Healing from Tsunami

Dear ones,

My name is Azianna, I go by Awi Gaya when I do ceremony, so I use that as my user name. I live in Thailand, Im half Thai and half Irish. So..where to start. Well,...I arrived as a member of the Thai Red Cross the day after Tsunami struck southern Thailand. I signed up as a behreavement counselor. With the insanity of it all, it all came down to helping hands, well I ended up in the morge at Wat Yan Yao temple assisting Dr. Khun Ying Porntip a forensic doctor, she is amazing, a true queen of healing. So, with all the death surrounding me, the grief, the disaster, the trauma to families and the earth, the spirits, the angry spirits,...my experiance. I am at a loss.

I worked for over a year in Tsuanami affected areas, doing things I had not fathomed I could. Realizing the spirit is quite resiliant!

So now that I am back in America, and just gave birth to our first child, I am at a loss, and my emotions are finally moving through me,...

I feel as if I am in Dissarray....I felt guilty being pregnant with a healthy loving soul, when I witnessed so many children in burial,..and parents and families grieving. That perhaps I created a crazy experiance in our birth that ended in an emergancy c-section, perhaps I felt guilty to be full of love and life and joy....

That is my issue, I feel guilty being happy, I have survivors guilt...and I havent opened my practice since this experiance.

I have joined this forum seeking community and healing, when its hard for me to ask....

we will return to the north of Thailand and build our healing sanctuary in the forests of Pai, Thailand.

Any words of wisdom for me? Please help me find my light again, I think I closed it down when all the spirits flooded my body day and night in Khao Lak,...spirits were trying to come up through my spine as walk in's,...they died so suddenly..

any words or prayers or ceremony for me to let go of the guilt, the death and what I've witnessed,..and celebrate joy and life?

All the best,
Azianna

Something I wrote when I returned to Bangkok to get the rest of my things, and move to Khao Lak, I closed my healing studio and moved to the Islands....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Transparent heart still fading....


I am having difficulty relating….a tired numbness to the world,..a new found Introvertedness,…way more uncomfortable then what I wore before….

I’m unsure of what i feel at times, unsure of what I’ve witnessed,. only recognizing the sacredness of it all....

Now that I sit in my aloneness, while my gypsy lover sleeps....I watch him, and wake him gently, by saying "how do you sleep so peacefully?" he replies softly, "just breathe.." and moves closer pulling me in...he lays worn from our day trip through hell,..I know he is well traveled living between cultures and worlds, we were exhausted..with my womb barren where just months before my daughter resided, six months young she was, my breasts still heavy with milk,..I wretch...missing her dearly, needing to feel her warmth inside me,..I lay within the madness that cuts through my heart and very cell....there are no words. Yet,..I hear his breath, yes, he is asleep,...again peaceful. I ponder as my skin chills from the spirits that loudly speak through my nights...

And When i try to speak, or tell my story i realize...it’s not mine to tell.....I apologize for my spiritual tourretts, and my encryptic thoughts, and my heart, I again apologize...

No matter what we did in Khao Lak, I will never feel that I did enough...I finally returned home to Bangkok only to save spirit, shattered and small...unsure if the misery in my heart was indeed mine or that of the lost souls grieving....

It is their story. I am only witness...but its my experiance...and all too real..

My last day. Day ten, Feeling nothingness, and deep aloneness…coldness filled me…
My friends, my sacred circle had gone back to Bangkok, I was separated from my warrior brothers and sisters....I felt alone...A deep sense of aloneness...like the kind of fear you feel as a child pulling the sheet tightly around your body keeping the air still, with a small opening around your mouth to breath...slowly...and deeply..and safe. My legs felt numb, I'm not sure.

Feeling envious of death itself, feeling it would be easier than this,..then hiding in my shame around
how my life is well and good and full of life..unsure of my emotions and what is appropriate to feel, when I need to honor them...the families, the lost,...the ones passing through...we all felt the spirits, you could smell them, the land was thick with souls, and still, they follow me.

