White leather sown with straps and beads,
Braids woven in feathers
Though fair skinned,
I am a Native maiden,
On my path winding inward.
The forest tangles
Yet opens its vines and limbs
As a cave mouth,
Where I enter, greeted by a wolf and a hawk,
Guides to an overlook.
Wolf at my side, the expanse opens up.
I fly with Hawk,
The wind drumming my face
To where the dance is,
The drums, the rattles.
Wolf and I dance.
As the Fire strokes my hair.
Drumming, chanting, whirling.
I whirl my arms skyward,
Embracing air. I am small,
For the twisting air makes night a shape,
Looming before me, it asks if
I am ready to die.
I stand bold, warding off Death.
Fair Maiden to the North,
South, East, and West, all directions.
Night Dragon breathes Fire,
But I ward off Death in the fumes.
All around the drums beating
In my heart, steady beats, strong.
I stand like granite.
I am the chanting, the dance.
The songs open to me
The words I need to know
As I emerge from the rage
Of Night, asking for my Soul,
Of which I have many,
One for every element.
The elders sing my divination,
Their faces lit by fire and stars.
The Night Beast withdraws,
Warded off by my Spirit,
There he rests, waiting
For another test of me, but
He’s really an Ally,
Guarding a contract
Written in parchment
By the Sea of Forgetting.
I am here to be reborn.
To awaken to Truth
And to lead others to their sacred gardens,
Where Fear makes their beasts
And where they greet Death
As a passage to their Spirit Name.
And emerge as warriors,
Gifted with arrows, feathers, and drums.
