One of the most holy places I've been...

Warning: This story gets a bit heavy.

Kingsway Camp TB Hospital, Delhi, India

It was the most horrible and holy place I’d ever been in. I scanned the Kingsway Camp Tuberculosis Hospital looking in the women’s ward for people who were alone. Looking for patients who looked neglected. At that time in Delhi, if you went to the hospital and were alone- and especially if you were of the lower cast in the society, you would often be left untreated in your hospital bed waiting to die. A cat ran by and I marveled at the paint rotting away from the wall. A horrible stench came from the bathrooms. The squat pots looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned in years. I scanned the hospital ward. It was quiet and still. There was a feeling of fragility and preciousness in the air. Suffering. Yes, It was the presence of suffering people. Many of the patients had someone with them acting as their caregiver doing the work of a nursing assistant. They sat still on the bedside next to their sick loved ones with all eyes glued on me. The foreigner - a white girl trying to blend in with tradtional India clothes. I’d left my home, my band, my community to come and see if I could maybe find my place in this important work. I walked slowly feeling as though I was walking down the aisle of a sacred cathedral. All the patients seemed to be getting cared for. All, but the last bed, that sat in the dark corner closest to the bathroom. I saw a nest of black hair coming up from out of the red blankets. Dreadlocked hair, but not by choice. I tapped on her sleeping shoulder. A bony, emaciated arm came up and beautiful brown eyes looked at me. In my few sentences that I learned in Hindi, I tried to introduce myself and asked her name. Her name was Meera. Pills littered her mattress and l could tell it’d been a long time since she’d taken her correct medicine. We were able to get Meera discharged and brought to the Delhi House- a rehabilitation home for the people who were found left to die with no one to care for them.

Meeting Ton

The year before I’d met Ton, the leader of Delhi House. He showed up at our community house wearing a top hat, long red hair, a pointed beard reminding me somehow of a Dutch David Bowie. He showed pictures and told stories of these beautiful treasures of people that he’d found on the streets of Delhi or in the hospitals, and he and the other workers would stand up as their advocate to ensure they received help they needed. Hearing his stories impacted me profoundly. He showed a video with Radiohead’s “Exit Music” as the soundtrack showing people on the streets dirty with open wounds or missing limbs, disheveled, and desperate. They would get picked up, put into the ambulance and taken to get help. I sobbed as I watched. Something touched me so deeply of a mixture of sorrow, sadness, and anger together with hope and possibility. It was the smell of justice. Like the smell of a rich, delicious meal, just waiting for you to feast upon. I’d smelled the smell of justice and it made me starving for more. After that first visit to India, I decided to move there and the plan was to stay 2-5 years. But the short version is- Unfortunately after 7 months, I was burnt out and suffering from some PTSD from some horrific things I saw. I left India heartbroken because I longed to be a part of the solution to making this world more just and equitable.

Hunger for Justice

The hunger for justice is still churning on my insides today as years later I write this sitting comfortably in my German home waiting for my two kids to fall asleep in their warm and safe beds. It’s a crazy juxtaposition to live such a comfortable life and think back to that time. The suffering of those around the globe is something that’s not right in my face as it was back then. But still, that desire growls in my insides like an empty stomach. What became clear after my burn out is that I’m not called to be a nurse, but I was made to be an artist and musician. But those experiences had a HUGE impact on my life, and I became bound and determined to use my art and music in the same way that a nurse would care for the wounds of someone who is sick. With Compassion. Facing the hardships before us but working toward healing.

If much is given much is required…

And so I do what I can with the gifts that I have- I create. I make art and I write songs about life and the hardships life brings but always in search for hope. I write about death and the brevity of life in hopes that we can live it more fully, I try to write with empathy to stand in another’s shoes and try to imagine their life, I write with an anger at the injustices of this world, and I write with hopefulness that someday we can all feast at the justice meal. It’s that great German word, “Sehnsucht” which is a mixture of “longing, pinning or yearning.” A craving for Justice, for peace and to have all our stomachs filled with love that we all so desperately need.

You can hear all of this on the Black Swift Album SEE ME HUMAN. Life is so complex, it’s not as black and white as we all want to be. It’s filled with so many grays that make up each individual story. On that album is a song screaming against gun violence (Bang! Bang!), then a song about someone who killed a man with a gun in self-defense (Down in Tennessee). There’s a song about how we are all made up of the same flesh and blood (Mannish Girl), and a song crying out to be understood (Know my Prequel). It’s the universal cry. To be known, understood, listened to, loved and accepted. In the end there’s Sugar Mountain- the song I wrote to imagine that place where everything is perfect and how it should be. Where people like Meera are not abandoned to die, but celebrated and loved. A place where we know we are all equally valued and worthy of love.

And as a gift for reading this far- here is the Black Swift song “Refuge” It’s about the people and for the people who have had to flee their homelands, only to often face discrimination. It is a song I wrote while trying to empathize and understand what it must feel like to have to flee and find refuge.

Pena Chödrön said, “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”

Here’s some images of paintings I made after I my times in India.