Beloved Shantiji, Deeneshji, Banu, Shabda, and all other family members and friends,
        Thank you for our precious time together. thank you for being so vulnerable with me and sharing the truth of the pain in your heart. thank you for trusting me enough for sharing your tears at all hours when they felt endless.
     Thank you for sharing your home and family, thank you for asking me to be a big sister to your sweet son Banu and whatch over him, you must have known when you tried to give me your beautiful jewelry as you said only a mother would, saying it will soon mean nothing. I could not except the jewels trying to encourage you to where them at your next concert at the Dharga.
    You were so special in the way you told things, telling me amazing old stories of Deva Dassis, incredible woman artists, musicians and dancers, given to the Hindu Temples to serve God, we both reveled in awe at such devotion. The first time you brought me to the Dharga and we layed our heads together, alone steeped in the scent of roses, on Hazrat Inayat Khan's resting place, we went into deep silence.
      Thank you for braiding my hair with a chulita in the car on the way to Jaipoor, enjoying wonderful convertions interspersed with singing along to Raga. Walking around holding me close and protecing me as you put it, from the men's stares, I was mostly oblivious too, enjoying the closeness and the smells of Rajastan. you said you did the same to your beautiful Tanu. Riding elephants together, you and Deenshji looked like a king and queen, a Raj and his Maharani in the sunset at Ajmir Mehal, even though you were scared on the ride.
   Thank you for taking kava kava extract with m, a relaxing root tincture and gigling about the silver shopping you'd done in the morning for your lovely sister, showing me the beautiful piece you had recieved, we both marveled, i loved seeing you like that, relaxed, enjoying and laughing.
     Thank you for encouraging me with music and sending me to so many amazing and long concerts.Thank you for letting me absorb and sit in your classes at the Kendra. thank you for helping me to stay there and assuring me that i would be ok there, and enjoy the other students which i did. thank you for believing in me as a musician.
    Thank you for being passionate about beauty and sharing with me so many parts about being a beautiful woman in this world.
     I'm so glad you got to hear Banu and I sing together in your music room, as we sang harmonies to the Deva Dassi Dervish! I will do my best by him, he is so precious you did a wonderful job being his mother. Shabda made a beautiful site about you and he asked me to pass it along to him. I did. you were so loving in your vulnerbility, I will forever cheerish that.
Your beauty stunned me, you said it was mutual, but i hold your reverence and didication to music very close to my heart. Tonight a small group of us sang,.... Isk Allah ma bud Leila.....for you spontaneously, and i sang allop Allah with you, then burst into tears the way i did when i wrote your song in India.
    I will sing your song the rest of my life, and share it with others as the message is your gift to us all.
       Salt Water Mournings

      God loves your tears
      Golden honey pearls
      Bathing our magnifecense
      In salty tender waters
                  - for beloved Shantaji, from Ashana and God
      When women burn
      From zeal of frenzied passion,
      Even great Brahma
      Fears to bar the way.
                   -Bharthihari poems
I will always treasure the emmense deepening you gifted me
Thank you beloved Shabdabai as she would say, for encouraging me to walk the sufi path, with my heart wide open, and life as my Guru,
you are the light for us both in troubled, rich, and beautiful times. Blessings on your way through, may your soul find Shanti, peace, love and rest in radiance. love forever, Ashana