There is no one, human or animal, who can pretend to divine the true nature of myth and reality during their lifetime upon Earth. The old stories resonate so strongly in our souls and captivate our hearts so completely that we want to believe they are literally true—that the gods and magical creatures really do, or at least once did exist. These old legends are true expressions of divinity, but not in the direct way that we all at first want to think.

A myth is a shadow, or perhaps a foreshadow, of something mysterious, radiant, and indescribably powerful that lies behind the images that the story creates in your mind. The enthralling legends endure precisely because they are able to soften and gently reflect the majesty of the gods and the universe in a way that will not frighten or harm us, just as the moon gently reflects the warmth and light of the sun. One cannot look directly at the sun for very long without being harmed by the experience, but the moon can be pondered indefinitely. The creation of a story, the telling and retelling of that story, the experiencing something new every time you hear it … No matter what anyone may tell you, that experience is indisputably divine.

Now, during my life as a bear my habits were often nocturnal and I was deeply attached to the moon. When I was a cub, my mother told me such marvelous stories about the she-bear goddess Esh who lived on the moon and who brought the first Earthly bears into being. According to the legend, it was Esh’s shining eyes that reflected the sunlight and thus illuminated the moon for earthly creatures. When her eyes were wide open we had the full moon, when they were open just a crack we had a crescent moon, and when once a month she closed her eyes to sleep, the moon was hidden. Even as a cub I could see that there were many things in these stories that did not make sense, but my attachment to the fantasy was so strong as to stifle any resistance thrown up by my intellect. I was completely enthralled by any story relating to Esh and the moon.

I existed in this blissful realm of innocence until my third spring when, late one night at moonrise, my mother lay down next to me. I saw her body quivering and water streaming from her eyes. ‘Ushesh, the time has come for us to separate,’ she said. ‘Life on your own will be very hard, and it is important for you to try to see things as they really are. You have such a keen imaginative life, you so love the old stories, it will be especially difficult for you to confront the profane and cruel realities of physical survival, but you must learn to do so without my help.’

My mother then told me that there was not a she-bear goddess who lived on the moon, and that it was simply the surface of the moon, not the eyes of Esh, that reflected the sun’s light, just as the water of our nearby lake was illuminated on a sunny day. She said I should try to view the Esh stories in this way, as reflections or emanations of something incomprehensibly mysterious. My mother had learned these things, and much more, from the wise old mammoths and mastodons, with whom she had always been friendly. She never hunted or killed these creatures, and in gratitude they shared with her their ancient knowledge of the Earth and the stars.

When my mother finished talking, the tears were pouring from her eyes. She was old and knew I would be her last cub, so we were very close. She walked to the edge of the woods, commanding me not to follow her. I watched and heard her roars of grief as she disappeared into the darkness. Only then did I finally believe that my mother could really leave me, and only then did I begin to comprehend that my imagination could not control the outer world. The next two years of my life were harder than my imagination could ever have foreseen. I was finally forced to confront what I had known about myself all along—that I disliked being a predator and having to kill other creatures for my sustenance. I had great difficulty forcing myself to hunt, and tried to survive on what carrion I could steal and on berries and young shoots near the lake, but it was not enough for my large body.

I had to compete with much older and stronger bears for everything, including winter den sites. Those first two winters I took refuge under a pile of dead branches in the forest … Oh, how I missed the warmth of my mother’s body! But perhaps worst of all, I felt spiritually empty and hopeless. What my mother had told me about Esh had made great sense to my intellect, but had broken my heart. Without the emotional reassurance of believing that Esh was watching over me from the moon, I felt completely alone.

Now, when I looked at the moon or at the meadows of fireweed and goldenrod, I did not see emanations of infinite divine mystery, I felt only abandonment. When I looked into the future of my life, it did not seem like much of an existence—to spend six or seven months of the year hibernating in a state of catatonic torpor, and the remaining few months in mortal competition with other bears, and then one day I would die and that would be the end of it all? I could not see any meaning in such a life.[[ 9999 000]]

By the end of my fourth summer of life my mother had died, and as I searched for a winter den, I felt utterly bereft. My spirits were buoyed slightly when I finally found a small, secluded cave, about halfway up a hillside, that could accommodate my body. The old male bear who had used the den for many years had died inside the previous winter, so I first had to remove the desiccated remains of his body. I mechanically recited the eulogy prayer to Esh over the old bear’s body, just as my mother had taught it to me, but the poem now felt lifeless and devoid of any meaning.

Early one morning as I finished my housecleaning and stretched out in my new home, the first snow of the season began to fall. I watched the heavy flakes gently falling all day, then saw the sky gradually clear as darkness approached. Eventually I saw the moon rising over the forest below. It was the first sliver of crescent after the new moon, and I could just make out the faintly illuminated shadow of the rest of the moon.

I cannot explain how or why—perhaps I had finally endured enough physical suffering to render my imagination humble and receptive, but in that instant the moon came alive to me again, and I finally understood what my mother had been trying to tell me on our last night together. Of course there was no magical she-bear living on the moon, and yet the vivid images of Esh that I had formed as a cub were real and alive again within me, as were my memories of the delightful glint in my mother’s eyes as she told me those stories. In a way I was Esh, and Esh was a part of me, as essential to my survival as my teeth and limbs.

When I awoke the following spring and pushed away the branches and snow that covered the entrance to my cave, I saw that it was night, and the moon was rising over the forest. It was a brilliant, yellow, full moon this time, and I felt as though it was there solely to welcome me back to the world. I heard my mother’s voice inside my head. “I am happy to see you again, Ushesh,” she seemed to be saying. “You have slept well, and understand now. Yes, you are your own myth. Go out and create your story.”

So that is what I did; I went out and tried to live my life as a bear. I reconciled myself to the predatory life as much as possible, scavenging whenever I could and killing only when I could find no alternative. I reveled in the return of flowers and the singing birds every spring, and allowed myself to believe that my life was significant to whatever lay behind the wonderful symbol of Esh. As silently and spontaneously as Esh came back to me that night staring at the moon, experiences of magic will come to you when you least expect them, in those uncanny moments of synchronicity that are earthly life’s greatest prize. Your mind may naturally try to preserve these experiences with language, but really there are no adequate words. You will simply feel the understanding in your heart, and must let yourself revel in these moments no matter how absurd they may seem to your intellect, because these feelings are the divine creative energy that connects you to life.

Part Three, Eshemu, will come next week.

These stories are excerpted from my novel Heartbeat of the Marru. It’s a first novel, not as well organized as it could and should be, but the first person animals tories are very engaging, and I’ll slowly be sharing them here …. for free!