It is with deep sorrow that we found out that the amazing Sarah Wheeler (Thomas Tobias) has sadly passed away last Tuesday 19th April. Sarah is the brilliant Founder and Creative Director of the Dragon Cafe and the Mental Fight Club.
She has inspired and motivated many of us and will be deeply missed. Rest in peace Sarah heart emoticon
(Sarah, a fond Blakeanian, reading at the William Blake burial site in Bunhill Fields on the annual recurring gathering, celebrating Blake's deadday on 12th August 2014)
To follow we share the announcement from the Mental Fight Club.
Sad News from Mental Fight Club
An inspiraton to us all, Sarah Wheeler
It is with deep sadness that we share the news that our friend and colleague Sarah Wheeler passed away in the early hours of Tuesday 19th April. As you may know Sarah was diagnosed with cancer in 2013 and it was only recently that she moved into a hospice. Throughout her illness she remained engaged in many activities and continued to speak up for those with lived experience of mental illness.
Sarah has been an inspirational figure to many of us personally and also across the mental health sector and wider community. Sarah was that rarest of human beings, a visionary. Sarah’s friendship, her vision and her ability to create and communicate will always be remembered, and she will be greatly missed. Mental Fight Club (MFC) and the pioneering Dragon Café are her legacy to us all, and we will be continuing to develop and expand the important work that MFC does.
Funeral details will be announced in the next few days, and we ask people to respect the family's privacy at this upsetting time.
We hope that in Sarah's spirit you come along to The Dragon Café soon and celebrate her life through the many creative interactions available.
Sarah’s love of poetry and the inspiration she took from Ben Okri’s poem 'Mental Fight' is evident in many of her creative endeavours. Here is an extract from the epic poem called
‘Turn on The Light’
The new era is already here:
Here the new time begins anew.
The new era happens every day,
Every day is a new world,
A new calendar.
All great moments, all great eras,
Are just every moment
And every day writ large.
Thousands of years of loving, failing, killing,
Creating, surprising, oppressing,
And thinking ought now to start
To bear fruit, to deliver their rich harvest.
Will you be at the harvest,
Among the gatherers of new fruits?
Then you must begin today to remake
Your mental and spiritual world,
And join the warriors and celebrants
Of freedom, realisers of great dreams.
You can't remake the world
Without remaking yourself.
Each new era begins within.
It is an inward event,
With unsuspected possibilities
For inner liberation.
We could use it to turn on
Our inward lights.
We could use it to use even the dark
And negative things positively.
We could use the new era
To clean our eyes,
To see the world differently,
To see ourselves more clearly.
Only free people can make a free world.
Infect the world with your light.
Help fulfill the golden prophecies.
Press forward the human genius.
Our future is greater than our past.
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