The Rod of Asklepios

The great thing about this blog is that it gives me a forum to post some original poetry, without the added frustration of critiques/platitudes offered by my entire Facebook friends list. This poem was an inspired response to one of Faun's posts over at That Green Stuff.

Faun's post inspired some of my own reflection on the desire for transformation, both physical and spiritual. Unfortunately, our outsides don't always reflect our internal states and this experience of internal/external dissonance can be extremely disheartening and make one feel profoundly at odds with oneself, dissonant, and misplaced. The human endeavor towards creation, which I define as the crafting externally discernible expressions of the internal imagination, allows us to shape something outside of ourselves, whether that is artistic work or a whole worldview, in ways that mirror or resonate the deepest yearnings of our inner selves.

There are two (three?) symbols referenced in this poem. I've kind of collapsed them into one, as I feel that they can come to represent the same basic yearning for a transformation of self that leads to wholeness that comes from the full expression or disclosure of the yearnings of the imagination. The Rod of Asklepios was an ancient Mediterranean symbol of healing. The single snake wrapped around the staff alluded to the snake's supposed regenerative power (symbolized by the shedding of its skin) and its potent venomous properties. The staff is also a symbol of the traveling healer. Its other name in the poem, "Nehushtan" refers to the bronze serpent which healed the Hebrews during the Exodus. (Parsing out the connections between the Greek Rod of Asklepios and the Hebrew Neushtan is beyond the scope of this post and my own meager Hebrew skills).

The winged Caduceus, a symbol inappropriately applied to the medical profession, was the staff of Hermes, a trickster and messenger god. It is also connected to Tiresias, the blind hermaphroditic prophet who counseled Oedipus, Odysseus, and others. The Caduceus symbolizes the attributes of Mercury (Hermes), which in alchemical lore signifies dual stability and fluidity, two properties held at once in the same substance, and the process of transformation.

The Rod of Asklepios
Death evading serpent,
You slide among the rocks,
And leave your troubles behind,
Along with your cast-off skin.

Envy strikes like fangs at my heel.
I’m doomed to walk, encased
In this unbending skin
That never seems to fit quite right.
My mind stretches and the soul groans
To escape this limited shell,
But I cannot slough it off so easily.

Oh liberated rival,
Nehushtan, Askelpios,
I’ll set your bronze body
On a pole to carry aloft
And harness your transformation
A magic wand, a prism for imagination,
To vivify impotent words with the
Panacea of meaning,
To craft such signs as will carry
The blossoming of my inner life
out past the walls of this fickle shell
And press upon the wax of the world
The seal of my inner transformation.