Five Pieces of Solace

Depending on where you lived and how you were raised, and if you were lucky enough to grow up with cool enough parents, who were not overly strict you would have been there for when alternative grunge rock, which I loved at the time and still do in parts, seemed to come to a certain end. With the death of Kurt Cobain came the rise of the new dominating American sound- gangster rap. This was a time when you would see middle class, self loathing grunge loving kids go from wearing corduroy pants and plaid shirts to wearing baggy pants and bandanas. Here in Canada, at first before it became more accepted by bigger retailers, you had to go out of your way to get good rap music by artists and record labels such as Tupac, Wu Tang, Bad Boy, DMX, No Limit and Cash Money Millionaires. This would be a time were we’d have kids from the suburbs who would begin to take the subway downtown from either finch station or Scarborough town center, down to Play de Record and listen to new tracks that had come from the States. I feel that the experience could be compared to how the British reacted when the early blues was coming in from America’s south and later on how white America felt about English Rock and roll that had a huge impact on the 60s and 70s. It really goes to show how each generation follow the same cycle as the last. It’s also the same with the cycle of life but more noticeably with music. ..................................................... This place was chosen because we knew it was far out of sight, and we would feel more comfortable when the effects would begin to kick in. It usually takes about half an hour to an hour depending on the quality that you consume. This being quite an old memory, I’d say no more than half hour of being in the forest while we were sitting on a long log that stretched out that was still alive, then bam it hit me all of a sudden. The cracks of light between the leaves on the treetops began to appear as like a canvas that slowly started connecting together. The rays of shining light, rained down shapes and patterns forming slow continuous rays of energy. I then realized that this was caused by shade and the living trees stretching way up to the sky, only to sway together so perfectly and almost feeling time slow to the point that one could almost watch photosynthesis taking place before their very eyes. The rays of heaven giving life to everything it touched including by own body. It was here that I came to realize the soul is separate from the body and how lucky we are as human to be able to examine everything the eye touches or come across. .................................................................... Tupac was a product of his environment just like Socrates for those who can see it with an open mind; he was a product of his country the United States, his sub-culture and race to a large degree especially being directly tied to the original black panthers through family. Though many wouldn’t want to admit it, he was the last sacrificial product of the western / Christian story before the closing of the second millennium. I’ve heard it be said that if he were born in a different time period or of a different race that he could be remembered as even more then just a ghetto saint and an outlaw prophet or a thug angel, rather a stoic philosophically poetic teacher, even a legitimate saint for those he touched spiritually. ........................................................................... I knew in my heart I was changing along with my outlook and how I viewed other sub groups, even though to many people who though that they knew me assumed that I was a hardcore devout Roman Catholic, meanwhile little did they know that in reality that I was spiritually becoming a Rastafarian and that I had found a new stable shield of comfort that I had always hoped for. Even the cross around my neck I felt stood for even more now, considering that I have witness in my own mind the equivalent of the second coming, take place through my own eyes as a free spiritual man