memorial audio, photos, and brief reflection
by Georgianna Olga Reid
Thank you ASHA.
Please note there are two parts to this entry.
Part One: Reflection from Memorial
Part Two: the best transcript I could decipher from the audio recording of her Daughter’s speaking at the burial site. For those of you who could not attend in person, but wish for a touch point, may these offerings be of service.
Memorial Reflection
When I received the news via text that Asha had left her body, I was traveling and felt unclear: do I change my plans and go to the memorial or do I stay and honor her from afar. I rested on the matter and the following morning felt the pull. I needed to go not only to honor Asha but to have the embodied knowing within myself that she was truly… truly… GONE! For that, I needed to see her one last time.
Driving to the memorial along Heartwood Road, feeling the gravel and winter mush under my tires, I joked to myself “Wonder how far out I am going to have to park?!” Sure enough, the line of cars was visible rather quickly and I parked about 1/2 a mile away. Walking in, license plates were from all over: New York, Maryland, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Florida and so on… Taxis drove by, caravanning in Beloveds who had flown.
I walked up her driveway and into her garden where we had spent many mornings after meditation, always quiet, watching the koi fish, moving stones to make a new pathway “just right”, or weeding. Frequently weeding! Monday it was different. The yard was packed with masked faces, some of whom I recognized and some of whom I did not. Kirtan with Kevin and others fell upon the space as people made their way up the steps to the coffin where Asha rested. I joined the procession, seeing my teacher seated on the other side. When I got to the top of the steps, I arched my neck and could see Asha’s (well, the physical part of Asha) truly at-rest face, highlighted by the brightly colored rose petals. Finally it hit me. Seeing the body leaves no room for negotiation and I was not ready for it, so I backed off the dais and returned into the crowd.
Melting into the crowd I felt invisible, sad and alone. The voices echoed around and at first I felt hollow. Then I remembered ASHA… really remembered her life force. And a time I had forgotten came back to me when she taught me something to the effect of:
Get comfortable with being alone in a crowd. I’ve told many over the years that ‘of course their special, but so is everyone else.’ This is true. and you’ve also got to learn to be ok as just part of the crowd. Can you dissolve into the oneness? Do you know that you’re ok?
I settled into that, feeling the ways in which my sharp, grief striken edges could dissolve for moments here and there… Dissolving… into love… the very process Asha has been imparting to us since her surgery 11 months ago. Dissolving into love… I felt the reality of her physical absence sink in deep each time a nail was hammered into her coffin, sealing the Truth. I realized the immense loneliness and longing-ness I felt was not just mine to hold but a part of our collective experience as we each took in this new reality in our own ways. As the procession moved up the mountain, I touched into the dichotemy of this complex Joy, Grief and Rememberance process, feeling simultaneously collective AND alone, outer AND inner, the communing energy of an ant den AND the slow lumbering journey of a lone bear.
And it is all alright. Yes Asha… I am ok… thank you.
Part II: Asha’s Daughter’s Share
Now I leave you with the words of her daugthers (as best as I could hear and transcribe them.)…
FROM DAKOTA
…Giving things away, her own and ours. After she had her tumor removed I started noticing she had grasping, maybe even greed too. Taking the biggest cookie. Wanting the presents that were given to others in her presence. Or deciding that her collage book was too rich with beauty and meaning to give away,. It made me think that maybe it was not an inherent quality she was born with maybe it did not come from her formative years of not having to want for anything. Or probably the ease with which she let go came from something she had learned. I understand more how she may have worked for that through her meditation through her services through tae and her love and acceptance as I am. Grasping and letting to too. We lived in a house similar to hers, much smaller and much more funky. When I had to leave that house, it was hard but through being with her at the pond in her tea house and sitting on a concrete wall with electrical lines in our sight which we both did not like at all, li came to appreciate being where you are. As vastness and beauty.
It can often be right here. All around. What a gift.
