The folks of Southeast Alaska are fortunate in that we sometimes experience glimpses of bears along the trails and even in our yards. These encounters bring awe, wonder, excitement and sometimes fear. These are exactly the same feelings that humankind has experienced about bears since primitive times. The observations of bears, and these feelings, evolved into a belief that these hairy cousins were sacred and holy and to be respected in special ways.

This unique connection between humans and bears was experienced and continues to this day as we retell folk tales, legends, and myths and cuddle stuffed bears.

We have many hundreds of words in English that derive from “bear” as found in many linguistic families.

Many people choose the bear as a “spirit animal,” striving to imbue the bears many characteristics into their own lives.

Bears are large omnivores and therefore always curious about their environment as they search for food, just as people hunted and foraged. Watching them explore their environment, we sense a consciousness somewhat like our own.

We observe them standing up on the soles of their feet, surveying their domain. They sit with a leg folded under like a child. They are very smart and clever with their paws.

Our local Native people can tell you about their special relationships with grandmother and grandfather bear, and how they revere them.

In biblical literature, the bear was written about as having great power — the Power of God. There is also the famous verse “the cow and bear shall graze (together). Their young ones will lie down together” (Isaiah 11:7)

The bear was an important symbolic pre-Christian animal that was” baptized” into the Church, where in Europe it became a special totem for Christ and the Church. This is not surprising since, as Christianity grew and expanded its range, it assimilated the Nature Wisdom of the newly baptized members.

Bestiaries were compiled that attributed various animals and their natural and imaginative qualities into Christian virtues and stories. The bear was experienced as a Christ symbol because of its hibernation cycle. It was buried in the Earth at winter and rose with cubs, bringing new life forth in the spring.

Saint Bonaventure, a Franciscan monk, writes a tale of a bear coming to the aid of a monk who needed help guarding his flock and thus being of service to humankind. In doing so, the bear was the first animal to be referred to in Christian literature as “brother.”

The church understood its bear-like nature in shaping and nurturing new converts while protecting them with the bear’s ferocity. (There was a belief/myth that bears cubs were born formless and the mother licked them into shape).

The bear constellations in the sky pointed the way and made navigation possible as the church guided people in following the Way of Christ.

The bear entering into the cave and emerging again in spring has been likened unto death and resurrection.

The bear was honored, and there were special rituals and taboos for hunting, killing, and consuming bears. The bear was seen as sacrifice so that people might have life and was often the “honored guest” at its own feast. This is similar to the way Christians understand Christ and Holy Communion.

I hope that when you next glimpse or encounter a bear in the wild or night sky, you might better understand why humans through the ages have had such a special relationship with our hairy cousin.

I end with this edited quote from ”The Sacred Paw” (p. xi). “The bear is kind of an ideogram of people in nature, reminding us of what we have lost: wily, smart, strong, fast, agile, and independent in ways we humans have left behind. The bear symbolizes the harmony of society in nature, a harmony disrupted in the modern world.”

Please Care for Creation. Live simply so that others may simply live.

• The Rev. Roger Wharton, formally an Episcopal Priest in Juneau, currently serves at Good Samaritan Church in San Jose, and is an EcoChaplain and Sacred Ecologist. “The Sacred Paw” by Shepard and Sanders (Viking 1985) and medieval bestiaries were the inspiration for this article. “Living and Growing” is a weekly column written by different authors and submitted by local clergy and spiritual leaders. It appears every Saturday on the Juneau Empire’s Faith page.