Because She Sings

From the depths of banishment

I am soon to emerge.

Like a dusky winged creature from its

brooding chrysalis.

An immortal,

reincarnating without the necessity of death.

Seeker of the mysteries,

Mother Earth and song of Spirit.

The light of inner vision enthralled me,

even as the serpentine coils of the Inquisition

constricted about me.

One evening as I became the conduit of the

Entheogenic bliss,

the Spirit of hill and forest again sang to me.

 

She said that we had plucked the web

of a mighty predator

-- and it had taken notice

-- and it was coming

-- intent on devouring us.

It overwhelmed us.

Coming for hill and forest with chain saw

and earthmover.

Coming for me with flashing blue lights,

handcuffs, shackles and chains.

It caged us.

It laid us barren beneath concrete and steel.

(So that my rage and righteous indignation

might ripen.)

Those that seek to lay waste the Spirit

shall surely fall.

For she is the ineffable infinite.

As the shaman knows:

that which dreams us all.

We who have drunk from the Mystery's

Entheogenic cup

must bravely sing her song.

Her truth is our truth:

of leaf and tendril,

of wing and fin,

of fur and hoof,

of toes ten,

-- we are all of the same blood.

The hills and forests are my Mother's breasts

Water, her lifeblood from which all emerged.

Sun, our Father, which all life reaches

to embrace.

The countless stars, but fires of distant tribes.

All our relations,

Cradled within the womb-lodge of forever.

Those to whom the Sacrament has affirmed

this equity,

the Inquisition condemns as criminal.

Our fate sealed by lies and artifice,

treacherous as a prosecutor's empty heart.

I, only one in countless multitudes,

entombed for our bliss.

I, eight years in exile,

betrayed by a stranger's kiss.

But Spirit still sings to me.

To the well of remembrance we slip.

With song of hill and forest,

the Sacrament still wet upon my lips.

Because She sings me.

Otter Who Dreams of Lightning

(Robert D. Milcher; political prisoner 15705-018)

Written in honor of my beloved friends

and colleagues and the animating

Spirit that permeates all. For the

Winter Solstice of 1999.

Editor's Note: Robert Milcher was sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute LSD after being set up by an informant of the Drug Enforcement Administration.