If you ask any member of an indigenous tribe what “medicine” means, you will get a range of answers:

dreams, rattles, teas, dances, poultices, songs, visions, drums, entheogenic (hallucinatory) plants, smoke… and animals.

Animals-as-medicine is a concept as old as our species, and which predates the infinite cultures we splintered into. Before we had religions and sociopolitical borders, our ancestors practiced shamanic medicine for hundreds of thousands of years.

This is a birthright we all share, and has profoundly helpful implications for navigating modern life.

In this vein, we have combined the shamanic notion of animal-medicine with a European herbal tradition to create our Bear Medicine Balms.