Anam Cara: A Tribute to 'The Moon'.

On love and grief in honor of my beloved friend, Mina Bast.

Hello loves,

It is with a heavy heart, a song half sung in my throat, and rage in my belly that I set my fingers to these keys today.

Some of you may have heard about the death of Mina Bast. She was an incredible human, a healer, a poet, a lover of life, a trauma-survivor—and my best friend. She was, and is, so much more then and now and forever.

Anam Cara: A friendship that is soulful. Anam means“soul” and cara means “friend” in Gaelic; it translates to a “friendship of soul”—a friendship that spans space and time, and that cannot be diminished by years, miles, or lifetimes between you.

This is the connection I have with the one I call “The Moon”. Friend. Mother. Sister. Daughter. Priestess.

If Mina is my Moon, then I am her Sun. And so we called each other.

We once got complimentary tattoos symbolizing our relationship. Hers, the sun on inside of her left foot. Mine, the moon on left inside of mine. We both have more than a few tattoos, and what I can say for this specific experience: it was awful. The tattoo artist was a “digger”. There was not a moment it didn’t hurt, and yet, we endured for the sake of our “vision”. I think I will next get mine repaired in her honor, for as her flesh has faded from my life—so has the ink on my moon tattoo.

If you know me from my days teaching Matrix Energetics, it is likely that you saw me and Mina together. She traveled with us frequently, was a practitioner of ME, and helped facilitate at seminars. She was part of our inner circle—and our family. At various points  in our lives we lived together as well as traveled. She helped me raise my daughter, and she is my granddaughter’s godmother—fairy godmother now.

Mina was killed tragically, horribly, and suddenly in a vicious dog attack while she was walking on the beach near her home in San Felipe, Mexico. The attack happened a little over a week ago. We–who know her well–and many who were touched by her image, her poetry, and her kindness are still reeling.

Click to watch the news reel.

If this is the first you are hearing of this, and you, too, know her I invite you to take a breath. Pause. Let it wash over you. Let it move through you if you are so moved. Maybe you do not know Mina, but you are reminded of someone from your own life who you have “lost”. She would not want “sorries”, but I am indeed sorry that the world has lost such a person too soon in her life, and at such a time in history when we all could really use a bit more of her honey-sweet “medicine”.

Though in the last few years, Mina and I had drifted a bit, as friends sometimes do, our love for each other spanned this lifetime and beyond, as has been validated by shared friends and visions, and my own “knowing” since the moment I saw her: New Year’s eve of 2006.

She was a vision that stood out in the dark gothic club where we were individually celebrating. I approached her with a sway of hips, and soon after an embrace—gestures of intimacy born of hundreds if not thousands of years of familiarity. I brought her back to my table and listened thoughtfully as she gushed about this healing “system” she had just discovered: Matrix Energetics, and the founder, Richard Bartlett. I smiled slyly as I pulled my own business card from my clutch—a card that then contained the logo for the “system” she was talking about, the “system” of which I was not only a practitioner, but a teacher. Handing my business card to her I sweetly said, “Baby, that’s my dad!” She lit up and told me, “You have his eyes.” And that was our beginning, or at least where we picked up in this lifetime.

Our other lifetimes and emanations of memory include priestesshood, sisterhood, and Gawd knows what else…everyone and everything in between.

Not only were Mina and I dear and close friends—I mothered her.

There was something a bit unformed in Mina when we first met, something childlike and fragile. It is this innocence that people all over the world are attracted to, and as she matured her innocence became a force for good and transformation and the transmutation of trauma. 

Many knew her in this well-formed way in the last few years: those she friended, those she helped, and those she mentored. 

I knew her as my playmate, my closest confidant, and in some ways… my child. 

When I heard of her death something in me cracked, not only my shock…yes, of course. And something else: my Mother Bone.

Rage.

Injustice.

Vengeance.

How dare they!

Grief is a vast “state” that can encompass many feelings.

In the last week since I heard of “The Moon’s” passing, I have wavered between numbness, migraines, anxiety, anger, sadness that could plumb the deepest ocean and still not be quenched—and rage. There have been sweet moments, especially sharing pictures of her and stories with my granddaughter—her goddaughter.

