Monday, January 27, 2025

"The Shaman" (poem)

THE SHAMAN
Plant uses (Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society)
The shaman climbed the mountain, gathered sacred flowering herbs and berries along the way -- Datura moonflowers, toloache, Brugmansia angel's-trumpets, Salvia apiana kasiile sage, toyon, holly -- until delirium overwhelmed him with lurid and ecstatic visions of hell and heaven. Then he returned to the human world.

Tongva Culture Tour, Summer 2005 (Takwish)
Word spread of him. People asked, "Is it true, as they say, that you have seen hell?"

"I have."

"What's it like?"

"It's hideous, ironic, horror beyond imagination," the shaman winced to relive, nearly blinded by his recollection:

When do we eat? - We're eaten.
"There's food everywhere, but no one eats, and drink aplenty, but no one drinks. There are long wooden spoons with which to partake, but their bodies have only tiny appendages for arms, too short to bring such elongated spoons up to their shriveled lips. Parched slaver forms ashes in their mouths, and bodies waste away. Struggle as they might, everything goes to wrack and ruin. They bellow in agony."

The people shrank away, with growing acreage dedicated to burying their discarded surplus, collapsing under smoldering heaps of trash.


Forced conversion (Museum of the SFV)
"And heaven?" asked the hopeful. "Is it true, as they say, that you have seen heaven?"

"I have."

"And what's it like?" they pleaded.

"Heaven," the shaman revealed, "is exactly the same."

"What!?" cried the people. "The same? Surely that is no heaven!"

How they faced one another.
"There is one difference," the shaman went on to explain.

"In heaven, there is an abundance of food and drink, long wooden spoons, and bodies with tiny appendages too short to bring these utensils up to their mouths. But the beings there, without hesitation, use the long spoons to feed one another.

"There is no want. No request goes unanswered, no desire unfulfilled. Acts of kindness overflow as do the spoons. Spoon fed and cared for, there are continuous cries of gratitude and rejoicing as beings fall over one another to be the first to give.

Time to eat? - For us? - No, for them.
"There is food, and they eat. There is drink, and they drink, and they relish their bounty and diversity. They care for one another, nourish one another, thank one another. The sweetness of their caresses, gentleness of their words, and kindness of their eyes," the shaman wept to recall, "make the place so beautiful that I only wish I could show one world to the other."

  • Seven (poem), Ashley Wells (ed.), CC Liu (graphic design), Wisdom Quarterly

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