2025-03-26: Gates of Heaven
GATES OF HEAVEN | How NOT to go through them
Using your free will to keep doing God’s work
Listen to an audio of this blog post below and / or continue on to read.
The fires in Los Angeles, CA began on the same day my mother started immunosuppressive therapy for her Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, a slow growing blood cancer. Getting accepted into a clinical trial to start treatment earlier than usual, she anticipated a year long journey back and forth to the infusion center receiving an intravenous drip of a highly potent, targeted drug followed by a pill that would hopefully bring her cancer levels down to basically nothing. It wouldn’t eradicate it, but the levels would be undetectable by the time treatments ended putting her in remission for roughly six to seven years.
Both having healthcare backgrounds, my brother and I had to remind ourselves that it came down to supporting the patient, our mother, in what she felt was right for her and what she believed would work even if we thought otherwise. Taking a similar approach of supporting my mother with where she was at, my father looked at both eastern and western medicine treatments regarding my mother’s cancer to understand different options forward. After we discussed as a family all known possibilities, he left it up to her to decide.
What occurred inside my mother’s body starting on Tuesday, January 7th, 2025 mirrored on a micro level the apocalyptic scene that occurred on a macro level in Los Angeles (LA). The explosive inflammatory response from the initial two treatments burned tens of thousands of cancer cells just like how the fire burned tens of thousands of acres of land. Both lasting roughly a month, the adverse reactions from these events would bring both parties, my mother and the residents of LA who were affected by the fires, to their knees. My mother begging God at the black iron Gates of Heaven for her life during a near death experience (NDE) and the LA residents begging friends and family for a roof to cover their heads.
The debris clean up from these two events would be unlike any other. The hazardous waste materials from all the drugs pumped into my mother’s body and the ones intermixed within the ashes and debris of burned homes and structures needed to be carefully removed to prevent overload of the body’s detoxification system. Not only from the physical elements, but the emotional and spiritual response as well. In the meantime, prevention of further issues such as potential infections and fear of adverse reactions for my mother or mudslides and severe depression for the fire victims rose high on their priority lists.
Art therapy, including gardening, dancing and painting proved to be helpful for my mother during her healing.
GARDENING THERAPY
A normally vibrant fuchsia flowering plant with lengthy stems, Rock Purslane had been blooming around my parent’s yard for the first couple years after they moved in and had the landscaping completed. After my mother’s diagnosis, we noticed its slow decay as the leaves shriveled up and the beautiful flowers no longer bloomed. As we made our way outside to get my mother fresh air during her recovery phase, I’d don my gardening gloves while my mother, using all her strength, sat in a patio chair with her walker in front of her, head slouched down, eyes barely open. I’d pretty easily pull out each one of these dead plants from the soil as we repeated the affirmation, “Bye bye cancer,” with each successful yank. Visualizing every one of these plants as the cancer cells that were leaving her body, my mother’s words came out with a soft whisper and mine as a strong cheer trying to instill in her the energy she needed to heal.
DANCE THERAPY
Feeling the power of this visualization and affirmation technique, we developed this further when I got an opportunity to choreograph a dance routine live during one of my classes at school. I told my mother the theme for my dance was human imperfections. At the end of the piece, each dancer would go up and voice words that filled in the phrase “I release (blank) and become (blank)”. Since her risk for infections remained high, my mother stayed home, but I recorded her voice saying, “I release cancer and become healed”(listen below). Playing this recording for her during my open choreography session, it again helped my mother feel the healing power of the arts as she watched the recording back afterwards.
ART THERAPY
Now it was time to incorporate my mother’s experiences by creating a piece of mixed media artwork called “Release” that perfectly summarized the previous events in a visual form. Taking a few stems from the withdrawn Rock Purslane, I made shadows on a wood panel that were outlined and carved. Already part of the wood, what looked like the thin line of smoke from a blown out flame streaked through the center and became the backdrop for my mother’s affirmation “I release cancer and become healed”.
PLANETARY PARADE
Interestingly, on a larger scale, seven of the eight planets within our solar system aligned in a “planetary parade” during this time. This meant multiple planets appeared in the same part of the sky, often along the ecliptic, which is the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the sun. Mercury was the only planet to not take part in this parade, but everybody else joined. Visible to the human eye, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn lined up while Uranus and Neptune followed suit and could be seen by binoculars or telescopes. This occurrence caused a magnetic shift that attracted elements back into alignment. My mother, slowly transitioning back into a state of health and the LA fire victims into new locations in life. Both hopefully bringing a shift in the direction of fulfilling their life purpose. Therefore, in my mother’s artwork a sphere symbolizing these planets made its way in the center with the petals of a sunflower blooming around it to illustrate new growth.
“I’m not ready yet. I can do a lot of good in the world. I can cook for people.”
My mother always had such a strong will and this message she wordlessly delivered to the Supreme Being who had arms stretched wide open above the Gates of Heaven ready to receive my mother back home during her NDE, brought my mother back to this Earthly physical plane eager to perform her service. She lay alone on a gurney in the Emergency Room during this experience waiting for a hospital bed post swelling of her airway due to a rash from the toxins trying to escape her body through her skin that left her almost intubated and sedated. Our family sensed the awe in her voice the following morning when we heard about this experience as she described the thin metal rods on each periphery of the gates that moved into larger rods that made its way to the center arching upwards towards a central peak where the Supreme Being presented on a different plane than where my mother stood. Unable to fully comprehend in a piece of artwork what this visually looked like for her, an embroidery string showing thin and thicker lines seemed to be the simplest, most efficient way to go. This same string holding up a black cloth tied only by a bow in the back showed how the act of releasing this cloth that represented her cancer could be the mental power my brother and I hoped she would develop from the beginning to help heal herself.
WHAT DID I LEARN?
I learned through this experience to let the Greater Plan be the highest good for all as I myself had a discussion with this Supreme Being before my father and I left my mother in the ER room to get some needed sleep. Holding her left hand quietly chanting, I delivered my own thoughts through the melody, “If it’s her time, take her. I let my mother go for You know what’s best for her.” This realigned me to my own purpose in life to be a channel for God’s divine healing to move through if He knows it’s what’s best for the individual. Being ready to accept my mother back home, He couldn’t resist my mother’s free will to keep doing her service here on Earth. For all the fire victims in LA, may you see the hand of God stretched out ready to help you as you use your free will to keep going, find a greater purpose in life and realign yourself to the Greater Plan through this horrific tragedy.
Written in morse code on this artwork, the word love reminds us all of the attractive force that is pulling and aligning us back to our true self and the work we’re meant to accomplish in this lifetime.
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NOTE: “Release” artwork is being shown during the FLORA art exhibit at the Coastline Art Gallery in Newport Beach, CA from April 9th-25th, 2025.
Thank you for sharing a shining sample of your creativity, determination, and your love for your family.
It's a beautiful multifaceted artwork and its beauty is revealed, layer by layer, by the engaging story.
The parallels drawn between the LA fires and the crisis your mother and the rest of your family underwent, all happening at the same time, touched my heart and kept me riveted to the screen till the very last word.
May God's blessings be with you and your family.
- S.R. India