Think Indigenous: Native American Spirituality for a Modern World

by Doug Good Feather

These are the months when we enter the time of the dreaming bear. It doesn’t matter if you don’t live in a place where bears do or if you live in a place where it doesn’t snow—it only matters that you begin to become aware of the energy signature associated with this season. This is the time when the earth sends signals to her children that it’s time to slow down, to define things that are unclear, to get organized, and to plan for the upcoming spring. Winter is a time of renewal, regeneration, and gathering with the community to share our knowledge, skills, and stories. It’s a time to reflect on our lives and the world around us, to write down our plans, to create our vision boards, to ask ourselves what we need in the upcoming year, and to plant our intentions. This is a time to sit down with our significant others, our parents, and our children and ask them what we can do for them in the coming moons. This is the season in which we decide and rededicate ourselves to being disciplined in walking the Red Road, working with our medicine and with our people.