Two women friends of mine approached me about a troubling situation, an “emergency,” in their neighborhood and we quickly got together to discuss it. They live on adjoining streets, and the junction of the two is a circle that seemed to be the center or source of the problem. As it turned out, the circle also held the community-level resolution.
At one of the houses on the circle, a demented elderly woman had been murdered by her daughter, now a fugitive; the place had been a crime scene for some time and was still visited periodically by the police. The house was crammed full of stuff and falling apart; a grandson, living there with one of his friends, intended to fix it up for sale but didn’t have the financial means or, perhaps, the capabilities to do so. Two young boys were seen at the house from time to time; their connection to the family or place was unclear and my friends were concerned about the boys’ safety and well-being because of the unsavory energy there and periodic police presence. My friends also were concerned about protection for each neighboring property adjacent to what they had come to call the “dark” house.
Also at the circle, the women told me, a car had gone over the guardrail in a vacant lot across from the “dark” house as a result of a police chase and barreled downslope toward the deep canyon on that side (what happened to the driver was unclear), and some old human bones had been found in the woods near the circle.
Clearly something in this space was deeply amiss.
After talking, we walked the neighborhood together. It was an ethnic and, to a lesser degree, racial mix and although the homes varied in design and age, some owner occupied and others rentals, there was a general sense of homogeneity and, overall, the energy felt good, especially on the canyon side of the street.
But the circle was another matter. The energy there made my hands buzz, and even while we were talking indoors before we walked there, I’d gotten the hit that “something was rising up out of the ground.” Though the buzzy area was concentrated at the circle and didn’t extend far down either street, it was a powerful vortex whose influence, I knew, might far outreach its “size” and whose rebalancing might involve more than clearing.
Later in the day at home I had a strong, persistent image of a big, angry bear erupting from the vortex — the “something rising up out of the ground.” In the image, the vortex looked more and more like a deep hole, or opening. There was both an earth and a water feeling to the hole, as if swirling, dark chocolate-colored “water” had “opened up” and bear had emerged from that opening. This being felt male, which is consistent with the symbology of the awakening rather than the hibernating bear. But why was bear bursting in a furor from the hole? I knew we needed to have a conversation.
Two days later in a remote session, we did. And I asked bear to tell his story.
As I suspected, the underlying problem was older, much older. This had been a sacred place where indigenous people did ceremony. Something violent had happened which defiled the place, and bear had come to guard it, perhaps to protect it from further defilement, and very likely to help heal it. The recent murder in the “dark” house had reactivated the much older energy of violence and desecration. No wonder bear was angry! “I am old and tired and want peace,” he told me. “I want to return to my people,” he then added — that is, as I understood it, to “retire” from his long role as guardian once my team and I had completed our work.
We did a multilevel clearing, asking for healing in the “dark” house, the circle as it exists today, and the much older source layer(s). Further, we asked for protection for the neighborhood during that whole process and for prayers, offerings, and blessings from neighbors aware enough to support this work energetically. My two women friends, each a lighthouse in her own right, were already on it.
When I checked in the following morning, I discovered soul release in process at the circle. Gentle golden light arose from the “hole” and spirits floated up and out in a pipeline effect I’ve become familiar with. It may be that part of bear’s responsibility was to guard these souls till the time was right for them to transition safely. I believe the soul of the murdered woman from the “dark” house also was helped to transition.
Days later I got curious about the indigenous people of this area, the Ohlone, and bears. It turns out they considered bear to be a healer. There’s a bear clan, and there are bear ceremonies and dances annually. In one YouTube video, a tribal elder talked about bear helping the spirits of people dead and buried to transition. (Chicken skin!) No surprise that bear showed up for this work!
Within a very short period, my friends told me flowers began blooming around what had been the “dark” house. The property was finally being physically cleaned up and, not long thereafter, went on the market and sold. The women also remarked that the energy of the circle had shifted dramatically and no longer felt uncomfortable or unsavory. I knew this neighborhood would continue to benefit from the lighthouse invoked by this call.