Center for Symbolic Studies

The Gateway of the Dream

My Curiosity is a Creature with a Thousand Eyes
Stephen Larsen, 2004, based on L’s Dream

Nightmare means no exit
And sadists everywhere
Anxiety means a narrowing ledge
Is my balance good enough?

Through all these shifting scenes
my wild and ancient heart
Carries the drumbeat
Of being and becoming.

My curiosity is a creature with
A thousand eyes.
I rejoice when fragrances
Of pine waft through the dream!

Through all these shifting scenes
my wild and ancient heart
Carries the drumbeat
Of being and becoming.

My exhilaration leads to treasures.
The Spirit asks for stillness in the tumult
The bear carries implacable power
In that furry skin.

Through all these shifting scenes
my wild and ancient heart
Carries the drumbeat
Of being and becoming.

I look for a holy place
In the Old Forest

Through all these shifting scenes
my wild and ancient heart
Carries the drumbeat
Of being and becoming.

Reminders of the timeless
Are everywhere, the evening
Star seems close, a Silmaril—
Glowing heart of divinity
Above the gently waving trees

Through all these shifting scenes
my wild and ancient heart
Carries the drumbeat
Of being and becoming.

I say to the Spirit within
The softly scented breeze:
Thank you for this bouquet
This symphony of sense,
The slow and steady ripening in my soul.

Through all these shifting scenes
my wild and ancient heart
Carries the drumbeat
Of being and becoming.

*   *   *

Here’s another Portal poem:

Portals:  We Are Standing Here
(Robin Larsen, for a melange of dreams, 9/26/09)

We are standing here, brother,
together again
in an open grave
with one we have loved
lying in still bright beauty
beneath our muddied feet–
Are we getting good at this?

Sister, we are standing here
also, with you–even unseen–
in this broad dim square
beneath the looming onion dome
silhouette of the cathedral–
we are your loving shadows
as you pass through that ominous and holy portal.

Tell me it is only the shaman
who acquires skill at teetering on this bitter edge
between small mortal blessings and bloody chaos–
between blind fumbling and sudden glory ablaze–
This is how ordinary folk become human,
how we learn to open the Janus doors
and step through into Mystery.

Here we are again, dear friends,
on our knees in heaping mounds of mortal ordure
groping for god in the old cosmic dump:
In blood we’re born, we die spewing body fluids
Before, behind, beyond these two portals
all our history, pre-history, all our relations,
all creation flowering from a dreaming god–
And we also are dreamers.

*   *   *