This is a poem that sort of wrote itself after doing some intuitive work with my shamanic therapist — years, years ago, during my more (ahem) sexually active era. It’s based on one of my “vision quests” and was published in an anthology called Which Lilith: Feminist Writers Recreate the World’s First Woman, so it can’t be all that bad. I share it here to illustrate the benefits of dancing with my demons. Lilith is an archetype that loomed large in my therapeutic work, and if you’re at all interested in why, you can read Frank Paynter’s old interview with me.
Surrounded by Satyrs, Lilith Takes a Stand
Suddenly, they are all around me,
their jagged tracks
pointing in all directions,
etched into the earth like runes,
battered circles, omens of confusion.
They speak without words–
a slow lidding of eyes,
curving of mouth, writhing of tongue.
Their dappled shadows prance
to an overture of leaves
a crescendo of sun.
My body begins to dance in answer,
smell their musk
taste their salty steam,
sense thier strokes of fine hairs,
course skin, and
yes..yes..
Until the cloud, the cold–
a cold of mind,
an absence of heart.
I force myself to speak,
and the words break the spell,
their magic stronger
than even that basest call.
“And then what, my friends,
what then, when it is over,
and the night wind finds our skin,
urging us to a place safe for dreaming?
What then, when morning steals our union,
and you scamper away,
hungry for the day’s diversions–
impromptu symphonies of senses?
And worse still,
what if you stay,
and I am caught in your silent
single-minded worship
of a world without words?
I have been here before, my frirends,
have reached into that dark fire
blazing so far from the hearth–
that ancient seething
that (even now)
I breathe from you,
feed from you
send to my nightly cauldron
to simmer and stir,
to ladle, at last,
into mounds of midnight words,
this witch’s brew.”
In the failing light,
the satyrs shift
and snort their disaffections;
their shadows sink into stones
to high for holding
I leave the stones to claim
their wordless dreams.

Whoa! My post on Dancing with your demons got one of my Blog Sisters all worked up and it seems that I’ve given the wrong impression to about how I feel about using drugs to treat severe depression. My reference to “drugs” was to nnon-prescription ones that supposedly provide an “altered state of consciousness.” I certainly was not criticizing anyone taking prescription anti-depressives. Hell, I’m one of them. If you’re interested, you can read the wrong impressions posted here on the discussion on Blog Sisters, where I also comment, in my defense:
I was just suggesting an alternative to talk therapy, which seems not to be working for some webloggers whom I read. I never meant to discount the traditional ways to treat severe depression. I was simply sharing information for those who, like me, do see life as being all there is, so we sure ought to try to live it well and have some fun along the way.
Jealousof my new Blog Sisters’ youth and popularity? If I were, why would I give them links to send even more readers their way? This is not a competition going on here. This is a sharing of experiences and information.
My post was meant to be an explanation of why I like the inner adventures that shamanic therapy leads me into — the chance to step into my own personal mythos and get swept away into those deep caverns of my psyche that are not accessible any other way. For me, that’s the place where personal power simmers, the hearthfire around which those sweet demons linger, waiting to be revealed, loved, and released. It’s where poetry begins.
I’m sorry that I led so many of you to forget for a moment that, like you, I’m a complex individual, with varied interests and experiences — some of them seemingly contradictory. As Walt Whitman once wrote (or something similar) “Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself.” Don’t we all?
For me (see, I’m not even trying to link to anyone else here) life IS a journey of self-discovery. It always has been, even during the times when I felt most at sea, most discouraged. Some people turn to their god at those times. Not believing in anything like that, I turn to those deep places inside myself that, I know, have the guts and wisdom to figure things out. And the help I get doing that is from a therapist who employs more intuitive methods than rational thought. It’s not fanatical. It’s a method of therapy that works best for some of us, and it often works well for the more creative and adventuresome, which is what I see most webloggers as, so it’s why I tried to suggest it. Different strokes, right? This is not a competition.

May 1st, known as May Day,
also called Beltane (Bright Fire) by the Anglo-Saxons, was considered the first day of summer. May Day was symbolic of a return to life, of the defeat of the hard winter, with new hopes for good planting and rich harvests. Beltane was the time of milk and honey, the primary time of pleasure, of blossoming and blooming, of desire and satisfaction