Bear Paw Journal

The following is an excerpt from a new essay I'm writing, called The Bear Paw Journal. It's a memoir about personal discovery.

I walked around the circle. “Grandfather, Great Spirit, bring here around this circle an aura of divine protection and love so that I am protected from all harm.” I had no incense, no sacred bundles, but I did sing a song of praise, something I remembered from the Sisterhood of the Shields. The Sisterhood holds up the shield of the firstness of woman, an ancient system oriented to the woman warrior, the goddess, a system of knowledge which relates to mother earth, the stars, and the primal energies of the earth as female. As weather warrior and a student of our planet’s history of male wars and male bloodshed and senseless suffering, the need for more manifestation of feminine consciousness hovered over me. Spending my life in negativity encases me into a negative thought form, a fossil without life. To become enlightened, to become spirit and formless and united with all living beings, I sensed the need to clear the negativity—all psychic and emotional debris—out of my system and out of my lifetime.