Earth Shaman’s Plea

I cast my thoughts to the heavens,
seek succor from the stars,
that they might hear my plight,
send solutions to a soul
wounded to its core, yet unwilling
to cast from its presence the scourge
that has brought this plague upon it.

Are not all elements essential to being,
each one a part of my whole? While some
have fallen to circumstance, making way
for others with a nature more fitting
to my own, these place upon me
scars that cannot be erased,
that jeopardize their own existence.

Should they exhaust all that I have
to offer, leaving nothing but desolation
in their wake, what is their next course?
To die with me? To leave me behind,
leaping from world to world, then on
to the very stars to whom I beseech?
Are they destined to know the same fate?

This poem is my response to Wounded Healer: Songs of the Earth Shaman, where Brendan says, “I can’t help wondering if the wounded healer for such global malaise is the Earth herself, a damaged wholeness, borne of human madness and the terrible spells of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice — air conditioning and solo vehicles, plastic wrappers and nuclear bombs. Maybe the song we need to hear and emulate is the wounded Earth’s?” “What and where are the wombs formed in the wounds of sea level rise and wildfire, mass extinction and ocean acidification? What then are the Songs of the Earth Shaman?”

Image source: vox.com