If the chanting stopped, my patient would die. I was sure of it, as sure as anyone could be in a freezing tent on the highest mountain in the world, breathing only half the air there is at sea level. Pasang should have died hours ago... Gathered around the rock platform were Sherpas, mountain men like Pasang who had come to pray. Though they were facing toward him, eyes wide open, they didnt seem to see him. Their lips were moving in response to a monotonous chant arising from deep within them, as if conforming to the sound being produced rather than creating it. More chanting came from outside -- a disembodied chorus from tents around the camp where other Sherpas were keeping vigil. In the stillness of the night the effect was powerful, primal, and unnerving: a quadraphonic rumble emanating from within the mountain itself... Pasang should not have survived, but he did. Over the course of the night, his thready pulse strengthened, the swelling in his face receded, and he opened his eyes. With the morning light, the chanting stopped and the spell was broken. Though I felt I had been watching the scene from afar, I was certain I had witnessed a healing force that was beyond medicine...My medical training should have led me to explain his recovery in terms of nerve impulses and chemical reactions, but confronted with such incontrovertible testimony high on a Himalayan mountain, even a faithless man believes. ~ Kenneth Kalmer, MD, from SURVIVING EXTREMES: A DOCTORS JOURNEY TO THE LIMITS OF HUMAN ENDURANCE Everest
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 22:03:55 +0000
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