I will share a little bit about it here, but not all…
I must admit that I had deeply mixed feelings about the bear hides, and my husband even more so, but as time went on, with those hides hanging under the deck of our home, I began to dream about bear and slowly to understand that bear was coming to me in a way that honestly took me by surprise…
On the third day Grant my friend had come by again to check on the hides and amongst the bees flying about in my back-yard he offered me a gift of one of the hides, a female one and as loathe as I was at first about this gift, I found that I could not say no.
I first wanted to ask this hide for permission as we had done the first day { in the original post I share that some of the hides said no and these were buried in my garden and given back to the earth} This hide not only said yes, but shared with me the story of their death and gave me specific instruction for what to do with the hide.
This hide had a hole in it and I was shown that this is a spirit hole, and I was directed to make a drum from it for specific psychopomp work. I will also share that this was after well over a year or more of working with the process of caring for, drying and journeying with this hide as it slowly unfolded to me what I was meant to do with it.
This drum has now been with me for much of my spirit healing work and carries a spacial place of honour in my spirit room and has received many honey offerings over the years.

Bees and the Ancestors:

Several years ago now, while I was planning for an ancestral pilgrimage to Romania
{ More in a blog post which can be found here} I discovered that there is an ancient bear cave there that allows for people to be taken down and to spend time in amongst the cave and to see the cave bear bones, this captured my soul immediately and I knew we had to go there, what I did not count on was how deeply this place would capture my heart and soul and would lead me into an even deeper relationship ancestrally with both my familial ancestors, but also with understanding the deep relationship they once carried for the bear, who was also considered an ancestor.

Our trip to Romania consisted of weeks spent driving from one end to the other and across the Carpathian mountains. During our time in the mountains the bear cave was at the top of the list!

The Pestera Ursilor is located deep in the heart of the Apuseni Mountains, and hidden behind the forests making it not exactly easy to get to, but worth the extra time!
The bear cave was discovered by accident on September 17, 1975, when local miners dynamited an unassuming marble wall. Over the next five years, the cave was mapped and equipped with lighting fixtures and walkways, allowing tourists to visit it without disturbing the environment.
The total length of Bears’ Cave is 1.5 km, of which 521 meters are protected as a scientific reserve.

I do not think I have ever in my life been as enraptured as I was while walking through the deep crevice of the cave itself, and I dragged behind everyone else as I stopped to try to take it all in, knowing that there would be no way I could truly feel the depth of the cave in a single visit. If i lived there I would probably go weekly!

What I can say is this, there is a reason why not only bears have had a deep connection for humans but caves as well, but I suppose that if a different blog for another time. it was as if I would hear the voices of my ancestors more clearly down there in the deep quiet and I stopped often, straining to hear them…
Once we were back up in the summer light, I felt like I has received a small piece of understanding back from the depths of time, one that I have never been able to put words to, but that I have held deep in my heart since.
To my delight, a year later one of the new students at the Red Moon Mystery School would be from Romania and this dear heart mailed me some water and small stones from this bear cave, as she too felt the same and understood my connection to it! These are treasured items that I carry with me tucked into my ancestral bundle!

The Romanian Bear Dances:
Although we travelled to Moldova in the summer time, it is not without regret that I have not had the chance to witness the Romanian bear dance tradition that takes place every year just after Christmas and before New year.

The Dance of the Bear symbolizes the death and rebirth of time, and this ancient ritual brings together the whole community, who gather to watch the performance.
From what I can understand the bear dance is also not without controversy, as it is said to possibly have originated with the Roman people of Romania and live bears, and that over time it transitioned to the wearing of bear pelts adorned with bright red pompoms said to chase away evil and bring in the new year with good cheer.

As many of you know the colour red has always had a deep amount of meaning for me both ancestrally and as a colour associated with women, birthing and so forth. So the red and the bear drew me in right away, allowing for space within my understanding to give rise for my ancestors to speak to me of it…

Images taken by Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi

Weaving a Bear cloak:

And so the circle of it all continues, as I work with my ancestors to understand, heal and unfold with, I came to feel the call for a bear cloak of my own.
I was not in any way being interested in having an actual bear pelt I knew that my weaving skills would be put to the test so I sought out some warmth for the coming winter ahead…
{Blog post on my journey with Ancestral weaving Here}
I wanted the shawl to carry the feeling of a pelt, to hold me and comfort me, and guide me for both spirit work and during the winter months where hibernating like a bear is the most wonderful thing a human can do as we nestle into the deep winter and to honour those urges to hibernate within in my dreaming time.

The bear has also long ben linked with dreaming and resting, and for many years now I have taken my que from the bear to do exactly just that in the winter time.

I wanted my pelt to be brown and soft, and shaggy, so I worked out a way to call all of those things into my weaving and slowly began to journey to my ancestors asking for guidance and inspiration on it all.
One of the things that unfolded in this all was not just the link to the colour red, but to the Amanita, which I have been working with with slowly for some time now, as handed down through this ancestral lineage, and so a nod to the amanita needed to go in..
There is always so much that goes into a personal creation, more then I will share here, but I will add some photos of my completed shawl, with red pompoms I attached as another nod to the Romanian bear dancers.
Below you can see my shawl with a few different ancestral offerings on it. In the top left you can see my ancestral altar, which I have shared in previous offerings. {see Instagram and my bio there for a link} beside that I have some of my bear bones that I use for divination and to the lower left you can see my Amanita bear drum, lastly on my shawl is a cave bear tooth gifted to me many years ago.

Resources and Sources:

As promised here are a few books and resources for you to check out:
Books:
The secrets of the She Bear by Marie Cachet
Ice Age and the Bear Cult by Philip C. Grote
Women and Bears Culture and Gender Revisited as edited by: Kaarina Kailo
Novels worth reading:
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
The Bear by Andrew Krivak
The Girl who Speaks Bear Sophie Anderson
Workshop:
I took this wonderful workshop by Finnish woman Niina Niskanen called People of the Bear which is most informative for those who wish to geek out on all things bear and mythology!
Some of the creations seen in my posts about bears made by artists:
Rosie McLachlan makes ancient feeling talismans and her work is stunning! You can see some of it on her instagram page Here
My dear friend Debbie from Bell Pine Art Farm makes some of the most wondrous pieces and they are super affordable which I love. over the years I have been fortunate enough to have been gifted some very powerful pieces. The wee bear and her cub in some of my instagram photos were made by her and you can find her work Here

I also shared some photos of a beautiful bear and woman bowl, it was made by a local B.C artist Debra Bernier at Shaping Spirit and you can find her work Here

Lastly if any of you reading this post have other books you would like to suggest please leave a comment as I always love discovering new things!