Frida Kahlo: shaman

My dawning insight is that women may be able to shamanise more easily than males. By that I mean that they MAY find it more easy to access their natural powers of creativity born out of cataclysm/trauma more easily than males can most often do. Now I think about it, my dream was about cataclysm (Victoria Falls, and the bursting of the womb) that leads to redoubling oneself into a new force that is giving birth to a new society.

Having said that, I think that Mike is a shamanistic male, one who is able to access the pre-existing primeval rhythms of destruction and regeneration within himself. To know the force of these powers is to give force to ones personality. I consider Mike to be one of the most masculine of men. The only thing with shamanism is that one should be able to ride the primeval forces like a wave — that way both the primeval forces and the higher mind are united. Anton Ehrenzweig sees, in the capacity to move between destruction and regeneration of perception, the key to creativity. Shamanism extends the process further as the destruction and regeneration of one’s very self. And even Freud took note of the pattern as inherent in our very biology – one submits to Thanatos when one goes to sleep. Waking up, one presumably comes under the sway of Eros.

Frida Kahlo is the archetype of the female shaman, whose body, being shattered, gave her visions.