born in a night to perish in a night.

the only true wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and it can be reached only through suffering. privation and suffering alone can open the mind of a man to all that is hidden to others. igjugarjuk, an eskimo shaman

i'm out of my head. i'm better now.

i need to remember that this is how the cycle goes. i become weak, so i break, and breaking eventually makes me defiant and reminds me of exactly what i am. i have survived life; ghosts cannot hope to compare.

this has to do with what a shaman is. no one who truly bears the title has ever decided to be one. they must be and are chosen. it is the child who nearly drowns, the one who is mauled but lives. it is a role born of trauma. when you have a great fucking bear on top of you, you go inside of your head, for you have nowhere else to go. and that is what a shaman is.

they say the druids were trained in darkened caves. they'd lay down and put heavy rocks on their stomachs and listen to the myths until they knew them, every word, every rhyme, every name. (how many hours and minutes and days were spent by a single man, half conscious, in a cave with something heavy on top of him? long enough that the number alone could crush you; insignificant enough that realizing that what occurred there changed you forever, that nearly everything that happens afterwords goes back to those moments, would make you feel like a fool. to be fair, a fool is exactly what you'd be called in a different place and a different time.)

this has to do with what bear is. she refuses to mean any one thing, and i love and fear her for it. but she is the cave, and the thing that guards it, and the danger in it. sometimes i remember that i've probably described him as a bear. he was a huge and hairy monster of a man-thing.

one of the things that i love about william blake (although i still don't like him) is his insistence upon the darkness and horror of innocence: that it is only the awful, brief moments of vulnerability before something terrible has happened. conversely, experience may be cruel, but it can defend itself. it isn't nearly as troubling as a result.

it was initiation, then. i have considered this. the secret behind every virgin birth is that rape is the language of gods. even as a child, though, i knew that a shower of gold was very, very bad, that some things aren't worth what you pay for them. i am not such an idiot as to be thankful.

i mentioned it before: there is evidence for a neanderthal ritual that looks remarkably similar to one practiced by a group in japan to this day. earth and life are far better than any heaven; the gods, being wise, come to visit as often as possible. to do this they are born as bird, as deer, as bear. a god cannot return, however, until it has been cut lose from flesh, and gods are creatures as homesick as any of us. when a bear cub is found, then, it is the duty of the one who finds it to catch it and to bring it to a woman to raise as a child. she feeds it at her breast. when it grows, it is put in a cage, and years pass, after which it comes time to send the little god home.

the young bear, secured with ropes, is made to walk around the circle of people. blunt little arrows are shot at him and he is teased until he becomes furious. then he is tied to a decorated stake; six young fellows seize him by the legs, the head and tail; two poles, called "poles for strangling," are held to his neck, above and below; a perfect bowman sends an arrow into his heart in such a way that no blood spills to the earth; the poles are squeezed together, and the little guest is gone.

the bear's head then is removed with the whole hide, feet, and tail attached, carried into the house, and arranged among prayer-sticks and valuable gifts, to share a passing feast. a tasty morsel of its own flesh is placed beneath its snout, along with a helping of dried fish, some millet dumplings, a cup of sake or beer, and a bowl of its own stew. then it is honored... joseph campbell, the mythic dimension: renewal myths and rites

my names are many. i have survived much. i will continue to do so. no pity. no shame. no silence. only mythology.

to see a world in a grain of sand
and a heaven in a wild flower,
hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour.