Spirit Animal - My Connection To Polar Bear

While writing this, I was listening to "Unto The Burning Circle" by Andreas Vollenweider

Polar Bear north of Churchill from www.polarbearsinternational.org 

  In my blogs, I talk about about many topics connected to spirituality. Each topic reflects something that is going on in my life.  Therefore, I truly enjoy writing about animals since the ANIMALS are such a large part of my life.

The Polar Bear has been receiving a lot of attention recently.  Polar Bear, however, has been a part of my life since 1972.  That is the year that I went to work with Hudson Bay Northern Stores.  The clerical work that I did was for the Northern Stores in Churchill, Lynn Lake and north in Manitoba, Northern Saskatchewan and Northern Ontario.

In the winter, the Store Managers, Trainees, and sometimes District Managers from our office in Winnipeg travelled back and forth.  Many of the residents from the north would come and visit at my desk.  They always had great stories of encounters with polar bears, arctic wolves, arctic foxes, and whales and seals and walruses.  As they realized that I really loved to hear stories of polar bears, they began to snap pictures of the animals and send them off to me in the next batch of books to be analysed.  I began to get several pictures a month during the winter. I kept some of the pictures, however, the earlier photographic paper does yellow over time, and does not stand up to much handling.  

Pictures like this one, of a mother and cubs were common.  This picture comes from www.nwf.org. 

The point of the story is that when an animal shows up over and over in your life, especially from an early age, a Shaman says that this is one of Power Animals.  A Power Animal both shows an aspect of your self as well as showing an external source of power that is always available to you.

At the time that I was meeting Polar Bear for the first time, I did not realize the implications of the true power of this Bear.  Polar Bear is truly a specialist in the North - the colour, the ability to hunt all prey in such a camouflaged way as to be invisible, and the great speed - send a message that I did not "get" until a couple of years ago. I think that I am still learning some of it.

What Polar Bear did for me during the time that I worked at Northern Stores was create a love for all things Northern, and a great sadness that the company that I worked for was sponsoring hunters to kill the animals of the North for their fur.  I realized that I did not want to be part of that culture and within the year of starting my job, I began taking night classes at University to become something else. 

One of the messages that I received from Polar Bear, in a retrospective look at my life, was to move away from being somebody without a goal or a specific purpose.  Polar Bear was a BIG motivating factor in moving into Education and then into Accounting, and finally specializing in Accounting Software. 

The other thing that Polar Bear did was make sure that I was with the perfect mate.  When I met the guy that is now my husband, one of the things that impressed me was that he had a picture of two Polar Bears playing. I have included the picture below.

 

Two Polar Bears Playing... picture that hangs in our house - taken by Judith Hirst-Joyeux.

 

 

I wish you happiness and days of playing!

Judy@angelsandancestors.com    Tell me your story about Polar Bear!