"Initiate", with FOOTNOTES!!! A recent discussion here concerned having to write footnotes for poems -- which, as the discussers agreed, is like having to footnote jokes. I said the same thing myself just five years ago, when I finally had to give up and do footnotes for a poem I wrote just over ten years ago. Not because people didn't enjoy it -- they did -- but because it made use of so much trivia that most people didn't recognize all the references... and I confess to using multiple references, in effect punning. Well... the multiple occurrences were there to be referred to! For instance, both Odin and Jesus were "hung on a tree" and uttered "runes" while there; Hiram Abiff, Lazarus, and Jesus were all drawn from the grave; both Llew Llaw Gyffes and Jesus had "stepped on earth and water and been pierced"; and the whole theme of the Dying and Rising God-King is repeated over and over again. The trouble with multiple reference comes when people don't know about the other referents -- it's like making puns with similar-sounding words, when your listener has only heard of one of those words. Footnotes may be unavoidable when poems deal with obscure historical or technical details -- or readers won't know enough to enjoy the retelling. Even Kipling and Masefield had to footnote some pieces for that reason. Here is that poem -- I hope you enjoy it, in fact you may already know it -- and the footnotes are attached below. Who knows, you may enjoy them too.... INITIATE copyright (c) 1984 by Raven (C. M. Joserlin) I have seen the sun at midnight, slain the bull at his command, Used the power of the crystal, felt the force direct my hand, Thricefold served the silver lady, sailed upon the darkest sea, Counted corpses in the forest, chanted runes upon the tree; I have spoken words of power, summoned Hiram from the grave, Sung Eurydice to ransom, called 'Phrodite from the wave, I've recited rhymes by order, chimes that echoed in the brain, That excited love and joy -- or hate and sorrow, fear and pain; I have built the greater temple and survived the tests inside, I have stepped on earth and water and been pierced in feet and side, I have danced around the fire, walked the circle semi-clad, I have chased the beasts and shared the feasts of bread and wine we had; I have traveled to the hidden centers, studied in their lore, Listened to the quiet murmurs and looked deep into the core, Bound strong servants to their duties, striven long within the craft, Drawn the dirk and done the work, while being warded fore and aft; 'Till the flower opened to me and I learned the secret ways, Found the stone and on me shone the black and white and ruddy rays, Saw with many-colored vision and through many changes passed, Let myself become myself, and reached my mastery at last. Footnotes for INITIATE copyright (c) 1989 by Raven (C. M. Joserlin) Having to footnote a poem is like having to explain a punchline or a painting. You always hope it won't be necessary; that the work will stand on its own; that if there is only one possible interpretation, each reader will find it unaided; that if interpretations may vary, each reader will find meaning in his or her own personal experience of the piece. So much for hopes. INITIATE may just have been too obscure, based too much on out-of-the-way bits of lore. A number of people have asked me, very nicely, just what in the world it meant, or what were the various references. How could I refuse to answer? All right, here's some background detail. Understand, however, that the poem (song) has been wandering around independently for some years now, and that I have no more right than any other parent to define a grown child's identity. The interpretation I offer is certainly not complete (you can find many more references than I list), and is no more authoritative than any that you or anyone else might make. Clearly the verses owe something to Sir James Frazer's THE GOLDEN BOUGH (I recommend the revised one-volume edition, THE NEW GOLDEN BOUGH), and still more to Robert Graves's THE WHITE GODDESS, two wonderful studies of comparative religion and myth and magic. I've only just recently come across Munro S. Edmonson's LORE: An Introduction to the Science of Folklore and Literature, which was not itself a source, but does illustrate the sources. If you read those, you could footnote INITIATE yourself -- perhaps better than I could. The references are mostly to assorted mystery religions of the Mediterranean and Northern European peoples, but some are to traditions which seem universal. Many of these references are multiple, canting, almost punning; they could be read more than one way, apply to several different traditions. Also, the verses are not grouped by source tradition; rather, they are pied, or shuffled, as if to disguise any trail. Oddly enough, this same canting and pied technique is demonstrated in the riddling verses of the Welsh bard Taliesin: The Song of Amergin, The Battle of the Trees, The Hanes Taliesin, discussed at length by Graves. Echoing these, the present poem might almost have been titled WHAT AM I?, with the riddle's answer being "An Initiate." I HAVE... This repeated beginning makes the verses almost a chant. Chants are used