How are you supposed to feel when someone who helped in your healing dies?

(honoring Sarah Bisceglie and resources for all of us below)

“Sarah was an artist, a healer and a passionate visionary with a massive heart of gold.” Maha Rose

I was doing my annual or semiannually Google, adding additional ways to take care of myself.

I have promised myself that once a month, I will do body work, a sauna, or both, at the very least. I also know the power of acupuncture and reiki has played a role in my life in the past. 

I googled Sarah again to see what her current offerings were. At first, there were some offerings and websites, and then I found a podcast honoring her memory. 
She had passed away. 
And she took her life. 
I wasn’t sure how to process this. 
It felt like being in a new place I had never been before. 
The maps and tools and everything that came before couldn’t be the guides in the same way. And I have lived in grief. 
I was silent. I didn’t tell anyone. I am still internally processing it.  
Writing this is the first time that these words live outside of me. 

I met Sarah or re-met in the early stages of the pandemic-- not leaving the house seeing people stage. We connected through the Assembly a coworking and healing space for women. It is hard to know if we ever meet in real life because pre 2020 is pretty fuzzy and in community like that you meet a lot of people. 

She offered reiki from afar.
Sarah brought me consistent peace and healing during a time of great uncertainty. 
Her voice was calm and unique- I can still hear her laugh replaying in my head. 
I can still see her smile. 
She held levity and strength and wisdom.
There is power in someone saying words you need outside yourself out loud.
There is power in someone creating a container so you can fill it. 
She felt all knowing and very human all in one. 
And she was. 

I had written her to continue our work together—

“All the sessions we had were so helpful and restorative and helped me really turn in and trust.”

She returned with—

“I loved our sessions together and would of course love to work with you again! Belly is growing but doing sessions/teaching is one of my great joys during this time as it keeps me connected above and below :)”

Our last call/session she was very, very pregnant and later. 

“I had my sweet baby! Life is wild and exhausting!”

Her last email to me read:

 “That’s so beautiful! Nothing better than a sleeping babe in your arms.”

 My last email I wrote her much later --she never wrote me back. 

The binaries we live in mental health are not working. 
I repeat not working. 
We are losing people. 
In the “you are either sick or well.”
In the “any form suicidal ideation is something you will never ever feel or should not feel and if you do, please avoid it.” 
In the “anxiety and depression not being normal functions of being a human v. the pathology to get rid of them.”

We are living during one of the most anxious and depressive times. 
This is not rooted in individuals but the collective failures of our society. 
We are a reflection of the chaos around us and the genes of trauma that live inside of us. 
We are talking more and yet stigma still exists.
We are talking more and yet still losing people. 
Including our healers. 
Healers hold more than most. 
Burdens we might never understand holding the secrets of the collective. 

I have known for a long time--we need more understanding in mental health and better treatment. If you have a mentally ill parent – you know the realities of what lack of treatment and lack of research (3% of medical research) and how access to proper and appropriate care can play out. And in even in 2024-- the medications that are supposed to be catch alls instead of directly addressing the challenges we face. I hope we do not accept this as the best we can do. 

In honor of Sarah- I am sharing the podcast honoring her life and art show they had to honor her memory and her work below. 
As well as resources for you. 
For me. 
A reminder.

The healing she brought to me and so many others will live forever. 
And I hope she is known for the light she shined while here. 
I hope her child one day will read and hear stories of this and they will know this in the depths of themselves that lived inside of her. 
Surviving the bounds of this earth and this time. 
And a mother's love is forever. 

And for all of us something we know but is worth saying and writing again healers and helpers need more than we might ever know.

Sarah describing herself—

Sculptor, painter, amateur video artist, writer and thinker.

Wanted to be a diplomat, but couldn't get existence out of my mind, so I became an artist. Now I am permanently happy.

Ideas I obsess over: phenomenology, aura, essence of matter, wildness, chaos, entropy, organization, meaning, consciousness, madness, love.

I love real books, real people, chocolate, forests, mountains, and carrot juice, and old blues music. Dostoevsky and Krzysztof Kozłowski keep me awake at night. In a good way.

I love real people too, Sarah. Thank you for being here and helping as long as you could. 

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Podcasts + Art Show + Some of her Writing

324 Remembering Sarah Bisceglie, Music of The Goddess Party, New Moon Vibes – i want what SHE has

Remembering Sarah, Music of The Goddess Party, New Moon Vibes - Radio Kingston, | Radio Kingston | Radio Kingston

Sarah Bisceglie, Inner Worlds- The Stable Art Gallery

Bonny Lundy | It's happening Sarah Bisceglie (1988-2023). Stable Gallery near Woodstock NY. May 4&5 May 11,12. Oil paintings from her years Upstate… | Instagram

Sarah's Medium

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Please stay longer. Please stay longer. Please stay longer. 

Resources below: Hotlines for emergencies, for ongoing support, support groups (including teen and young adult) and ways to support your friends and family.

NAMI HelpLine | NAMI Teen & Young Adult HelpLine | NAMI

Mental Health Guide for Youth - NAMI California

For Friends and Family - NAMI California Suicide Prevention and Resources | California Mental Health Resources

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline | SAMHSA