Although Snyder was speaking of the shaman in traditional, primitive cultures, this statement is right on the money for those of us who are modern shamanic practioners. The mission of the shaman is to heal the living and the dead. This quotation summarizes what I would like for my poetry to do: to "give song to dreams," to make known the unknown, to give voice to the voiceless. As a shamanic practitioner, I could simply confine my experiences of touching the spirits to my own journals and thoughts and share them only with those who are also involved in similar practices themselves. However, my desire is to make those other world experiences accessible to anyone, not just one who beats a drum. I want my poems to ring out somehow with a truth--often a primal truth--that everyone knows deep in his/her soul. I want one who reads my poetry to feel that he/she has shared in the experience, or learned something about the nature of the spirit, or felt a sense of common, fundamental humanness.
To go about this, to hit on universal experiences that strike a cord in all of us (some are mundane and some are cosmic), I seek to explore all the realms in which humans interact: this mundane world, the spirit world, and also the "in between"--the place where this world and the other world meet. I hope the poems take the reader on a journey of sorts, to explore what's inside us all: the spirit.
Here's a sample poem of mine. . .
Sometimes these worlds erupt
their boundaries, cross the lines that divide.
After all, they are as thin as cellophane
and more permeable.
What separates us from them
grows less permanent, more fragile
as something beckons, something calls,
hovers like a relentless hummingbird
with wings droning in the ear,
stirring memory.
***
Will you hear the call
and pick up your drum,
or will you settle back
into the easy chair of your old life,
content just looking out the window?
Get up and walk outside into the grass.
Leave behind the porch of this life,
the house of the ego.
Call to the spirits; call loudly
from your heart.
Sing out your soul's song,
which thrashes against your ribcage
for release.
There is bliss,
there with the spirits,
free from the body
and from this earthly pain.
There is perennial compassion
in the redtail's wings or the wolf's howl
and with this you can return to the world
heart spun open, hands outstretched
bathing those who suffer in light.
This is your birthright from the beginning.
Claim it. Get up.
Do you want to read more of my spiritual poems?
When Crows Speak
To See
Almost
Coffee in the Stars
Mountain Aubade
Jaguar Dreams
Listen
Power Dance
Mask Making
There and Back
Obstruction
I Dreamed of Lions
Renouncing Hell
Up in the Air
Song of the Air
Water Song
All poems copyrighted by the author, Tracey Besmark 1997