Bok's Tower

Shamans and sorcerers are able, here on earth and as often as they wish, to accomplish “coming out of the body,” that is, the death that alone has power to transform the rest of mankind into “birds”; shamans and sorcerers can enjoy the condition of “souls,” or “disincarnate beings,” which is accessible to the profane only when they die. Magical flight is the expression of both the soul’s autonomy and ecstasy. This fact explains how this myth could be incorporated into such different cultural complexes -- sorcery, mythology of dream, solar cults and imperial apotheoses, techniques of ecstasy, funerary symbolisms, and many others. It is also related to the symbolism of ascension. This myth of the soul contains in embryo a whole metaphysiccs of man’s spiritual autonomy and freedom. ...

... An analysis of the “imagination in motion” will show how essential the nostalgia for flight is to the human psyche.

The point of primary importance here is that the mythology and the rites of magical flight peculiar to shamans and sorcerers confirm and proclaim their transcendence in respect to the human conditions; by flying into the air, in bird form or in their normal human shape, shamans as it were proclaim the degeneration of humanity.

For as we have seen, a number of myths refer to primordial time when all human beings could ascend to heaven, by climbing a mountain, a tree, or a ladder, or by flying by their own power, or being carried by birds. The degeneration of humanity henceforth forbids the mass of mankind to fly to heaven; only death restores men (and not all of them!) to their primordial condition; only then can they ascend to heaven, fly like birds, and so forth.

-- Mercea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, (italics mine)



BOK’S TOWER

March 11, 2006

I prayed that we would
find a way there which
balmed what we are
so exhausted of these days.
For a few good scents
of what heals.
God is great, even
in Florida--I
bear witness here:
We drove down 19
to 33 through Howey-
In-The-Hills and Groveland,
miles of scrub and orchard
and hard-tack mobile
homes with our windows
cracked a partly cloudy
bright breezy day, temps
in the upper 70s rousing
the white bells spring
while truck after truck after
truck carried the future
up the other way.
Grace continued
as we slipped into as
we slipped down
Polk County on 17,
winding through
Haines City and
Davenport, stopping
a thrift and antique
shops the way
we always do, finding
little of interest
and all of it overpriced
and caring not a
whit because the
the drive and day
were so fine. Soon
we were at the Bok Tower
Sanctuary in Lake Wales,
driving slowly up through
groves which ringed
Iron Mountain, the highest
point in peninsular
Florida (some 320 feet).
Out of the car stretching
and breathing deep,
we walked dreamy acres of
azaleas just past their
prime on paths winding
through nook after nook of
Florida, beds of flowers
tucked in stumps, pools
fountains & a pond fronted
with solitary benches.
How easy it was to
thank the world for
its first origins there.
The tower Bok built
is a rich man’s cenotaph,
sheer walls of cocquina inlaid
with iron and tile & engraved
with starry platitudes,
the carillon in its crown
playing “Polotsvetsian
Dances” & a huge gilt
door engraved with
the creation story
forever locked. It was said
by the video we watched
in the visitors center
that Bok took his leisure
in a private study at
the base of that tower,
there on a promontory
overlooking what long
ago was drowned Florida,
a tower of stone and robber-
baron clout which he
lost soon after he built it,
dying only a year after
Calvin Coolidge dedicated
the place in 1929.
We walked the lanes
in quiet, taking notes for
our garden, relaxing in
some way like camellia
blossoms fanning out
to receive some sun
inside the one we’ve
inherited. Looking out
from the mount we
could see development
in every direction where
once there were groves,
ordered rows of houses
with no trees or dint
of history. All of that
rising like a sea again
up to the base of this
hill. There’s no one
without the other, I guess,
fools of paradise that
we are: And as we
drove home up 27
snarled in Friday night
traffic, the day faded
behind the hulks of
cement-block townhouses
beetling up from
razored tracts of raw
red sand. There was
a holiness too--grace,
even--in the weary road
on which we slowly
labored home,
the outer consequence
to the ecstasy of days
which hived in the
mind of Bok as he walked
alone up Iron Mountain
decades ago--a his
spirit was so complex,
the state of our state.
A stone phallus arose
from that mind of he
who would own paradise,
screw it for all
it was worth, even
squander the whole
peninsula’s coin
just to put a white picket
fence round a single dream.
I had an awful migraine
as we washed in traffic
through lane-construction
on 441 back in Lessburg,
the dark pierced by
overharsh headlights of
oncoming traffic, miles
still to go before we would
finally crest and then
enter our own sleepy
town so ringed with
new development,
there to edge up our
driveway and get out of our
car calling our cats
and inhaling our own
air. But still I reached
over and squeezed
my wife’s knee, saying
soft and complete
what a wonderful
day I had had
and I meant it, God,
with all of Your heart.