Bears in the Woods

Last night I dreamt I was a kid at my parent's house, and my friend and I were getting ready to catch the bus. The long country driveway was icy and really slippery, so we had our bookbags on the ground in in front of us and we were crawling/pushing the bookbags to get to the end of the driveway. All of the sudden we could see a bear in the woods on our right. My mom was on the deck behind us and yelled to point out that there was a bear. I heard and tried to go back, but it was hard to go quickly on the ice. I'm not sure if my friend couldn't hear us, or if she thought she could make it to the bus before the bear came. The bus pulled up at the end of the driveway and was watching the whole situation, but the bear got to my friend and was biting on her foot as she tried to pull back towards me and the house. Another school bus pulled up then too, and the bus drivers (there were four of them somehow) got out and as a group scared the bear away. I woke up then when my alarm went off, playing what I thought was a Green Day song. Turned out to be Smashing Pumpkins.

As an aside, the bus driver heroes were in the 'uniform' of the Carleton County man, the green workpants/workshirt combo, with workboots, warm plaid coats and blue work vests. It's a combo that I know and love because it reminds me of so many men I know and love. :) They seemed rough around the edges but I knew they cared for us deeply.

It reminded me how long it has been since I've had a 'bear dream'. I used to have them a lot. They were always some version of me watching/taking care of kids on my parents property, a bear coming from the woods at the edge of the yard, and me struggling to gather all of the kids into the house/safety. There were usually too many kids for me to just pick them up quickly and run. The bear dreams started way back when I was teenager, and came back intermittently through the years.

Last night's was similar, but quite different. I wasn't in charge of this person, worried mostly about getting myself to safety, watched the scene mostly as a spectator, and then she actually got bit! I'm not even sure who my friend was. She was just a girl my age in the dream, and now that I think of it, she turned into a he when we were inspecting her wounds. The kids in other dreams I always knew and loved, from my little cousins to my own kids as the years passed. They were often babies and toddlers, and I was always the only adult around. This bear was also a brown bear, when the others have always been black bears.

The Huffington Post talks about bear dreams in Dreams About Bears: Dream Meanings Explained, but I'm not sure it gave me much insight. This post about Animals in Dreams was really interesting, but it seems that the symbolism of bears is just very unclear. Protective motherhood? Possesive love? Introspection? Rage? Fears in general? Not sure.  This one says it means I am avoiding a big issue in my life, and it is time to deal with it. Sigh... probably, lol.

And why the format change now? Weird.

Things that make you go hmm...

Winter

As my husband left the house today he looked at me with concern and reminded me not to let this take my energy today. I concur. But it has. I don't want to give space to this fear, anger, and sadness. I don't want to add those feelings to the world, or send out this energy. But it keeps creeping in, the way fear does. Sooo... I'm setting a timer. And I'm going to write. I'm going to write it all down. Get the whirling sadness written down and leave it there. To digest some other day.

It's not even my election.

~

My kids and I snuggled in and watched Home a few weeks ago. The little girl had lost her mom because the aliens had relocated the humans, and often lashed out at the one little alien she had befriended. Oh (the alien), finally realized that she was 'Sad-Mad'.

I'm sad-mad today.

This morning my friend shared that she explained her disappointment on the election results to her children, and listed one of her reasons being that he is a racist. And her beautiful, sweet, gorgeous children, children of an RCMP and of filipino heritage asked her, "So would he hate us Mom?"

How could anyone hate those sweet faces?

Why do people hate women in leadership so much that all of her accomplishments are effectively erased. Why can't I lead. Why is my voice smaller than his. Today power is out of reach for me. And for my brave and mighty daughter? In our home she is free to be the leader of her brothers because she is capable and makes it happen. She is so confident, so organized, and her drive is large. But in the real world will that still be a real possibility, do her capabilities matter? She will grow into a teen listening to the hateful misogyny surrounding us.

These are the world events our kids are growing up in, the thoughts they are hearing and trying to digest. This is what my boys are hearing too.

~

I went to sleep waiting for Florida to get their shit together. I dreamt about stressing and hurrying through a rural landscape. I kept spotting blue owls, some were alive but there were so many that were just dead, some exploded into a pile of feathers. No joke. I woke up to #WTF shredding my feed. And a map covered in too much red.

My first sleepy thought was that I really need to get a hand pump for our well. To survive the unknown, you need to be able to have water. Our grandparents survived because they were self-reliant when the systems around them collapsed and resources were scarce. On the Walking Dead the farm was their first stronghold.

Why do I feel like I need to apply fear-based zompie appocolyse style planning into our life?

For the first time in my life I have thoughts of my safety being chipped away at. I have been priviledged to have never been really afraid. We always have food. Water. Warmth. Communications. Luxurious baths, cheese, coffee with extra cream, yoga, mindfulness practice, blankets and snuggling with my dog help a grey day. These are all available to me at a moments notice. I have grown up in this atmosphere of plenty. Will my kids continue be so lucky?

~

This article on what history tells us about recent events reminds me of a podcast I listened to recently on generational theory and 20 year cycles of 'seasons', and the predictable Winter season we are in.

"At a local level in time, people think things are fine — then things rapidly spiral out of control until they become unstoppable, and we wreak massive destruction on ourselves. For the people living in the midst of this, it is hard to see happening and hard to understand. To historians later, it all makes sense and we see clearly how one thing led to another. During the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme I was struck that it was a direct outcome of the assassination of an Austrian Arch Duke in Bosnia. I very much doubt anyone at the time thought the killing of a minor European royal would lead to the death of 17 million people. 

My point is that this is a cycle. It happens again and again, but as most people only have a 50-100 year historical perspective they don’t see that it’s happening again. As the events that led to the First World War unfolded, there were a few brilliant minds who started to warn that something big was wrong, that the web of treaties across Europe could lead to a war, but they were dismissed as hysterical, mad, or fools, as is always the way, and as people who worry about Putin, Brexit and Trump are dismissed now." 

- Tobias Stone, HuffingtonPost.com 

In winter, you take care of your own, you need to protect yourself and your family from the world outside, and carefully guard your resources, because they are in short supply for the season.

In winter, who will take care of those who already need protection?

What are we watching grow?

~

This morning I went to the Remembrance Day service at the elementary school. Although I have a deep love of this place and our current country leadership, I don't usually attend these ceremonies. For no particular reason. (It strikes me today that it is easy to be unappreciative when things are good.) My daughter and son were singing in the choir though, and she asked me to come see her sing. My littlest guy, in grade one, is a proud member of the choir as well, and confessed to me last night with his big eyes that he was nervous because he is afraid of the 'pipe-bags'.

My dog was born on Remembrance Day and my friend suggested we name him something that nods to the day. I curled up my nose at the idea because I don't 'believe' in war and had no desire to celebrate it. This morning, I dressed my two singers with care, attentive to presenting them in a way that expressed my sombre thankfulness to those who protect our way of life.

Today, I felt like I have always been the elementary students who read their poems for the audience. They say the right words, but with a lightness that conveys they are part of a lucky generation who doesn't know war. As one little girl read her poem though, it was just right. Her face, above her Girl Guide scarf, told the story that she knew. She understood. I was struck with the thought that I was looking at a child who would be one of those few students like Harry Potter who can see the usually-invisible horse creatures on their way to Hogwarts.

The music of the 'pipe-bags', and the last post of the trumpet struck me hard this morning.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them."

"They shall not grow old" brought me visions of the aging soldiers at the front of the crowd as young boys, like my son. My tall, strong, vibrant, handsome son. Who before now I have never worried about sending off to war.

I am afraid of this winter.