When many people think of a shaman, it conjures up an image of the male tribal leader of an ancient world culture or perhaps an indigenous healer who journeys between the spiritual and material realms. However, according to author Gloria Anzaldúa (2015), the chamana (female shaman) can also be a present-day artist who receives a calling from an inner voice or daimon in her imaginative creative expression. In this paper I present the idea that Anzaldúa’s definition of the chamana/artist holds true for the divas of today’s popular culture.
I have personally observed the shamanic exchange between divas and their audiences as a violinist playing onstage at Caesar’s Palace from 1974- present. In my view, Celine Dion and Adele both personify the diva as chamana, presenting a gift of beauty and healing energy through the fleeting art of music. In addition, I will also provide the example of Snow Raven, a young indigenous shamana whose art is a blending of the sacred music of her Siberian Sakha culture with modern technology. Although she is arguably not as famous as Adele and Celine, I contend that the Aphrodite archetype of beauty shines through all three of these diva/shamanas along with their musical artistry. Each of these women creates an embodied experience that functions as a shamanic conduit for both a sacred and a profane energetic exchange with the audience. The audience then responds as a whole through the transformative power of spontaneous ritual.
The Woman as Shaman
Although women have not been widely recognized as shamans, archeological discoveries have shed light on this oft-neglected subject. In The Woman in the Shaman’s Body, anthropologist and shamana Barbara Tedlock (2006) wrote about an archeological team in Czechoslovakia led by Bosuslav Klíma in the 1950s. They uncovered a grave from the Ice Age, finding a flint spearhead near the head of the skeleton and a fox in one hand. These artifacts would indicate a shaman’s grave with a spirit animal guide. The skeleton was analyzed and determined to be that of a woman. A large oven was found nearby with thousands of tiny baked clay figures in the form of animals, human feet, hands, and heads which she might have used as a part of ritual activities. Tedlock (2006) opines that “Women have been characterized as mere artisan or craftspeople instead of recognized for the creative, life-giving, cosmos-shaping powers these arts represent” (p.5). Our distant female ancestors of sixty thousand years ago were shamans, artists, and healers, and as Wood (2022) states, “the archetypal ancestor of the contemporary creator.” (p.12).
Snow Raven (OLOX)
Snow Raven is an example of an indigenous shamana who is a contemporary music creator. She gives artistic form and expression to her cultural traditions within the genre of popular music. As part of her childhood shamanistic training, she learned how to replicate the sounds of sacred animals with her voice. In her performances for Western audiences, she incorporates those sounds into a new form of dance music that she calls “Arctic Beat Box.”
In an interview that she gave for the YouTube channel Know Thyself, Snow Raven explained that the way of the shaman in her Sakha culture comes through the bloodline. She was instructed by her grandfather in a time before the tribe had electricity. There was no internet or television. People would sit before the shaman for hours and hear the stories of his journeys through the “three worlds.” In this way, the people of the tribe traveled in their imaginations with the shaman. Snow Raven shared in the interview that, for people who live in cities, the need to imagine is accomplished through entertainment. However, her performances for the audiences
of modern cities are not only entertaining, but serve as a shamanic sound journey that heals humanity by gently helping listeners to connect with nature and to remember our place in the web of life. She exhibits the spirit of the Aphrodite archetype with her musical gift of love and beauty.
Figure 1
Snow Raven YouTube video
The Aphrodite Archetype
What could be a more perfect opportunity for Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, to express her overflowing love than through a performing diva? In Man and His Symbols, Jung (1964) wrote that the archetypes of the collective unconscious have expressed themselves throughout human history. These energetic patterns come to life through individuals. German psychologist Erich Neuman (1974) wrote in Art and the Creative Unconscious “there is a continuous interchange between the collective unconscious...the cultural canon and the creative individuals of the group in whom the constellations of the collective unconscious achieve form and expression” (p. 90). It is my premise that Aphrodite comes to expression onstage through the performances of Adele and Celine Dion at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Accordingly, the resort is designed with a Greco/Roman theme, reflecting the ancient mythological lore of the goddess.
Adele
Adele appears ravishingly beautiful on stage in the Colosseum theatre at Caesar’s Palace, held in the gaze of thousands of adoring worshippers for each of her perfromances. Above all, however, Adele is a songwriter. From a depth psychological viewpoint, the influence of Aphrodite is evident in her songs. On one hand, her music often expresses emotions of romantic love. As an example, “Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead” are lyrics from her song “Someone Like You.” (Adele, 2021) On the other hand, Adele also exhibits her flirtatious nature and the power of pleasure enjoyed by the Venusian goddess. This is heard in the song “Oh My God” (Adele, 2021) with the lyrics “I know its wrong, but I just want to have fun.” In another of Adele’s songs, “Rolling in the Deep” (Adele, 2011), the lyrics depict the possessive and vindictive aspect of the Aphrodite archetype when she has been scorned. “You’re gonna wish you, never had met me. Tears are gonna fall, rollin’ in the deep.” Coincidentally, the stage production values for this song seem to hearken back to the myth of Aphrodite’s birth from sea foam. Huge projections of dark ocean waves appear to engulf the entire audience in an underwater fantasy.
