Saving Janavi

❀SAVING JANAVI❀

❥ Please help us find 350 people able to give $100, so that we can reach our goal ❥

I am taking care of my sister Janavi who has been ill and in terrible pain for 6 years. She has been diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, Cachexia (wasting), and Abdominal Adhesions which we think are actually systemic. During much of her illness she weighed under 100 pounds. Now she is getting worse. Because of the intensity of her pain, she shakes badly and can barely eat even when she is very hungry. She weighs 93 pounds. I am afraid that she is going to die.

♥︎paypal.me/pools/c/87lRidKXWt

Janavi has no pain relief because she gets dangerous reactions to most pain meds. She is still looking for a solution. She has never given up. She wants so badly to just have a normal life and do things for herself. Except for going to the Emergency Room, she hasn’t been outside for over a year.

My goal:

❥ We want to find ways to substantially reduce Janavi’s pain. Janavi and I have worked hard to make her life bearable. But her symptoms are racing ahead of us. She is rapidly getting worse and we need to find more help as fast as possible.

❥ We want to start a CrowdMed account for her. CrowdMed uses crowd sourcing to help diagnose and cure patients who can’t afford a team of specialists. Since Janavi’s situation is becoming increasingly desperate I want to sign her up for their top-level plan. This will cost $2,996 for four months.
❥ We believe she absolutely has to get some serious genetic testing.

She is struggling with her current expenses.

♥︎paypal.me/pools/c/87lRidKXWt

The major expenses, which we can’t afford anymore, are Janavi’s mounting home-care expenses and uncovered medical expenses. Almost all of her medications are not covered by Medicaid. She has been declared disabled by the government but can’t get help with long term care from Medicaid, basically because she is not living on the street. She can only walk short distances and can only stand up for 30 seconds at a stretch.

♥︎ Please help. Please give as much as you can and help us find 350 to give $100. ♥︎

♥︎paypal.me/pools/c/87lRidKXWt

I love my beautiful little sister. I want her to get her life back so badly. Please help me save her.

Best Wishes,

Sue Held

30336320_1528488374813225_r — Janavi weighing 91 pounds

❥Our God-mother wrote this about Janavi

♥︎paypal.me/pools/c/87lRidKXWt

A graduate of Goddard College, where she studied poetry, photography and media, Janavi Held was an up-and-coming writer and photographer when she was stricken at age 46 with an illness that now, six years later, is still debilitating her so that she cannot walk up or down stairs without help, she can only walk short distances around the house, and can only stand up for less than a minute at a time, and can’t sit in a car, or cook. She made the usual traditional medical rounds, tests, consultations and treatments, plus sessions with a myriad of healers and herbal remedies, but to no avail. Her condition has been labeled Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and Internal Adhesions, but nothing has been able to ease her constant pain or progressive weakness.

Last fall her condition worsened, the pain increased and her weight plummeted to 95 pounds. After an ambulance ride to the hospital, a forty-eight hour stay and a whole battery of tests, she left the hospital in worse pain; they could do nothing for her.

Two and a half ago her sister Sue took Janavi her into her home in Colorado and set up a bedroom for her. Sue works full time but devotes much of her time to Janavi’s care. Because of Janavi’s worsening condition (she can barely walk at all, is in constant pain, and using her arms has become very painful as well), they have been forced to pay a home care agency to take care of Janavi and support Sue with other household tasks. In order to pay for home care and cover incidental expenses, as well as uncovered medical expenses, they need at least $15,000 a year. Sue’s salary cannot cover this additional cost. The only coverage Janavi has is Medicaid.

Janavi is such a talented, spiritual soul. During these years of her illness, Janavi took refuge in her practice of Bhakti yoga which she had embarked on when she was nineteen. Her faith and persistence enabled her to write Letters to My Oldest Friend, a book of poetry and photography. This book of poems and photography that she produced in the years since her disease struck are so beautiful. In 2017, two of her poems were shortlisted for the prestigious Hamilton House International Poetry Prize and where included in a book entitled Eternity.

