AKA The Earth is using Covid-19 to make shamans across the globe.
Those that use fear as fuel have conquered it. -Marcus Gray
To be human it’s to be fragile. Understanding the harsh environment you were born into is a big step into understanding the nature of reality. That understanding takes courage to explore. A courage that comes from a healthy relationship with fear.
Fear is the gateway to death. Death is the gateway to life. Beyond the idea of death there is comfort. Because what else is there to be uncomfortable about? Beyond fear there is life force, a creative energy. Simply put, When you explore your fear your taboos, your own boundaries. This is a new dark space ripe with potential energy and discovery. Once you turn the light on in this space you find new parts of yourself. This is the space were true compelling art and thought is made.
Many ancient cultures around the world have developed the wisdom to embrace death as a teacher. This fosters a humble sense of urgency, vigilance and surrender that enriches the souls of those that know they will not live forever.
HipHop is one of those cultures. Although it has been more subconscious in my opinion. The hiphop artists response to generational trauma, fear, and death are what we see as manifestations of the culture itself. The artistic response of disenfranchised youth exploring their trauma in the inner city was hiphop! HipHop has conquered many of its fears by going into them and applying the energy released in the moment of reflection into speaking forth what it is they desire. Currently these desires have been linked to basic survival I.E. sex, money and power. Moving beyond that core desire to survive will take even more healing and maturing in the culture. But I have hope that hiphop will mature into sharing its encrypted wisdom with the world.
Nevertheless, this is why hiphop is a culture of shamans. I see how all cultures have the potential to transmute fear into healing and expansion into new creative spaces. Transmuting fear into art and personal evolution. Hiphop naturally does this with techniques like glorifying struggle and trauma through the spoken word. This approach facilitates healing by facing their fear and emotions with vulnerability, placing them outside themselves to observe. Which gives them an oppurtunity for real introspection. It’s this artistic process of reflection that has captured the imaginations of the masses. Those seeking to be challenged in the same way by their own life. Living vicariously by listening. As well as capturing those who find parallels with their own struggle. HipHop is a shaman. It knows that a good scare can create a sobering clarity that aligns the nervous system with a refreshing sense of purpose.
Imagine what you can do with that vigilance, with that humility, with the understanding that your life is a gift that does not belong to you? That this world is a mystery that you cannot control. That everything you know and love can disappear in an instant. What certainty do you have? Well, we know that what you can control is your input, how it’s processed and perceived, and the output it inspires. But training yourself to take full responsibility for empowering and purifying the information you input into your consciousness takes practice.
Like habits, Belief systems are built, then they build you.
Very rarely are we confronted with the opportunity to see ourselves, to get a reflection of our own relationship with death and mortality, surviving to share the epiphany. Often when death approaches it consumes us. Very rarely does a whole civilization get months to stew in their fear. To go through a spiritual crisis at the same time together. With the help of a global social media matrix, the idea, impact and potential of this corona virus touching you or someone you love has wrapped the globe in a kind of shamanistic peril.
The foundation of a shamanistic experience is welcoming a face to face encounter with death, while having a willingness to let go of all that has made you. Truly because that is the only way to really see death is when you are empty and naked. A good shaman knows how to exhale their ego or risk having it forcefully removed. Opening yourself to an introduction to your “spiritual allies” or ancestors, whatever form they may take. This is an opportunity to completely embrace the unknown, to rest in the palm of the universe and know that you are cared for even in death. To feel in your veins that you are apart of something much larger than yourself.
Traditionally in many ingenious cultures children who experienced fevers, were deformed, hermaphrodites, or had near death experiences were brought into the fold of the mystic to be raised by the medicine man or woman at the edge of the tribe. The child is then isolated from the tribe and introduced to their own mortality through ritual and a re-programming that empowers their ability to believe anything.
There is nothing more powerful than an individual who believes anything is possible.
With various tools to induce trance, facilitated by meditation, dance, music, plant medicines etc, this powerful belief is what allows the shaman to comfortably experiment with experiencing reality raw as it truly is. Without any filter, cultural or otherwise. This is where the mind and soul is ripe for meta programming the sub conscious. The belief in the shaman also allows others in the shamans presence to approach the same level of belief that anything is possible. This is the enviroment where self healing takes place. Shaman do not heal, you do. It’s your belief in the shaman that heals.
True shamans are rare because many are not willing to confront themselves let alone to confront death in such an intimate way as a way of life. Since many do not want the burden of this perspective themselves when the need arises they borrow this perspective from the shaman in the context of a ritual. Shaman and these rituals are of great value to the tribe, to the culture. A tribe relies on them for guidance, wisdom, inspiration, new perspectives and communication with the spirit realm, with the mystery, with the chaos that birthed us all. The gift of the shaman is the gift of seeing clearly with conviction.
What if everyone on earth were a shaman?
The corona virus is reported to cause high fevers, shortness of breath, disorientation and dehydration. These are all tools utilized or deliberately induced by the shaman to achieve trance and approach the divinity of death.
In the face of this pandemic the world is shifting into a new degree of self awareness. An awareness of the idea of self. An awareness of who you really are. This time alone, apart, together, is showing us all who we really are. Giving us space and time to do what we really want to do. To feel what we really want to feel. The whole world is in this shamanistic trance of awareness together…apart. Awareness of your total self under the rawness of this extra ordinary moment. I see this awareness bringing about a neurological shift in consciousness that will forever change humanities DNA. For those who cannot let go of the epiphanies they are having in this moment. This experience of having to sincerely be comfortable with chaos and confront a fear of fear itself, as a race of beings, is an experience no medicine man or woman could create for the whole world. But ironically, the earth itself has given birth to this opportunity for enlightenment.
For those who have a relationship with death, this time is very familiar to them. For those who have a relationship with poverty and scarcity, with mystery, this time is familiar to them. For those who lived daily to strengthen their bodies and minds in order to make supernatural order out of their chaotic lives, to refine themselves through deep inner work, reaching for their full potential, this time is familiar to them.
But for those who have slept deeply in the spell of daily living. Wading into the patterns of unconscious being. Shuffling through the mundane grove of complacency this is a terrifying moment. A moment with the potential to take away everything. Their Families, their power, their lives.
This is pushing millions of people into a space they have never known. A space releasing tons of energy trapped in trauma, ignorance and arrogance. This is a time of perfect reflection for all of humanity.
This is the time we find out that death, In many ways makes more out of us than life does.
This is the time when the whole world is being invited to be initiated into the deeper mysteries of self.
Whether we are aware or not, as a people, we will forever be changed. Our output will naturally reflect our new found power in vulnerability. The wisdom we’ve gotten from our standoff with death will shape the future of our civilization for the better. For those who tap into their shaman, their art will return to the womb for inspiration and emerge with new tools from the darkness. Their expressions will be reborn as manifestations of their personal fearless evolution.
This pandemic is an opportunity to grow inward and up!
Let death wash over you. Release the illusion that you are in control and fear will fall away. Except your birth right to be the healer of your own life and being. No virus, natural our super natural, can speak to your souls imagination without your permission. Don’t give up your power to transmute this virus into oppurtunity! Even if you find yourself in the grip of the virus itself, know that the change in perspective you’ll receive is worth the ride through the illness.
“Dissolving boundaries is the only real culture worth nurturing. HipHop is a culture that has exhibited its powerful potential to dissolve boundaries.”
— quotes from the Physics of HipHop manifesto by Marcus Gray