My great bear bare claws
Monday January 17, 2011: It is the anniversary of my father's death. I am working with Black Mother today, which seems appropriate. I am also worried about a friend’s health; she has cancer but doesn’t seem to be getting the attention she needs from the health service about it. So I decide to journey to meet Black Mother; my purpose is to Gain wisdom from the death of my Father and to fight for the life of my friend.
Something thick is covering my face, Rough woollen material, it is almost suffocating me. There are so many layers to push through. It is really difficult. I need a knife. All I have is my hands. Making them into claws, I slash and rip, tear away and push my way through.
Beyond is a network of dark, dark tunnels, I walk along, scrutinising all the walls, I am looking for something, I’m not sure what. They are smooth like shiny coal, but darker and more mat black. Here is a place of dark damage. With my hands bent like claws, I jab with my fingernails and slash and cut it, ripping it out, tearing it away with my bare hands.
I fling it into a fire burning dimly in the tunnel centre and the fire burns suddenly a brilliant angry red. I am not sure if I’ve got it all, I feel around in the gloom for more. I continue to tear and fling into the fire until I feel that I have finished. .
I walk out of the tunnel onto a deserted hillside into the lonely night. At the top of the hill, I look down upon the black grey world under the moonless sky. I am utterly alone. I wait.
In the distance, something moves. A black shape, dark against the dark night landscape is moving slowly on all fours up the hill towards me. It gets closer and i see it is a great bear walking on all fours. AS she gets closer, I know that it is she, Black Mother.
She turns and I follow her. We move carefully back down the hill and into the tunnels. With a great roar, she rushes at the wall I had been attacking and begins to rip, slash, bite and seize great chunks of the wall. She flings it onto the low burning fire which dances up to the ceiling of the tunnel in a towering inferno of the most brilliant purple! I am dazzled. It is so hot and so bright. She continues to tear at the walls until I see the slightest star shape shimmering of the pre dawn dark from outside begin to glimmer. But she is not finished until there is a massive jagged gash in the rock side and the night air steps in dragging its dark moon light with it.
She moves further down the tunnel and finds other places to rip and tear at. Her progress can be charted by the pits and cavities, tears and gaps that she has left. All the time, the great purple fire roars its rage in a duet of vengeance and anger!
She stops beside a big black round amorphous shape. Growling and snarling she tears at it, again and again with her great claws until huge clumps detach and she runs back to fling it into the fire. The fire burns brilliantly purple lighting up the amorphous mass which begins again to swell and regenerate smoothly and cleanly right in front of us.
I’ve done nothing but watch her ripping the place to shreds. I am exhausted! I sit down by the fire and stare into it. I look down at my hands and see the bare bear claws, their murderously sharp nails smeared with the poison that the bear rips out. There are no mitigating circumstances for leaving any disease in its place. I must fill the gaps with love. My claws must show me no mercy.
She stands in front of me and growls. I growl back bending low in acknowledgement. We part, she to walk the dark hills and I to push my way through the rough veil, to take into this world the great Bear claws to be my tool for now .