Roughly, 6 years ago, Savi we had the dubious privilege of playing crow, being messengers of bad news. You had come to us for an aura scan. It showed you had a deep darkness in your womb area, it seemed ugly, pre-cancerous. We warned you then, asking you to check. Did you check? If you had checked then would anything have showed up? The one thing you told us after you passed away was that we should have been more insistent that you check your womb area when you first came to us. We heard a year later that you were diagnosed with cervical cancer. A major surgery and lots of medico-treatment later and you were pronounced fine.
We’d meet off and on at Tina’s or your place. We remember one New Years there were some eight of us and we held hands and sang that that children’s song “there was a girl so tall and thin and fair” you know the one you run forward and step back too. Another time at Tina’s housewarming, you and Celu did a slow waltz which went into a foxtrot.(If u're Celia's friend on fb, u can c that mad video clip there - Videos of Celia) You were woman, and child, adventurous and wild and yet gentle. Unbottle your creativity was what we’d first told you and like a stuck record we’d repest it{repeat} at every party. And girl did you go for life! You did so many things it made our head dizzy, wildlife, photography, writing, historical walks…
After the first aura scan 6 years ago, you hadn’t really come again to us professionally. We met formally again, in September, you asked for an aura scan. How far had it spread? It had spread. Neck, liver, stomach, womb. But was there a chance? Yes, there was a chance. We saw a 20-30% chance. Naturally we didn’t tell you how great the chance was, but for us, aura seers and healers who take on the incurable, a 20% chance is huge.
The months from September were when we got to know you really well. You had this cute wig, and you’d take it off when you reached our centre and you’d look both Monk old and Savi young. One day you asked us to feel the furry touch of your scalp. The feel still lingers on Celu’s fingers. You really didn’t want people to know you had cancer, you wanted to get well and surprise them.
But one of the things you made us promise was that when the end was close we’d warn you. And that we’d try to ease the pain.
Then one day, in mid December perhaps, you announced, ‘why should I fight? Why not just travel and enjoy each moment?’ As healers we thought hey cancer is trench warfare you got to fight like insane. But as humans we thought to ourselves. That’s beautiful. You went off to Rajasthan. A week after you returned, the pains in the abdomen suddenly became intense. Your kidneys had packed up. Tubes began to sprout in your body, transfusion needles. Medically, the writing was on the wall. Aura wise the chance that you’d survive another 6 months had reduced to 5%.
Strangely it was now towards the end that you really started fighting like a rabid dog, each healing was stronger, packed with impossible fury. You’d suck energy like a twister. Your aura would clear the dark heavy past life and ancestral burdens would clear, but you became weaker, weaker. You looked like Frodo struggling up the slopes of Mordor.
It was during this time we realised just how many friends you really had. We were on the outskirts of one of your many circles of friends, that includes Gauri, Tina, Sonali, Kalyan, Reeba, Celu & I. We then realised you had an incredibly vast set of many circles of friends. You were a thread in so many lives.
Foremost is Gauri… One day somewhere in end Feb, we were giving you healing when midway through Gauri came and fed you. You both sat on the bed, you hugged her, and Gauri fed you with her hands. It is one of those moments of incredible tenderness, that is seared in my mind. It was love, naked, beautiful, impossible, heart squeezing. You were like sisters, no like she was your mama. And it was then that we got it. Cancer may seem to be an impossible price to pay, but by paying it you were living at a Richter Scale of Meaning, you were gifting others the opportunity to care and be transformed.
We met Sandhya, who descended from a more rarified Page3 circle, attracted by your genuineness. We met Sudarshan honest and strong who was there for you at the hospital. Sonali caring and fussing and humorous, who made the medical visits bearable. Natasha, Boisakhi, Neeti who kept your cat. We met colleagues from Sun, Yahoo, and then we realised just how many faces you really had. We heard of coffee mornings. We heard of play readings. We heard of your laughter. And joys. And also passions.
But there are so many others we heard of through you. Your yahoo boss who gave you an open ticket. He probably doesn’t know how guilty you felt at being on the rolls and not working. Arun from Bangalore walks who just handed over several lakhs, no questions asked.
Of course how forget your many doctors, especially the 2 you got closest to. Dr Radheshyam and Dr Venkatesh. You had enormous love & respect for them. Not surprising for they added a good 5 years to your life. Now there are many friends we have not met, and will not meet for you kept your many worlds separate. And yet each of us has been pollinated by the pixy charm.
The many years we knew you we liked you. But it was at the end you played a mean trick on us. You got us to love you. As you got so many others to love you. There was one day, we’d come to give you healing and you could barely sit, and you put your head on my chest and Celia put her arms around you, and your pulled healing till our hands went numb and our hearts flatlined. You’d become family.
Each time however, you would pester us and remind us of our promise to you. To warn you when you had no more than months to live.
We’d hem and haw. One day after, the auras showed that the chances of your surviving 6 months had slid below 5% we realised we had to take a call. The news from the docs trickling back to us was equally bleak.
