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VISION  QUEST

The Sioux chief Brown Eagle taught me self-respect 
And I saw my life as an Englishman must have greater purpose,
And that these "savages" were actually my saviors.
The spirit of his tribe drew me; to resist was useless. 
 
The closest spirit was Brown Eagle’s sister :   
But Bright Water could  marry only a warrior-chief :
To prove worthy to marry into the tribe, and  to lead it,
I had  to endure long  tests and trials of grief.  

I studied the ways of Brown Eagle, 
Whose many scars  were openly displayed,
Showing  his warrior-status,  as well as reminding all  
Of the torture ritual in the tribe and the respect to be paid.

The tribe medicine-man explained what should happen:
I had to undergo a series of ritual  tortures and tribulation, 
Including an  O-Kee-Pa  style chest-suspension ceremony,
And its most grueling part,  the Sun Vow Initiation. 

I was  hauled up to  the roof of a huge tepee
By buffalo-bone hooks through my pectoral muscles, flowing  red:
Excruciating exquisite pain - as my former  life was torn out of my chest:
My spirit  ascended  to the  roof and I saw my own body dead.

In a sincere desire to become one with the tribe my spirit left 
The tepee on a shamanic journey into another order of realization, 
A landscape of magic and mystery  -  and during this ordeal 
Manitou came to me in the form of the White Buffalo - a sacred vision:   
 
Hooves pounding, eyes flaring, He emerged from a vast prairie fire.
And of leadership,  duty and responsibility I heard Him speak:
And His huge presence ran with my horse and guided me over the endless 
Short-grass  plains to Bright Water’s flowing creek.

Attention and energy of my small self was removed from its centre; 
The world around  expanded correspondingly, enhancing 
A changing, fluid, magical, and mysterious realm of the unknown.
Deep-etched imagery, a dream of death-and-life entrancing.

My emotional state transcended any normal boundaries 
In sacred time and space  -  because of the ritual, the ceremony,
The  privation, the torture, the longing for communion.
I drank from the flowing creek and returned to the tepee.

Helpless,  I was cut down from the tepee roof, rejoined
To  the world of flesh and bone; but  my fire-baptised  
Spirit had new authentic power, and Brown Eagle took my arm:
What is your name, brother?  I proudly took the name  - Buffalo Eyes.

From the culture of the High Plains Sioux in the USA
Inspired by the movie A MAN CALLED HORSE (1970) starring Richard Harris.
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