Homecoming

XIII

Psionicists regard Ilse as the human cornerstone of psionics in the new renaissance. Her students remember and revere her as the calm, charismatic, and knowing listener who helped them find new dimensions within and outside themselves. Sean O’Niall insists that, in other times and circumstances, a new religion would have grown up around her memory, and indeed one might wonder if one hasn’t. Increasingly, philosophers recognize her as a major cultural transmuter, one whose unique insights and influence are moving mankind a step farther toward what we will become.

It is interesting to consider that she was a very primitive young woman on a primitive and often violent world. The neoviking composer of the Jarnhann Saga, in one of the occasional departures from his usual meter that provide a parenthetical quality, gives us a sharp clear image of the young Ilse in action while describing her capture by horse barbarians in Germany. He may well have exercised his culturally conditioned imagination, but the characterization seems basically correct. Here is the original, for those who can read it, along with Professor Kumalo’s faithful translation.

D’ dojtsa haxen kaste ned bojen, napte bagen uppa spennte senan, onar stadi, pilan vjentanne ma faadi dojn.

[The German seeress threw aside her bucket, quickly took her bow and drew the string taut, cool eyes steady, arrow waiting then with ready death.]

From ROOTS OF THE NEW MOVEMENT, by Mei-Ti Lomasetewa