Bear: The Calm Hermit
Bear of the Family Ursidae has always been a unique Totem to me. He is a big deal in many many cultures and a lot is put upon him. We all know how strong they are, that they sleep in the winter, and that you have to be careful of them. While Bear is definatley no slouch in the power department if you look closely at bear behaviors an odd thing happens. Bears have giant teeth and claws that can rip open mini vans, and yet they are scavengers, foragers and occasionally fishermen. With a few exceptions (the Asian Black bear and the polar bear) these creatures don’t hunt like the predators we see them as. They climb trees to eat copious amounts of acorns, climb mountains to seek out high fat moth eggs. Even when they fish often they wait in the shallows for something to jump into their mouths. These traits are what inform me as to the greater spiritual secrets of Bear, and the metamorphosis it undertook when I meditated on him.
Oddly if you look for myths and legends about bears you run into several stories about people being cruel or hunting bears only to be punished by various beings. Rarely is the bear a violent antagonist, unlike say the Wolf or Tiger. The Russians have strong ties to bear representing Family and strength, the Christians used the bear as a sign of triumph over the pagans. He played a large role in Native American and Asian dogmas, but again in a peaceful strong Unitarian sense. Until modern times there were very few ( if any) references to demon bears, which is odd as many of the ancient cultures had demonic entities in almost all forms imaginable.