By being in rather than at, letting go the define edges so it melts into you and you melt into it. That helped me a little bit more to let go. Grasping and letting go … in a conversation in the last month there was a mention of open hand. And somehow in that moment I had an orrcurance or an experience of letting go of physical things. Letting go of that’s the way I want it to be. Letting go of the way I think it should be. Letting go of my ideas and reactions. Letting go of what I think is my understanding. In that occurrence I felt this world as so much more than what I see, I think I feel and I believe. That helped me let go more. The difference between that - wanting something to someway or thinking I know- and an integration with open hands and open heart and open mind will create more peace in my own heart. Be here now was a saying and a book. But I realized - glad I wrote this down- what was missing in that phrase was “be here now… with an open heart, an open mind, and maybe most of all open hands” So bringing your hands up. I am a grasper and I am trying to let go. Michaela came and serve tea and served mom tea and I Burst into tears and said as she was going to pore it out I said “no i’m not ready to let go” then she said, I had to be the one to pour it out.
This is the tea. So everyone hold your hands up above. Your prayers and thoughts. Draw that into your heart. And let go of what you can. She said she didn’t want anything in here (her coffin) so I’m pouring it here. Lama was started by my parents and other people to help young people … most importantly it was in nature. And learned nature is what bring most …
(Proceeded to pour tea out in the four directions around Asha’s coffin and burial site).
Thank you for serving me the tea of life in such a beautiful and loving way.
FROM SHANTI
This day of burial, of laying the body to rest
I see the bright red cardinal upon the dry grey sticks
surrounded by snow near your body.
The day you died this small red bird flew at the windows of your studio trying to get in.
Eager to sit beside you with its regal color in your pure white space, cleared of all the extra.
I recall the moment you released US many years ago
Sang us into being
The dove, the crow, the mocking-bird, the eagle, the hawk, the wren, the fanciful coo-coo
The gentle doe
The fierce mother lion
The indestructible turtle, taking its time
The busy bee arranging for the wellbeing of the entire hive — just doing its job
You laid the foundation for us to be with our dirty bare feet upon the ground
Allowed our spirits to soar through the wind in the tall pines — the sound of ancient oceans.
To fly through the aspens
Across the mesa into the deep blue
Through mist
Through storms
Through the deep blue night.
Taught us to hold our fears in the light.
To trust the coming and going of time.
The fire within.
The blaze of conversation and wonder.
The subtle arc of the flower stem.
The spilled green tea on the red felt.
The teachers of the mysterious and the mundane
the joy and laughter
the feeling of hilarity in the sternum
You sang us into listening
To voices of others and the voices within
To the sweetness of vulnerability
And the deep teachings of pride
And in all this beauty and imagination
And breathing,
You held us.
All of us.
All us people.
—
This is something we’ve down since we’re children.
I’ll do it once, than everyone can join.
Hands to heart and then out joyfully yelling (Ya FATTAH! Ya Fattah! YA FAA-TTAHH!)
FROM AURORA
I didn’t write anything. I’m a palliative care nurse. And what I am so deeply grateful for is how my mom showed up for her death. She just showed up. We went to the hospital I thought she had a stroke and then she didn’t have a stroke she had a brain tumor. Got the tumor removed and she came back and the world was wide open. There was no internalizgin, it was an even bigger her. And she was so so funny. And so so exacting. And so so needy at times and then so very un needy. But she was never unkind and she was always always present. Even though she didn’t know what time it was or if it was now or then, or he or she, she was always present. And so for me what I came to realize was how much of a teacher she is. But she’s the best kind of teacher cause all of her students become their own teacher. We have tea students who came every friday and did tea. We have a dzikr down at lama for 24 hours. We have people painting because my mom painted. She has a community that is so wide and so vast, and she has taught us all (Asha’s dog come up the hill, people laugh)… skills and things we didn’t necessarily think we wanted to learn or necessarily think we could learn, and I just felt so deeply grateful for the last 9 months of how many people showed up. There were a group that showed up every week for one to two days for 8 months, every week. They came to be with my mom even though she was present and not unkind, sometimes she was a little “the flower needs to move one inch to the right” and I’m not kidding (laughter.). So, I am just grateful for everyone she showed up for but also to see how everyone showed up for her and I really think her beauty and grace is how she allowed us all to step into our own power and I am so incredibly grateful for having this time with her to integrate that. And for having the time to see all of you all in some way or another whether you were here in body or spirit, you showed up for her. And I kind of want to throw this bowl and break it…. I just think it’s something she would do.. (laughter cheering, bowl broken!)
FROM SAVITRI
Closing Song for Asha
sung as her coffin is lowered into the ground, echoing across the mountain side for about 50 minutes as each person gathered shares in placing dirt over her coffin.