Living with Bears, Sea Lions... and Bigfoot?

Imagine sharing berries with a Black Bear. While I can't recommend anyone else do this, considering it may not be safe in every case, I adored living with bears and living with Sea Lions on the Oregon Coast. I was a woman alone in the huge forest that existed at least at that time near Florence, and along the beach, no other people in sight, for months. The bears and sea lions were plenty friends for me.

I lived the Tantric ascetic lifestyle for a large part of my single life, determined to live as harmoniously as possible with nature, as simply as my needs would allow, without depending on the modern conveniences society likes us to believe we must obtain from them in order to survive. Now, I live where I can walk everywhere, and don't even drive a car, but at the time when I was living with bears, I still had a mini-van, which allowed me to live outside of housing altogether, most often using the van to travel with, and sleep in at times, though I almost always left the van to find a place outside to sleep, on the red rocks of canyons, on mountain tops, in caves, on the other side of the rest area fences, in forests such as that one in Oregon, full of vivid green moss.

I could rationalize driving at the time because it took me where I was needed in the world to do energy healings that were curing people of major illnesses one right after another. I was giving Shaktipat transmissions, sending energy that would open people's chakras, take them into hours of intense visions, transform their sense of themselves and of the potentials of reality. If they were ready, Shaktipat would raise their Kundalini. Living with bears and sea lions was perfect for remaining grounded and in tune with the earth's Kundalini energy flow through its ley lines and pulsing out of it at every point. I was truly living inside deep love for earthly creatures and that fostered the ability to send that love in the transmissions.

I needed to keep my psychic skills perfect for healing and Shaktipat, and I was doing both of those things long distance as well as in person, even for strangers. I would test the continuing accuracy of my psychic abilities by doing things like practicing knowing which Tarot card I was about to pick out of the deck, or make a list in the morning of what I thought might happen that day, and test my precognition. I would perform my healings and transmissions while in the forest, able to tune into people long distance because I wasn't dependent on other means of communication. This was the aboriginal method, in which we acknowledge that the world is far less mundane than the phone companies and Internet providers would have us believe. We can communicate spirit to spirit when we take time to learn to tune in, and living a Tantric ascetic lifestyle was very helpful to me in that regard.

Living alone, I was able to remove other peoples' energy fields from the equation of what I was feeling, though even at the time, I knew we were being bombarded by Scalar waves, microwaves, ELF waves, etc, to bring down our psychic abilities, and our skills for tuning into what is really going on in the world, seeing beyond the agendas of those who want to control us. The powers that be would like to keep us afraid of nature and our own “paranormal� abilities, keep us divorced from the Shamanic traditions, histories not discussed in history books, third eye vision which lets us see the other realms and what lurks there.

I was able to clear my aura of other peoples' gunk I had picked up doing healing work professionally year after year. That had begun to affect my health at times, and later, when I didn't take time to air out in the forest, my health got worse, going into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome kinds of symptoms. When I didn't recharge the energies I was sending to others by living in the forest with bears and sea lions, birds and foxes, coyotes, slugs, whatever it was location by location, I could become depleted. Sometimes, I needed to take time to attune to the sun, vibrate with the plants, resonate with the sea lions, feel my oneness with the moss and the dirt and the water flowing by to draw on the continuum and send energies through it.

I did Tantric exercises there, Taoist exercises, Kundalini Yoga, the Five Tibetans, and more spiritual practices along those lines. I ate what I found, only, and communicated with it, feeling its love, vibrating in tune with its frequencies, lessons, spiritual view of the world. I found very little, so learned to need less and less. In some ways, this may have been damaging to my metabolism in the long run, but my long-term goal has always been to become a breatharian, and I did achieve that for several months one time, though living like that for so many years as preparation. I wanted to know I could ultimately live without dependence at all on modern conveniences, or have to feed from an earth that needed to be left alone. I wanted to fully experience eating consciously, my gratitude and awareness of the gifts of the earth never wavering. And the bears were eating berries too.

