Touching Spirit Bear

“Circle Justice was a bunch of bull. They were crazy if they thought he was going to spend a whole year of his life like some animal, trapped on a remote Alaskan island.”

Cole is cynical, mistrusting, angry, and violent. He agrees to attend Healing Circle with Garvey to avoid jail, but he does not take the healing process seriously at first. Instead, he sees it as punishment and abandonment, and it makes him even angrier. Circle Justice sends Cole to live on an Alaskan island for a year, and he fails the first time; the second time, Cole learns to heal and forgive, as well as to accept his place as part of nature.

“You aren’t the only creature here. You’re part of a much bigger circle. Learn your place or you’ll have a rough time.”

Cole arrives on the island with bravado and a sense of entitlement. He does not yet understand that he is just a small piece in a much larger puzzle or that he has very little control over life or nature. Edwin’s prediction proves correct when Cole tries to escape the island, nearly freezing to death, and then is attacked by the Spirit Bear. This attack almost kills Cole, and he lies on the forest floor for hours wondering if he will live. It takes nearly dying for Cole to begin learning his place in life’s circle.