In the fall of 2010, I travelled to the North Pole and gave the northernmost musical performance, to help raise awareness of the melting polar ice. I was guided to go by an important shamanic dream: I lay motionless on the frozen polar ocean, beneath which a great blue whale was waiting for me.
When I arrived in Canada’s most northern village, two Inuit elders greeted me, saying they had known I was coming – the whale had told them. I understood then that I was part of something much greater than me. The elders recounted the Inuit story of the sea goddess Sedna whose home is on the ocean floor and whose body became the whales, seals and walruses.
At the top of the world, I sang my songs, and facilitated shamanic healing work for the planet, while Sanskrit names of the Goddess were chanted. I quietly prayed, “Mother, I know you are suffering. If I can help alleviate your burden in some way, let me know.”
Six months later, on March 11, 2011, before I learned that a tsunami had devastated Japan, I woke up in my Toronto home paralyzed from the waist down and in searing pain. I was brought to hospital where doctors insisted I had been hit by a car – yet no impact had taken place. Due to a damaged spinal cord, I was given a 50-50 chance of walking again after necessary spinal surgery.
Intuitively, I felt that my connection to the planet was at the heart of this mysterious injury. Instinctively, I felt that my relationship with her would heal it. Instead of surgery, I chose to dive deeply within and trust the blue whale that had called me to the North. I drew my attention to the subtle realms of Nature and the Cosmic Intelligence with which I had worked to develop YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine and my musical creations.
I would remain immobilized in bed for over three months, unable to get up even for the most basic things. What followed was a rearranging of everything I knew, a “karma fast forward”. I was challenged to let go of that which no longer served and learn to absolutely trust a higher power for everything. When you realize that you may never walk again or do the simplest things we take for granted, your ego dies and something else is born.
I saw my body as floating molecules held together by my perceptions and karmas. The injured area was a energy mass that appeared fixed due to my beliefs. As I opened to absolute possibility, I got out of the way of nature’s innate healing power.
I dove psychically inward and traveled down my spine. At its base, I saw the blue whale with nearly no heartbeat. I watched it and my area of injury with presence. As the whale’s heartbeat grew stronger, I witnessed little ripples of life-force wave down my legs. Eventually, I could feel and wiggle my toes.
Over months, a blue orb grew to envelop me from my feet eventually to my head, as the energy wave flowed up my spine. I was becoming the whale. As the blue light and wave grew stronger, I could roll from side to side, then onto my stomach. As I said in this month’s YEM article, there was no point where I was able to do anything that was not in the wave’s flow. If I pushed, the consequence was searing pain.
Following the wave, I learned to push myself up from my tummy, from which the impulse to crawl arose. I had grown from ocean creature, to a land animal onto all fours. Four months later, I emerged onto my feet and had to learn how to walk again – this time over a whole new axis.
My recovery was considered medically miraculous. Once ambulatory, I went into my studio and out poured a collection of songs in profound gratitude. This body of work has just taken shape into a multidimensional healing sound bath, an album to be released in the spring of 2015.
The blue whale continues to be a powerful presence in my life. It inspired my trip to the Arctic, the amazing Inuit elders I met, the spinal injury and healing that followed, the musical album, and my new show. Most recently, it sparked the creation of Parvati.org, a not-for-profit organization that aims to stop the seismic bombing planned for this spring in Canada’s Arctic Oceans and protect our planet for generations to come.
Parvati Devi is the editor-in-chief of Parvati Magazine and an internationally recognized Canadian musician, yogi and new thought leader. As a chart-topping touring musician, Parvati spearheads the Post New Age musical genre with her independent success hit single “Yoga in the Nightclub”. She founded YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine, a powerful yoga method that combines energy work and yoga poses. Her critically acclaimed self-help debut book “Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie – A Revolutionary Life Makeover for the Sincere Spiritual Seeker” is currently in its third edition.
For more information on Parvati, please visit www.parvati.tv.