Conversely, “Hold On” (Adele, 2021) is another song that Adele wrote and performs in her Las Vegas show that is more indicative of the subjectivity of the goddess. Adele sings this song with great intensity. In the lyrics, she tells the story of how she has traversed through the darkness of her emotional life. “It's hard to hold onto who I am..When I'm stumbling in the dark
PRESENTING THE GIFT 6
for a hand.” Like a shaman, she returns from her journey to the present moment, giving back to her audience something that they can identify with and that is meaningful to their lives. Each person in the audience is receiving something of beauty that they can, as the song says, “hold on” to. In the midst of the frenetic environment of Las Vegas, this commonality of human experience is a shamanic gift of healing that Adele presents through her beautiful singing voice and songwriting artistry.
Celine Dion
As a member of the orchestra, I sensed a transformational energy mounting when the curtains draw apart and the spotlight was focused on Celine. She stands before her audience with her hand over her heart, radiant in a shimmering gown and calling forth a collective response to beauty itself. According to Hillman (1992) it is from the heart that we appreciate beauty. He describes this “calling forth” from the heart as aisthesis. “There is the “gasp, ‘aha’, the ‘uh’ of the breath in wonder, shock, amazement, an aesthetic response to the image (eidolon) presented.” (p.70) He likens this response to “stand[ing] in the temple of Aphrodite” (p.72).
What Celine gives to the audience also goes beyond mere entertainment. Countless fans have memorized every word of her songs by heart. I would look out into the audience to see tears streaming down their faces as they sang along. For many, this music has been the soundtrack of their lives. Songs made popular by Celine such as “It’s All Coming Back to Me” (Dion, 1996) can elicit painful emotions and memories. Anaïs Nin described this aesthetic response in her diary as “Music, dance, poetry, and painting are the channels for emotion” (p.154). To be a channel for emotional healing is Celine’s artistic mission, something I understood fully on the closing night of her 8-year residency at Caesar’s Palace.
Before the show began, the audience was buzzing with conversation. I happened to turn around in my seat onstage and see a projection behind me. Celine’s testament as to the role of music in her life was projected on a huge screen. The diva/shamana had these parting words to communicate to her audience: “Creating emotions is our reason for being.” Celine Dion quote
Figure 2
Personal photo taken on stage at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas. 06/2018
A Spontaneous Ritual
Adele and Celine both walk through the audience and make direct contact, talking with people personally and encouraging them to sing and dance. Although they may not regard themselves as shamana per se, the live concerts of Celine and Adele are evocative of a shamanic ritual in that they elicit an almost tribal sense of community. “Hillman’s passionate writing on art includes his assertion that art is a form of ritual, with the artist serving as a type of celebrant” (Wood, 2002, p. 11). Like the members of the Sakha tribe who sat huddled together in the cold, captivated by the stories of Snow Raven’s shaman grandfather, listening to music collectively in modern concert settings can also considered a form of ritual. “Very often these two sets of behaviours coincide, with musical activities forming a fundamental part of ritual activities, and spiritual significance being attributed to musical activities.” (Morley, 2009, p. 160)
The audiences journey great distances to experience these performances. One might even call it a pilgrimage. Although these fellow travelers might not realize it, they are experiencing distinct stages of ritual from the time that they begin planning their trip to Las Vegas. According to anthropologist Victor Turner (1966), any form of ritual occurs in three basic stages: separation, liminality/ commmunitas, and transformation/re-entry.
The separation phase begins by making travel plans which are sometimes quite elaborate, not to mention expensive. People will be taking time off work, perhaps leaving family behind for a few days. When they arrive in Las Vegas, they will be entering the state of liminality. They may interact with people they have never met before. This leads to the next phase that Turner (1966) termed communitas. Morley (2009) wrote, “One of the most important traits of ritual activity contributing to the maintaining or changing of established order comes from the sense of unity, communitas, that can be created by co-participation” (p. 164). Once they have taken their seats in the theatre, they still perceive themselves as separate from one another, but once the performance begins, they will gradually coalesce into a new entity: the audience. This experience transcends boundaries of gender, age, and social status. Each audience is different, but the energy that exudes from the audience when it has reached the stage of communitas is palpable.
