Forest of Symbols

                                      

        

Inside a forest of symbols at night,

Going down a dark and narrow deer trail
Like entering the belly of a whale

With only the cusp of a moon for light

Walking through an encyclopedia

Of every known sign, glyph and sigil

Emerging from the dark, itself a symbol,

Filling one with a growing acedia

The foulness of the dark night of the soul,

The trial of purgation and probation,

Of accursedly roaming in damnation  

As the black path is opened like a scroll

And fate is written in the unholy night.

No grace and atonement, only trial

By the fear and misery that defile

The psyche of a human without light.

A wilderness passage of ego-death

On a hero’s archetypal quest

Through an obscure, symbolic forest,

Journeying its entire length and breadth

Lost, probing desperately for an exit

But no turning back to the distant entrance

Only the harsh paying of cosmic penance

Through diving into fear's monstrous cesspit 

Only then entering  symbol after symbol
And being transformed by the timeless wisdom
Of each, their complex designs that teach the nimble 
The way into God’s most holy kingdom  

The trail leading to an abyss of death

And rebirth, leading to the slow return

From the heart of darkness with a boon earned

From this realm of the unknown, a greater breadth

Of being, a greater breadth of knowing

Able to enrich one's world with the discovery

Of the mysterious truths glowing

In the heart of this heroic recovery       

From the forest of symbols