When I found the parklands along the road, I just pulled off, parked my van, took my blankets, water, eyeglasses, a towel, toilet paper and shovel, a flashlight, and extra clothes, and walked into the forest. That was years ago, when things were simple, when all the forest areas had not been taken out, when staying in a park wasn't regulated as it is now. Now, we are forced more and more to be civilized in the way deemed appropriate and necessary. Now, we can't do anything without filling in all our information on paperwork and we are absolutely required to put down a phone number, address, email, credit card number. If we don't have them, we can't proceed. I had none of those. I was living my animal nature, not divorced from my own independent ability to live in the wild with bears and sea lions or skunks or bugs or whatever happened to be in my actual location in space as an embodied being. I didn't use a tent, preferring not to be sheltered by the artificial.

I found a flat place on the ground which I could clear without having to disturb much foliage, and made my home by putting down blankets and that was it. Not dealing with food I brought in meant I didn't have to bother with hanging it from a tree to keep it from bears, and it meant they wouldn't respond to me in connection with hunger. Normally, I liked to live places with flowing streams, drink melted snow water, but here, there was only a small lake, so I would walk to it along a path, and take a filter. When it would rain, I would get wet, like other animals. When it was cold, I would huddle. When it was time for other peoples' TV shows, I would be feeling bliss of Tantric exercises as I explored the other realms. And when it was time to do Shamanic exercises, which I didn't use any substances to help with as some do, I would go look into the Kivas of the stumps around me that had become beautifully hollowed out, and delve down inside the ground to flow along the pathways of the interactions below the surface of the world.

The first night, I heard owls, birds scratching around me, and was starting to drift off to sleep, when I heard something almost like a person walking near me. There had been no cars at the pull off, and I saw no flashlights. I listened very carefully, not moving. The walking continued around me in a circle. I saw a dark blob walking, in the dark, as I poked my head out of my wool blanket. Sticks were cracking. No one knew I where I was, in case anything happened. I had no weapons. But though I considered realistic possibilities, I wasn't really afraid. Nothing had has ever happened to me in the wild. I realized when the faint moonlight struck it, that a bear was walking about a yard and a half away from me, and that it seemed to be circling me.

I was fascinated. My mother had told me wonderful bear stories. I had seen them from a distance often when camping. I had nothing but love for bears, though I was glad to be in Black Bear country rather than Grizzly. The bear walked around me in a circle, and eventually left.

The next night, it happened again, but with two bears. After that, three seemed to be the most common number walking around me in a circle at night from time to time. I didn't know why. But I liked it. It felt homey, like saying goodnight to the family.

I would have never fed the bears or tried to lure them into a close relationship, as I didn't want to change their feelings about humans from what they already were. Feeding bears can lead to them becoming killed later on, and that has happened recently in that part of Oregon. But simply living with them at a reasonable distance seemed to be part of the age-old way of doing things, so we just co-existed, though on a more psychic realm, we did more than that.

I was eating Uva Ursi Berries (Egg of the Bear) and Juniper Berries, most often, as well as healthy mushrooms and leaves and once in awhile, I would go into Florence to the health food store and eat something there which I would be careful not to bring traces of back into the forest. One day, as I was at a stand of berries, a black bear came up to the other side and started eating. I was always careful not to eat too many, as they were still ripening, and I didn't want to take too many from the bears. I wanted to share fairly, as I saw my presence there eating the berries as being a gift from the bears, as they were allowing me in their home to dine with them. And dine together we did, happily. Not only that time, but many times over the course of months.

I started seeing the bears as my Shamanic Power Animals, and just as I would dance food after I ate it, to resonate with it, I started doing a bear dance regularly, to get in tune with it, learn the lessons, gain new perspectives. And my bear sightings would be much more likely when I was doing the Bear Dance. I could be on a trail, doing the dance, and a bear would walk out in front of me and look at me. The dances were quiet, slow, nothing that would attract them for any obvious reasons. I think they felt them, felt that they were being honored, maybe subconsciously, but maybe with more psychic awareness that we might give them credit for.

I would also go to the beach, and run for a long way, and came across a herd of Sea Lions. I was thrilled, and spent the day there, and as I had plenty of water with me, I decided to spend the night. There was a large packing crate that had washed up, and I used all my strength to pull it up higher on the beach, which was very difficult, so I wasn't sure I had pulled it far enough to avoid being washed out with the incoming tide. It was all I could do, though, and I was tired, so I used a sharp shell and cut some tall grasses around to make a soft bed in the packing crate, which was lying on its side, as I didn't have my blankets with me, much less warmer clothes.