In a list of ritual behavior ranging in spectrum from the traditional to the most unstructured, ritual theorist Ronald Grimes (2021) included the category of “invented rituals: exceptional, rare or new circumstances for which there are no rituals, so you or a group invents one” (p.31). When people set aside time from their busy lives to sit together in an auditorium and enjoy live music, an improvised ritual spontaneously emerges. In the process of this unifiying exchange of energy, the artist/shamana and the audience become one. As cited by Roberts Avens (1984) in “The New Gnosis,”German philosopher Reiner Schürmann wrote these words about the energetic exchange between a singer and the enthralled audience. “Perfect listening implies that the distinction between the soloist ...and the listener ...is no longer true. Through the unique event of the song which enraptures us, one identical being accomplishes itself.” (p.119)
It is an audience’s reciprocity and loving energy, when projected onto the performer, enlivens and encourages her to give her all. Thinking back to the performers that I have played for over the years, what always comes to mind is the memory of hearing the artist/shamana/diva thanking the audience profusely. Wood’s (2022) quotes singer/songwriter Brittany Howards’s description of this aspect of the shamanistic exchange of energy between the performer and the audience. “I call it the spirit world...Latching on to a feeling, finding it, trying not to come out of it” (p.25) Seeing the audience stand up and dance, hearing them sing along, and taking in the sound of their enthusiastic applause is what creates the magic. That is the other side of the energy equation. “These benefits of, and parallels between, ritual and musical activity depend to a great extent upon direct participation.” (Morley. 2009 p. 164)
The third and final stage of ritual is the transformation/re-entry. As the performance draws to a close, the curtain comes down and the people depart, but they are forever changed. The time has come to go back to everyday life. Videos and selfies were probably taken to share with others later on, but these digitized mementos contain only a vestige of the meaning of the experience on a soul level. As Hillman (1992) so eloquently stated, “we are each, in soul, children of Aphrodite...The soul is born of beauty and feeds on beauty, requires beauty of its life” (p.33) The audience has received a gift of beauty and has been presented with a memory to carry forward into their lives.
Conclusion
As a violinist onstage playing for both Adele and Celine Dion, I have seen how the Aphrodite archetype of beauty, interwoven with awe-inspiring music, creates a shamanistic exchange of energy that gathers the audience together. The vocal talent of Snow Raven also presents a uniquely indigenous expression of musical artistry and healing. The divas of the present day have artistically ventured forth as messengers of love and emotion through their songs. Their audiences, in turn, experience a sense of ritual communitas, a spontaneous group awareness in time and space. A transformative and creative healing process takes place in the shamanic exchange between the diva and the audience, reaching the hearts of people with the gift of music.
References
Adele. (2011). Rolling in the deep [Song]. On 21[Album]. Columbia. Adele. (2011). Someone like you [Song]. On 21[Album]. Columbia. Adele. (2021). Oh my god [Song]. On 30 [ Album]. Columbia. Adele. (2021). Hold on [Song]. On 30 [Album]. Columbia.
Anzaldúa G. (2015) Light in the dark: rewriting identity, spirituality, reality. Duke University Press.
Avens, R. (1984) The new gnosis. Spring.
Dion, Celine. (1996). It’s all coming back to me now. [Song] Steinman, J. [songwriter] On
Falling into you. [Album]. Columbia.
Duqum, A. (host). (2023). Indigenous wisdom from Arctic Siberia: animal, spirits, shamanism,
and healing music. [YouTube]. In Know Thyself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2j- T8KFk0Q
Grimes, R. (2020). Improvising ritual. In G. Stone, M. Houseman, S. Pike & J. Salomonsen (Eds.), Reassembling Democracy: Ritual as Cultural Resource. Bloomsbury.
Hillman, J. (1992) The thought of the heart and the soul of the world. Spring.
Jung, C.G. 1. (1964) Man and his symbols. Anchor Books/Doubleday.
Morley, I. (2014) “Ritual and music: parallels and practice, and the paleolithic” in Becoming Human: Innovation in Prehistoric Material and Spiritual Cultures. Cambridge University. https://Ritual and Music
Neumann, E. (1974) Art and the creative unconscious: Four essays (R.Manheim, Trans.) Bollingen Series LXI. Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1959)
Nin, A. (1969). The diary of Anaïs Nin. Swallow Press : Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
Raven, S. (OLOX) (2022) From nature with love (NPR tiny desk contest 2022) Video.
[YouTube]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImI7253fj-g
Tedlock, B. (2006) The woman in the shaman’s body, reclaiming the feminine in religion and medicine. Bantam.
Turner, V. (1966) The ritual process structure and anti-structure. Cornell University Press.
Wood, M. (2022) The archetypal artist: reimagining creativity and the call to create. Routledge.
Comments