Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Afanasiv walked the three ancients out while she watched through the open sliding door. She gathered her tarot cards and shuffled them before pulling one card from the deck. The world. She watched her lifemate grasp the arms of each one of his friends as he told them to stay in the light and thanked them for their aid.
He returned to her, and she settled, realizing a part of her was afraid he would leave to help his friends find their lifemates. She was needed where she was. She couldn’t leave Sorina alone to hold the gate. Lilith would gather her forces and try to create portals. She would need to fight demons and close each portal as it was found. She was very aware she had to be with Afanasiv. She didn’t want to be apart from him.
He leaned down and brushed a kiss on the top of her head. “What does that card mean, my lady?” He indicated the world.
She touched the card with her finger and looked up at him, knowing love was shining in her eyes. “Harmony. Completion. A sense of belonging. That was something I never quite felt before. I feel I’ve found that with you.”
Afanasiv reached for her, pulled her out of her chair and into his arms. “And I with you.”
APPENDIX 1
CARPATHIAN HEALING CHANTS
To rightly understand Carpathian healing chants, background is required in several areas:
The Carpathian view on healing
The Lesser Healing Chant of the Carpathians
The Great Healing Chant of the Carpathians
Carpathian musical aesthetics
Lullaby
Song to Heal the Earth
Carpathian chanting technique
1. THE CARPATHIAN VIEW ON HEALING
The Carpathians are a nomadic people whose geographic origins can be traced at least as far as the Southern Ural Mountains (near the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan), on the border between Europe and Asia. (For this reason, modern-day linguists call their language “proto-Uralic,” without knowing that this is the language of the Carpathians.) Unlike most nomadic peoples, the Carpathians did not wander due to the need to find new grazing lands as the seasons and climate shifted, or to search for better trade. Instead, the Carpathians’ movements were driven by a great purpose: to find a land that would have the right earth, a soil with the kind of richness that would greatly enhance their rejuvenative powers.
Over the centuries, they migrated westward (some six thousand years ago), until they at last found their perfect homeland—their susu—in the Carpathian Mountains, whose long arc cradled the lush plains of the kingdom of Hungary. (The kingdom of Hungary flourished for over a millennium—making Hungarian the dominant language of the Carpathian Basin—until the kingdom’s lands were split among several countries after World War I: Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia and modern Hungary.)
Other peoples from the Southern Urals (who shared the Carpathian language but were not Carpathians) migrated in different directions. Some ended up in Finland, which explains why the modern Hungarian and Finnish languages are among the contemporary descendants of the ancient Carpathian language. Even though they are tied forever to their chosen Carpathian homeland, the Carpathians continue to wander as they search the world for the answers that will enable them to bear and raise their offspring without difficulty.
Because of their geographic origins, the Carpathian views on healing share much with the larger Eurasian shamanistic tradition. Probably the closest modern representative of that tradition is based in Tuva (and is referred to as “Tuvinian Shamanism”)—see the map on the previous page.
The Eurasian shamanistic tradition—from the Carpathians to the Siberian shamans—held that illness originated in the human soul, and only later manifested as various physical conditions. Therefore, shamanistic healing, while not neglecting the body, focused on the soul and its healing. The most profound illnesses were understood to be caused by “soul departure,” where all or some part of the sick person’s soul has wandered away from the body (into the nether realms) or has been captured or possessed by an evil spirit, or both.
The Carpathians belong to this greater Eurasian shamanistic tradition and share its viewpoints. While the Carpathians themselves did not succumb to illness, Carpathian healers understood that the most profound wounds were also accompanied by a similar “soul departure.”
Upon reaching the diagnosis of “soul departure,” the healer-shaman is then required to make a spiritual journey into the netherworld to recover the soul. The shaman may have to overcome tremendous challenges along the way, particularly fighting the demon or vampire who has possessed his friend’s soul.
“Soul departure” doesn’t require a person to be unconscious (although that certainly can be the case as well). It was understood that a person could still appear to be conscious, even talk and interact with others, and yet be missing a part of their soul. The experienced healer or shaman would instantly see the problem nonetheless, in subtle signs that others might miss: the person’s attention wandering every now and then, a lessening in their enthusiasm about life, chronic depression, a diminishment in the brightness of their “aura” and the like.