Each evening at Oracle 2022, our leaders gathering held in Potosi, Missouri, we gathered around “Grandfather Fire” to offer gifts of poetry, story, drumming, movement, and song. The following was offered by Illuman Board Member and Wisdom Elder Ned Abenroth.

The Call of Night
by Ned Abenroth
Dedicated to Doug Shirley, December 2020, near the solstice, as the Shirley’s moved into a house in the woods…

And now, each day grows short,
night shadows lengthen,
the dark’s embrace closes in and
offers to take hold.

That metallic taste of sheerness betrays your path
To writhe against this moment is but one way to join in your own undoing.
Be undone;
Writhe if you must.
Shout your fears deep into the wood
and see what beast emerges.
In this night, even half-crazed yellow eyes staring back,
Illuminate the very corners of your heart
Your terror, seeds a freezing tightness that runs up the spine

This road will get you there,
A dance with the bear will do the trick,
The owl will call in due time,
And eventually even the moonless night turns full

But other mysteries are hidden in the black.
If you dare, venture another path
Wrap yourself in night
Enfold yourself in shadow’s robes
Blindfold those stars in your eyes and
Submit to being led into the places you know not:

Seeing not, hearing not, tasting not…
nothing but nothing suspending you,
until at last even “you” is a fading mirage…

Inside the womb life stirs
Cedars bend to witness
Alders whisper the breeze
Bear rolls over in her dreams
The owl cracks one eye…

Dark Dark the night;
Darker still the dawn
in the black
and
hidden
waters of birth.