Love, Laugh, Learn - Bear and Butterfly at Chilao School

Visitors to Chilao School were greeted with a unique blending of spirit and science on April 2 with the presentation of Bear and Butterfly, celebrating the beginning of spring, the opening of the recreation season, and two of the forest’s most iconic creatures.

Dan Running Bear’s opening ceremony and teaching on bear medicine was briefly interrupted by a visit from Smokey Bear. The birds sang loud and long during the spirit calling song and opening prayer, sang and spoken in the warm sun on the patio.

A host of presenters shared live butterflies and butterfly biology, bear awareness, traditional stories, arts and crafts, Native American dances and songs, and food - in addition to cultural presenters, a number of people including Adrian Hensley, Richard Rudman and Anita Gnan brought home-made contributions to the potluck lunch.

Chilao School was once in the center of a bustling forest community with many young children. Since the late 1970s the demographic of forest residents has changed, and the school was closed in 1981. For the past five years, with its new owners, the non profit group Redbird, the school is once again serving the community with arts, cultural and environmental programs.

Bear and Butterfly combined all of these, and honored “Chilao style” - a community atmosphere of generosity, support, and much laughter.

I am bear........
I am not just "a" bear
I am the forest.
I am the fragile ecosystem.
I am the running streams,
the canopy of pines,
the whistling winds,
the fertile soil,
and the radiant sun.
I am everything that is
natural, beautiful,
and mysterious, in this universe.
I am not one of many.
I am all that is one.
I am bear.

Gallery - poetry and images:

Poem by Jennifer S. Clayburg (Bear With Us Sanctuary and Rehabilitation Centre for Bears)

https://www.facebook.com/Understanding.Bears/?pnref=story

Bear and Butterfly Painting by Artist Terry Kruse

Photos:

Dan Running Bear greets friends and visitors with cultural wisdom surrounding the bear

Smokey Bear and some of his friends

Dana Stangel presents bear biology, awareness and safety

Izzy St. Martin exhibits the Fancy Shawl dance, which emulates the butterfly, while Tina and Joe Calderon sing for her

Elizabeth Babbin Tucker gives a lesson in watercolor theory

Round Dance invites all guests to participate

Betina Loudermilk shares live butterflies from her garden and speaks about the biology of monarch butterflies

Body and spirit work on the patio with Jamie Sullo, massage therapist and ( background) Dan Running Bear

“Honey Bear” - a black bear rescued from a thrift store with food offerings, which will be on loan to the USFS Chilao Visitors Center from the spring equinox to the fall equinox, the time when bears are active.

Kaelene and Shiver take a ride though the campground

For more information about Redbird please visit

http://www.RedbirdsVision.org

To support Betina Loudermilk’s monarch butterfly restoration efforts, please visit her gofundme page, Betina’s Butterfly Garden, at

http://GoFundMe.com/5xg2dtt8