Bear's Blog

Every summer the School has a Retreat in the wild. It’s a time of celebration and completion for the graduates as they present their final projects and a big party for the School community. In The McKay Method^® classes we focus on the human physiology; at the Retreat we explore other kingdoms – plants, animals, and earth forms. In the past we have gone to the Big Horn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, and the WD Ranch in Big Timber, Montana. This year graduate Linda Thurston and her...

The healing world lost two luminaries in 2012 - John Upledger and Gabrielle Roth. Dr. John was an osteopath who created a set of techniques known as CranioSacral Therapy, and Gabrielle developed a language of movement called The 5Rhythms®. Both were concerned with enhancing the movement of life within our bodies. Our bodies are both matter and energy, physical and fluid; the energy moves the fluid and the fluid moves the physical, which creates energy. This dance of movement from matter...

On the full moon lunar eclipse in April, Emilie Conrad took on her light body. A true pioneer, exploring consciousness through the human form, she challenged our thinking and awareness of what’s possible, and how we limit our own experience. She was at the cutting edge of many disciplines, enlisting collaborators in the arts and healing arts. She was a pivotal teacher for me in many ways. I studied with her off and on over 15 years, and have included Continuum movement in my...

This year in Advanced classes we are studying the Soul and its dynamics over many lifetimes. This involves discussion of what happens after death, between lives, and how to work with other energy Beings such as ghosts, spirits, and guides. It’s pretty amazing and we’re all having a lot of fun with it.

One evening during the first class a student, brimming with excitement and ideas, wrote this poem on a hotel note pad. Thank you, Molly, for this beautiful...

You can’t deny it, the holiday season is wonderful. Mid-winter celebrations have been going on around the world as long as history remembers. It would be an awfully dreary and depressing time of year without them. Everyone is in an uplifted mood, reaching out to family, friends, and the larger community. We socialize more, we volunteer and donate to help others, we indulge in special foods and drink. People are feeling generous, not only with gifts but with time and attention. We bring...

Every “thing” resonates with the pulse of life, engaging with the energies surrounding it. Objects made of wood, clay, metal, fabric and other natural substances interact with and gather energies. It is for this reason I like antiques – I wonder at the life they have experienced and been witness to. Any stone in my garden from a faraway quarry or object made from wood also carries the memory of where it came from. I welcome them with appreciation into their new home and make...

I recently bought a doll for the first time in many years – not for my daughters this time, but for myself. Linda Thurston, an assistant in our Advanced Series who graduated last year, brought four dolls made by Scott Frazier to class. Scott, a Crow/Santee, has been participating in Linda’s Wolf Tracker tours in Yellowstone Park this past summer. Linda brought Native spirituality, with the help of Scott, into her biology tours as part of her McKay Method Graduate project. Much to...

Do you ever feel like life is moving faster than ever? The days and events fly by; you’re getting things done but you lack a feeling of pleasure from your accomplishments. Life feels dull and predictable.

In our instant world, our attention is constantly being pulled in many directions. We rarely give ourselves the opportunity to really connect the dots of our experiences to create a sense of depth and meaning. When was the last time you were truly enraptured by something, forgetting...

2012. We’ve been hearing about the significance of 12/21/12 for years as a point of shift—of consciousness? of dimensions? of the earth’s poles? Is the fate of the human race, or even the earth, in question? Now that we’re well into this process and reaching the zenith on December 21st, the true meaning is more elusive than ever. I perceive it as a five-year process; we were launched out of the box on January 1st 2010, and soon we’re going to be on the downside...

Recently Montana State University held a symposium on the groundbreaking book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig. Scholars discussed the importance of this work, the author’s life story, even the route of the trip he took on the motorcycle journey which is the central metaphor in this philosophical work. Bozeman Montana, the “high country of the mind,” plays a critical part in the book, Pirsig’s life and the development of his...

I finally tracked her down in the Inupiat town of Kotzebue, a village of about 3,000 people, north of the Arctic Circle on the Alaska coast. In Kotzebue, everyone knows each other and most are related somehow, so, following other’s cues, I hopped in one of the few taxis (that traversed even fewer roads) and said, “Take me to Della’s house.” When I arrived the small house was full – people were watching TV, playing cards, cooking a meal. When I asked for Della...