Greetings Everyone!
Today’s post is written in the new modern memoir style. Read it slowly, and immerse yourself in the experience.
Notice that the new modern memoir style doesn’t minimize or gloss over our feelings, and it doesn’t exaggerate or dramatize them either. The reality of our experience is honored and acknowledged. The overall emphasis is on wisdom and sometimes that becomes apparent later, as we be with our own experience…
Bear Friend
Imagine a young vibrant boy, three years old, lost after playing in his grandmother’s yard that backs up to treacherous remote woods. Maybe he has a free spirit and an adventurous nature, as evidenced by the fact that he appeared to run in the opposite direction when the other children were called back into the house.
The news reporter’s voice cracks as little Casey’s blonde-haired innocent blue-eyed picture comes up on the TV screen. He is so young, I gasped to myself sitting on the comfy couch, safe and warm, fireplace crackling. What can I do? I prayed.
Hand on my heart I spoke to Casey directly in my mind. You are lost, Casey. We will find you. We need your help to play a game with us. Pretend a magical white bubble is all around you. Keep it bright, like the moon. Your mom will see you. Stay still and don’t wander. Keep calling your mom out loud.
I reach out with the deepest part of me, some people call it a sixth sense, that knows we are all energetically connected. Eyes closed, I ask with all my heart, as tears trickle slowly. Spirit of Great Bear will you come forward and guard this child? Signal your animal friends to do the same. Keep him warm and safe. Something inside my heart relaxes.
Later that night a news alert text buzzes my phone. Casey is found. A woman walking her dog heard faint cries from the woods, Mommy, Mommy where are you, Mommy? Rescuers went waist-deep through water that surrounded him to get to him. Thick brambles were holding his small body in place, like a safety net around him. They had to untangle him. He’d been out for two nights, three days, in very cold wet conditions, dressed only in lightweight play clothes.
Next news video, Casey’s mother grasping her husbands waist. Through mixed emotions she weeps in amazement, he’s alive. He is good. He asked to watch Netflix. He even said to me,
Mommy I have a new bear friend from the woods.
Did I hear that right? Did she just say bear? I was amazed. Could this bear have encircled Casey, keeping him safe, until his calls for his Mommy were heard by a stranger and he was discovered? Perhaps this was a mama bear, who even had her own baby cubs close by...
As I continue musing, my heart is filled with gratitude for the unseen connections of this world, and the possibility it brings that maybe, just maybe, magic and miracles really can happen.
Anya Sophia Mann
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