Mother Bear California
Is a Home in Eternity

Sept 10, 2021

In the cab of a 26-foot truck.
The closer to California,
the closer to home,
my bones know this.

Cross the state line,
see California’s flag,
Mother Bear, I’m home.

She takes me to Her bosom
immediately and immeasurably.
I’m home.
I’m whole.

Moving to Pennsylvania 17 years ago,
I thought it’d be permanent.
But not a day passed that I didn’t miss S.F.

I couldn’t admit, even to myself,
till I was back in the City by the Bay,
that when I’d first entered the Pennsylvania house I’d purchased,
I felt rootless, bereft, in exile.
An outsider.

I could never lay down roots in Pennsylvania soil.
No matter how much I tended the land,
how much I healed the land,
how many rituals I did to heal my refugee heart,
my roots remained in California—
for 17 years, I felt like my legs had been torn off,
left in the earth of the West coast.

Years of insomnia.
Then, my first night on the bedrock of Nob Hill,
I fall asleep within 15 minutes.
I know it was 15 because
my audiobook shuts off after 15,
and usually I turn it on for another 15, another 15,
another … but I didn’t hear the audio stop
my first night here.

Three days in my new apartment, I feel at home,
was never at home in Pennsylvania,
but now Mama Bear California holds me
holds me holds me holds me.

The town is filled with gorgeous, young
Hispanic and East Indian men,
their heartfelt eyes smiling at me
above their KN95 masks.

Other youth, artfully shabby
and loose-limbed after their yoga classes,
stalk past like professional predators, each after another.

But Mother Bear fuels the humans
whose hearts are moored to this sandy stretch.
Kush, one of many refugees from S.F.,
phones from New York
to tell me I’m “in eternity. Nob Hill is sacred.”

He adds that my living here “intensifies the sacredness.”
Decades back in S.F., I told him of my sorrow,
sad that, as a shaman,
I did not have a piece of land to tend.
He responded, “The place you used to live on Ellis Street
burned down after you left.”
Oh, I tended it without knowing.

He adds in his recent phone call that “S.F. needs healing.
This is Dreamtime Beach.
San Francisco has the vision, those who have it have it.”

He also explains I am “destined to be in San Francisco.
Think Communitas. Constellation. Ecosystem.
Be attentive to all and weave.”

My friends near and far weave the dream with me.

I do not reject the predators but wrap my heart around them.
There is only we. That is part of the dream,
a piece of eternity. So mote it be!

Dear reader, the first recorded image of a Madonna with child was a bear with Her cubs.

She is the primal Goddess, Mother of all Who manifests as mighty currents sweeping throughout the universe to carry us to our dearest goals.

She also reveals Herself as a living, loving presence in every rock, blade of grass, and human heart.

She is Eternity in every rock, blade of grass, and human heart.

I feel Her no matter where I am but find it much more challenging to nestle into Her love and Living Eternity in some places and circumstances.

Always journeying with Her, running toward Her, running away from Her—even when I’m stationary—life is a travel adventure.

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