White Wolf

Mother of wolves
Hunter of hearts
You are the antidote
To the wolf in man

Never tame
You gentle our wildness
You help us turn packs
Into families.

Killer of fear
Cleanser of souls
You shear away
What is dead, or meant to die

You bring light from dark.
On the night your scary twin
Eats the moon,
You give us white fire.

On your bicycling legs
With your flawless compass
You take us into the shining heart
Of the Peacemaker.

Over the black rubble
Of our guilt and shame
You spread a clean mantle
Of fresh-fallen snow.

Your clear eyes read
What belongs to us and what does not.
You know better than we do
What it takes to be human.


This poem is in my collection Here, Everything Is Dreaming, published by Excelsior Editions.

Sun Stealer

RAVEN EYE: Sun Stealer

They say you stole the sun.
This is inexact.
You hid the light in darkness
where the light-killers could not find it
so the sun could shine brighter than before.


They say you are black
because you are evil and unkind.
They do not say you swallowed
your own shadow and mastered it
at the price of wearing its colors.


Shivering, they call you death-knell,
Death-eater, bad omen, flying banshee
because you feed on death that feeds on men.
You strip what rots from what remains.
You give us the purity of the bones.


Trickster, they call you.
Oh yes, you'll do your wickedest
to ensure our way is never routine
and we are forced to improvise and transform.
You won't let us swap our souls for a plan.


At least they don't accuse you
of minor crimes.
I praise and claim your gifts
of putting on darkness to come and go safely
in the darkest places, joking with Death.


COMMENT: The kindness of ravens. Our collective noun for a group of crows is "murder". The word for a group of ravens is even crueler; those who know it speak of an "unkindness" of ravens. Yet I have found the raven to be an impeccable ally in seeing into dark places, and in training frequent flyers in the arts of the dream seer, I often call in the ravenous eye. Be it noted that in working with Raven this way, it is vastly desirable to call in a pair, as Odin knew when he sent off his twin ravens, Thought and Memory, to scout for him. I wrote this poem for Raven at the end of a marvelous adventure in group dreaming, when many of us were able to see true with the help of that raven eye. I am posting it today because of further excellent adventures in tracking with the help of the Two Ravens in my recent workshop in Frankfurt.

This tribute to Raven is included in my new collection of poems and stories, Here,

Everything Is Dreaming, published by Exclesior Editions, an imprint of State University of New York Press.







Raven shaman: drawing by Robert Moss

Bear Giver

From a dream












He walks with me like a faithful dog
though he’s twice my size
and my ancestors feared and revered him so much
they never spoke his name out loud,
calling him Honey-mouth, or Sticky-paw
or the Matchless One. Upright, he seems man
more than animal, though on cold nights
men in the wild would envy his fine warm pelt.

We are going to the animal doctor
not the corner vet but the real thing
because the Bear is ready to give himself again.
He passes without pain, without blood.
The animal doctor explains we must use all of him,
every organ, wasting nothing, sharing with those in need.
We unwrap the Great One as a medicine bundle.
Everything inside his skin is clean and dry,
sorted for use. The gall bladder is prized above all.
It will go to one who has earned it.
When we have used all of him, Bear is reborn,
the same Honey-mouth, in a new body.
The animal doctor says we must remember this always:
When you take from the Bear with respect, wasting nothing
Bear always comes back, in a new pelt.

Now I walk with him in his new body
to help someone who has dreamed him,
padding softly down hospital halls.
The Master of Medicine gives himself over and over.
This is the most natural thing in the world.
There is no end to this, unless our love runs dry
and we forget what he is.

The bear who seems ready to for lunch was photographed on the grounds of Johnson Hall, the last home of Sir William Johnson in upstate New York. Image courtesy of Wanda Burch.

Becoming the Caduceus

I
Kraken Rider

-
The drowned moon of the monster’s eye fills my sight
But I cannot lose track of the cruel beak below.
What you most fear is what you must do.
I twist to avoid its flailing tubes and hooks
And stabbing beak, and grapple with slimy pulp
Until I can swing up onto its back
And scissor my legs behind its bulbous head.
It thrashes and spins, and I struggle to hold on.
Then it plunges deep, and I see my life passing
Until I find I have gills and the scaled body
That can go as deep as the kraken takes me.
I will bend it to a purpose. I will ride the sea-beast
To fight the sea’s enemies, those who foul the waters
And poison the fish with the toxic waste of their greed.
-

My sea-father gallops across the whitecaps.
Laughing, he asks if I’ve had enough knightly adventure
For now. He wants me to follow the sea spray
To the land, to a snow-capped mountain
That belongs to him. I ride the kraken
to the shore where I am stripped of deepwater things
and emerge naked and golden to receive a new mount.
The winged horse carries me to Helicon,
To the unyielding block that must be opened by force
To release Hippocrene water of inspiration.

-
　
II
Hooves on Helicon

-
Harder. The hooves drive sparks from the rock.
The great wings beat the air, driving a warm wind
Across the snowy slopes of the mountain.
Again, the hooves come down. And again.
The rock groans and yields, releasing the jets
Of the secret spring. I am down on my knees,
Catching the water in my open mouth.
Shockingly cold and pure, it floods my senses
And a figure takes form before me, from the mist.
I know her as grey-eyed Clio, muse of History.
Her sister appears at my other side. I know she is
Sophrosyne, or Tempering. She is not on the roll-call
Of muses; she has come because I need her instruction.
Above my feminine guides, huge as the mountain,
Is their mother, Memory. Knowing is remembering.
I am here to help people remember the origin
And purpose of their lives. My sun-father shines
A blessing on the peak, twin ravens, black and white.

