The Emerging Shaman

To truly see the world around us, we must first look deep inside.

Hear the competing sense-calls, starting as whispers, growing louder over time.

See visions comparing us to a withering, sproutless tree, overfed, overwatered, our ignorance rooted in a loamless earth.

Feel the anger and resentment swelling up our gut, our heart and mind drowning in the despair of our dying passion.

Crippling pain that eats away at our joints, discs, and bones, a cold, agonizing burn freezes all cries for help.

All these disparate voices scream: “Hear us or forever be the victim!”

Until...we stop wailing out excuses and we finally listen.

*

“We are the architects of our own cursed fate,” they say.

“We are the trash and filth whales drown in.”

“We are the enforcers beating the indigenous as they protest polluting pipelines.”

“We are the cops shooting black lives down as if they don’t even matter.”

“We are the toxins that flood our own veins, trapping us in an infinite maze of vice.”

“We are the scars and the guards separating children, women, and families.”

“We are the cage that imprisons us all.”

“Worse than any golden calf, we are the tarnished, brass idols worshipping on the altar of fear, greed, and pride.”

“We are the lies that deny us our own mind and body, that preaches the gospel of our dominion over a dangerous and sinful world.”

“Listen,” the voices say. “Learn,” they say. Until, finally, I understand and awaken.

*

I am no longer a withering, sproutless tree.

I am the blossoming branch blooming with new life.

I am no longer drowning in despair of dying, nor am I burning in frozen agony.

I am the passionate flare flowing back to Pangea, the Promethean spark that inspires us all.

I am no longer the victim nor am I the violence.

I am the visionary, the whale, and the protest.

I am no longer lost in a never-ending maze of distractions.

I am my own pleasure just waiting to be discovered.

I am not imprisoned nor am I the cage.

I am the key that sets us all free, a guide tying everything together.

I embrace my true mind, my true body, my true role in a compassionate and symbiotic world.

I am the healer emerging from within.