more of the shamanic

The below paragraph goes towards an undestanding of the linear aspect of one’s development as a shaman – as well as to how it might be one’s undoing, which I believe, in Marechera’s case, it was. It is always possible to go under when doing battle with the spirits of one’s time. The more one takes on, the greater the likelihood of an unfortunate end. To dwell solely on this conclusion, however, is to become melancholy about human nature and the realities of human experience in general – life is always a risk, since little is assured in it, and taking risks with their life is one of the most interesting things a human being can ever hope to do. What is rather more interesting than the inevitability of a state of loss – death, in its final and irrevocable form – is the other aspect of shamanism that I have mentioned already. That is the circular nature of selfhood that one finds within Marechera’s work – the continual cycle of death and rebirth within a sphere of creative inspiration. When mind submits to the vital elements of present in all matter [base materialism] – if a degree of spirited intensity is already present in the subject – creative self-renewal is inevitable. A return to the womb and death of the old persona creates a new self – which is never the same as the old self, as the totally different approaches in Marechera’s work will testify to.