Badger Medicine: The Fear of Naming the Sun

In the time before time, when the world was new and still finding its voice, the greatest silence was around the sun. This radiant orb, the source of all life and warmth, had no name. The creatures of the world could not agree on what to call it, nor could they decide if its essence was male or female. This weighty silence hung over Turtle Island.

All the animals gathered for a great council to finally decide this essential matter. The discussion spiralled into confusion and hesitation; everyone was afraid of speaking the wrong word, of assigning a name that would prove inappropriate or offensive to the great light.

Then, from the deep earth, a small voice called out. It was the Badger, who emerged from his hole, blinked at the bright sky, and shouted a name for the sun. But as quickly as the word left his mouth, he was consumed by panic. He scrambled back into the darkness of his burrow, pulling the soil over his head, terrified of the punishment he felt sure would follow. The other animals, startled and confused, followed him, calling for him to come out. But the Badger went underground and stayed there, convinced he had committed an unforgivable offence simply by naming the magnificent light.

This is Badger Medicine, and it is the theme of Knott Consulting’s creation story.

The fear that drove the Badger underground is a feeling that Indigenous people of Turtle Island carry deep inside—the perennial, corrosive feeling that we have done something wrong, that we ourselves are something wrong or inferior. That essential, precious part of us—the thing we want to name but cannot, the true self we dare not reveal—is held in constant check by the fear of punishment.

So, like the Badger, we hide. We stay down inside ourselves, but not in a place of safety or strength—we hide in shame and self-recrimination. We abuse ourselves with drugs and alcohol, seeking a temporary balm from the pain of hiding, only to find that the self-abuse becomes the very punishment we feared. The unwanted thing, the belief in our inferiority, has a brutal way of landing right on top of us.

Badger Medicine teaches us that fear is the trap, not the name. The only path forward, the only thing that stands a chance of working to heal the wounds carried by Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island, is to confront the fear of judgment.

We must learn to stay down inside ourselves, yes, but not in hiding. We must settle deep inside ourselves, in our very souls, and learn to remain there, unafraid. Only then can the true self emerge and stand, unafraid, in the light.