That is what I felt. The last day....I found myself seeing myself through the lens of a camera....doc martin boots..stained with deaths scent, perfumed my essence....black addidas pants tucked in to my docs,...tightly as if the scent somehow would not leak through to my shins,...my ankles my toes...it surrounded me, quite familiar, with memories taste upon my lips...you taste it...death,...its almost sweet, in the air, yet heavy with bacteria and other organisms feeding from lifes circle...

My Hair tied back tight in two piggy tails with my red bandana holding back the sticky sweat that melts slowly down my face, neck and spine...torturing me..we all stood together with the same sweaty laquer shine...wet from who knows...maybe best not to.

Standing back at a better angle....zooming out a little,...three of us are sitting on a white coffin, I sipping an oishsi green tea, and nibbling on a piece of gai yang....I started to laugh uncontrollably...as the tears rush in..and surround me....I lose balance and catch my face in my hands and bring my knees to my chest...I laugh, because I see the dog, that I gave my chicken to earlier run past me with an arm in its mouth....,the chickens were eating the maggots, and the dogs and cats aiding to the eco-system of the sala,...creating the cycle of life...only the television brought fear, if it wasn't for that, I would see it as life's complete circle...Life, death, rebirth...or something to that effect....

My vision swirled in fractals around what was left of my minds eye...and it all hit....my swollen head weight 1000 pounds as I lifted it wearily in place,....and then i smell it all,....i hadn’t been aware of the scent for a few days now...we had just received a new delivery of bodies...as the trucks come in one by one..I watch....nibbling on my chicken....and now, resumed bodies,..from mistakes, we all were overwhelmed, so many bodies and not enough living ones to help, mis-identification, mis-sorts, why can't they rest? the souls are so restless..I started laughing,...with tears stinging my sun burned face and lips....

My lips were cracked and bleeding in each corner....licking them intensified the pain, I liked it,...it was an exit for the pain enveloped around me….within me…

My good friend Carl sees me.....as well as Floor from Holland....I ask for my dear friend Matthew....saying, "I need to go, I need to leave now."

Other volunteers, doctors and staff look to me, Carl noting that I was indeed in shock....he is a paramedic, a hero to all at Wat Yan yao...and mine for the day and always, thank you Carl.

I curled up and started rocking myself into a rhythm familiar,, I couldn't feel my heart,...these German men were sitting next to me under the forensic tent,....and he handed me a blue handkerchief....I said quietly, "I'm just so tired.....my heart is so tired...I’ve been here too long,…I’m useless…I’ve been here too…long." The words were like stones in molasses, still and motionless,..what was happening to me..I'm not sure...

The older of the two men kissed my fingertips and continued to eat his lunch with the stench of the bodies 100 ft away....we had to eat, this was our home, our playground..our sanctuary...it wasn't unnatural to eat noodles with pork, while bodies were being packed on ice, while other volunteers put straws in our cokes,...I'd be chatting with Dr's or talking to families, with my mask on,..nibbling on my straw while the bodies pile up before us...we continued on...the human spirit is quite strong, I teetered from day to day...from a warrior to a child, and back again...an emotional holocost of the soul...I just wanted to do more for the families, and we couldn't give them hope, there wasnt anything living....it was about paperwork, and shipping goods, the caravan....and about final ceremony and rituals for the beloveds...

This was sacred...no matter what we were all experiencing; I was indeed having a human experience....

I was ashamed, and as i felt the shame building deeper within my cells, soul and razor snapping up my vertebrae i lost consciousness....knowing I had to leave...knowing that more people would come in to relieve us if only for the night, we'd be switched out with fresh minds and hearts,..as all of us sit, with heads down, covered in sweat and anti-bacterial spray, that they spray us with after working with the corpses...we are all tired,...and hearts blocked yet loving,..how else and why else would we be there.

It was the group decision that I leave,..and return to the hotel....and I did, Steven, from Australia, a brave warrior soul, took me back to Patong...a three hour drive from Wat Yan yao....

My job was unique in the way that I met with the families, and embassies, then searched the data base to find the victims, then search through the bodies that weren't wrapped, as well as the ones in the freezer.

