Monique Karén

My only sister Monique, always was an adventurous spirit. When she was 2 years old (I was myself only 6 at the time), I went alone to England on a plane. This impressed her deeply. She kept going around telling people that I had "disappeared in the belly of a fish". Everybody thought it indeed was a strange idea! The rest of her life was led by a desire to build homes and to fly.

She became a very talented architect, established herself in the South of France, near Montpellier where she restored old houses with a modern flair, inspired by the Finnish genius, Alvar Alto whom she greatly admired.

She had a way of seeing in discarded objects that no one wanted, unusual pieces of art. With great creative imagination, and her natural talent for crafts, old hangers became card holders, empty bottles turned into outdoor lamps, clay pots were used in mobiles to decorate her garden.... Her village house which she entirely renovated, was a mixture of old and new that cohabited in great rustic purity and elegance.

I believe that, because she was agnostic, her obsession with flying was her way of looking for something beyond our limited reality.

On August 18, 2012, a beautiful, quiet, bright end of afternoon, she went to join her friends at the hang-gliding club. All having been taught by her, and loving her bright spirit, had unanimously elected her president. It was a routine flight from the mountain, to catch the last rays of the setting sun. Unknown to all of us, this was to be her last flight. At 4:30 PM, something still inexplicable happened. Suddenly caught in a whirlwind that didn't allow her to open her safety parachute, she tragically plummeted head first, at 80 miles an hour, to her instant death. She was found on the floor, smiling. She never returned to her terrestrial home.

Her slippers were still under her desk waiting for her to place her feet into them. A few checks were neatly stapled to the bills she had to pay. There was a pile of clean laundry she never got to fold. Without her dynamic presence, her house resonated with a ghostly silence only punctuated by the angry growl of her orange cat Pamplemousse. Her death was perfect for her, at the perfect time, just too soon for us.

After her sudden, tragic passing, I started hearing from her in ways that cannot be passed as spiritual imagination.On my birthday following her crossing over, I was unusually depressed. The fact that she wouldn't be calling me that year, as she always did, hit me hard. When I opened Safari, the google logo was a big birthday cake! A few months later,  I was discussing with a host the possibility of creating a shamanic retreat in his center. He grabbed a paper to write down his e-mail address and some possible dates. When I turned it over, it was a calendar page for April 1st, -my sister's birthday!-, with a beautiful picture of the clouds she loved so much. She had taken a whole series of photographs of the sky and explained to me  the rule that there should be nothing BUT sky and clouds. I have since continued her collection with my own pictures.

She will never turn fifty.

She, who in her body had such a hard time finding harmony, happiness and love, on the other side of the veil, has found all three. It is this immense, unconditional love that she was searching for her whole life, that I'm sure, convinced her not to return to her physical life. Whenever I tune in to her, I feel her serene joy. She lives in true freedom and enlightenment at last. She now understands my path maybe even better than I do. I can sense her support and her help. Her dynamic Aries energy lives on, in, above, all around us, as a beautiful testimony that the spirit never dies and that love is the fabric that unites us all...

Until we meet in spirit again, peace to your soul, beautiful Sister.