Jeane: In my first dream last night, I’m inside a house and a child comes. I don’t feel like I’m very old in this dream myself; I’m a young woman. Some people come down the road and they’ve gotten me to go outside. They want me to see what they’re seeing in the road, which leads down into the woods.
When I look toward the woods there’s a burly hunter – maybe because he’s an old man that’s all wrapped up in a coat – and there is also a big old bear lying down in the woods. It’s possible that both have died.
For some reason I don’t seem to pay much attention to the hunter, but it looks like the bear is actually still moving. The bear might be mortally wounded, but it’s not dead. Then the bear starts lumbering and then rolling toward us, so I get the child out of there. I know a wounded bear is nothing you want to deal with, so I get the child and we go down the road to a house where a friend of my mother’s lives.
It feels as though by the time we get to the house, the bear has actually died. I’m not sure if someone goes out and handles what happens with the bear, or if we’re just safely away now that we’re in the house.
John: Let me cover this part so far.
In Native American folklore, the bear is revered, just like the eagle is, because they are seen as guardians and carriers of the Divine Will that unfolds and brings Its mystery forth. Ordinarily a bear just lumbers along, and it’s kind of asleep, but the bear also carries within it a potential to shake things up, or to touch life in a way that causes something to change.
So, in your dream, it’s as though life has gone on and man has done his thing. The bear has been dormant (the bear being a part of Mother Earth), it’s like it’s buried alive. And the things that the hunter, or man, has done in his crude way has caused a spark or contrast where something in the old way of doing things has to give.
In other words, the old ways are seen as coming to an end. The ways of the hunter, or the ways of man as a species, have reached a climax. Through his will, man, and his pedigree of being something that’s meant to be the crown of creation here on earth, has caused things to reach a point where a transformation has to occur.
The bear represents the sleepy, lumbering way that man has been in terms of his true purpose. The directionless ways of the human race manifest in the mortally wounded bear (the man already seems dead), in that an awakening must happen. So the bear is staggering after you, but it signals a change.
That is like a baseline, or sign, of God quality: the bear awakening in your dream. It’s like you are seeing a sign that God-driven change is afoot. What that will be like might be revealed a little bit by the rest of your dream.
Tomorrow we will see how this imagery further unfolds!
