Transformation Magazine: Healing Songs at the North Pole

TRANSFORMATION MAGAZINE (USA) December 2011
HEALING SONGS AT THE NORTH POLE
Canadian Musical Artist First To Perform At the North Pole to Help Raise Awareness of the Melting Polar Ice
By Parvati Devi
ONE WITH THE SKY: THE ANGELS ARE WITH US
I peel back the curtains of the arctic co-op window in Resolute Bay, Canada, to see light not yet breaking amidst blowing snow and overcast skies. Already traveling for days, covering over 2500 miles, today we travel another 500 miles by air to the North Pole where I will perform my songs to help raise awareness of the melting polar ice. I feel connected to warrior-like steadiness, ready to meet whatever this day brings.
The government warned us about going to the North Pole at this time. The ice is too thin. The Inuit hunters told us about the two layers of ice, a seasonal top layer and a bottom layer called, in Inuktitut, “the ice that never melts”. That deeper layer is now gone. As our pollution is carried by ocean currents and tragically collects at the top of the world, so too, our psychic pollution gathers. There we will offer songs and prayers to ease the suffering our planet endures due to our human ignorance.
With the milder weather, visibility is an issue and planes are crashing. My partner Rishi contacts the airport for today’s forecast. The weathermen are surprised with what they see: low visibility everywhere except the small stretch where we plan to land. I share a smile with my friend Sunanda and Rishi. We know this is grace. At the airport, in the twilight of dawn amidst snow flurries and 5º F icy winds, a tiny plane awaits our arrival. The cabin is 18 feet long and four feet wide, mostly occupied by large, rusty metal barrels, our journey’s fuel.
With deafening engine noise, the body of the plane shakes as we rise. Inside this small cabin, I feel an intimacy with the sky, physically connected to the air. Aware of the dangers of this trip, we quietly focus on the purity of our intention. We pull out our mantra books and recite the thousand names of Devi, an ancient Sanskrit prayer to the Divine Mother.
Though the land looks pure, white and untouched, I sense interference. It’s in our cities, weather patterns changing, extreme heat, extreme cold. It’s in people’s faces, the stress, the fear, the disconnection. Here too, it’s in nature, the agitation, the weight of the collective consciousness at this time. The Earth is burdened. May these prayers serve. May these actions inspire. May all beings be free…
Midday, we land to refuel in the weather station Eureka, population seven, then back in the air, two more hours until we reach the top of the world. Rolling and plunging icy fiords with rock as black as night and sparkling white snow as pure as crystal stretch out below us. We pass over a steel-blue-grey, frozen ocean with broken sheets of white ice. The open water looks as black as the mountainsides, deep and menacing. I notice a shimmer in the sky. A dancing ray has been following us. Sharp golden beams pierce the sky, then grow into fiery intensity. I feel escorted by angels.
Anticipating our landing, Sunanda and I get out hairpins, makeup, the costume and wig. I transform into Natamba, the Cosmic Intelligence Goddess in my show. Once on the ground, the pilots tell us we have three hours if we are to make it back with enough gas and avoid turns in the unpredictable, arctic weather. There is no time to lose.
AT THE NORTH POLE: NOT ALL THAT SHIMMERS IS GOLD
It feels as though we have arrived on the moon.  It is unseasonably warm at -15º F. The plane seems even tinier on the vast field of pure, untouched ice and snow that extends as far as I can see over the frozen ocean upon which we stand. The pale blue, expansive sky blends with the pale blue tinge of the snow, giving the impression of otherworldly groundlessness and infinite reach in all directions.
In the distance, we see the location for the performance: a gorgeous spread of golden light. We hurry there. After 15-20 minutes trudging through snow and ice as high as our knees, no closer to our light destination, I turn back to see our plane a dot on the horizon. Similar to being in a sandy desert without any points of reference, that which seems close is in fact further than our senses perceive. We are chasing a sparkling, fractal mirage of light. We must stop before we lose light altogether.
Rishi unveils our video camera from beneath its own mini-snowsuit and starts shooting. My face is tight and numb, icicles forming on the strands of hair that escape from my hood. Dressed in gold from head to toe, I position myself on the snowy ice to start my first song of four, when I realize I cannot move my hands. The deep cold has frozen my gloves. I cannot press “play” on the backing tracks on my iPod, buried inside my jacket.
Thinking only of speed of execution, we pull the iPod from inside my snowsuit and I sing. About one minute into the song, the sound dies. In the extreme cold, the batteries have already depleted. Plan B: use the iPad. But it’s back at the plane, a good 30 minute walk away. We have no choice. Sunanda runs to the plane. Rishi looks at me with terror, his face rigid in the harsh cold. His hands are literally beginning to freeze. He tells me he cannot feel them. I rub them briskly and he feel like they are on fire, signs of early frost bite.
Sunanda returns, zips open my snowsuit, pulls out the iPad from her coat, stuffs it inside my costume and pushes the headphones into my ears. I sing and forget it all. With arms open, I feel like I’m embracing the world and all beings on it. This is what I’m here to do. I feel alive, connected. As the last song ends, the iPad dies. Yet again, grace. We pack our gear and walk back to the plane to begin the two hours of healing work we have come to offer the Earth.
HEALING AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD
In this place of vast immensity, surrounded in all directions by miles of pristine, crisp, white snow and ice, I am acutely aware of the magnitude of this moment. Everything lies there within, a place of infinite potentiality, void of all wants, the fulfillment of our deepest love. A speck in this expanse, there is nothing I can do now but bow to the Supreme Consciousness that is beyond comprehension, that permeates all things, that of which we are made.
With monk-like focus, Sunanda chants the thousand names of the Divine Mother as an offering to the Earth, our Mother who sustains us. Cradled by the penetrative Sanskrit sounds, I dive into meditation. My body a conduit between the Earth and the unseen, an alchemical process unfolds within the next two hours. I witness energies shift, clear, reveal and disappear; a clearing of the space opening to benevolent Cosmic Intelligence to support healing for the Planet Earth. We are not alone. May all be free from suffering…
— The pilots summon my attention. We must begin our journey back.
I feel elated. Outside the airplane window, Nature is shining. As the sun sinks behind the British Empire mountain range over Ellesmere Island, the world feels brighter, more expansive. An otherworldly, rainbow light fills the sky. This trip is Grace, orchestrated from far beyond, so much bigger than us all.