This is a powerful documentary, "Grizzly Man" because it's a real life filming of a man who loved bears, who loved all wild life as he would love his friends and family.
Tim Treadwell had a desire to save the creatures, to understand nature and simply be free in the wilderness. I related instantly to him as this documentary unfolded before me because how he talks to the animals is how I talk to them too, saying "I love you, I love you, I love you," over and over again gives these creatures a sense of trusting you and relaxing as you calmly see the power of love all around you for the helping hand you have to care for them. It's why humans are here on the earth in my personal opinion we are gifted with flexible hands and fingers to rescue and heal the earth before us. We are given an awareness of our own mortality, our own unanswered spiritual questions, our cognitive reasoning and thinking that can control our instinct reactions for survival. This has made me realize the human is the servant and nurse to nature. The powerful strength of other beings like bears, wolves and mountain lions are all here teaching us something about our role to play, about how insignificant we are. Learning to live in harmony, in great respect to this world is what I think the human journey is to protect the earth and each other, yet when we cross that line of not understanding, or we lose sight of that mission for harmony then sadly we think our idea of success or progress means we have to kill off our predators, our fear of beings stronger then us.
Tim was a brave soul to bring attention to the grizzly bear, the way of life for these almost instinct animals to our attention through his filming and living among the bears on his own. Tim was as human as any of us in being full of wonder, of awe and of anger. He explain in one of his video clips that fear has no place among these creatures because they will sense it as weakness and maybe attack him trying to be alpha one. I realized how I had learned this in being among dogs, yet I never had that clearly deeply real fear in how my body would be swallowed whole if I lost the position on the totem pole among the "pack". It was so interesting to me in watching this film how being all alone for those many months in Alaska made Tim think he was always right in what he had learned and discover, he would even go off of his own speeches with no one there to challenge or question his passionate mission and message. I do this very same thing too! only I have never been completely alone for days, weeks, months the fact Timothy Treadwell was and filmed his behavior was very revealing in why we should never rely only on our own self for very long periods of time, we need each other even if we have to struggle, disagree and feel crowded at times. The constant quest to be alone in nature and let the soul rest, to grow mentally and spiritually while not growing our own egos is a real issue for me, I watched on as Tim worried me in his all consuming passion to save the bears, to save the wilderness because I felt like he wasn't giving himself a healthy balance or space from those majestic grizzly bears as he had when he first started out to understand their stories, their lives. On the 13th trip of his mission to be among the grizzly bears again I instantly saw a risk he created in bring his girlfriend along with him, for when we are on our own then our focus is easy to what we communicate to the creatures around us but when we become responsible for someone else we are distracted and it looks like a growing threat of gathering humans to the wild life around us. I often wonder how can we obtain a perfect balance in being alone and yet safely connected to a society?
Timothy Treadwell had a huge heart for the helpless, the hurting and the hunted. He was able to bring these issues, these struggles to our attention while living peaceful out there among these creatures saying we need to know what is going on and we need to stop the slaughter of the bears. I believe his life was an inspiration, a brave soul who even said very clearly that one mistake or slip up out there in the wild could lead to his death because the wild has a desire to survive, and instinct to eat when hungry so humans need to respect this fact and stay out of the grizzly reservation in Alaska.
I was left to think about grizzly bears for weeks after watching this documentary, the strength of them is so beautiful and scary, the better understanding of them comes from Tim's many stories and pictures that he happily shared with us as if we were hiking right beside him.
The end of his journey tells us how we should never forget how real the world is, how little we are in whole scheme of things, AND how powerful is the strength of bears.