-
III
Living as Caduceus
-

Now the winged horse takes me to the temple mount
Where the snake woman waits for me, gripping
Her twin serpents by their necks, holding them out
Like six-shooters. With proud breasts and flashing eyes
She dares me to receive the power. I open my body
To her cold companions. They slip softly inside me,
Interweaving and rising. Now their coils are around me.
Their heads meet at my third eye and I see that
I am become a living caduceus. Powered by the goddess
I will now do the work of the god who mediates
Between humans and deities. He reveals himself
In the play of natural things, through pure synchronicity.

-
Now I have ridden the kraken, and drunk from
The Hippocrene spring, and conformed my body,
Inside and out, to the code of the double spiral,
I will speak and act from the best the Greeks know:

-
Gnothi seauton. Know yourself.
Sophrosyne. Tempering.
Ethos anthropoi daimon. Character is fate.
Anamnesis. Knowing is remembering.

-
The soul has the ability to conform to its character
The destiny that is allotted to it.

- Mosswood Hollow, February 26, 2010

-

Hooves on Helicon: By tradition, the Hippocrene spring was opened by the stamping hooves of Pegasus, the winged horse born of the blood of Medusa, and Mount Helicon is the domain of Poseidon, lord of the sea.
　

Solstice Poem

-

-

-

--

-

Eyes of the Goddess

From a journey to Newgrange

-

The poet waits for me in his countryman’s cape
And shows me the map in the gateway stone:
Twin spirals to get you in, and out, of the place of bone;
Wave paths to swim you from shadow to dreamscape;
A stairway of stars for when you are done with earthing.
I am here to practice the art of rebirthing.

She calls me, into the belly of the land that is She.
But I play, like the poet, with the shapes of time:
I am a swimming swan on the River Boyne;
I am a salmon, full with the knowing of the hazel tree;
I wander with Angus, and know the girl I have visioned
in gold at the throat of a white swan, beating pinions.

Drawn by the old perfume of burned bones, I go down
and doze until solstice fire, bright and bountiful
quickens me for the return of the Lady, lithe and beautiful
In the form she has taken, flowing as liquid bronze.
Her face is veiled, so the man-boy called to her side
like the red deer in season will not die in her eyes.

I see beyond the veil, for I come from the Other.
Oh, I yearn for the smell of earth and the kiss of rain!
I leap with her on the hallowed bed, coming again.
She knows the deer-king, as I am child and lover
Her eyes are spiral paths; the gyre of creation whirls
And sends me in green beauty to marry the worlds.

Black dog sightings

In Praise of Black Dogs

I am in favor of personal superstitions.
Not the kind Granma mumbles
Or the stuff of fright-night moves
But the ones that grow on you
When you notice which incidents in a day
Are shadows cast by something ahead
And get to know which clues from the world
Are reliable road signs.

I think a black dog, if friendly,
Is always a good omen
And could be a god traveling in disguise.
Some days you don’t have to figure this out.
At the door of possibility on San Francisco Bay
A black dog crossed my path.
His walker, a ruddy man in a red pixie hat,
Told me the dog’s name is Pollo,
Short for Apollo.
I have a black dog of my own.
His name is Nubie, short for Anubis.
He lives on my dreams
And takes on many bodies in the world.


Black Dog sightings

When I arrived in St. Louis at the end of last week, I was met at the airport by a man with a black dog called Bear in the back of his car. I immediately sensed that all would go very well in the days of media interviews, lectures and workshops that lay ahead - because for me, a friendly black dog is always a good sign. Indeed, the St. Louis trip unfolded beautifully. In a building where Lincoln slept in 1847, I talked with a lively TV host, Carol Daniel, about how Harriet Tubman used the aerial maps from her dream visions to guide escaping slaves to freedom and how it's common for pregnant mothers to dream of giving birth to baby animals. Erin, the events person at Left Bank Books - a store renowned for supporting creative rebels, artists and dreamers - gave me one of the most eloquent introductions I have ever received, before an enthusiastic crowd of 75 people. In the weekend workshop in an arts building on Delmar, in the city's colorful Loop, we traveled deep into the imaginal realm and collected secret handshakes from the universe while feasting on spicy Thai food during the lunchbreaks.

I've noticed again and again over the years that in my life the appearance of a friendly black dog, especially under unsual circumstances, often presages something good. My feelings may be related to the fact that I shared my home for many years with a couple of big, sloppy black dogs; one of them returned to me in dreams, after his death, as an impeccable friend and guide.

In the midst of a rather difficult phone conversation with a powerful producer who had not quite been "sold" on doing a certain show with me, we were interrupted repeatedly by the barking of a dog. Finally I asked, "What kind of dog is that?" "It's a black lab," the producer explained. It turned out she was sitting a friend's dog for the day - a black dog. I knew in that instant that the conversation would turn out just fine. I proceeded to tell the producer a couple of stories about black dogs who have given me messages (a couple of these are in The Three "Only" Things) - and the producer did not waste another second before agreeing to put me on the show. "How soon can we book you?"

On my way home from leading another workshop, I stopped for essential groceries. When I came out of the supermarket, I noticed that the car parked beside me had a decal that read: "Black Labrador Taxi Service." Yes, the rest of the evening was just lovely.