My rage is not “normal” rage at death, but at the horror and evil I feel attached to this event, that being her violent death, the negligence that led to it, and the nefarious energies involved.

Hell hounds took down a goddess.

Make no mistake—this was an attack on the Mother.

Breathe. Take it in if you can. Then expel the rage and injustice, not only for her violation—but for the violation of all innocents.

I have called forth Powers to address this unnatural act—and a sacrifice has been made. As I have stated many times: I am a witch, and I have no compunction calling upon the Unseen to right this unnatural wrong.

If you do not believe evil moves through the world and embodies various opportunities to exact its agendas...okay. But I know what I know and I have "seen" what I have seen, and from the moment I heard of her death I “knew”. I tasted the black juju. I had visceral nightmares of what her body went through. Many have spoken of feeling the “benevolence of her spirit”. I got to witness and “feel” her last moments. Why? Because that is what a mother does for her child. That is what The Mother does for all of us. She witnesses without judging. 

I am not that encompassing. I am judging the shit out of certain people and circumstances at the moment, and I am a-okay with it. I am hurting, tired, and defensive. 

And I know what I know.

What happens when a soul is violently severed from its body’s bond? It is typically confusion and fragmentation. Mina was enough of an adept that this did not happen to her, but there were still fragments of her, energetically, which were attached to the trauma. I could feel it. I could see bits of flesh clinging, as if to a barbed wire fence.

Mina's sudden and violent death ruptured and rippled through the “field”. It was not an act of Gawd. It was evil. If you know her, you may have felt it, without knowing what you felt. This is not to say that her spirit was not freed; it is to address the layers of death and trauma that can follow us even after death.

I knew something was coming when my cat—my familiar—Odin, killed a dove and ate its heart, leaving its body on my doorstep for me to find and preserve in ritual, right before winter Solstice. I took the corpse and filled its chest cavity with pink Himalayan salt, laid it with some trinkets, and burned the rose smudging bundle and rose incense that a dear friend had sent to me the day before.

I knew something was coming—but I would never have guessed this. Not my Moon. 

The other morning, as the sun came up, I saw Mina as many knew her—the closest living being to Quan Yin whom we will ever have the privilege of experiencing in this life in the flesh. I knew the sacrifice that needed to be made: my beloved statuette I have had for many years of that goddess' effigy.

I walked. I lit a candle. I lit the remaining rose incense and smudge bundle. I pulled the dove out; it has been sitting on my porch in a special "coffin" since the day Odin brought it to me.

I smashed Quan Yin...

Her head came off just clean as can be. This says to me the death of my friend was at least quick. I took the head and placed it with the dove. This beautiful being has a need for neither head nor body—she is so much more. 

I smashed it again a couple of times, and a few more chunks of the statuette scattered. I gathered them back up and will plant them when I find the right thing to contain those pieces, and in which to plant my own grief.

I sat in the cold dawning light and felt peace and power vibrate with the change of light. 

I shuddered.

I heard Her—The Mother—and Mina, my beloved Moon, say: "Thank You".

A curious note:

Prior to my ritual several people I spoke to reported dreaming of a “headless figure”. It so happens,

"In the Tantric pantheon, the 6th Great Cosmic Wisdom is Chinnamasta, the goddess who does not have a head.

This identity speaks her ability to rise above the brain and its capacities so that at last, she accomplishes the overjoyed reabsorption in the Supreme Void of the Absolute Divine Consciousness..." read the rest.

If you know Mina, may this bring you an element of comfort. I feel her soul is reflecting, healing, and beaming the love that was so innate to her. Even the dead grieve. If you do not know Mina, then take this peek into my heart, and the way I love—fiercely, protectively, and as nurturing as a mother wolf. 

If you know Mina, feel free to share memories or stories in the comments. If you don’t know Mina, feel free to reflect upon your own benevolent Dead. 

If you are touched or shocked and need support, it will be my pleasure to offer such in the following days as my own grief becomes a bit less sharp and my mental clarity returns. 

Take care of yourself, each other, and treasure the ones you love!

~Justice

Our hands: mine, Destiny’s and Mina’s. Love you forever our beloved Moon.