Now, she can barely type or read because of the persistent pain. These sisters, whose parents are gone, need help in order to survive.

Janavi refers to me as “her fairy godmother.” I wish I had the power to disappear her pain.

~ Marcia Newfield

♥︎paypal.me/pools/c/87lRidKXWt

A message from Janavi

https://womenspiritualpoetry.blogspot.com/2018/06/i-am-still-here-by-janavi-held.html

~More of Janavi’s art and writing~

https://www.facebook.com/LetterstoMyOldestFriendbyJanaviHeld/
https://letterstomyoldestfriend.com
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17044508.Janavi_Held
https://www.youtube.com/user/janavi108/featured
https://theunattachedair.wordpress.com

https://www.instagram.com/janavi108/
https://twitter.com/Janavi108
https://www.gofundme.com/saving-janavi

https://womenspiritualpoetry.blogspot.com/search?q=Janavi

Link to her book on amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Oldest-Friend-Janavi-Held/dp/0986240338

♥︎Amazon author profile♥︎

https://www.amazon.com/Janavi-Held/e/B074CMRWB6/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

❥ Please help us find 350 people able to give $100, so that we can reach our goal ❥

paypal.me/pools/c/87lRidKXWt

❥Thank you friends❥

Two Poems for Autumn by Janavi Held

September 6, 2018September 6, 2018 by Letters

I’m Still Here

EDITOR’S NOTE:

(re-posted from: https://womenspiritualpoetry.blogspot.com/2018/06/i-am-still-here-by-janavi-held.html)

This was composed by a very gifted and beautiful soul: a regular contributor to our poetry project, and dear friend of mine, Janavi Held, whose life is gradually being taken from us by an incurable illness. She has been suffering from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and Internal Adhesions for six painful years now, and neither her insurance nor the government healthcare will help her. She reaches out to us, her sisters, as a last plea. This is a poem she wrote yesterday on her birthday, in which she offers us the gift of her friendship. May it touch your generous hearts and inspire you to reach out to her in her plight.

Dear Friends,

The last time I was able to leave the house was by ambulance on my way to the hospital. After many long hours in the emergency room I was admitted and taken upstairs. After everyone left I sat on the hospital bed, knees to chest, bracing my body against the pain and trembling.

The light of this cold day was fading. I turned my eyes to the large window, a window I hadn’t seen before, as it seems I’ve been looking out the same window for years; at the same trees and sky and flowers, the seasons changing and rolling by, folding into each other. But, this evening as I gazed out this new window I tried to look beyond the gray of the hospital roof in front of me, I looked as far as I could see out at a bit of sky and the dimming, blue, winter light. In the distance the I saw the ever-faithful view of the Rocky Mountains also dressed in blue sparkling lights, and white sparks of snow and ice glimmered in the the fading light. Now –in this quiet moment– wet, warm tears rolled down my face as I remembered a line from a poem a by a dear friend:

“Unveil yourself of your flesh shield/and let your spirit out into the dance.”

I cast my glance into the wind, chasing after it, and the beauty of the fading light, as I felt the dingy walls of the hospital collapse. And for a moment I was free. Weeping sweet tears I feel asleep.

When I was nineteen and took up the practice of Bhakti-Yoga, I was told by a dear friend that in ancient Vedic times gifts where given to others’ on one’s birthday. So, today I give you the gift of a poem about friendship.

I AM STILL HERE

Life speaks in turns

and listens

love comes out of season

even unbidden

and I find in you

a love that stays

long after

the light has gone away

and flowers have closed

their precious eyes

I am still here alive

listening to the sounds

and sometimes the cries

and visions of your life

you’ve shared

with me they drench

my eyes

with your sweet smile

in you I see the heart of

mother earth

as you have loved her

from your birth

she sings through your eyes

and dances in your heart

as you write and paint and

dance your life into art

to you my friend I lend my heart

for life

for I treasure Yours

and keep her safe

where time does not decay

and love never falls away.

(I wish I could write more, but I can’t type well anymore; these words were dictated).

