“When the Bear Looked Up”
The Bear does not rush.
He learns to listen —
to the silence of roots,
the slow breath of stone,
and the faint heartbeat of his own soul during the long sleep.
But that morning,
before the sun fully rose,
the sky burned red like ancestral blood,
and Raven crossed the face of the sun,
leaving behind a cry —
not quite warning,
not quite invitation.
The Bear looked up.
Not out of fear.
Not out of curiosity.
But because something inside him quietly opened —
like a door that had not felt light in a long time.
He stepped out of the dark,
not quickly, not loudly,
only to become what he had always been
before the world made him forget:
A keeper of awakening.
A soul who walks slowly through the world,
but carries the memory of the Earth.