Now telling someone that the prognosis is poor is an incredible shock no matter how well you are prepared. And so we debated, asked our guides and stormed heaven. Now being told things are poor is a shock, but like all shocks it can galvanise people. Hearing that it’s the 11th hour has galvanised mankind to care for the planet. So as healers we use it as a healing tool of last resort. Perhaps it could kickstart your healing. Also we realised that in the struggle with the disease you Savi had pushed away a lot of friends. {It takes too much energy to explain everything. And anyhow if you were going to get better, why bother?} So alternately, it could help you reconnect with your great circle of friends and draw hope from them, and not least bond stronger with your family, tie up loose ends. Beyond this, whichever way it went whether you chose to fight or let go gracefully, you had lived. You have gone to the wilder places of the earth, you’ve won photography awards, bagged writing awards, brought out a book, you’ve loved and been unreservedly loved. You had built that most rare and enduring pyramid. Circles of friendship.
Even though it was the right thing to do, the truth is we didn’t have the heart to tell you how bleak things looked aura wise till you asked us point blank. Was time running out? The news, though you knew it, hit you like a rock. We used the shock like a crowbar to open a fresh doorway of life, to push you to rally around. There was a slender chance. By blowing it the flame could grow brighter. Or was it just our wishful thinking?
According to Gauri you stayed up the whole night. Had you given up? You planned for an advanced treatment. You went to a supermarket to pick up groceries so Gauri could make some exotic recipe.
It was evening, that we heard you pulse fluctuated and you passed away. At your bedside in hospital were more than a 100 friends who had collected. The news sent us into a kind of stupor. About half an hour later, Celia heard your voice saying: “You did not tell me it would be so hard, Celu.” Death escort is one of the most dangerous part of what we do as healers. It helps ease death’s passage. You were soon in a place of deep joyous light.
Gauri who expected to be haunted by your memory, after 5 years of helping you struggle with cancer, found herself very at peace. She knows you have moved on. Reeba who got a priest from her church to check got the same message.
To your parents things are impossibly hard. It’s the hardest thing to let go of a child. At the funeral we were told that there were not one but 15 crows an auspicious sign that according to the priest revealed that you had let go and had reached Moksha.
As I write these words there was a whirring at my ear. As if a crow wing was beating or a sparrow was about to make a nest. “You are slow on the uptake…” a voice spells out the message. “Tell my friends… We are all lights… who come like birds to a thicket… To me {Where I an} you are lights of the strangest shapes. Love. Enjoy. Live. Care for the birds, the animals. The trees. The wide-open spaces. Let my ashes quicken the earth. Live. Do not fear life.”
Dear Savi, the strange thing is that we could warn you, but could not pull you back from cancer’s grasp. No, we could not pull you from cancer’s grasp, but sometimes we held your hand, sometimes we could make you laugh. Perhaps that’s something in this place of a thousand unknowns that is life on earth. A laugh.
We’d meet off and on at Tina’s or your place. We remember one New Years there were some eight of us and we held hands and sang that that children’s song “there was a girl so tall and thin and fair” you know the one you run forward and step back too. Another time at Tina’s housewarming, you and Celu did a slow waltz which went into a foxtrot.(If u're Celia's friend on fb, u can c that mad video clip there - Videos of Celia) You were woman, and child, adventurous and wild and yet gentle. Unbottle your creativity was what we’d first told you and like a stuck record we’d repest it{repeat} at every party. And girl did you go for life! You did so many things it made our head dizzy, wildlife, photography, writing, historical walks…
After the first aura scan 6 years ago, you hadn’t really come again to us professionally. We met formally again, in September, you asked for an aura scan. How far had it spread? It had spread. Neck, liver, stomach, womb. But was there a chance? Yes, there was a chance. We saw a 20-30% chance. Naturally we didn’t tell you how great the chance was, but for us, aura seers and healers who take on the incurable, a 20% chance is huge.
The months from September were when we got to know you really well. You had this cute wig, and you’d take it off when you reached our centre and you’d look both Monk old and Savi young. One day you asked us to feel the furry touch of your scalp. The feel still lingers on Celu’s fingers. You really didn’t want people to know you had cancer, you wanted to get well and surprise them.
But one of the things you made us promise was that when the end was close we’d warn you. And that we’d try to ease the pain.
Then one day, in mid December perhaps, you announced, ‘why should I fight? Why not just travel and enjoy each moment?’ As healers we thought hey cancer is trench warfare you got to fight like insane. But as humans we thought to ourselves. That’s beautiful. You went off to Rajasthan. A week after you returned, the pains in the abdomen suddenly became intense. Your kidneys had packed up. Tubes began to sprout in your body, transfusion needles. Medically, the writing was on the wall. Aura wise the chance that you’d survive another 6 months had reduced to 5%.
Strangely it was now towards the end that you really started fighting like a rabid dog, each healing was stronger, packed with impossible fury. You’d suck energy like a twister. Your aura would clear the dark heavy past life and ancestral burdens would clear, but you became weaker, weaker. You looked like Frodo struggling up the slopes of Mordor.
