Totem Pole

The Ric Rac at the campfire

Was too much to handle.

Too many energies were being thrown around there.

They were benevolent energies;

Those of the high council in fact;

But the elders I respected were not there.

The tribe had long been broken

And coming to this quenched fire usually seemed

Like the last visage of a once great culture.

Many tribes gathered here.

Those from Temple and Passyunk.

Some groups lost too many members,

In some great hunt.

Some groups never changed the world.

Failed mayors and movie stars and pimps

Authors and ukelalists, gathered here.

They retold stories,

Fully knowing all the great shamans and storytellers

Were long gone.

The mystics and healers who gathered here

Were apprentices at best,

But there were no more masters to learn from.

A great warrior of the tribe

Had agreed to meet me in a field of rapture

A shadow perhaps of the long forgotten dancing circle

He never showed,

He got caught up in a battle between local devils

And kings from the west.

He later told me the kings exorcised the devils

In some last ditch moment of attack.

He warned me that this battle would continue

Maybe even 6 more battles would be fought.

I had agreed to meet someone in his stead

Whom I had met her at the campfire

A fellow prophet, we were both stargazers,

She was a Gemini masquerading as an Aquarius.

I though of perhaps taking her to this dancing feast

But it seemed we both knew better.

She walked with me, a Cancer, around the campfire.

We seemed to want to be alone.

We talked about the frailty of the tribe,

And the encroaching evil spirits

That threatened the existence of our culture.

She told me of a witch doctor who gave her the stink eye.

She had been disturbed all week.

As we talked, we realized the neither the rhythm of the dancing circle

Nor the familiar warm embrace of the campfire

Were comforting at the moment.

We were tired, and it had been a tough week for hunting.

Furthermore, the lack of game reminded us

That it had been long since either of us took a spiritual journey.

Our lives had become just pointless slaughter.

We reminisced on those great moments of connection

One can have with the All-Existence.

We stopped by a magicians hut,

To obtain some cocoa bean.

He gave it to us, but was depressed

Because his daughter had once again left home.

She had her own journey, but he missed her.

We talked outside his hut for a moment,

And then continued our walk.

She told me of her encounters with the devil

And I about mine with God

And we concluded that this was

Probably the same individual.

She told me she worked with Tarot card

And runes and totem animals,

When she conducted what little magic she knew

I wondered if animals also have totem animals,

Or if she and fellow totem-deists believed

The animals were put here for us.

Can a person be a dog’s totem spirit I asked?

This reminded her of her dog, and she asked me

To take my chariot to pick it up, to which I complied.

The great and happy beast was like an equal

When it got in the car,

Neither of us cast down any judgment on our four legged friend.

In his excitement over acceptance he urinated over my back seat.

We needed a safe trail to walk.

I suggested we stroll in the protected lands of Ritner

Were elders from my tribe lived.

This ground I assured here was protected at all hours,

By whatever guardian spirits we have left.

We came to the white tower

And she told me the problems she faced were she lived

There were too many warriors, too much violence.

She didn’t live that far away though.

I called to the elders as we passed their house.

The great warrior had returned

He came outside and meet us,

Also regarding the canine as an equal.

He told us of the battle he had seen,

And we told him of our conversation.

He turned towards the hut to say goodbye,

When suddenly more heads, appeared out of the hut.

They were one on top of another.

A great totem pole was pouring out of this white tower.

Humans can be totem spirits, even to other humans.

A great naked bear sat on top.

A jaguar lay in the middle

At the door stood the stag.

The bear yelled about his tomatoes

And the totem began a conversation

A talking god with 3 heads, at 3 in the morning

Is this what the aborigines saw on their spirit journeys?

It was otherworldly and familiar.

One of those rare moments when

God manifests in the familiar.

Then just as suddenly as it began

The vision was over.

We bade goodbye to the totem,

And I drove her home.

I pondered about those who look

To the stars for oracles of some dusty future

I realized that we are all stars gathered along

A dark and unwelcoming world.

We all have connections to each other.

Perhaps we can’t see them because

We are too deep in the woods.

Somewhere perhaps far away, our light reaches-

Someone else’s eye, and like us these stargazers

Assign us a meaning.

Perhaps the darkness acts as background

And we are a lost tribe of stars connected to each other,

Showing a constellation none of us can see.