I carried driftwood and stacked it up against the open side of the crate, and got inside of it, pulling more driftwood up behind me. Not an easy task. I was glad the Tantric exercises kept me flexible. I went to sleep, saying goodnight to the Sea Lions, and hoping not to wake up out in the ocean.

I was glad that I had indeed pulled the crate far enough up on the shore, when I woke up dry in the morning. I moved the driftwood out of the way and stood up, and was sad to see the Sea Lions get spooked by my sudden presence that had probably forgotten about. I'm sure they weren't used to a person suddenly being right in front of them out of the blue. Many of them waggled out in to the ocean and bobbed up and down on the waves, looking at me. I hadn't meant to scare them.

So, every other night I spent there at the packing crate with my Sea Lion friends, I would then emerge in the morning by rolling out of the crate! As long as I rolled out, on their level, obviously merging with their lifestyle, not towering above them, moving seamlessly, they were fine, and didn't feel the need to escape to the ocean.

I eventually started doing the Sea Lion Dance, making them my other Shamanic Animal Totems at the time. With my average frame, pale skin, and long red hair, I may not look like Black Bears or Sea Lions, but I felt like one of them when I did the dance, facing the ocean along the Oregon coast, and my heart expanded even more.

I felt safe in the forest and the coast. Until one day, walking along the trail to the little lake, I saw tracks the size of a few Black Bear tracks in one. It had recently rained, so I thought maybe the largest of all Black Bears had been walking along and sliding in the rain, but no matter how hard I tried to believe that, I couldn't rationally make myself. The tracks were just way too big. I could only think they had to be Grizzlies, and finally started thinking of them that way, though I eventually looked into it and found the last of them had been seen in Oregon in 1913. Day after day, I'd see the tracks along the trail to the little lake, and the ground was still wet, so I could keep pretending maybe it was the biggest Black Bear in the world, but it even seemed like for a Grizzly, it would be large. I saw smaller tracks too, and got nervous.

When I would walk to the little lake, I would wrestle with the idea of death by large bears that somehow weren't supposed to even be in that area. My favorite idea of how to die was being eaten by an animal. Recycled, naturally. But I didn't want the animal to be discovered having done that, and killed. I didn't want to die just yet. I was honoring the giant unbelievable bear as being my power animal and at that point, teaching me fearlessless. That became my main focus during that time. Letting whatever giant mystery bear that made those tracks teach me to walk with fear in the best possible way.

My Shamanic journeys became intense at time I was delving into my fear, and I felt it was time to gain some assistance from a Shaman. Well, how do we find that in today's society? The Yellow Pages.

I went to the health food store in Florence, which was wonderful for reading anyway, as they had a great selection of books, including ones I bought on foods in the forest in Oregon, and I looked through the phone book, and contacted a Shaman. Easy.

I went to see her, and was amazed by what she said. When we got to know each other a bit, she said she could tell I was the person her Shaman friend had told her would be coming. I hadn't told this woman about where I was living yet, much less the bears. But she said her friend had told her the week before: She'll be coming in next week. But right now, she's wrestling with the bears in the forest.

I was amazed. Her friend had seen into my plans before I had made them. Time was truly non-linear.

My time in the forest and the beach with the Sea Lions and Black Bears eventually came to an end as I moved on into my time back in society, to do my work as a healer and spiritual teacher. And now, I look back on it and realize that as those tracks must not have belonged to Grizzlies, the only thing I can imagine they could have been was Sasquatch. Bigfoot creatures are very commonly reported in Oregon forests. I never saw anyone but myself in that forest all that time, and though the trees had been cut down once, with huge trunk stumps that became the mossy Kivas, other trees were large as well, and it was a beautiful region full of delicate foliage, very hospitable, and with the lake, probably an ideal home for Bigfoot.

Though I never heard their sounds while there, I believe, after comparing the tracks to tracks found so often in that area of people who do hear and record their vocalizations, that I was living in harmony with not only Black Bears, and Sea Lions, but at least two Sasquatch in a beautifully dreamy spot, being looked in on by a Shaman, all of which made it my favorite place I've lived in my life. I feel honored and blessed to have had the opportunity to live as an animal with these that were so much larger than myself, they could have easily hurt me if so desired, but which instead made me feel welcome to live the natural life of an earthly primate that I am, and blending on the ethers as we are meant to do.