The Ancient Elm

While I was on the first Pete Retreat (see earlier post), I put together the seeds for a cycle of poetry that became The Ancient Elm. The Ancient Elm started off as a kind of poetic expression of the process I experienced by going on the Pete Retreat and semi-cutting myself off from 'civilization', but eventually it got very layered and covered a bunch of things I was interested in at the time.

In addition to the Pete Retreat experience, I was exploring Zen, meditating with koans, and learning to control my mind. I was also approaching 40 and - while I certainly didn't regret it - I felt a need to reevaluate myself as a 'man' and not a 'young man'. I was really obsessed with male imagery (wizards, knights, emperors) and reading a lot of male-oriented literature (Le Morte de Arthur, the Iliad, Beowulf, Viking sagas, etc.). So there was all sorts of personal stuff going on and interesting inputs simmering in my brain. The perfect hatching ground for creativity!

The Ancient Elm ended up being about coming of age (not teen-age!), but transforming yourself from potential (a boy) into an actuality (a man). It's about becoming powerful though wisdom, but yet also embracing your physical strength...and some of the traps that lie along the way as you become your own man. Celebrating 'guyness', I guess. I'll start posting the poems, but here are the titles of the poems that make up The Ancient Elm:

Illusion
Wizard Of The Wood
Zazen
Siegecraft
Imperial Triptych
a. The Court Of The Sun
b. The Twisted Myth
c. Emperor Of Thorns
High Priest To Heretic
New Moon
The Myth Continues...