Reclaiming spiritual practice as revolutionary resistance
I've been thinking about ancient Bear deities: Ursel, Artio, even the Paleolithic bear worship... Now, at a time when the world seems to demand we choose between being afraid or being naive, the wisdom of the bear offers us a third way: the path of fierce love.
This was first written as a homily, and I offer it to you here for your reflection. Bear deities figure in many indigenous traditions. Ursel is a Slavic goddess of the moon and bears. Kaiti is a bear goddess of the Haida of the Pacific NW of North America. Artio is the mother bear goddess of the Celts and Gauls. Kamuy is a bear figure revered by the Ainu in Japan. They are all revered as guardians, protectors and guides.
The Profitable Manufacture of Fear
Let me name what we're all feeling: we live in a time when fear is deliberately manufactured and sold to us. Economic inequality leaves people feeling powerless. Cultural backlash creates division. Environmental crisis breeds anxiety. And all of this gets amplified by media systems that profit from our terror and outrage.
This isn't accidental. Fear is profitable. It keeps us isolated, reactive, and dependent on systems that promise safety in exchange for our agency. The pattern is predictable: isolate people from community and nature, flood them with crisis so they feel powerless, and break their trust in the sacred—in their own wisdom, in the web of life, in whatever they hold holy.
A person who knows they are whole and connected is much harder to control.
Cave bears loomed large in the Cro-Magnon mind as shown in this Chauvet cave painting. Jean Clottes
When Fear Becomes Toxic
Not all fear is manufactured. Some of our fear is entirely reasonable, especially for those living under real and immediate threat. The question isn't how to eliminate fear, but how to distinguish between the fear that connects us to what we love and the fear that makes us smaller.
Healthy fear moves us toward protection and care. It says: "This matters to me, so I will act." Toxic fear isolates us, hands our power over to others, and convinces us we are helpless.
The bear knows this difference. A mother bear doesn't become fierce out of hatred. She becomes fierce out of love. Her power comes not from anger but from an unshakeable commitment to protecting what is precious.
The Wisdom of the Bear Goddess
In Slavic tradition, Ursel embodies this sacred fierceness that emerges not from aggression but from deep love. She shows us that strength and tenderness are not opposites. They are partners.
The bear hibernates, but she also defends her cubs with everything she has. She nurtures, but she also sets boundaries that cannot be crossed. She knows when to rest and when to act, when to be gentle and when to be formidable.
This is the wisdom we need now: fierce love. Love that has boundaries. Tenderness that will not be diminished. Compassion that refuses to be complicit in systems that harm.
"Bear" carving by Haida artist Bill Reid, Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, photo by D. Gordon E Robertson CC3.0
Spiritual Practice as Resistance
In times like these, spiritual practice is not a luxury or an escape. It is critical resistance work. Because authoritarianism thrives on brittle spirits, while thriving communities are rooted, resilient, and alive.
When we tend our spirits, we are doing political work. When we stay connected to what makes us feel most alive and grounded, we become harder to manipulate. When we gather in circles, sharing our questions and our wisdom, we are reweaving the social fabric that fear tries to tear apart.
History shows us this truth. During World War II, Quaker communities saved thousands of Jewish lives not because they were warriors, but because their spiritual practice had cultivated an unshakeable commitment to human dignity. Buddhist communities have sustained resistance to oppression through practices that maintain inner freedom even under external control. Indigenous land defenders draw strength from spiritual connections that colonizers cannot understand or co-opt.
These communities shared common threads: deep-rootedness in practice, commitment to something beyond the individual self, and spiritual foundations that couldn't be shaken by external pressure.
The Choice Before Us
So here's the choice before us: they win by keeping us spiritually brittle. We heal by becoming spiritually flexible, grounded, and unshakeable.
Choosing to read this and consider something new is already an act of resistance. Every time you choose to gather with others around questions of meaning rather than consumption, you are choosing connection over isolation. Every time you trust your own inner wisdom rather than outsourcing your decisions to fear-based systems, you are reclaiming your agency.
Every time you respond to the world's pain with fierce love rather than reactive fear, you are channeling the Bear Goddess.
Living the Questions
I offer to you questions to sit with. I invite you to hold these questions not as problems to solve but as invitations to deepen:
How do you view fear? Can you feel the difference between the fear that makes you smaller and the fear that emerges from love?
Have you ever found a gift in fear? Perhaps it connected you to what you value most, or moved you to protect something precious, or showed you your own strength.
How do you summon your inner bear when you need courage? What helps you remember that you are both tender and fierce, both vulnerable and powerful?
The Work That Is Ours
We are living through a time that historians will study. Future generations will ask: What did they do when democracy was fragile? When the climate was changing? When fear was being weaponized?
I believe they will say: Some people chose to tend their spirits and each other's. Some people remembered that they were whole, holy, and connected. Some people practiced fierce love.
Some people gathered under the moon and around kitchen tables and in virtual circles, refusing to let fear have the last word. They knew that their spiritual practice was not separate from justice work—it was the foundation that made sustained action possible.
The bear hibernates, but she also awakens. She rests, but when spring comes, she emerges with cubs to protect and territory to claim.
What is trying to be born through you? What fierce love is stirring in your hibernating heart? What is yours to protect, to nurture, to defend with the unshakeable strength of one who knows she is connected to all life?
The Bear Goddess lives within you. She is both sanctuary and guardian. She is both a soft heart and a strong backbone.
In a world that profits from your fear, your fierce love is a revolutionary act.
**Say it with me: Blessed be the Bear within. Blessed be the fierce love that will not be diminished. Blessed be.**
May you know your fierce love today.
Visit http://AmyBeltaine.info to find resources, reflections, and companionship for the journey.
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