Sting is in his 30's as book begins. With startling imagery and detail, Sting takes the reader into a most vibrant description of a hallucinogenic drug experience he and his wife share out in the jungle. He shares with such emotion, clarity, and honesty that one can almost take the journey right there with him. Actually, one can, if one is willing to go.
I would not even want to try and do it justice, not would I want to mess up the book for anyone, but suffice it to say Sting describes a most remarkable and healing and intense journey using sacred medicine, as it is sometimes called.
The hallucinogenic journey was truthful, yet also somehow symbolic of his life and career. Like most of us, Sting is on a winding and traveling life path; he steers as best, as he can; yet somehow fate moves him along without volition it seems.
I once heard him say something along the lines that he felt like he was preparing to be a famous musician nearly all of his childhood years. It would certainly seem that way. He loved music and singing at an early age.
What strike me most about Sting are his transformational and sometimes finely profound lyrics. He no doubt writes from experience.
My belief is that His lyrics are reflective of a profound spiritual awakening he has undergone. He writes of his pain in various early songs. "I can't Stand Losing You" "King of Pain" are two song titles that come readily to mind that speak of his pain.
But along side of his pain, he writes of hope. Spiritual hope. "There has to be an invisible sun, that gives its heat to everyone." It would be hard to write down a line like that and not have some trust in the natural Divine world. Sting also wrote a song called Secret Journey, that speaks of enlightenment and seeking and learning from a Master.
So, despite his early pains and sometimes dark lyrics, there is a thread of deep optimism and unconditional love that runs through out his work.
I once heard him say that the song "Every Move You make " flowed out of him in about five minutes, as if he were not writing it all, and it was some type of automatic writing.
Whatever the source or inspiration of hiss writing is, truly it has touched a lot of lives. Clearly he is happier now than he was in the early days of his career. Sting is one of the profound teachers of our time, and music is his medium.
