One night, I awoke remembering
the end of a dream like a movie trailer
Between shrouds of murky clouds unfolding
I saw the ancient wooden face carved on a totem
Perhaps an anonymous spokesman at death’s door
Perhaps my projection, just my reflection
or a phantom, a disturbing conundrum, I dare not say
I felt a withering mortality at my core
Yet, it contained all my living tree rings within
my years of stories, husky or thin
This shaman totem mask began to slowly speak
At first its mystical verse was somewhat oblique
Then in rich, tranquil tones, in humane inflexions
the face spoke, redolent and subliminal in my thoughts
Breathing deeply, I intuited what I was taught
Some seek refuge in still flower gardens
in stationary reflective pools of quiescence
in glistening golden altars to numina
But these material places are ever-changing
Illumination is the great revelation rearranging
of the consciousness animating all things
I fear the shamans, great or small,
I saw one, with long black hair,
In a cemetery of the green Guatemala,
He danced among the colored tombs,
it was inhabited by the spirits of the dead,
Better to keep away from this king,
I have hidden behind graves,
He spoke to the spirits, to the blue ghosts
He agitated a sort of burning ossuary,
He screamed and danced, agitated like a nightmare,
I was for a moment frightened and petrified, seized
I preferred to run away without taking a picture.
The moon began to whiten on the grey pines.
Beneath the sacred
witchwood tree
healers and shamans
rest
I remain a stranger
to my husband’s kin
it’s strange I miss their stranger’s skin
but bring taboo to skin they’re in
if words I speak upon their name
I hide my words
in fear of harm
displease the trees who delivered man
and breezed them on a wind to farm
the land trees put aside for them
in my hands, a harp I made
bear and eagle, age they gave
a single reed cut from a blade
shamanic lines taught me to play
so free was I in what I say
so put to lips and plucked with breath
my voice through brass
at times bamboo
you will find it placed in my burial
alongside my husband and his voice too
beyond the cartoon spring in Scooby Doo
like a stag on a mountain’s rippled rove
a dimensional wormhole letting feelings through
bringing words of secrets, a couple’s love
an instrument whose song comes from within
a pluck, the kiss upon the lips
my meditation, a distant lawn mowing
bring me syllables served in porcelain cups
and the shaman knew its cosmic worth
a healing voice like a Tuvan’s throat
deep flames that crackle in the hearth
or further down to magma’s note
the twang, its cry articulates
with the warming drizzle of chocolate
Before I even close my eyes,
Awareness floats, starting to rise;
An earthy smell of fresh soil turning,
Rabbits burrowing and squirrels stirring,
Smoke from a fire burning;
Spirit answers the shaman's calling,
Trees undisturbed and evergreen,
The forest thick with no in-between,
Glistening emerald catching my eye
As I pass the hanging moss by.
I come to feel the leaves dancing in the breeze,
Gliding like an eagle high above the tallest trees.
Gathering, I pick up the pace,
Wind against my face,
My long hair flowing free;
Memories of the hidden key.
Misty rain,
The taste of salt in the air,
Aromas of the sea,
Echoes from the ocean,
Crashing waves are calling me.
Soaring through the clouds, soft fluff white,
Visions replay of pilgrimages at night,
Ancestors from another time,
Greeted as I'm guided in through a portal.
Earth grows small and air grows thin;
Consciousness slowing, starting to spin.
Now in another galaxy,
I am glowing from within.
I did not choose, I was chosen
the gate and keeper;
killer and cure
life not mine for living
walking paths you cannot see
talking tongues you do not know
I am the light burning inside
the darkness at the shore
that shadow in the corner
eyes, windows to be shared
extramundane -
soul searcher, truth sayer, circle squared
I am ancient numinosity
no idle curiosity
- I see the end
A woodhacker rattles like wolf-jaws,
A dog's appetite has just died
There's blood in those graphite-green curtains
Duck Islanders howl of a homicide.
There's a murder of crows in The Three Trees,
Where the Sky's Ties are tethered away
The water's been kissed for the first time
And the sun's lips have no more to say.
But the Stormwood has hissed back to sleeping
Gunpowder Grove murmurs, 'match'
The Twig-Ink is scrawling black symbols
Like Maggie Pie scratched on our latch.
Grandad William keeled like a lever,
Dug his heels sprung the Wheels in Giant's Back
And the Red Cave began to make music
And the timber talked in Tumble-Down Shack.
It means that the summer is humming
Its footpeople wait on my hands
The Silkwitch is building a ladder
Rippling gold rungs through the grass.
When the light's right, like now, you can climb it
Through Horruary's cheek to the sun
Til the Fat-Ranch and chewing of winter
Are just gold stuff below
In the land of the How Far We've Come.
Was tree cutting on the island
North of the last logging camp
I was a young faller for the company
That didn’t have a heart
Thought I knew what I was doing
Thought I was doing no wrong
But then the Northern Lights appeared
And sang me magic songs
“Save me from the dying
Save me from the death
The old growth is crying
But cannot show its wrath”
I stood on the mountain
Overlooking the sea
Green auroras swirled
And the channel opened me
A Shaman appeared in moonlight
Bathed in lights of green and gold
My body shook and I felt
The depths of ancient souls
“You have been chosen to sing our nature song
What you are doing, now you know is wrong
Save us and protect us!
The ancient wisdom cried
The forests and the mountains
Need to stay alive”
The Shaman passed through me
In the prime of my youth
A 6 foot 2 logging man
At last had heard the truth
Was a long time ago
Nothing much has changed
This message is all I have
Maybe I’ll be saved
Chosen to remember
Chosen to forget
The green force of nature
Forever in its debt
when the darkness reigns
you might run into someone
with light in their eyes
date:7/2/21
Dreams of the Shaman
David J Walker
It was the Prairie version of Eden
In the evening light
Awaiting the day exposing the
Cover of Buffalo Grass
Its flag-like banners of male flower
Flying in the morning dew
Guarding the female blooms
Hidden amongst the leaves
Rounded and burr-like but not spiny
The fauna is dense but unseen
Prairie Dogs bark out warnings to the
Burrowing Owls competing with foxes
hunting field mice
Cougars patrol the canyons for
Passing Elk following the water
Wolves stalk Bison
Claiming the lame,
the young, and the old
Tens of thousands of Sunrise pass
Before Adam arrives with his Eve
Abiding in the canyons of Artesian Springs
Living in harmony off the land
Awaiting the changes in the
Dreams of the shaman
She was a wise woman, a natural being, a female shaman
Her magical ways were known by most, especially the Lakota
We came to her for truth, guidance, spiritual wisdom.
The men revered her as much as the women, maybe more.
She had a connection with the Great Spirit most do not garner.
Respected and revered, we trusted her to guide us along our path.
She was a fantastic listener, who enlisted the spirits to help
Always encouraging us to make our own connections,
So we could follow the path we had set in Father Sky
Before we ever put our moccasins on Mother Earth.
As we left her campfire or her teepee, we always felt more in tune
With brother deer, sister rainbow and cousin lake.
A local shaman
sits still in a trance-like state,
attempting to drive a ghost
from a quaint haunted house.
An angry response - house trembling!
Date written: 05/21/2020
Dressed in a loin cloth,
his face and body painted,
he chants and dances wildly
round the fire to drum beat...
the student lawyer's weekend job.
Written 21st May for Nette's Wayra contest
I have lived before
Through seeds of time eternal -
And you've come for soul's healing?
The balm comes not from me
All you need is get drunk from love.
5 May 2020
Weaving A Wayra Contest
Created by Nette Onclaud
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