Transformation : Art & Other Drugs
What happens when every goal you set as a marker is actualized? What happens, when you get the top of the first hill, but find yourself at the bottom of a new one?
A year of learning, a year of becoming new, a year to evolve. Learning to accept the parts of me I didn't know existed, the parts of me I didn't want to accept, and the parts I didn't even know I could accept.
The decision to the begin this life path was born from a need to survive. I didn't realize that I had forgotten myself. As I grew, my life demanded more of me, my mind, my energy, my focus… In focusing on these demands, I forgot who I Am.
A timeline as chronicled by Mukasichibweta Chisaka
I am more my-self now than I ever was. Do you remember what thoughts occupied your mind when you were 6,7 or 8? This life began because “the truth” was “tired” of being suppressed. I remember my first experience at a photoshoot, a studio session in NY, the photographer took one shot, reviewed it and proceeded to tell me, “you’re full of shit”, in essence, telling me that I was all talk and no bite. From that moment, I realized one thing, you can lie to people, you can lie to yourself, but you cannot lie to the camera, which only captures the truth, the reality of its subject in that present state.
I didn't know that I would become a model, I didn't know that I wanted to be a creator, a producer of present, and conscious work. Present, and conscious because the work I create, manifests in absolute presence, out of Love, and out of necessity. A year ago, my life situation was tumultuous. It felt disastrous. I needed to make sense of why I was living in an agonizing amount of pain. I wanted answers to questions I didn't fully understand, and answers to questions that weren't fully formulated yet. And so, I came into my first transformation, and had the first taste of my Love in creating.
I've always been able to watch, follow, learn, and master, there I began. Yogi, among others, was one of the creatives I began to follow, and watch. He was someone I immediately wanted to work with, and someone I wanted to know. I could not fathom that I’d ever know him the way I do now. The same can be said for a number of people I've had the pleasure of working with. So, I reached out to him, and others, politely and enthusiastically asking to collaborate on ongoing or upcoming projects. Many declined, very few accepted, and most, like Yogi, didn't respond at all. Those that didn't respond were better than those that then tried to take advantage of my lack of industry knowhow. So, I took my few “Yesses”, and turned them into more “Yesses”. I used every “Yes” to learn something new, and to add ammunition that would get me my next “Yes”. I learned aspects of disappointment, that would open my world to deep dimensions of acceptance. I learned what “No”, in professional and creative settings, meant for me. “No” means something different for everyone, it could mean, ‘declined’ or ‘rejected’, it could mean “Try again later”, it could mean “Try a different angle” or, as it is in my case, it could mean, “Level up and, make them say ‘yes.” And so, I came into my second transformation. Here, I was introduced to my Love for leveling up.
I've really been dealing with the concept of mastery this year… Of mastering one thing in order to attain a feeling, or sense of actualization. Everything I love, everything I live for, live to do, I hope to attain a certain mastery around, because it brings me a feeling of great pleasure to be at the best of my ability. The theme of evolution has been prevalent throughout this concept as well.
It's been a year since the first portal to this life opened… A year exactly. Book shoots, check; Book shows, check; Sign to an Agency, check; get published, check.
My boundaries in courage break down more with every jump. In every way that I felt inadequate or less than, I went there, I find truth there. The root of all evil can be the root of all good as well. I’ve found that my mistakes were the greatest teacher, my emotions are the greatest markers for the lessons I must learn. The world will give you the same lesson again, and again, in different ways, until the lesson is learned. Our reactions, and responses to the outside world tell us exactly where we are in the process of learning ourselves.
The old ways did [will] not serve the new… Or they did, but didn’t leave the same taste in my mouth, or feeling in my chest. Now I had another “problem” but, entered the problem from there, I didn’t give the situation a chance to become a problem. I didn’t give the man’s words, the NY photographer, the chance to become a problem. I took that “problem”, begged my parents for a hail mary chance at life number 2 and we were on the path signing. Turn your problems, into portals to solutions. In my perceived problem, lay my portal to deep healing, transformation and evolution, and to my first addiction, Art.
And now, my life in this moment, has come full circle. Present day - I sat in a meeting one Friday night (a week ago today). When I walked in, there was heated debate on the state of the hip hop industry now. In the room were other creatives and individuals that I never would have imagined myself sitting down with, and I met Naomi Campbell last month so that's saying a lot. I’ve met so many incredible people over the past year, especially in the last 6 months alone. I’ve encountered, and began to endeavor on a journey/path that I believe will manifest my wildest dreams. Now go back and read that sentence over again, yes, I said I believe that I will manifest my wildest dreams. Not as easy as a strategic game of chess though, no this game is a wild one. Come back with me to the meeting though, the conversation around the state of hip hip was predominantly between one older and one younger connoisseur of hip hop, and the fruits of its culture. I was in awe of how passionate they were, but in that passion there was composure, and respect for the others point of view and human perspective. (Emotion without reaction = control).
A Truth - In this year alone, I've experienced individuals that I now see as markers for my own journey on this life path. I've meet lightworkers, shadow workers, shadow workers moonlighting as lightworkers… They've all been reflections of myself on the journey to |Mukasichibweta|. I Am that which is without form, taking form in this vessel, and taking pleasure in doing so. I express, I process, and please the I Am through the many outward expressions of self that others perceive. The unmanifested, expressing through the manifested.
A lesson - The root of all “evil” can be the root of all “good” as well. Where you can choose to do the “wrong” thing, you can choose to do the “right” thing as well. The two gentlemen I witnessed passionately discussing hip hop and its effect on the minds of the youth, and how they think, how pop culture has changed our perspectives and basic interaction/interface; were practicing that very idea, and wonderfully showing the beauty of aliveness by balancing their natural emotional reactions with their physiological, then appropriate outward reactions.