Posts Tagged ‘storytelling’
I cry easily…but truth be told, this is a beautiful story!
Corbin Harney’s “Bear Story”, from PBS, Circle of Stories
The bear is something that was put here with us. That’s the reason why my people always say, when you meet a bear, if you start singing to him, and talking to him, he’ll sit down and listen to you. I have seen it done, and I met a bear-maybe from here, far as this car, and were walking up that trail toward me and I come up again’ him and then I didn’t know what to do, whether to run from him or what. And I thought, I better start singing a song to him. Then, he stood there for a while, then he stood up. Big bear. Stood up and then, I thought, by God, he’s going to attack me. And then I just started talking to him and singing to him. Then, he sit down. Then I sit down on the trail, and when I done that, I knew he was listening to what I had to say to him. And then after a while, he got up again, on all four feet and then he started going down the trail where he came up. And I stood there for about maybe five minutes. I didn’t know whether to turn around and go back up the hill where I came down. Then I decided I better go follow him a little ways. He went around a big boulder. That’s the way animals are. They’re scared of you. If you talk to ‘em, sing to ‘em, they’re your friends. Just like the trees here. The more you sing to them, the better they grow.
Comments: So I grew up in the northern woods of Wisconsin. My childhood was filled with the outdoors, tents, hammocks, bushing it, etc. We hung our food over high trees, and stayed indoors when a bear was spotted. Now though, as an adult, I find a need to balance teaching my son a healthy fear of danger, while at the same time a complete respect for mother earth and all her children. It is really neat to watch him carry an ant gently from inside our house, in a piece of kleenex, and set him down outside where he will be able to survive and find food. He is determined to be a rescuer, a pure loving human being, and I am so very proud! For me this is a perfect story to tell children, no matter what age. In a personal, natural way, it teaches love and respect for the earth and every life, even those that we are taught to fear.