"The Shaman" (poem)

THE SHAMAN

Buddhists, Shamans, Soviets

The shaman climbed the mountain, gathering sacred flowering herbs and berries along the way -- Datura moonflowers, toloache, Brugmansia angel's trumpets, Salvia apiana sage, kasiile, toyon, holly -- until delirium overwhelmed him with lurid and ecstatic visions of hell and heaven. Then he returned to the human world.

Word spread of him. People asked, "Is it true, as they say, you have seen hell?"

"I have."

"What is it like?"

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

"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 like ashes in their mouths, and bodies waste away. Struggle as they might, everything goes to waste. They bellow in agony."

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

"And heaven?" asked the hopeful. "Is it true as they say, 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!"

"There is one difference," the shaman went on to explain.

Heaven and Hell (Bart Ehrman)

"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 ever goes unanswered, no desire unfulfilled. Acts of kindness overflow as do 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. There is food, and they eat. There is drink, and they drink, and they relish diversity and bounty. They care for one another, nourish one another, thank one another. The sweetness of their caresses, gentleness of their words, kindness of their eyes," the shaman wept to recall, "make the place so beautiful that I only wish I could have shown one world to the other."

What are American Indians really like?