Shona Bear Clark: Mother of Seven, Grandmother of Seventeen, Great Grandmother of One.

Shona Bear was born on of the Wind Clan and raised on the Creek Indian reservation near Oklahoma City. She descends from a proud line of Medicine women. Immersed since childhood in secret knowledge and fluent in the sign language of the Creek, Shona is a practitioner of Ritualistic Healing Arts. - Nancy Redstar.

Ok, thats not a direct Quote, but its really close. I recently finished Nancy's "Star Ancestors" and it got me thinking. Nancy's walkabout has taken her from the Seneca Rez in upstate New York, real close to where my mom lives, to the Homelands of the Maya. Seeking out and interviewing wisdom keepers through that wide swath. The one who touched me most deeply was Shona Bear.

Shona has seen her fair share of loss in her life, and the stories she shares about that loss really touched me.

When my grandmother passed away I thought my world had ended. She was everything to me. I lay around for a year and looked at the sky; I wrote poetry. I couldn't believe that people could function after the death of such a great woman. When the year was up I was down to eighty-nine pounds. Everybody thought I would die. I thought I would die too. I guess I wanted to, because my world as I saw it had ended.

I was laying on the ground one day when the sky broke open like a big television screen. I was suddenly out of my body, hiding behind the cattails. I saw a river in front of me, a great river. I could see people across the river all dressed in white, jumping and hollering underneath huge, huge trees like the redwood forest. I heard visions from all directions. There was a sandy beach in front of me and I heard a voice say, "You're in a forbidden zone. Dont get caught here."

I was hiding behind the cattails when I saw my grandmother walking down the beach. She had on a buckskin dress that was tattered and torn. She was old and hobbling. There was a canoe in the water. She stepped into the canoe and started across the river to where those people where. at the Canoe glided, the wind hit her and her buckskin dress was ripped off. It was gone. By the time she got three quarters the way to the other side she had on a new buckskin dress and looked seventeen years old. Her age just disappeared. I watched as she stepped out of the canoe. All the people where glad to see her. I recognized some of them; they were her children, her sisters, and her mother. Papa was there.

She left with them through the trees. She was gone.
I knew she would not be coming back. I knew it because she never once looked back. That was on a Thursday. I went job-hunting on Friday. By Monday I was working. I was fine. There was no reason to die. I guess she got it right. She wasn't coming back here. I can feel her in the room sometimes-her breath, her smell- but she won't be coming back.


She didn't take her body with her, and I wont be taking mine.

Lauren's Father is battling caner, as you know. I've bookmarked this passage to read to her when she's having a difficult moment. Like Shona's grandmother Bill is a very good man, a man a person would be proud to know. I know the thought he might pass soon tears Lauren up at times. It's easy to be selfish at times like this, to focus on our own loss. Shona has one more lesson for us about this. ...

From the time I was a little girl my mother taught me to protect myself by dropping a cone shaped shield over my body. You do this four times. Each shield is made of precious substances - like pearl, gold, silver, platinum, or precious stones or shells. ...

You can drop that cone over your home in the same manner. I do this every night for myself and for my children- for everyone I know and love. I drop such a cone over their houses to protect them. Any time I feel sorry for myself, when I am beside myself with my own problems, I lie down and pray for fifty people by name and drop cones of protection over them. That's the only way I can stop wallowing in my own self-pity and sorrow. Sending people good energy is a way to engage in a more helpful manner.

I must thank Nancy for Introducing me - If indirectly - to such a magnificent woman. When it comes her turn to cross that river, she need not shed a day. To look at her, to see that wisdom, and depth, and dignity. A person should be so lucky to be so beautiful a single day of their life.

So I give you our first Daughter of Innana, Shona Bear Clark.
In your Wisdom, Through your Love, By your Blessing,
All things are possible. Ama tu ANKI.

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