An angel for Banyen Books

Norah was a free soul who helped Banyen Books survive in its early years. She lived in a tiny loft in the back of the store from 1970 to 1980, cleaning and saving every last scrap of God’s usable creation, and in many ways helped us young, spaced-out, aspiring yogis keep it together.  
Always barefoot, always with a smile on her face, thanks on her lips and a song in her heart, Norah was an unassuming, loving and strong mentor to me. She taught me to drive and helped me learn how to work hard with joy. To her, creation was for giving, for sharing and for glorifying. Each afternoon, her songs to God – often old Christian hymns she had slightly re-worded to suit her more universal consciousness – would waft out over the bookstore. In those years, there was no music in the store, but there was Norah’s sweet and lovely voice lilting out over the hippies and seekers reading in the aisles and in armchairs. (She recorded more than a hundred of her songs on three tapes, which hopefully will be available in a new CD called Holy Communion.)
Never asking for anything and always finding ways to mend, reconcile, reuse, recycle and make the best of everything, this hardy woman, originally from Saskatchewan, was a genuine servant of the divine good in all; her spirit of simplicity and gratitude for this chance to love and serve all was contagious and a powerful teaching for all of us who worked at Banyen.
Norah was a terrifically strong-willed, strong-bodied spirit. She was an ascetic, often living on very little food, just “… the light of God,” as she would say. A rare yogini she was, living in the caves of Banyen for those years, and later at Arran and Ratana’s, and her final years at Linda and Kulwant’s. May her refrain, “The joy of the Lord is my life!” find its resonance in our hearts in our own ways.
Kolin Lymworth is the founder and owner of Banyen Books in Vancouver (www.banyenbooks.com).

A godsend for the Golden Lotus, Vancouver’s first vegetarian restaurant

The first full-time helper to appear at the Golden Lotus was Norah Lee, one ofGod’s originals. Then in her 50s, Norah had various successful careers behind her: real estate, horseback guide, plumber and bulldozer operator. (Time magazine ran a full-page feature on her in the early 1950s). Several years earlier, Norah had been bankrupted after guaranteeing a loan to a slick promoter. In the aftermath, her only possessions were a little Nash Rambler car, which she lived in, a set of clothes, one pair of shoes and her book of hymns and inspirational songs. When her shoes wore out, come ice or snow, Norah went barefoot for the rest of her long life.
Norah was thin but strong as a big man. Once she went on a 49-day fast while working 10 hours a day in the kitchen. Her only food was the juice of half a lemon every two days. Forty days into the fast, Norah decided to reorganize the storage room and was throwing around 100-pound sacks of brown rice.
Whenever I tried to pay her, she wouldn’t hear of it, saying, “The good Lord has directed me here to be of service to my fellow man. After all my money was gone, I decided never to work for material wages again. I’ll be happy to just have a little corner to stay in, and if there’s anything I can do, that would be a blessing for me.” I assured Norah that if it were in my power, she would always have a home and never want. For more than 20 years she lived with us. Embodying the spirit of the faqir or renunciate, Norah often spent entire nights in meditation.
On November 8, 2006, on her 94th birthday, Norah checked out from the Earth-plane, and her usually strongly wrinkled face was remarkably clear and young looking. The day before, when a nurse had asked how she was doing, Norah replied in a strong, clear voice, “I’m fine! And I’m going to die in my bed tonight!”
Reprinted from Moth & the Flame (www.mothandtheflame.com) by Arran Stephens, co-founder with life companion Ratana of Nature’s Path Foods.

Norah lived her last years restfully at Linda Bagga’s home in North Vancouver and passed on peacefully at the Lynn Valley Care Centre. For information on her spiritual path, see (www.sos.org).