WOMEN, BEARS AND WILDERNESS
By Helen Stoltzfus
A year ago, after wading through notebooks of writing and transcripts of improvisations I had created on bears, I sat down in front of my computer and asked myself: What is my story with bears? I had been reading everyone else's for years, absorbing wonderful tales like "The Woman Who Married A Bear," feeding on fascinating bear lore, and following other people's journeys as they search for wild grizzlies. But after working on and off on this piece for several years, I still didn't know what "the story" was for this play that I wanted to create. I felt stuck, profoundly mired. So I decided to start by writing my own story, something I had resisted doing for a long time ("too personal, too messy" I told myself: the same excuses I'm always trying to talk my students out of). I chronicled my own struggle with chronic illness, my visions of a protective mother bear, my tragi-comic search for a magic cure, my encounter with the great Bear Mother of myth, and my tracking of wild grizzlies in Alaska. The story - which soon became a play - moved from a hospital room to an imaginary forest, and from the Alaskan tundra to the bear den of dreams. I did a work-in-progress reading of the piece, tentatively entitled, Like A Mother Bear, for small audiences last summer, and discovered, once again, one of the tenets of A Traveling Jewish Theatre: the story you are trying to tell may well be your own. So what seemed at first a preliminary step to creating a play, has become the play itself. As I developed the play, I realized that the connections I saw between the natural world, myth, and healing, were bigger than the piece, and that I wanted a forum in which to discuss the ideas further. So I'm currently organizing a symposium which will consist of visionaries and writers who will expand on the ideas of the play: protecting wilderness, creating a sustainable ecology, respecting biodiversity, reclaiming the sacred, AND tapping into the wilderness of our imaginations. I hope to have people from a variety of backgrounds look at the different aspects of the bear: biological, mythological, endangered, historical, sacred, and psychological, as a way of viewing the bear more holistically. After years of controlling and managing the bear, perhaps it is time to ask the Bear what it has to say to us. What can the bear teach us about the need for wildness - in the world and in our psyches - about the nature of healing, and about the power of story? What can it teach us about respecting biodiversity and creating a sustainable ecology? The bear is an indicator species: if there is no room for bears, there will finally be no room for us. As we turn the corner on this century and the millennia, we as a species need to re-examine how we are going to co-exist with the natural world. Can we live with bears - who need millions of acres to survive? What role have bears played in our culture, in our history, in our religious life, in our dreams? What can we learn from native peoples about the sacred relationship of humans and bears? How are images of the bear being used to help heal serious emotional and physical illnesses? What is the role of story-telling in all this? I am also interested in the connection between women, bears, and wildness. There is a long and mysterious connection between women and bears. (Many native cultures recognize and ritualize it). What is the connection between women and bears, or "the Feminine" and bears? What is the relationship of this wildness within to the wilderness without? Understanding that wild, erotic connection is key to understanding the other issues of the symposium: how we can create a sustainable ecology and how we might re-conceive our relationship to the natural world. The play and symposium also look for connections between personal illness, environmental degradation, and threatened habitat. A major factor in my chronic illness: endometriosis - is now linked to pollutants - a by-product of "progress." And it is this "progress" which now threatens the bear as well. The intricate network of life that I house inside my womb is not unlike the intricate network of a bear's habitat: both are under attack. There is an urgency in these questions. Some researchers project that in another 100 years there will no grizzly bears. None. Modern life - the life we all lead - is crowding them out. What does such a loss mean after millennia of co-existence between bears and humans? There's a line from the play: "What happens to a sleep that is no longer slept by a bear? What happens to those months of deep breathing?" It is a question that haunts me. I am fortunate to have a wonderful collaborator in this work, Martha Boesing, who will be working with ATJT over the next two years as guest associate artistic director. She will direct "Like A Mother Bear", as well as Naomi's collaborative piece with Remy Charlip. Martha brings a wealth of experience in playwriting and directing, a wonderful imagination, and a passion for the ideas of the play. "Like A Mother Bear" premieres October 17, 1996 in ATJT's new theatre at Project Artaud. The symposium will occur during the run of the play (date and time tba). See you there.