I have awaited her return for four years. Her young ones are with her. Two. And my three sons are with me. We watch through the big square window in our kitchen. She sniffs the air before rising onto her hind feet to walk toward me. For a moment we stand face to face, staring directly into one another’s eyes. I know I have been given a powerful message, the breadth of which I will decipher later. But one thing feels certain. I am safe again. The Pawnee believe when a bear stands on its hind legs and lifts its paws toward the sun, it is receiving its healing powers. I live beside a small lake in the boreal forest near Yellowknife. In this sub-Arctic frontier, unburdened by the technological crush of civilization, it becomes possible to feel the ancient ways of knowing that guided the indigenous Dene peoples. This is where my odyssey of motherhood begins, alone in the woods save for the babes at my breast, the ravens outside my window and the unspoken mysteries beyond. The more I seek to unravel those mysteries, the more I see of the bear.
