DIFFICULT as it is to uncover words to immortalize Nina Graboi, one of the great friends of the Aquarian age, this is an attempt to describe her grace, to envision her dancing. She often seemed moved by some unknown force, externally motivated and internally subtle, a dance of the immortal, the chi, the kundalini, the stuff that makes earthquakes.

As I watched the vapors rise from the crematorium I thought about the importance of Nina's transcendence, and words my friend had spoken just days before she seemingly decided to take the leap, and jumped out of her "space suit," as she had so often referred to her body. After a tripping session in my room she looked at me through kind, clear eyes and said that if she could no longer recreate the mystical, that transformative high, then she had little interest in living. Were it not for her uncanny ability to gently and unassumingly reach inside people, coupled with her hunger to guide young adults in the responsible use of mind altering drugs, she may well have ignored all allopathic attempts to combat her lung cancer.

After a few speedy months of tangle with the disease, and the work that arises during that process, she quietly and simply left, just as she had lived her remarkable life.

Nina spoke with a ruthless regard for the truth. Yet, she looked upon humanity ever hopeful of our spiritual evolution, encouraging us toward the divine. Our good fortune as her friends, was the deeply intimate manner in which she connected. Each of us has a touching Nina story to inspire us to open our hearts and fall into love. For the myriad ways that this remarkable lover of spirit has touched so many lives, one thing stands out, her unwavering commitment to her spiritual life.

Nina was a poet, an artist of life's canvas, an exquisite philosopher, engaging the great minds of a restless age (Jean Houston, Robert Thurman, Abraham Maslow, Stanley Krippner, Timothy Leary, Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Ralph Abraham, among others) and always, always embracing the light. We have loved you, and as you have said will love you again and again in lives to come.

-Valerie Corral & Friends

Nina's autobiography, One Foot in the Future: A Woman's Spiritual Journey, (Aerial Press, Santa Cruz, 1991) bears witness to her extraordinary life.