My Sister Sue, my God-mother, Marcia, and my cousin Erica, have started a fundraiser. If you are inclined please share the link widely, we are dependent on all of you to spread it around, as our resources are limited. Click this link to help. We would be most grateful.

Wishing you all peace & much love

~Janavi Held

Janavi Held started writing poetry and wandering around with her father’s camera as a child. At the age of nineteen, she began practicing Bhakti yoga. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Goddard College where she studied poetry, photography, and media studies. She is author of Letters to my Oldest Friend: A Book of Poetry and Photography and in 2017 two of hers poems were shortlisted for the prestigious Hamilton House International Poetry prize and were included in a book titled Eternity. Her poetry also appears in several anthologies that emerged from the Journey of the Heart Poetry Project, to which she has been a regular contributor, and is featured in the Bhakti Blossoms anthology on poetry by contemporary women in the Bhakti tradition.

*For submission guidelines, click here.*

June 4, 2018July 6, 2018 by Letters

Book Trailer for Letters to My oldest Friend

May 20, 2017May 27, 2017 by Letters

In Praise of “Letters to My Oldest Friend”

Like many God-inspired poets of India’s Bhakti or devotional past (Mirabai and Chandidas come easily to mind), Janavi Held–writer, photographer, cineaste, observer of small miracles—chronicles the arrhythmia of a heart in love with Divinity. Letters to My Oldest Friend is a revelation. In elegant, spare verse and contemplative visual imagery, she gently cautions that we are victims of speeding postmodernism at risk of losing our souls, and that we will find the tools of our salvation in the quiet, unassuming details of everyday life. Here is a much needed roadmap to our inner geography, chartered by a gifted voice of conscience and our own better selves. Read, look, savor, and be inspired.

Joshua M. Greene
author, Swami in a Strange Land

May 19, 2017May 27, 2017 by Letters

In the end there is one dance you’ll do alone…..

in the end there is one dance you_ll do alone

For a Dancer ( by Jackson Browne)

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialJacksonBrowne/

https://www.gofundme.com/saving-janavi

paypal.me/pools/c/87lRidKXWt

August 25, 2018August 30, 2018 by Letters

Book Giveaway

❣️BOOK GIVE AWAY!!!❣️

❣️Dear Friends, We are giving away a hardcover copy of Janavi’s beautiful book of poetry and photography to draw attention to the fundraiser. She is seriously ill and needs your help. To enter please give a donation of any amount or if you are unable, please share this post with as many friends as you can.

https://www.gofundme.com/saving-janavi

❣️After you’ve donated or shared please click this link to enter. You’ll be asked to watch a book trailer with a review by Catherine Schweig and poem read by Janavi Held

https://www.amazon.com/ga/p/d87d82713d695b19…

Thank you friends❣️ We are grateful for your help

June 13, 2018July 6, 2018 by Letters

Saving Janavi

https://www.gofundme.com/saving-janavi

I am taking care of my sister Janavi who has been ill and in terrible pain for 6 years. Her condition has been diagnosed as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and Internal Adhesions. When she came to live with me two years ago she weighed 97 pounds. We improved her diet and her weight peaked at 115 pounds. But she has gotten worse and now she shakes so badly that she can barely eat even though she is hungry. She weighs 93 pounds. No one has been able to help her, and I’m afraid that she is going to die.

Janavi has no pain relief because she gets dangerous reactions to most pain meds. She is still looking for a solution. She’s never given up. She wants so badly to just have a normal life and do things for herself. She hasn’t been outside for over a year, except for two ambulance rides to the hospital.

The main purpose of this fundraiser is to find ways to substantially reduce Janavi’s pain. Most of the things we have to try are not covered by Medicaid. But we need to move forward because her symptoms are getting worse. She needs to see a practitioner who does not take her insurance. She wants to rent a Bemer machine to see if it will help (this technology was highly recommend by a close friend who is a doctor). And if it really helps, I want to actually buy one for her. I’d like to connect her with a group that tries to solve medical mysteries. And I’d also like her to get genetic testing.

