Bob Marley: My First Guru

Today we remember the legend, the man who brought a new genre of music to the world.  From a ghetto area of Jamaica, from mixed racial backgrounds, this man was the first guru in my life, though I didn’t know it at the time.  His music “hit me” in ways that no other music had at my ripe age of sixteen.  The rhythm entered my soles and soul simultaneously and conjured up ancient knowing inside of me.  The power of a VIBE and how contagious it can be.  The remembrance of the beat, the heartbeat of the mother, mother earth, mother creator. 

It was through Bob’s lyrics that I came to KNOW oneness, the power of JAH and humanity coming together to fight the oppressive powers that be who are the ones who thrive when we struggle, who gain when we go without. Bob spoke to my inner child of being poor in hand but rich in spirit. He sang of birds and skies and nature, of Jah in it all, which I understood instantly.  He spoke the language of my heart. 

The connections and ONENESS he sang to me through my brand new CD player were the first messages I had ever heard of this thing called unity. Growing up with a father who was in criminal justice, I heard bitter racist words, not words of love, of the truth I had always secreted away- that we are all human beneath our costumes of skin and hair, that the quality of a person wasn’t determined by their appearance but in their character and choices. ONE LOVE matched me and I dove deep into this music. I learned all of Bob’s songs by the time I was eighteen. My college dorm walls donned posters of my dreadheaded guru, put up with sticky tak on the cement block walls of my Penn State dorm. 

I didn’t really understand Rastafarianism even when I tried to learn about it, and I didn’t get into the marijuana aspect of Bob, but remained loyal to his teaching of peace, love, fighting for what is right and just, and coming together in high vibes. The “slow-down-and-live” pace of Bob’s world, honoring deep connections, and his creativity were fatherly teachings about the values I held inside with which I strongly resonanated. He became a soul mate of sorts, deceased but with me every day.  
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In the midst of dark and trying times, No Woman No Cry would lull me to peace and remind me of faith in my highest helper, God/Jah, sometimes I imagined a loving hand like his coming down and hugging me into a vast chest of radiant love, “Don’t worry about a thing, cause every little thing gonna be alright” it would whisper with a reasuring smile. 

Bob knew our divinity, he taught me this lesson in songs and it was amazing to me that I had never heard this message, not in all my years of church going, school attending, and being a part of a familial structure.  He was a lovely voice in my ear, telling me that positive vibes and praising God for our blessings was key.  “Jah love protect us” and “Got to have a good vibe”. He was a master teacher of love, God’s love. 

When I saw injustice in the government and worldwide, when faced with mind control and manipulation Get Up, Stand UP empowered me. Bob’s earliest music, with its tinny sounds, straight from Trenchtown in the 60’s, reminded me of his strife in time and space, in Jamaica, as his government was in upheaval, in the midst of American civil rights movements, his poverty, his genes carrying the recipe of Jamaican colonization. He was a warrior of light, an early seed planted here to begin the shift to the NEW EARTH. He was born into strife and yet he made magic. 

Bob, a child, was a seer, too. He could see into people and knew things, could read the psychic grid.  As an adult he said that he stuffed those gifts away, uncomfortable with them.  I believe he was sent here as a unique ray of Jah.  He came here to guide and help us transition from a dark time to the golden age we are headed toward.  His innate wisdom and talents led him to create for us a timeless recording of his messages that continue to fill our speakers today.  His love and high vibes still raising the vibe of the grid of humanity daily, as only a legend could do.

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