Some people just worked with the families, or just proccessed the corpses, but I went back and forth between the living and the dead...as well as being a counselor for the victims families once we found the beloved, or beloveds. My heart was torn.....and still.

Now on my way to Patong, I was blessed,..i found comfort within the air conditioned felt interior, and cried uncontrollably out of shame, fear and a sorrow new to me, i had experienced and am now experiencing emotions I never knew existed,....could it be,...all of them together in one breath, one inhale, one exhale...exhausting me each time.

Now wondering what my existence and part in all of this was...I’m no hero, I’m just a girl....half Thai half Americano....walking barefoot through one of life’s mysteries..feeling small,...and fragile, yet blessed beyond measure....knowing my family awaits my arrival home to Bangkok, to Seattle. I live in Bangkok, so the confusion was, which home...mother is in Washington and Father in Siam...

That is all for now...my spirit is asking me to be silent..thank you for being witness.....

All in all, it was a sacred moment,..I only wish I could have done more...to fly within the skies and to see what I did from a birds eye view hurt me deeper, to leave,...I felt ashamed,..yet I needed to go back to my life, to the children to my business. You see I am a holistic teacher of art for children. And I needed to be open hearted and pure, for them, they are,..my medicine.

If only I could kiss that small child in my arms and make him/her wake up and smell the sweetness of their innocence....but instead, we lay them neatly next to each other....with a gentle sacredness....side by side silent without motion,...sacraficed to the sea...

As they all lay...without spirit, only a caravan for the soul....

If I could have only casted a spell....

The ocean took a deep breath in and out,...and sacrifices were made...now we are the ones left to keep the sacredness within the living...

Namaste my brothers and sisters.

Now I live in Khao Lak and Bangkok, still volunteering to rebuild Nam Kem, the villages and help aid to the burmese and the sea gypsies who have been denied aid....send love,....its all we have...

In loving light and service.

Teresa "Azianna" Sewalelot
Volunteer w/Dr.Portip at Khao Lak, Wat yan yao temple
Phuket, Thailand
Written: January 10th 2005

http://www.matthewpower.net/SR.tsunami.lo2.pdf

Some people make the world more special just by being in it.

dearest beautiful Awi Gaya

your posts have moved me so much. i feel like you have had to experience so much in such a short time.

i remember feeling helpless after the tsunami. i felt desparate to go there and help...but i was not qualifued to do so...in many ways. i felt pain far away and you felt it close up.

i don't endorse guilt. it's so unnecessary....but I feel guilty because i did so little compared to you. you have done SO much, been a support and help to so many. you are so very special as forgetful pointed out so perfectly.

post traumatic stress is hard but you will find your feet again. i am so happy to have you posting here. we can learn so much from you. i hope you find some help and support here too.

i would like to recommend a very natural aid to emotional healing called bach flower remedies. i have used them for many years and known many to benefit from them and heal.

you should be able to find them at a health food/natural remedy store. some chemists even...

for you i would recommend pine...for guilt, that has to be sorted. olive...for exhaustion. mental and physical. maybe star of bethlehem for shock. maybe elm and agrimony also.

or you could get just get rescue remedy (a combination of a few essences for shock, stress etc) and ask the seller to add a few drops of pine into it.

here's a link to a site for more info

http://www.bachcentre.com/centre/remedies.htm

congratulations on your baby :) life is so powerful and can always reminds us there is balance. after all that death you have found life. soon you will be able to celebrate that again.

i hope you find the support you need and deserve. i hope you find it here. i can't offer much but i can listen.

send me a pm anytime *hug*

sending love and light your way
rose

Originally Posted by rose

dearest beautiful Awi Gaya

your posts have moved me so much. i feel like you have had to experience so much in such a short time.

i remember feeling helpless after the tsunami. i felt desparate to go there and help...but i was not qualifued to do so...in many ways. i felt pain far away and you felt it close up.

i don't endorse guilt. it's so unnecessary....but I feel guilty because i did so little compared to you. you have done SO much, been a support and help to so many. you are so very special as forgetful pointed out so perfectly.