A secondary purpose is help with her ongoing expenses. She is disabled and can’t cook for herself at all. She needs home care but Medicaid will not pay for it because she is not completely helpless. Janavi tries very hard to do things for herself even though it is very painful for her so I don’t know if Medicaid will ever pay for her home care.

https://www.gofundme.com/saving-janavi

This is a photo I took of her two years ago

This is Janavi currently, weighing 93 pounds.

I love my beautiful little sister. I want her to get her life back so badly. Please help me save her.

===https://www.gofundme.com/saving-janavi

Our God-mother wrote this for Janavi last month:

A graduate of Goddard College where she studied poetry, photography and media, Janavi Held was an up-and-coming writer and photographer when she was stricken at age 46 with an illness that now, six years later, is still debilitating her so that she cannot walk up or down stairs without help, she can only walk short distances around the house, and can only stand up for less than a minute at a time, sit in a car, or cook. She made the usual traditional medical rounds, tests, consultations and treatments, plus sessions with a myriad of healers and herbal remedies, but to no avail. Her condition has been labeled Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and Internal Adhesions, but nothing has been able to ease her constant pain or progressive weakness.

Please give what you can share the link widely.

Twenty-six months ago her sister Sue took Janavi her into her home in Colorado and set up a bedroom for her. Sue works full time but devotes much of her time to Janavi’s care. Because of Janavi’s worsening condition (she can barely walk at all, is in constant pain, and using her arms has become very painful as well), they have been forced to pay a home care agency to take care of Janavi and support Sue with other household tasks. In order to pay for home care and cover incidental expenses, as well as uncovered medical expenses, they need at least $15,000 a year. Sue’s salary cannot cover this additional cost. The only coverage Janavi has is Medicaid.

Now, she can barely type or read because of the persistent pain. These sisters, whose parents are gone, need help in order to survive.

Janavi refers to me as “her fairy godmother.” Oh how I wish I had the power to disappear her pain. ~ Marcia Newfield

June 4, 2018June 8, 2018 by Letters

Broken

Too fragile
for animation,
sentience,
breathing.

Inside walls
of bones
everything shatters,
infinitely.

A discovery of old roots
traps my present tense heart
which weighs a burden of foul words.

It has known too much-
it breaks at night
and smiles brashly
to the daylight
not showing its broken curves.

And that scale, sinking
wants to close
all entries and doors.

April 3, 2018 by Letters

Hammond House’s 2017 INTERNATIONAL LITERARY PRIZE: Both of my entered poems where short listed. The theme of the competition was ETERNAL

Some months ago I entered 2 of my poems into Hammond House’s 2017 INTERNATIONAL LITERARY PRIZE. The theme of the competition was ETERNAL

Both of my poems where short listed. You can pre-order a copy of the anthology created with all the winning and shortlisted poems here:

https://www.hammondhousepublishing.com/2017-competition-results

To see the list of winners

https://www.hammondhousepublishing.com/online-store/ETERNAL-Award-Winning-Poetry-p97059266

For more info in Hammond House:

https://www.facebook.com/hhpublish1/photos/a.153368908418804.1073741828.137216680034027/379352822487077/?type=3&theater

Thank you to Ted Stanley and and all the folks at Hammond House for all they do for the literary Arts.

December 6, 2017 by Letters

Review by Anita Neilson

Letters to My Oldest Friend
by Janavi Held (Goodreads Author)

Anita Neilson‘s review

Nov 04, 2017

This is simply glorious. The words flow gently across the page in a waterfall of despair and hope, grief and faith, pain and joy. Together with beautifully crafted photographs of the natural world, it is a wonderful, precious undertaking. The poems will resonate strongly with anyone afflicted by a chronic illness or spiritual malaise. Quite breathtakingly haunting in their longing for God. The pull between enjoying the delights of this Earth and the soul crying for greater meaning is much in evidence. For example, in the poem “Eternity”, the poet says, “in this world of change I am longing for You yet I am drawn again and again to the shiny fortunes of this shallow world.” This reduced me to tears, so near was it to my experience of life. These are the sweetest, most poetic, most haunting of verses, to be savoured again and again. Buy a copy and keep it close to you, so that each time you feel sorry for yourself, or angry at someone (even God), open it and read a verse or two. Your spirits will be lifted!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2173691357

https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Oldest-Friend-Janavi-Held/dp/0986240338

November 4, 2017November 4, 2017 by Letters

Hide a book day with The Book Fairies!

