The Medicine Bag, a Shaman's Memories
Dreams, visions, voyages into the deepest recesses of the mind. The sound of drums, rasps, rattles and flutes. Chanting for hours meaningless word-like sounds. Rituals, rites of passage, celebrations of becoming, dancing, heel and toe, toe and heel until the spirit of the deer invaded the emptiness within.
Experiences, vague and worn memories of ceremonial chambers, dusty plazas and of masked dancers. Fasting and feasting, running, head held high, lungs bursting along ancient and sacred trails.
Pilgrimages to sacred sites and shrines. Stories unfolded from the minds of aged and venerated elders. Legends of rainbow people, animal spirits, of ogres and monsters, hero twins and seductive witches.
Fire, water and Earth Mother. Cloud beings and ghosts with gifts of illness and death. The sun, moon and stars, peopled with dancing gods and treacherous adversaries.
Such things form my earliest memories. Many still remain deep within the folds of the invisible "medicine bag" that holds the magic used to heal or to unlock the mystical doorway to those elusive worlds that exist just outside of ordinary reality.