{"sf1_id":1779203,"sf2_id":"lmXDN6mo","title":"Account of Presumed Ecstatic Experience during Initiation Rite in Unidentified Mystery Religion","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":676,"posted_at":"2021-10-28T08:23:00.000Z","tags":["Hymn","Iambic pentameter","Paganism","Poetry","Wolf","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1779203-account-of-presumed-ecstatic-experience-during-initiation-rite-in-unidentified-mystery-religion","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/lmXDN6mo","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/98/89/9889f5cb-ef34-4479-a964-a323335f68a0","description":"#46 of poetry\n\nWhile the best-known of the so-called Mystery Religions were at the cult of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis, it is by definition impossible to know of all of them, or indeed to guess how many there were. Their practices were kept secret from all but their practitioners, and they more successfully they kept these secrets the more likely it is that no mention of them remains after those practitioners are no more. It is perhaps arguable that any Mystery Religion of which modern scholarship has heard should be therefore disqualified from the category.\nWhile mystery religions are usually considered characteristic of classical antiquity, there is no reason to suppose that this form of worship was in any way exclusive to the ancient Greco-Roman world. Arguably, any faith with private practices and devotions, especially initiations, that are not shared with outsiders, could be reasonably called a Mystery Religion.","content":"It doesn't really matter how I died.\n\nWhether of time or tide or tiredness,\n\nBut after this, the journey of my life\n\nI woke, to find myself in a dark wood.\n\nThe way was lost, the night was long, and I\n\nWas more alone than I had ever been.\n\n  \n\nIt really doesn't matter how I died.\n\nIt grows more difficult for memory\n\nTo conjure up the details. I recall\n\nA quiet, as if all the world had moved\n\nInto another room, somewhere downstairs.\n\nThere was a lightness, like the vertigo\n\nWhen you have fallen only half asleep.\n\nThere was a calm, and time slowed, and I saw\n\nA far green country, there across the sea.\n\nI can't recall if I died near the sea,\n\nBut I recall my first glimpse of that shore.\n\nThe silver mist that parted. The white peaks\n\nTurned saffron by the touch of setting sun.\n\nThe forests so dark green they could be black.\n\nThe sheets of rain, that flowed across the knees\n\nOf mountains like a standing wave, and smeared\n\nThe light they caught into prismatic flames.\n\nI can recall no pain. If pain there was\n\nHowever much, however long, it was\n\nEntirely left behind, like life, in life.\n\n  \n\nIt does not matter, truly, how I died.\n\nWhat matters is the sunset found me there.\n\nI glimpsed him through the trees. I followed him.\n\nHis eyes were sad and bishop-serious\n\nAnd each was an entire sunset landscape.\n\nHe led me to a house I had not seen\n\nBut knew as if I'd lived there all my life.\n\nHe opened wide the door. The dark within\n\nWas warm and welcoming, and promised rest.\n\nAnd when I hesitated on the step\n\nHe turned his wolfish head to me and spoke.\n\n\"And why do you hang back? I know your heart.\n\nEach day that you drew breath, you longed for home.\n\nYou sought for home, you fought for home. You mourned\n\nWhen ended were your days all homeless still.\n\nBut now, behold. You have at last come home.\n\nAnd never need you carry grief again!\n\nCome in, and lay it all to rest upon\n\nYour father's breast. Come shelter in these arms,\"\n\nHis eyes were sad, and bishop-serious,\n\n\"However much of ages without end\n\nIt shall require to wash your grief away.\"\n\nAnd aye, I longed indeed for hearth and home.\n\nAnd aye, my eyes were wearied much with grief.\n\nAnd aye, he was my father, though we had\n\nNever before this met, though he was wolf\n\nAnd sunset both, which I was neither one.\n\nBut yet I hesitated. I said some\n\nSmall mewling words to the effect that I\n\nDid not believe that I deserved the love\n\nAnd fatherhood, and home, he offered me.  \n\"I do not know if you deserve my love.\n\nWhy would I know if you deserve my love?  \nWhy would you ask if you deserve my love?\n\nYou have my love.\" He said. \"You are my son.\"\n\nHe spoke it into being, and it was.\n\nAnd I was. I could feel the bloodline spread\n\nFrom him through me, delivering me from this\n\nThe body of my death to one like his:\n\nBlood of cool crimson sunlight turned to dew,\n\nBody of claw and tail and midnight pelt.\n\nAnd peace he laid upon my mourning soul...\n\n  \n\n...and in my father's house I shall remain.\n\nUntil the day when I must come to thee\n\nTo lay the paw that I received from him\n\nUpon thy fevered brow. To calm thy fears.\n\nTo cool thy frantic struggles as they fade.\n\nTo shut thy eyes, and open them again\n\nAnd wake thee to a new world with a kiss.\n\nTo tell thee, do not fear this newer world:\n\nIt doesn't matter, really, how you died,\n\nWhat matters is the work is done, the strife\n\nIs all completed. Now but follow me:\n\nBehold, across the sea, the promised land\n\nWhere I will lead you home. Where you may lay\n\nYour grief to rest upon my father's breast,\n\nAnd never need you be alone again.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"poetry","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1766517-rust-river-valley-rail-crossing-three-pop-527.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1791885-history-repeats-because-those-who-write-it-write-repetition.json"}}