Mountains and Me — Part II

“Can you heal me?” I turned around from my pensive stare into the Enchanted valley below me to see Omena, a small girl from our village tugging at my bamboo pants and pleading with anguish. I could see that she was breathing heavy and her eyes were red from inflammation. “Where is your mother?” I asked. “She sent me to you”. A look of concern lined my forehead as I picked her up and took her to my kutir, my work place.

I felt so privileged to be handed the responsibility of a healer for my village. I remember the first time I laid my eyes on our grand healer, Ajo. He lived further up the mountains, where the snow meets the sky. We called him the sky-kisser. No one knew how old he was. With his long white beard and heavily wrinkled face, he could be anywhere between 100–200 years old, his age belying his strength and agility. Ajo paid visits to our village once every few years — He was our guardian grand father — Everyone knew him, our chief revered him. We heard stories upon stories of how our village was in safe hands with Ajo and how he even saved us from an avalanche in the nick of time. Naturally, we were in awe of his towering presence and kept our silence, as we sat in a big semi circular group around him at our prayer place.
My inquisitve seven year old self couldn’t hold back — “How can I be like you, Ajo?” I remember asking. He looked in my direction, put his head back and let out a big belly laugh. “All in good time, my dear. All in good time….”

~~~
“Sit on the cot and do your ocean breath my dear Omena”, I cajoled. Closing my eyes and scanning her aura, I could see the dis-ease originate from her head. Omena had just lost her father and she couldn’t bear the loss and had been up crying the last few nights. She just needs a blessing, I thought, along with a lot of rest.
I placed my hands a few inches above her head, as I issued her a blessing. I immediately felt a lot of heat and energy transfer from my hand.
A few minutes later, Omena opened her eyes with a smile, gave me a big hug and ran out. “Tell my regards to your mother…”, I said as I saw her off.
What a blessing it was for her and what a blessing it was for me to be of use for someone, I mused.

~~~
“Remember children. Do good and think good. Be of use to one another. What you learn in this life, you will carry to the next!”, smiled Ajo as he paused to look at me. “And you my little one, you will be a healer. And you can heal everyone in your village. Just like your chief!” “What about the whole world?”, I asked. “This one is impatient, chief!”. Our chief nodded and smiled at me.

~~~
Life has so many threads to it. And threads can sometimes span multiple lives and lifetimes. My healing practices taught me of the presence of an energy that is so universal, a presence that always lives, a presence that heals. A presence that I was just waking up to! A presence I would encounter again and again — Lifetime after lifetime.