post traumatic stress is hard but you will find your feet again. i am so happy to have you posting here. we can learn so much from you. i hope you find some help and support here too.

i would like to recommend a very natural aid to emotional healing called bach flower remedies. i have used them for many years and known many to benefit from them and heal.

you should be able to find them at a health food/natural remedy store. some chemists even...

for you i would recommend pine...for guilt, that has to be sorted. olive...for exhaustion. mental and physical. maybe star of bethlehem for shock. maybe elm and agrimony also.

or you could get just get rescue remedy (a combination of a few essences for shock, stress etc) and ask the seller to add a few drops of pine into it.

here's a link to a site for more info

http://www.bachcentre.com/centre/remedies.htm

congratulations on your baby :) life is so powerful and can always reminds us there is balance. after all that death you have found life. soon you will be able to celebrate that again.

i hope you find the support you need and deserve. i hope you find it here. i can't offer much but i can listen.

send me a pm anytime *hug*

sending love and light your way
rose

Dearest Rose,

Thank you,...I do have deep joy,..and from time to time the pain surfaces and I feel suffocated, I do value my experiance, and know the karma connected to it, I feel that the spirits of tsunami have blessed us with our son,..I tell him the heavens must be lonely...to send us an angel....although I know that angels are not in the human form for long, I am grateful for his health and beauty..........

Thank you and I honor you,..I will get the remedies. I have used rescue remedy in the past with my clients, like I said, I am unable to see myself being a healer...thank you deeply.

In loving light,
Awi gaya

Awi Gaya your post will strike a chord amongst many as it did me and you are truly a wonderful soul i sit in a working circle where we try to help earthbound souls pass over to the spirit realm and at the time of the tsunami we were overwelmed by souls who were confused and in total fear of their surroundings and could not accept thier passing it was truly an awful emotional time however unlike you we had not had first hand experience thank god!!.

however we had a young girl who came through who was so afraid she new she was about to die but somebody told her not to be afraid not to worry because they were with her and she would be safe she would have no pain and they were right she had no pain she had no fear she lost her fear and when she passed she was like a beacon because she was fearless thousands followed thousands. you are such a beacon my friend ....

Hi Awi Gaya, what a remarkable story you have been kind enough to share with us all here at these forums. It hardly needs to be said but you should feel proud of your actions in helping the people of Thailand in the aftermath of the tsunami.

I get a strong feeling Awi Gaya that you need to learn to forgive yourself again. I know you feel your heart has took in a lot of pain and suffering since those days but the arrival of your child signifies new beginnings for you, surely!?

You need to forgive yourself for events that you could have had no possible influence over...really try to feel that sense of forgiveness, flowing through your whole being like pink lightwaves of healing, renewing your joys and casting away your doubts.

You are a mightily courageous person for the good deeds you did in Thailand and you should feel good about it. Don't focus on that which you could not change, for you will only pull the bad memories closer to you and relive those harsh feelings you felt at the time. Remember the strength and helpfulness you displayed whilst helping those people and you shall surely draw the spirit of your acts into your present life so you can continue to be strong and supportful to those around you. Look to the future with your head held high and your eyes wide open and see a future untainted by the past. Forgive yourself.

Kundalini.

Hi Azianna,

Thank you for such a powerful story and message.. It was an inspiration to read. I wish you all the love and light for your emotional healing and hope things start to become easier soon. You have been through so much, I'm sure it must take a long time for the mind-body-soul to process and deal with all that it has experienced. Lots of love to you..

Thank you all, you have no idea what your words mean to me,..I went to a healing circle last week with my teacher Coleen Renee leading it, I shared my story, and sobbed. She said, we need witness to heal... I was telling the group that when I came back to America, no one would talk to me, they were afraid of me and my experiance...a silence that broke me deeply and I was with child, I kept my own thoughts away from my unborn son, afraid it would penetrate his little soul...and now I have you, and my new community of women of wisdom in Seattle, and they are my WITNESS, and I am HEALING...I honor all of you, you are pieces of my heart extended,...thank you...I am with joy and bliss, and I will forgive myself and honor myself...

With love and light,
Awi Gaya