Isn't this air sweet?
Remember this place.
And when you return to the valley,
tell the old woman
to free the horses.
Tell the old man to patch the tent.
You are called to do this.
The water is watching you
the smoke is watching,
the wind will remind you,
new forms of knowing
are waiting.
Do you know that old man
who just showed up?
The one who is making people laugh with his antics,
the one who is teasing the bride
and now he is taking the groom aside
with his hand on his shoulder?
Of course you do!
He is the shaman.
And he is you.
You are called.
Comment:
"Bright liberal, you are called" is another of what I
call my experimental poems. I have been rereading The
Alchemist by Coelho, and I was
influenced I'll admit, by his drive to spin a story. Also, I have been thinking
about prophesy these days, about how the Native American prophecies are being
fulfilled. We are mistaken if we think that prophecy has nothing to do with
science. Prophecy subsumes science. Science doesn't hold all the answers.
What's happening is bigger than science alone can explain or even be expected
to explain. The human race seems to be hell-bent on trashing the planet. For
what? In my opinion, and maybe this is because of my age -- I am running out of
patience, and I am beginning to resent labels, and I am pretty sure scientists
feel the same way -- the plight of the planet and the human race is not
science's problem to solve! We can blame each other or ourselves for not paying
attention to the science of global warming / climate change / climate chaos but
the truth is, there is no worldly explanation for what we are doing to our
world or how things will play out. The problem lies within our hearts and
souls!
I am planning on
teaching a course in the Fall (at a small local college) titled, "Prophecy and
the Environmental Imperative". It is my sense that the designation "liberal" or
"progressive" is about to fade into history. Was a liberal ever more than just
an inconvenient label? I mean, were there ever "liberals" or "progressives"? In
this poem, I am calling the "bright" liberal out. Why "bright"? Maybe I am
saying that not all liberals are "bright"! Or maybe I am shining the spotlight
on a mask!
We don't need
"liberals" anymore. We need thinking people who see what's going on and give a
sh*t. What is a liberal but someone who likes to imagine that he or she is
thinking for themselves. Almost all the people I know are very upset with the
way things are going worldwide and not one of them, when it really comes down
to it, calls him / herself a liberal or a progressive . . . except when it's
time to vote, and then everyone tries to fit in somewhere. But after election
day, the real work that we face is not political, it is not about pushing or
supporting an agenda. The work we face is closer to being mythic. We are trying
to save our planet, or more accurately, the soul and vitality of our planet.
When I said this 30 years ago, few people "got it". Now it's like the hypnotist
has clicked his fingers and nobody is clucking or barking or trying to kiss
their chair. The spell has lifted, but only because the weather has changed and
the carnival is packing up and leaving town!
If we get bogged down
in discussions and debates and personalities, we're like flocks of pigeons that
rouse themselves to fly around the barn, all in unison, and then roost to catch
their breath before they're off again, stirred by something in the news. But
nothing changes.
The story I am
dipping into in this poem is ongoing. I will keep telling it in different forms
for the rest of my life. How can it be otherwise? I am this person and as long
as I am this person, unless I experience some kind of ecstatic conversion, like
Paul on the way to Damascus, and fall off my horse, I am going to work the
message that keeps percolating up through my filters.
If there is a coherent story, it is about calling out the "bright liberal" to fulfill his or her true calling, to stop kowtowing to the "bitter world" that is blindsiding him, but to allow himself to become the plaything of life, to journey at will, to open herself to new knowledge.
The "wedding" that
comes up in the first stanza and throughout the poem, is the sacred marriage of
the archetypal opposites. He, the subject, is being summoned to leave the
valley, to journey to a gathering place and, in the end, to morph into a "full-fledged
shaman".
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