Mark wrote:

>>The special ability of the shaman appears to be to enter and leave a
liminal state at will. His function is to guide other people through the
process, so that they can survive change, whether the change is age and
gender related or disease related. What poets tend to share with shamans is
our ability to enter liminal states. Our role is not as guide, tho. We
bring back information.<<

Two passages from Saadi's Gulistan provide an interesting juxtaposition to
what Mark wrote in that they posit the same distinction between the holy man
and poet that Mark suggests and because of the difference between the holy
man and his relationship to enlightenment as Saadi represents it in the
first passage and the role of the shaman as Mark defines it.

The first passage is from the introductory portion of the book, which I have
called Setayesh Va Moghaddamah (Adoration And Preamble):

A man of God immersed himself in meditation. When he emerged from the vision
that was granted him, a smiling companion welcomed him back, "What beautiful
gift have you brought us from the garden in which you were walking?"

The holy man replied, "I walked until I reached the rosebush, where I
gathered up the skirts of my robe to hold the roses I wanted to present to
my friends, but the scent of the petals so intoxicated me that I let
everything fall from my hands."

O morning bird, learn love from the moth,
which gives itself in silence to the fire.
Pretenders seek enlightenment in vain,
waiting to follow those who won't return.

And You who transcend all we can imagine,
whose existence we can neither guess at
nor claim to know as fact, of whose glory
all the world's words-spoken or written-fall
immeasurably short, the end is here,
and we stand as we did when it all began,
tongue-tied lovers, awe-struck at Your beauty.

The second passage is from later on in the introductory material, where
Saadi explains how and why he came to write the Gulistan. What's interesting
about it is the way he sets himself up as an alternative to the holy man in
the first passage I quoted and, in the context of what Mark says, how he
presents himself precisely as the guy who can bring the information back
from the rose garden. He and a friend have just spent the night in an
earthly garden, and the next morning, Saadi writes:

when our desire to leave had finally grown stronger than our desire to stay,
I saw that my friend had gathered roses, sweet basil, hyacinth and other
fragrant herbs to take with him back to town. "You know the season holds no
loyalty to its fruit," I said. "The roses will wither and die. As the wise
men warn us: 'Do not cherish that which does not last.'"

"What should we do then?" my friend responded.

"I will write a book to instruct and amuse the people, a gulistan, a rose
garden, whose petals will not fall away at the touch of autumn's wind, and
in which it will always be spring, immune to the passing of time."

Why do you need a bowl of roses? Take
from my Gulistan instead. A cut flower
lasts just five or six days, but the blossoms
of my garden remain fresh forever.

As soon as I finished speaking, my friend dropped the flowers he had
gathered, grabbed the skirts of my robe and said, "When a generous man makes
a promise, he keeps it!"

The idea for a chapter on how to behave as a polite and well-spoken person
came to me immediately, and I wrote it that day. When I reached the end of
the last chapter, I found I'd written quickly enough that some roses still
remained in the earthly garden that had inspired the one you hold in your
hand. This Gulistan, however, will be truly complete only after it has been
found worthy in the court of the Shah, whose kindness is the world's refuge,
in whom the grace of God's spirit shines like the sun, who is Islam's
inviolate protector, strengthened by heaven, fortified against enemies, the
right arm whose might brought our nation victory, who shimmers with the
light of our resplendent faith, most beautiful of men, the pride of Islam,
Sa'd son of Atabek the great, the majestic Shahan-shah, owner of the necks
of nations, lord of the kings of Arabia and Persia, sultan of the land and
the sea, heir to the kingdom of Solomon, Muzaffarudin Abu Bekr son of Sa'd
Zanki, may Allah the most high bless them both with continued prosperity,
imbuing them with the desire for good deeds.

If the king reads with eyes disposed to kindness,
embellishing my work with his high praise,
he will walk this Rose Garden with great pleasure,
finding here the beauty of Chinese paintings
or the elegant design of the Arzank,
and when he reads, "Dedicated to Sa'd
Abu Bekr the son of Zanki,"
his pleasure will do nothing but increase.