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Initiation for Friend Thadd

I am an anthropologist.
The tribe I’m studying insist
they are prepared to accept me
into their closed community.

But first I must be purified.
So I am stripped to my bare hide.
Then thrust into the steaming heat
of the sweat lodge and made to eat.

Some buttons from a cactus plant
The shaman wails a plaintive chant.
I soon grow used to nudity
It seems somehow to set me free.

From the mind set that I know
how easily I can let go.
I seem to know instinctively
I’m subject to authority

Some higher power judging me
to see if I am fit to be.
Entrusted with their sacred lore
Which will change me for evermore.

I see strange visions in the steam
Am I awake or do I dream
I am entranced by what I see
and I embrace it eagerly.

I’m not the man I used to be.
Therefore it follows logically
that I will see things differently
perhaps with renewed clarity.

It seems that I have passed the test
The shaman tells me I must rest.
I fall into a dreamless sleep
which lets new knowledge slowly seep

deep into my subconscious mind
my old beliefs are left behind.
Old knowledge lost, new knowledge gained
It can’t be easily explained.

So that is why I do not try.
I know I could not satisfy
your raging curiosity.
I am oath bound to secrecy.

I’m still an anthropologist
but those deep feelings still persist
I gained from my experience
although I have no evidence

to show that I have really changed.
My thinking process re-arranged
I know I m connected to
all living things and so are you.

The difference being you don’t know
because you did not undergo
initation as I did
until you do some things are hid.

10-Feb-09

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poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Added by Poetry Lover
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