Account of Presumed Ecstatic Experience during Initiation Rite in Unidentified Mystery Religion
#46 of poetry
While 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.
While 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.
It doesn't really matter how I died.
Whether of time or tide or tiredness,
But after this, the journey of my life
I woke, to find myself in a dark wood.
The way was lost, the night was long, and I
Was more alone than I had ever been.
It really doesn't matter how I died.
It grows more difficult for memory
To conjure up the details. I recall
A quiet, as if all the world had moved
Into another room, somewhere downstairs.
There was a lightness, like the vertigo
When you have fallen only half asleep.
There was a calm, and time slowed, and I saw
A far green country, there across the sea.
I can't recall if I died near the sea,
But I recall my first glimpse of that shore.
The silver mist that parted. The white peaks
Turned saffron by the touch of setting sun.
The forests so dark green they could be black.
The sheets of rain, that flowed across the knees
Of mountains like a standing wave, and smeared
The light they caught into prismatic flames.
I can recall no pain. If pain there was
However much, however long, it was
Entirely left behind, like life, in life.
It does not matter, truly, how I died.
What matters is the sunset found me there.
I glimpsed him through the trees. I followed him.
His eyes were sad and bishop-serious
And each was an entire sunset landscape.
He led me to a house I had not seen
But knew as if I'd lived there all my life.
He opened wide the door. The dark within
Was warm and welcoming, and promised rest.
And when I hesitated on the step
He turned his wolfish head to me and spoke.
"And why do you hang back? I know your heart.
Each day that you drew breath, you longed for home.
You sought for home, you fought for home. You mourned
When ended were your days all homeless still.
But now, behold. You have at last come home.
And never need you carry grief again!
Come in, and lay it all to rest upon
Your father's breast. Come shelter in these arms,"
His eyes were sad, and bishop-serious,
"However much of ages without end
It shall require to wash your grief away."
And aye, I longed indeed for hearth and home.
And aye, my eyes were wearied much with grief.
And aye, he was my father, though we had
Never before this met, though he was wolf
And sunset both, which I was neither one.
But yet I hesitated. I said some
Small mewling words to the effect that I
Did not believe that I deserved the love
And fatherhood, and home, he offered me.
"I do not know if you deserve my love.
Why would I know if you deserve my love?
Why would you ask if you deserve my love?
You have my love." He said. "You are my son."
He spoke it into being, and it was.
And I was. I could feel the bloodline spread
From him through me, delivering me from this
The body of my death to one like his:
Blood of cool crimson sunlight turned to dew,
Body of claw and tail and midnight pelt.
And peace he laid upon my mourning soul...
...and in my father's house I shall remain.
Until the day when I must come to thee
To lay the paw that I received from him
Upon thy fevered brow. To calm thy fears.
To cool thy frantic struggles as they fade.
To shut thy eyes, and open them again
And wake thee to a new world with a kiss.
To tell thee, do not fear this newer world:
It doesn't matter, really, how you died,
What matters is the work is done, the strife
Is all completed. Now but follow me:
Behold, across the sea, the promised land
Where I will lead you home. Where you may lay
Your grief to rest upon my father's breast,
And never need you be alone again.