Dr. Hagihara invited FSS Director for Asia Kevin Turner to accompany her to the hospital to visit Saki on November 4, after completing a Way of the Shaman basic course in Tokyo. Her worried family led them into the hospice room.  

Kevin explains:

"Saki was very weak and only partially conscious when we arrived. She was in a room with several other patients of advanced age, few of whom were expected to survive. I sensed ancestor spirits about, perhaps waiting on her departure. I was inspired to offer a healing to make the eventual transition easier. Saki gave her approval. There, in midst of the doctors, nurses, and other patients, I shook my rattles, sang an invocation song, and performed a gentle extraction. Divining no further course of action, I felt compelled to simply pass healing power to her. An unfamiliar cool and gentle rush of power flowed from behind, through my arms, and into her shoulders. Saki gently swooned into a restful sleep."

Two days later Grandma Saki's relatives telephoned Dr. Hagihara to report that upon awakening the next morning, Saki exploded at a nurse, I'm Ainu and I will not be defeated! Saki then told her family that she had dreamt of her (deceased) husband chanting sutras, and of fighting against the shamo (the Ainu derogatory word for the Japanese). A new specialist doctor arrived shortly later, and found her condition to be completely benign. Saki dramatically improved throughout the day, and was released from the hospital the following day, much to the surprise of all. Grandma Saki has no memory of the healing, nor even of Dr. Hagihara and Kevin visiting, but gave her blessing to report this. Her doctors can only attribute her recovery to initial misdiagnosis.

In March this year, Dr. Hagihara visited Grandma Saki in Hokkaido with an Okinawan medium (kaminchu). The kaminchu divined, Saki's mission is to teach the next generation how to live. Saki now has five young students that she teaches at monthly meetings with elders (fuchi). She calls her helping and protective spirits regularly, and always gives prayers to the mountain spirits before searching for mushrooms. She explains to plants that she needs them for food and medicine and asks permission before cutting. Dr. Hagihara learned to weave spirit offering baskets from her, and is learning to make preserved Ainu foods. She also gave Grandma Saki some blue corn from the Hopi in Arizona, which she was able to sprout and grow herself in Japan (see photo above).

It remains unclear what led to the Ainu elder's miraculous recovery, but it is Kevin's opinion that Ainu Helping Spirits wish Grandma Saki to stay in this world until she passes her knowledge to the next generation, and that he was probably only a coincidental intermediary for the healing to occur.

the editor (S.M.) 

Submitted by Kevin Turner, FSS Director and teaching faculty member for Asia.