An Embarrassment of Bears

 

First appropriated then liberally reconfigured to better suit the needs of a New Age, spirit animal is today a fraught term. Nonetheless, the all knowing Internet informs us one's spirit animal may change with the seasons of life.

Whatever they're properly called and wherever they come from, all I can say for certain is that mine have.

When still a young man, it was definitely an eagle. I get that's inexplicable.

 

Then, the lower 48 was down to about 400 breeding pairs of Bald Eagles, where once the national bird (no less) had widely thrived. Not one of those was anywhere near my childhood prairie.

Remnant hawks and the occasional passing falcon ruled there. I didn't know jack from eagles.

 

But the Northwoods is bred into me. And what youngster doesn't want to soar, one way or another?

Eagle it was.

 

Then during my prime, I came to know the wolf best.

In 1974, they released four grey wolves into Michigan's Upper Peninsula. None of those lived, because one way or the other we killed them.

 

Except by then northern wildness wasn't just in my maternal blood, as with each passing year I'd thrust everything I had ever farther into it.

One might soar above the great forest, yet never truly know it. Deep woods must be prowled for to know.

I determined to prowl. Wolf it was.

Though there weren't any of those yet in my vast northwoods. So it's not like I'd any earthly experience with wolves, either.

Eventually the grey wolf returned to its ancestral forest flown over by eagles. Including the one who once stared me down with the most sentient eyes I've ever seen.

No fear. No aggression. Just... Well?

Well indeed.

 

Today we've a sizable population of eagles, nationwide. They even soar over my native prairie.

Transient wolves are occasionally reported on the flatlands. Most of those are dogs or coyote. What wolves there've been typically prowl down from the north on their way somewhere else, provided they survive our patchwork passage.

Same's true for black bears, of late.

 

Like Boy Scouts, bears do their best to always be prepared.

That sort of thing requires advance planning executed on an ad hoc basis through perpetual maintenance and bears are experts at it.

So apparently, bears dig efficient workflow. I'm down with that.

 

When opportunity presents, they make themselves completely content better than any ever-watchful eagle or hyper aware wolf can. It's in bears' nature to do.

 

They like apples, too. Maybe that's just coincidence, but still.

 

I'd bet any old bear currently hibernating in a hole beneath a northern blanket of snow knows what time it is.

That while the cruelest of winter might well lie ahead, the shortest of its days are behind. As yet one more winter in a growing long line rides seasonal gloom toward resurgent green spring, wildness translates the word.

 

And still for today, the best bet is to dream on.

 

Bear it is then.