\Asha Greer died peacefully on January 7, 2022, surrounded by family and loved ones. She filled her 87 years with immense love, connection, engagement, and curiosity.
Asha was born in Los Angeles in 1935, the daughter of Alice Henry and Hans von Briesen. She attended Stanford University and earned her BA in International Relations. She was one of the first female lifeguards in Los Angeles and spent her life being an emotional and spiritual lifeguard to hundreds of people.
She also became an artist, educator, writer, administrator, principal, nurse, Japanese tea master, meditation teacher, and community builder. She helped found the Lama Foundation in New Mexico and remained on their board throughout her life. When she moved to Virginia, she worked at a Women’s Support center called FOCUS and was part of the group that started what later became a large-scale hospice care program in Charlottesville. Asha was also very active with the Tibetan resettlement project.
When she was in her 40s, she went to nursing school. She spent 25 years working the medical floors at the University of Virginia Hospital, primarily in oncology. She helped many people as they were dying, both in and outside of the hospital. When she retired from nursing, she taught meditation to incarcerated women.
Rising within the Sufi Ruhaniat International, Asha taught meditation and practices of presence for decades, ultimately as a murshida, or spiritual guide. She advocated for “life through practice, love, and just being.”
Asha is survived by her four daughters: Dakota, Shanti, Aurora, and Savitri, their children, and numerous other close family members. They include her nephews Cailen and Inayat and their children and grandchildren.
She spent the last 11 months of her life in a state of pure love. The love she had been seeking in everything she ever did and everyone she ever knew was there (she would say “here”) in abundance. She was buried in Batesville, Virginia on January 10, 2022.
The Lama Foundation has created a page to honor Asha. For more photos, tributes, a moving video of Asha saying good-bye, and more, please visit: https://www.lamatogether.org/asha-greer. Visit Asha’s website at https://www.asha-greer.com/
Our matriarch died this morning. Mourning?
At sunrise. Holy time. Eagle wise.
Perspective signs
Could it be true?
That in her passing she left us clues?
She blended out with pinks and blues
Leaving us
Just Me’s and you’s
All of us here
As she went beyond
Expanding out a holy bond
The oldest hope fire is a fresh new day
With visions perhaps for a better way
We might keep watch with our dragon’s eyes
Praying, singing, liberated cries
For some signs of hope
From our matriarch
Things to do
Ways to embark
Dancing full out under the open sky
Remember remember
Spirit doesn’t die
There’s nothing to fear
Maybe that’s true
And though hearts are tender now,
that’s nothing new.
The feelings are many, the words are
but few.
Give her her homecoming so sweet
and so clear
That we may rejoice in it and mourn in
good cheer
By Rachel Rahima von Briesen
