With eloquent simplicity, one of the world's last Native American Medicine Men demonstrates how traditional tribal wisdom can help us maintain spiritual and physical health in today's world. Bear Heart is both a healer and a road man of the Native American Church.
As the world becomes more perilous and our modern ways of life prove to be at times unsustainable or unsatisfying; people in the US and all over the world are increasingly turning to the wisdom of our indigenous people and their traditions for peace, harmony, environmental stewardship, and cultivating a more meaningful spiritual connection to the earth. The Bear Is My Father is a legacy book that shares the profound medicine of a renowned multi-tribal Muscogee Creek medicine man, Bear Heart, one of the last traditionally trained medicine persons of the Muscogee Creek Nation. While it is traditional among Native American medicine that a healer takes on an apprentice to learn their medicine ways, and then pass them on, Bear Heart's medicine was so various that it could not simply be passed along to any one person. Thus, over the course of his life of service, Bear Heart passed along pieces of his indigenous wisdom to different people, depending on who could use it. However, The Bear Is My Father is more than a book about a fascinating Muscogee Creek healer. It is a book authored in part by Bear Heart himself, with guidance as to how one should live life, the changes needed in our global society, integrative medicine, and spirituality. It contains the voices of people who knew and grew from knowing Bear Heart; most particularly, it is co-authored by Reginah WaterSpirit, Bear Heart's medicine helper and late-life spouse of 23 years, whose intimate and insightful stories and reflections give it the added dimension of a biography within an autobiographical book of philosophy and wisdom. The deeply personal portrayal of Bear Heart in The Bear Is My Father flows not only through his own words, nor Reginah's, but also through the recountings of a variety of people who were taught and touched by his wisdom. Together they provide the reader with a multi-faceted and highly intimate understanding of Bear Heart. In short, this book is another way-and because he has passed-perhaps his final way, to share his medicine with the world.
Bear Heart gilt heute vielen als der große alte Weise unter den indianischen Sehern und Heilern der Gegenwart. In diesem Buch erzählt er sein Leben und läßt den Leser teilhaben an den uralten Erkenntnissen seiner indianischen Vorfahren. Er schildert, wie er in Jahren der Prüfung zum Schamanen wurde und wie sich die an ihn weitergegebenen Weisheiten in der modernen Welt bewährten. Gleichermaßen von christlicher und indianischer Tradition geprägt, entstand ein Buch voll Gelassenheit und tiefem innerem Frieden, ein Buch der Werte, gereift in der Einsicht in die Urnatur und die Schöpfung.