#Goodreads is celebrating its tenth anniversary and today is #hideabookday! They have gotten together with The Book Fairies, who have been hiding books all over the world! I had my own personal book fairy Karen R Tarnower take two copies of my recently published book of poetry and photography and hide them. I hope they find their way to many poetry lovers!

Here are a few reviews of the book:

In praise of Letters to My Oldest Friend

Like many God-inspired poets of India’s Bhakti or devotional past (Mirabai and Chandidas come easily to mind), Janavi Held—writer, photographer, cineaste, observer of small miracles—chronicles the arrhythmia of a heart in love with Divinity. Letters to My Oldest Friend is a revelation. In elegant, spare verse and contemplative visual imagery, she gently cautions that we are victims of speeding postmodernism at risk of losing our souls, and that we will find the tools of our salvation in the quiet, unassuming details of everyday life. Here is a much needed roadmap to our inner geography, chartered by a gifted voice of conscience and our own better selves. Read, look, savor, and be inspired.

Joshua M. Greene
author, Swami in a Strange Land: How Krishna Came to the West 2016

In her beautiful debut collection of poems, Janavi Held takes us on a journey of awakening, as she explores the ways in which her relationships with struggle, time, nature and beauty in this world, relate to her burgeoning relationship with the divine. From a restless: “there are so many stories in my lost heart” to the epilogue’s triumphant: “the heart speaks softly now,” her poems and photographs artistically chart the course of a soul moving gracefully through existential angst, as revealed to us in this prayerful dialogue with her “oldest friend”.

Catherine Schweig
Founder of Journey of the Heart Poetry Project
Editor of Poetry as a Spiritual Practice (Golden Dragonfly Press, 2016)

“Letters to My Oldest Friend” is a classic spiritual journey, starting with the anguish of her losses – of mobility, of mind (she says, but the poem belies it), “wrapped in a blanket of thorns”, then to the longing for the spirit, the Friend, and finally a joyous reunion with spirit through nature. I read these poems almost with tears. I also thought of how poems like these, especially the opening ones, could create compassion in the reader for all the sick and disabled from whom we tend to avert our gaze. Janavi Held’s language is beautiful and evocative, as when she writes, “remembering is a lost art/in the mind of these misshapen times.” The book is, quite simply, a gem.

Nina Klippel
author,”Tricks of The Light and Other Poems”, 2010
editor, The Village Zendo Bulletin

Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Oldest-Friend-J…/…/0986240338

and Apple iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/…/letters-to-my-olde…/id1273048675…

September 19, 2017September 19, 2017 by Letters

Memory

I’ve walked so far
and gotten nowhere.
I contain endless memories
yet I own nothing.

My heart knows
the falling out
the falling down
the falling away

it remembers breaking
and dreams of ascending
and the endless labors
which daily life is famous for.

Titanic, lying memories
forfeiting time
lay in shards
at my feet.

My eyes clarify
without the nescience
of those terrestrial daydreams
and an ancient aria

I forgot to look for
shouts louder now
from the inside
of my temporary heart.

The ePub of my book is now available:
https://itunes.apple.com/…/letters-to-my-olde…/id1273048675…

Softcover & Hardcover available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Oldest-Friend-J…/…/0986240338

September 16, 2017September 16, 2017 by Letters

“Letters to My Oldest Friend” now available as an ePub

Apple iTunes Store:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/letters-to-my-oldest-friend/id1273048675?mt=11

For Wholesale Inquires, review copies and author interview please contact:

letterstomyoldestfriend@laflor.dk

Watch the book trailer:

September 15, 2017September 19, 2017 by Letters

I wish I had Wings

I wish I had wings
I’d leave this prison
of gravity behind
and go up and up
grazing the tops of
dazzling green trees
swaying in the wind
I’d soar through
the mists of bright clouds
breathing in freedom
and moist particles
of fog and rain
I’d turn my face
to the sun
warm
warming
my insides
breaking the prison
of flesh and bone
wide open
I’d bathe in sweet
moon rays
and drink
the dust of stars
filling my heart
with ancient light
I’d look down
at the swarming
earth, but I’d never
look back.