It was during this time we realised just how many friends you really had. We were on the outskirts of one of your many circles of friends, that includes Gauri, Tina, Sonali, Kalyan, Reeba, Celu & I. We then realised you had an incredibly vast set of many circles of friends. You were a thread in so many lives.
Foremost is Gauri… One day somewhere in end Feb, we were giving you healing when midway through Gauri came and fed you. You both sat on the bed, you hugged her, and Gauri fed you with her hands. It is one of those moments of incredible tenderness, that is seared in my mind. It was love, naked, beautiful, impossible, heart squeezing. You were like sisters, no like she was your mama. And it was then that we got it. Cancer may seem to be an impossible price to pay, but by paying it you were living at a Richter Scale of Meaning, you were gifting others the opportunity to care and be transformed.
We met Sandhya, who descended from a more rarified Page3 circle, attracted by your genuineness. We met Sudarshan honest and strong who was there for you at the hospital. Sonali caring and fussing and humorous, who made the medical visits bearable. Natasha, Boisakhi, Neeti who kept your cat. We met colleagues from Sun, Yahoo, and then we realised just how many faces you really had. We heard of coffee mornings. We heard of play readings. We heard of your laughter. And joys. And also passions.
But there are so many others we heard of through you. Your yahoo boss who gave you an open ticket. He probably doesn’t know how guilty you felt at being on the rolls and not working. Arun from Bangalore walks who just handed over several lakhs, no questions asked.
Of course how forget your many doctors, especially the 2 you got closest to. Dr Radheshyam and Dr Venkatesh. You had enormous love & respect for them. Not surprising for they added a good 5 years to your life. Now there are many friends we have not met, and will not meet for you kept your many worlds separate. And yet each of us has been pollinated by the pixy charm.
The many years we knew you we liked you. But it was at the end you played a mean trick on us. You got us to love you. As you got so many others to love you. There was one day, we’d come to give you healing and you could barely sit, and you put your head on my chest and Celia put her arms around you, and your pulled healing till our hands went numb and our hearts flatlined. You’d become family.
Each time however, you would pester us and remind us of our promise to you. To warn you when you had no more than months to live.
We’d hem and haw. One day after, the auras showed that the chances of your surviving 6 months had slid below 5% we realised we had to take a call. The news from the docs trickling back to us was equally bleak.
Now telling someone that the prognosis is poor is an incredible shock no matter how well you are prepared. And so we debated, asked our guides and stormed heaven. Now being told things are poor is a shock, but like all shocks it can galvanise people. Hearing that it’s the 11th hour has galvanised mankind to care for the planet. So as healers we use it as a healing tool of last resort. Perhaps it could kickstart your healing. Also we realised that in the struggle with the disease you Savi had pushed away a lot of friends. {It takes too much energy to explain everything. And anyhow if you were going to get better, why bother?} So alternately, it could help you reconnect with your great circle of friends and draw hope from them, and not least bond stronger with your family, tie up loose ends. Beyond this, whichever way it went whether you chose to fight or let go gracefully, you had lived. You have gone to the wilder places of the earth, you’ve won photography awards, bagged writing awards, brought out a book, you’ve loved and been unreservedly loved. You had built that most rare and enduring pyramid. Circles of friendship.
Even though it was the right thing to do, the truth is we didn’t have the heart to tell you how bleak things looked aura wise till you asked us point blank. Was time running out? The news, though you knew it, hit you like a rock. We used the shock like a crowbar to open a fresh doorway of life, to push you to rally around. There was a slender chance. By blowing it the flame could grow brighter. Or was it just our wishful thinking?
According to Gauri you stayed up the whole night. Had you given up? You planned for an advanced treatment. You went to a supermarket to pick up groceries so Gauri could make some exotic recipe.
It was evening, that we heard you pulse fluctuated and you passed away. At your bedside in hospital were more than a 100 friends who had collected. The news sent us into a kind of stupor. About half an hour later, Celia heard your voice saying: “You did not tell me it would be so hard, Celu.” Death escort is one of the most dangerous part of what we do as healers. It helps ease death’s passage. You were soon in a place of deep joyous light.
Gauri who expected to be haunted by your memory, after 5 years of helping you struggle with cancer, found herself very at peace. She knows you have moved on. Reeba who got a priest from her church to check got the same message.
To your parents things are impossibly hard. It’s the hardest thing to let go of a child. At the funeral we were told that there were not one but 15 crows an auspicious sign that according to the priest revealed that you had let go and had reached Moksha.
As I write these words there was a whirring at my ear. As if a crow wing was beating or a sparrow was about to make a nest. “You are slow on the uptake…” a voice spells out the message. “Tell my friends… We are all lights… who come like birds to a thicket… To me {Where I an} you are lights of the strangest shapes. Love. Enjoy. Live. Care for the birds, the animals. The trees. The wide-open spaces. Let my ashes quicken the earth. Live. Do not fear life.”
Dear Savi, the strange thing is that we could warn you, but could not pull you back from cancer’s grasp. No, we could not pull you from cancer’s grasp, but sometimes we held your hand, sometimes we could make you laugh. Perhaps that’s something in this place of a thousand unknowns that is life on earth. A laugh.