around the world, in shamanistic invocations of Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas, as in the rites of the Catholic Church. Repetition is magical. (See LORE, chapter 4.) Also, the grammatical form itself echoes the verses of Taliesin: "I am the womb of every holt, "I have been in many shapes.... I am the blaze on every hill, I have been a drop in the air. I am the queen of every hive, I have been a shining star. I am the shield to every head, I have been a word in a book. ... I am the tomb to every hope." I have traveled, I have made a circuit, -- THE SONG OF AMERGIN. I have slept in a hundred islands, I have dwelt in a hundred cities." -- THE BATTLE OF THE TREES. "I have obtained the muse from the Cauldron of Cerridwen; I have been bard of the harp to Lleon of Lochlin; I have been on the White Hill, in the court of Cynvelyn...." -- THE HANES TALIESIN. Please notice that in these riddling verses the "I" is generally not intended to refer to one same and singular speaker throughout. (One many-times- published poet actually protested to me, after having read INITIATE, "But, Raven, YOU didn't do all these things!") I HAVE SEEN THE SUN AT MIDNIGHT Polar summers aside, this was a key phrase of the Eleusinian Mysteries, one of the oldest remembered European cults, a Grecian secret society whose Illuminist traditions predated the founding of Rome. Initiates of these rites were titled Anointed One (the Greek term is "Christos"), signifying their victory over death. Much more recently, the Hebrew term "Messiah", also meaning Anointed One, was translated as "Christos" -- which is how it came about that, for nearly two thousand years, devout churchgoers have addressed a Jewish rabbi by the title of an Initiate of Eleusis. SLAIN THE BULL AT HIS COMMAND Bull sacrifice was a common feature of religious ceremony in every land around the Mediterranean, in the British Isles, and in scattered places around the world. (See references in Frazer.) Put together with the first half-line, this seems a clear reference to the Mysteries of Mithras, the intermediary between the One Light and Mankind, who slew the Bull at the Sun's command to bring life to the world. (See Franz Cumont, THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA; also, for a poetic and fictional illustration, "A Hymn to Mithras" in Rudyard Kipling's PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.) Mithraism was the last great rival of Christianity for the allegiance of the Roman Empire; by some contention, it did not lose that war. Both faiths featured baptism, and communion with bread and wine; but Mithraic temples had iconic statuary (forbidden in Judaism) and a male-only hierarchical priesthood addressed as "Father" -- which Judaism's purist reformer Jesus specifically denounced. Mithras had his birthday on December 25; Jesus did not. Again for nearly two thousand years, these Mithraic traditions have been preserved in the name of one who would have had nothing to do with them. USED THE POWER OF THE CRYSTAL Shamans in Asia and the Americas have long used quartz crystals as power channels to regulate the nature of reality; now electronic watches channel power through quartz crystals to regulate time -- as, for instance, Prime Time, when most Americans practice crystal-gazing to scry distant events of past, present, and future... and that medium which is the message perhaps does regulate the nature of their reality. (Tolkien warned against trusting crystal visions.) FELT THE FORCE DIRECT MY HAND Not shamans alone feel and use that force, nor only the "Jedi Knights" of the movies. Ask a practitioner of Aikido or T'ai Chi Ch'uan, or of Ouija, or of automatic writing. Was this what the "inspired authors" of any given Holy Book experienced? THRICEFOLD SERVED THE SILVER LADY The Triple Goddess, of course, the White Goddess, whose looking glass is the moon, and whose worship (says Graves) is the sole purpose of all true poetry in any age. (For the most expressive rendition of Her in the written word, by all means read E. R. Eddison's Zimiamvian Trilogy: A FISH DINNER IN MEMISON, THE MEZENTIAN GATE, MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES, best arranged in that order; you may enjoy reading THE WORM OUROBOROS, before or after all the others.) SAILED UPON THE DARKEST SEA That great waterway beneath the earth comes to mind, portrayed by the Egyptians, Seneca, Virgil, Coleridge ("...Down to a sunless sea"), and Tim Powers (THE ANUBIS GATES); river of death, river of life, river of the sun's departure and return. COUNTED CORPSES IN THE FOREST A pastime of Frazer's King of Nemi, surely? Or perhaps a bard recording the allegorical Battle of the Trees? Or any other woods-hidden war? Or the trail of a Wild Hunt? CHANTED RUNES UPON THE TREE Unmistakably this refers to Odin on the World-Ash Yggdrasil, and those who undertook his rite of initiation, portrayed in the Tarot card of the Hanged Man. Yet... "rune" means a secret thing, and was there not some such chant upon another tree? "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani"? SPOKEN WORDS OF POWER The essential feature of an entire category of magical practice, and the claim to fame of any great bard or orator.