Nirvana huh? And here i just thought it was a good band.

“Dentro de nós há algo que não tem nenhum nome, esse algo está o que nós somos.”

“Inside us there is something that has no name that something is what we are.”

-          Jose Saramango, 1998 Nobel Peace Prize Winner for Portuguese Literature.

What do Jesus, Muhammad, and Buddha have in common? Besides all three of them being the focal points in three of the major religions of the world they are also the transcendental points in the history of their respective followings.

After-all religions and their followings don’t just spring up out of nowhere, although some believe they do. And if you have read into these three individuals’ accounts of enlightenments such as the three temptations, revelations through solitary meditation, and enlightenment over a 49day period in front of a bodhi tree, you’re able to understand that a steady belief and following take time.

What we see in Bessie Head’s “A question of power” is the actual beginning and development, not necessarily of a religion, but of an enlightenment period or revelation. Elizabeth’s visions of Sello and representations of Medusa carry heavy-weights of social and mental anguish. What I believe we are watching is a raw and ugly form of revelation.

I mean we read and listen to the stories of the first three prophets and understand them to be righteous awakenings into their purpose of being. We never necessarily hear of the detailed mental breakdowns that can occur but instead just round out the story to a more sensible and bold conclusion.

In class we discussed the potential challenges of even reaching such a point of what can be considered hallucination and revelation all at the same time. You would be fine to think that some sort of agent caused such a degree of thought especially when thinking of modern-day heroes like Kurt Cobain, Jimmy Hendrix, and even Ernest Hemmingway. All three had a problem with drugs or alcohol that possibly lead to a more fixed perspective of thinking, and also that inevitably led to their own demise. But we don’t glorify them to the degree we do the three previous figures of religion do we? Now let me just clarify that neither Cobain, Hendrix, nor Hemmingway were tapping into a new form of religion but what they were creating was a new foundation of thought. One that even exists to this day, years after their presence has faded. What I’m trying to get at is these three modern artists aren’t glorified for implementing such a following in society because one can argue that they inevitably failed. They failed the test of transcendence and they failed to progress through their enlightenment. Instead their enlightenment progressed through them and they lost control.

That is exactly what I begin to see (through a lot of repetitive reading), that Elizabeth is transcending through her enlightenment period.

The rewards of trying to understand such complex and confusing images can be un-imaginable given the accomplishments of Jesus, Muhammad, and Buddha. These three individuals are common knowledge names not to mention arrowheads for their cause. These three prophets didn’t fail in their tests of transcendence (not reaching their own demise) but instead spreading their cause even when odds did not suit their favor.

Now the challenges and dangers in understanding these visions go hand in hand. When Elizabeth envisions Medusa on pg. 45 and she is shown a vagina, something Liz was accused of not having, she is thrown into a state of anguish. “She just lay there nearly choked to death. It was like a wild, insistent chant in her ears: ‘die, die die.’ But a current was turned on, choking her.”

In simpler words she’s dying. For reasons that also have to do with her social exile in both South Africa and Botswana, Liz is emaciated by Medusa’s words and white-robe man’s actions…or even inactions. What I came to realize is when that type of panic-stricken fear is induced, it can be the single reason why the mind collapses and wants to eliminate the images it is witnessing…by killing itself.      

The potential rewards might outweigh the challenges and dangers of even trying to understand or achieve an altered state of mind, but as religious history has shown us (be you the only massively regarded following) few are able to achieve it let alone understand it. All the others drown in their own attempts.