August 15, 2017August 15, 2017 by Letters

The Land

The land-
she does not
know ownership
nor boundaries
languages
nor skin
moving where she will
inside or out
of our impositions
she takes
the sun
from all corners
and the rain
from all directions.

ice and humming bird

August 15, 2017August 16, 2017 by Letters

Time Unhinged

Video with spoken poetry below

Time Unhinged

Dreamt of exterminated images,
and forgotten doubts,
of unhinged time
with the hollow

of silent bones
thundering
in the wake of restless flowers.
Blinded by

a vigilant morning
I enter the mists of loneliness
seeking laughter and daydreams
(to counter the emptiness)

too long for counting
these days
press down
on my chest

cementing the architecture
of my sad inheritance.
I establish hope
burying her under

the obliging tree
in my back yard.

August 11, 2017August 11, 2017 by Letters

Excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr. Nobel speech

“Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.”

-Martin Luther King Jr. Nobel speech

August 10, 2017August 10, 2017 by Letters

Review of “Letters to My Oldest Friend”

Review of “Letters to My Oldest Friend: a book of poetry and photography by Janavi Held

How many of us have had or taken the chance to dialogue with our soul, our maker, the deep slope of annihilation? Every poem and photograph in “Letters to My Oldest Friend” is such a dialogue. Inspired by her own devastating illness, Janavi Held, long a spiritual devotee, cuts through veils of hope to directly address her God: “the heart inquires–answers blur en route to thoughts.” The intensity of her passionate seeking allows the reader to share the moments of transcendence as well as the pain. Her questions are our answers.

Marcia Newfeild
Poet, teacher, and author of books for children

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2085836692?book_show_action=false

August 9, 2017August 9, 2017 by Letters

Washing windows

Washing windows
must see the air
as it whips through trees
under birds wings.

August 6, 2017 by Letters

It’s raining

It’s raining
I sit where
I love to be
in the half light
melting
into the
starving
earth
leaves glow
mirrors reflect
everything
I think I see.

August 6, 2017August 6, 2017 by Letters

“Letters to My Oldest Friend” is now available on Amazon

Purchase now on Amazon

Reviews

In praise of Letters to My Oldest Friend

Like many God-inspired poets of India’s Bhakti or devotional past (Mirabai and Chandidas come easily to mind), Janavi Held—writer, photographer, cineaste, observer of small miracles—chronicles the arrhythmia of a heart in love with Divinity. Letters to My Oldest Friend is a revelation. In elegant, spare verse and contemplative visual imagery, she gently cautions that we are victims of speeding postmodernism at risk of losing our souls, and that we will find the tools of our salvation in the quiet, unassuming details of everyday life. Here is a much needed roadmap to our inner geography, chartered by a gifted voice of conscience and our own better selves. Read, look, savor, and be inspired.

Joshua M. Greene
author, Swami in a Strange Land: How Krishna Came to the West 2016

Catherine L. Schweig
Founder of Journey of the Heart Poetry Project Editor of Poetry as a Spiritual Practice (Golden Dragonfly Press, 2016)

Nina Mermey Klippel
author,”Tricks of The Light and Other Poems”, 2010
editor, The Village Zendo Bulletin

Book Trailer

August 5, 2017 by Letters

Monsoon Dreams

Bleached and tattered
bark of tree
leaves mired in wild wind
endless sights
of fragrant meadows
transparence filtering
flying pollen
and wet laden clouds
with white
and gray
monsoon dreams
inside atoms
resides the
restless
Master
playing
in a forest
of His
own making.