The Quiet Apprenticeship

Don’t be fooled.

Your life was not meant

to be stuffed into a cabinet,

to be put on for show

and marketed to the world

like a flashy new

technological gadget.

Don’t be fooled.

The paths of seduction

are fruitfully abundant

in the world-wide-marketplace

of media-filled rat races,

where the roles of Soul & Wild

as teachers and guides,

have long

been made redundant.

Don’t be fooled.

The marketplace faces

will tell you to go

this way and that;

pop-chart leaders

wearing shaman’s hats,

and commodified gurus

flying on yoga mats,

insisting that you must enter

the well-lit cave

and drink another big cup

of spiritual cool-aid.

Don’t be fooled.

More wisdom is hidden

in the landscape

of night-time visions,

in the strange twitches

and somatic glitches

that sometimes drive you

to illness;

in the chilling squawk of Raven

or the moltings of caterpillar,

in ancestral encounters inside

mid-winter dreams,

in the whispers of

an evening breeze,

or in the dance

of a eucalyptus trees branches,

as you’re momentarily

brought to your knees

and forget

your human name.

When you’re bewildered

by this kind of lostness,

and finally apprenticed

to the secret workings

of your holy undoing,

you’ll hear a voice

calling you

that knows

your true name.

Shhh. Listen.

Do you hear those whispers?

© Alexandre Jodun