The Metaphysics of Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury’s continued hypnotic effect on people is not a result of his unparalleled talent as a rock star but his power as a mystical figure who moves us deeply, the embodiment of a traditional spiritual hero. His path, more than most others, shows us what it means to be human in all its dimensions, earthly lessons few have delivered so forcefully.
Mercury Retrograde: The Metaphysics of Freddie Mercury
Miraculous: Freddie Mercury’s sweeping hand could command 180,000 people to stand, sing, rejoice, weep. Millions proclaim his power unrivaled. How? His was a mystical authority explainable as more than the sum of extreme talent and charisma. He enchanted us when he was alive, and he still enchants us even though he’s been gone over 28 years. What Freddie Mercury did that no other artist could expose the purest essence of what it means to be fully human in all its kaleidoscopic dimensions from sweetness to decay to exaltation. Even now, his energy pierces our façades just long enough to give us a blinding glimpse of our own core, the momentary recognition that we are divine beings navigating a human experience. That spark of knowledge electrifies us. In Freddie, we meet the forgotten reality of our authentic selves: kind, fragile, timid, bold, loving, and naturally flawed beings attempting the earthly journey. We sample unadulterated love. Unprepared for this meeting of temporal and holy self, a private encounter, we respond with raw emotion and awe. Only a mythological hero can lead us there.
Our success on this journey hinges on our willingness to accept the full spectrum of life’s offerings: pain and joy, success and failure, love and despair, and through these experiences, the fearless among us learn that being fully human requires a willingness to fall into the cracks and hollows on the path, then rise again despite our blemishes. How much we agree to endure as we learn these lessons is commensurate with how fully we have exercised life.
It is powerful to imagine that Freddie Mercury experienced more in his abbreviated life than most of us do in multiple lifetimes. He absorbed the highest and the lowest, the deepest and the shallowest, the most loved and the loneliest. Few can withstand such a concentrated life. At some point, when agony surpasses joy, when our purpose is met and our energy spent, the soul signals the body, “lessons learned,” and requests release. We agree to this before we descend into earthly life. The heroic among us enter the world bravely and leave broken. Freddie Mercury exemplified those lessons. They coat every note he sang, and without recognizing it, we receive his message with tangled love and grief, not understanding why on a conscious level. That deep, a connection happens on high planes too subtle to identify at the moment.
I love the fact that I can make people happy, in any form. Even if it’s just an hour of their lives, if I can make them feel lucky or make them feel good, or bring a smile to a sour face, that to me is worthwhile. Freddie Mercury
His was a prolonged, agonizing death to which he peacefully succumbed without complaint, choosing to discontinue his AIDS treatment when his body was exhausted. He accepted his fate with grace, sparing his loved ones the pain of bearing sorrowful witness while at the same time ensuring they’d be cared for in his absence. When he died, the public cried, “gone too soon!” In reality, no one leaves this earth before his time. They leave before our time before we are ready, but the schedule of entry and departure is not ours to determine. Freddie Mercury, a self-acknowledged “rocket ship…on a collision course,” lived dangerously if not at times recklessly without anticipating the consequences until they were irreversible (no one even knew there were consequences back then). So while he collapsed on an apparent continuum of excesses, he sang from his soul until body collapsed, never caving to self-pity or remorse. He remained the gift that keeps giving, and giving, and giving…
The Metaphysics of Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury exercised his triple earth sign energy (Virgo/Capricorn/Virgo) drenched in pleasure but most generously; he wanted those around him to share those pleasures equally, and both with tangible tokens and his generous company. “I love the fact that I can make people happy in any form. Even if it’s just an hour of their lives if I can make them feel lucky or make them feel good, or bring a smile to a sour face, that to me is worthwhile.” Unfairly criticized for focusing too heavily on the physical, he did reign as a symbol of 70s overindulgence, But only the misguided people try to write spiritual prescriptions, insisting on “higher” energies, forgetting the value of the earthly experience, forgetting that indulgence is part of our learning curve. Who wants to live life on the sidelines? Prescription sets boundaries, the antithesis of spiritual free flow. Freddie Mercury illustrates free flow.
People question why he didn’t become an AIDS advocate. He did. Privately, he supported AIDS research without seeking public recognition, donating financially, and buying Christmas dinners for hospitalized patients – for years. Not everyone can or should be a banner-wielding John Lennon or preaching George Harrison or political Bob Marley.
Some journeys, closer to street level, impart equally profound lessons in their subtlety. Joseph Campbell reminds us of the artist/shaman’s purpose — to “teach us how to live.” Freddie Mercury showed us an unbridled devotion to living; his epitaph reads simply “Lover of life, singer of songs.” While detractors labeled him hedonistic, and even debauched, his only mission was happiness, his only goal was love, which he practiced harmlessly along the way.
The mystical hero teaches by example: during the human struggle, sometimes we revel without restraint; sometimes, we suffer deeply in silence. We seek balance as we rise and fall. We promote goodness. We learn through the process.
His personal charismatic power, the Freddie effect, that power he wielded over others, remains supreme. Some people cry upon hearing his first note, not understanding why; they just do. We can experience this as we hear his recently released vocal tracks minus the accompanying instruments; his multi-dimensional range transports us to escalating layers of consciousness. We don’t just listen; we absorb. Freddie Mercury never inspired a surface Beatlemania-type hysteria. Instead, he triggers a deeper, intimate release as his voice, the trumpet of his soul finds our most vulnerable, sacred selves, and we react instinctively to instant elevation.
In this sense, he becomes the Namaste: “The Divine light in me recognizes the Divine light in you,” something even he acknowledged but in more mundane terms: “What you must understand is that my voice comes from the energy of the audience. The better they are, the better I get.”
Thus we are mutually ignited, the equivalent of a spiritual embrace.
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About the Author
Lisa Shaw is an animal communicator, Reiki Master, professor, and grief counselor specializing in end of life and afterlife issues with our pets. She has been an English professor for over 30 years, and an intuitive counselor for 30 years, holds an M.A. pastoral ministry with a concentration on loss and healing and has trained as a hospice chaplain. She lives in Ft. Lauderdale with her furry and feathered family. www.reikidogs.com
