IMPORTANT: This is the very first time we have offered this bracelet; while it may be created again and available for purchase on occasion during our Special Jewel releases, it will never go into production. We recommend Express Shipping with Signature required upon delivery to ensure it arrives safely in your hands.

This bracelet is Ready to Ship and will leave the studio in 3-5 business days.

Please Note: This bracelet measures 7 inches around. If you desire a different chain length you must reach out to us immediately after placing your order for a custom quote on the additional length. We are only able to adjust the length of the chain that goes from one end of the cuff portion of the bracelet to the other, not the cast bone portion. This portion of the bracelet can't be adjusted and can't be manipulated once purchased. As the rib bone is solid sterling silver, pleae note this is a heavier offering than some of our other bracelet offerings.

A fragment of a cast black bear rib has been shortened and formed into a bracelet, with our signature bar link chain completing the traditional loop around the wrist for security. Wear high on the arm or loose at the wrist.

The bear has long been an important animal to humans, we can trace this relationship back to the stars; Ursa Major, The Great Bear, has been traveling the celestial realms alongside us since the time of some of our earliest ancestors. Star lore traces its identification back to Paleolithic times, when our ancestors had an oral tradition linking the black bear to the 'Cosmic Hunt', animals in the forms of constellations forever pursued by hunters. Interestingly, Ursa Major illustrates the kinship between Bear and humans, just as bears amble about the forest (or perhaps your backyard) on all fours, they can also uncannily rise on their hind legs and gesture with their front paws. Likewise, the star bear appears to run on all fours and stand, just as we do, on two legs.

This ability to resemble man's two legged gait led Bear to seep into folklore and fairytales, including one of my childhood favorites, Snow White and Rose-Red from The Brothers' Grimm, wherein a prince is trapped in the body of a bear and must rely on the kindness of women to survive the winter. This assocation between bears and humans, and the taking on of their 'skins' extended into the warrior culture of the Scandinavians who took on the power and frenzy of the bear in battle while wearing bearskins. Known as berserkers, it appears a level of shapeshifting or trance occured while inhabiting these skins, as a kind of wild fury would overtake those who would wear the skin, and therefore energy of Bear.

What I love most about Bear is its natural cycles, its time of hibernation which can be linked to a descent into the underworld of the self. As winter draws near, bears fatten up before ultimately fasting and seeking cthonic, safe places such as caves, tree hollows, and other subterranean places (which unfortunately may include beneath your porch) to enter hiberantion. During this time, their bodies enter torpor, then dormancy, a state akin to a death state, hovering in a deep sleep unknown to humans that they only emerge from when Spring arrives. This cycle led people to associate Bear with ressurection and rebirth, as well as to the unconcious and the realm of dreams.

It's this space I associate with bears the most, as liminal creatures dreaming of sweet roots and ripe black berries, of cold rivers thick with salmon and forests free of humans. Here, their wild dreams are our wild dreams. Guardians of the dream realm while they exist in twlight like seeds in dark, secret places.

Wear this bracelet to honor Bear, the wildness of a time when forests were dense and safe from our sharp tools. Wear when you need extra protection, as the rib bone protects the heart. Wear as a guardian of dreams and the unconscious. An amulet of protection for the nascent ideas of the unconcious, for the Spring joy, or the Winter solitude.