We Need To Call a Tribal Council

The Union of Mystic and Oracle

Siren

We need to call a tribal council
Because everything is beautiful and now it’s now ugly
This girl in the mental hospital told me
George Bush blew up the World Trade Center

Because everything is beautiful and now it’s ugly
I made this video
George blew up the World Trade Center
I’ve been drunk for the past three years

I made this video
May Day! May Day!
I’ve been drunk for the past three years
They’re stripping the island bare, can’t you see?

May Day! May Day!
People like us need to start having babies
They’re stripping the island bare, can’t you see?
We’ve got less than two years

People like us need to start having babies
I’m going to distribute 60 million copies worldwide on the same day
We’ve got less than two years
We can all live in teepees

I’m going to distribute 60 million copies worldwide on the same day
You don’t understand
We can all live in teepees
I have to buy my food at the Block Island Grocery!

You don’t understand
We can’t go on like this. You’re ignorant
I have to buy my food at the Block Island Grocery!
Why shouldn’t we use our beauty to get what we desire?

We can’t go on like this. You’re ignorant
Waitressing has made me ugly
Why shouldn’t we use our beauty to get what we desire?
We all have to walk away

Waitressing has made me ugly
I’m supposed to tell the 17 year olds we can’t do anything!
We all have to walk away
And they wonder why we’re all drunk.

I’m supposed to tell the 17 year olds we can’t do anything!
Jen, you’re always bringing something beautiful into my life
And they wonder why we’re all drunk
I don’t think I can trust you

Jen, you’re always bringing something beautiful into my life
I don’t believe in art anymore
I don’t think I can trust you
I’ve been smoking pot and watching TV all day

I don’t believe in art anymore
Maybe my soul is lonely
I’ve been smoking pot and watching TV all day
They’ve smothered the ground with concrete

Maybe my soul is lonely
This girl in the mental hospital told me
They’ve smothered the ground with concrete
We need to call a tribal council

—Jennifer Lighty & anonymous collaborator

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What is a mystic to you? What is an oracle?

I’m sure most modern readers can come up with a definition for each, and that the common thread between the two would be that mystics and oracles were in touch with what contemporary people in Western civilization call the supernatural.

As I learned from Ke’oni Hanalei, himself a modern mystic, in Hawaiian culture, traditionally mystics and oracles have more specific definitions and roles than we might ascribe as modern humans who tend to lump the supernatural into one category.

Mystics are grounded in the material world. They are in touch with the non-physical, but they are grounded and function in daily life. To quote Brother Ke’oni, “mystics get shit done.”

Oracles are different. Oracles have a mainline to the divine and are so tapped in they are often incoherent. They speak pure, untranslated prophecy. They need a mystic to interpret their visions so the community can benefit from the information the oracle is bringing in.

Traditionally, in Hawai’i, oracles and mystics were companions. The mystics, able to “get shit done” translated for the oracle, bringing coherence so the wisdom from other realms could be grounded into this realm.

I don’t know for sure, but I am imagining oracles were respected and revered for what they brought to their community, and that if they weren’t able to take care of their physical needs, the community took care of them.

Oracles, in our time, in modern civilization, are not only not listened to, they are often dismissed as crazy and considered mentally ill. Many of them are sitting on sidewalks in downtown Kona muttering to themselves, or locked up in institutions. We don’t believe in them. We don’t even see them.

We need the oracles.

We always have and always will, because the oracles are the ones who break the trance of rationality by completely refusing it. Their very existence wakes us up, and if we are able to receive what they’re saying, our cells rearrange in patterns that bring us closer to cosmic law and truth.

What happens when the oracles are mocked, dismissed, and locked up?

What you see on every news site and program. Entranced humans giving their power away to a spell because we’re so lost in the distortion its shadow has cast we believe it’s the truth.

We need the oracles to wake us up.

But where are the oracles?

Muttering on sidewalks, locked in psyched wards.

When I heard Brother Ke’oni tell this story, I realized I was a mystic. I function in normal society. I get shit done.

I have a friend who is an oracle. She asked me not to reveal her name here, or I would.

I would be telling everyone how prophecy flows out of her like lightning in water, zapping me and everyone with currents that aren’t always comfortable, but that illuminate the shadows.

She has paid a price for this gift, but luckily she ended up in a place where there were some mystics around who occasionally got it.

I am one of those mystics, and in the poem above, “Siren,” I fulfilled my role of translating her prophetic statements into a coherent whole that has moved quite a few people over the years since I wrote it in early 2022, a few months after 9/11, when this oracle and I found ourselves on a small island off the New England coast walking in circles, because that’s all you could do there.

Every word in the poem “Siren” is hers, things she said as we walked and talked in those few months as the world rearranged itself after the towers fell.

One cold winter night, huddled in bed, I picked up a pen, opened a notebook, and wrote this poem, giving shape to her words through a verse form called a pantoum.

I hadn’t been taking notes. I remembered every word she said because they penetrated my soul. That’s what prophecy does if you can hear it.

This may have been the first time I fulfilled my role as a mystic.

I worry about the oracles. I worry about my friend. It’s been an honor to be her mystic.

May our collaboration widen the circles in which you walk. May they connect you to the lightning in the water that will give you the jolt you need to wake up.

For those oracles who have not been heard, who are suffering, mocked, ignored—may you find a mystic who will bring your needed words to this aching, wounded world.

Thank you for continuing to speak even when you’re not understood.

Aloha mā

Jen

Kō aloha lā ea

Concentrate on love by way of the light

Resources

“Siren” first appeared in the journal Water-Stone Review and was also published in my out-of-pring chapbook “Siren.” There are copies floating around the web if you want to read the tale of this tender time on that small North Atlantic isle.

For those wanting to explore the work of Ke’oni Hanalei, his website is www.pohala.net.