I was alone in a lush jungle, the heat insufferable. The night sky enveloped the canopies above. I heard the beast that dwelt within. It growled behind me and I was forced to run for my life, past the monkeys in the trees above, past the great pyramid temple of my dead ancestors, and past the river that is the harbinger of life for my people, in contrast to the beast that pursued me. It was a harbinger of death and it was the most savage kind of death. The kind that tore the flesh open, crushed one’s bones, and ended with the beast that brought it forth lapping up one’s blood and marrow.
I feared for my life. I did not know if I would live to see the next day. Even now I do not know what chased me, at first I thought it was jaguar, but the stench that came from it, was as if the underworld had opened below me, and were reaching for me. I heard the moans and cries of the dead from that wretched place and the fear that embraced me, that overtook me, refused to abate. I prayed to the gods for my life. I heard no answer save for the hellish growl that came behind me as I attempted to escape the jaws of bloody death.
Every creature in the jungle ran with me, knowing that what followed was the greatest threat of all. It was more than death, it was The Death, the consummate end to life, the ever present brute that would tear the living apart.
But there was no escaping it, as it grabbed me. I never saw it, but only felt the jaws bite me in two, splitting my torso. My blood spilled on the foliage below, staining it crimson. The pain was searing and my consciousness could take none of it, so my mind drifted to the world of the gods, as the beast tore me apart and devoured every inch of me.
I saw the gods and how they created the world. I saw them in their golden radiance. They cut themselves with sharp knives and needles. Their blood dripped on the endless void below them. Each time a drop fell to the ground, flowers and plants belonging to the jungle blossomed and I understood the meaning behind the vision. The gods created the world through blood. The destruction of my body at the jaws of the beast would give way for something new and something far more perfect than what was there before.
The snarling of the beast stopped. I awoke and the sky above me was clear. The sun shined upon me. My body was whole. There was no injury to speak of and nothing indicated that a beast was ever there. The animals around me were in their proper place. The birds in the canopy above and the monkeys remained on their tree branches. They never left. The beast was never there. It was a vision given to me by the gods and it spoke clearer to me than anything else I ever saw or heard in my life. It told me that death brings life and life brings death. And it was with this truth, this illumination that a new life began for me. In fact it was the beginning of my actual life. It was the beginning of the truth and the end of lies.
That was how I became a shaman.