The Elements of this New Life....

So fast forward to now. I was going to spend time catching you up on the last 7 weeks. But decided to drop you directly into now, today, because this is what is happening. I trust the whole process will emerge as I continue (as I'm beginning to have an inkling that healing has something to do with fully living the mystery, the unknown of each moment.)

Today my new (used) car arrives. Finally, 8 weeks after the accident. This idea of an accident is even in question today. As last night I saw a fellow shamanic practitioner friend who greeted me with a grin and the words, "your brain didn't fall out!" I liked her sense of humor, but have to admit, I was stunned. "Did you hear," I asked her?  "Hear what" she replied?  She laughed and said, "Last time we journeyed together you had a vision that your brain fell out and you couldn't find it." "But it didn't," she grinned.

The words that were running thru my brain at that particular moment were, "holy s..t, holy s..t", a silent inner mantra as I tried to make sense of what she had just said. I just stared at her, on the verge of maniacal laughter. "Well...," I said slowly, "that's really interesting. I recently had a car accident, got a severe concussion and am now working with PCS (post concussion syndrome). I feel like my brain feel out and I can't find it."

It was her turn to stare blankly at me.  Since we were both late for a meeting, we kind of left the conversation there.  Later, at home, I rummaged through journals to find a record of that particular vision. Couldn't find any record. Leaves me wondering. Were my helping spirits giving me a premonition of what was to come?

It traveled 2000 miles to get here. 

Meanwhile, the Element has arrived. Honda Element that is. The (pun intended) new element of my life. The element that will cart me from place to place. My black CR-V has been replaced by a Burnt Orange Element. There's something fitting about this. Perhaps my transforming self needs a new exterior persona, from dark into blazing color,  the phoenix rising from the ashes, the burnt orange phoenix.  Well, check that off the list. it's taken care of.

Two days after the accident, when I was saying good-bye to the CR-V, which had only been with me for 10 short months, I naturally, spoke with the spirit of the car.  The same spirit I had spoken to on the day I purchased that black steed, when it said it was in my life to help me "step fully onto my shamanic path."  Honestly, I should have asked for more info then, as a cliff diving adventure together was not the way I expected "stepping more fully on the path" to emerge. When I said good-bye, I thanked that spirit for keeping me quite safe in a rather treacherous situation, no broken bones, only a trickle of blood.  I wondered, was it the spirit that kept the driver's side of the vehicle completely unscratched, so that I would be able to get out of the car myself, while the passenger side was completely obliterated? Was this an adventure in learning to trust an 'unseen' world?  Doing so is important for a shamanic practitioner.

That day I said goodbye to the CR-V, I didn't really have any inkling how much of another lifetime I was saying goodbye to. I still cringe a little each time I see a black CR-V on the road. I realize I can't quite look directly at it. I miss my CR-V. I miss the wild traveling spirit of it. I miss the person I was before I had a traumatic brain injury, when my right arm did all the things it's habitually done for years, before my left arm had to step up to the plate. Just now as I write this, I realize, it's the 'passenger side' of my body that's not working so well right now. And, how ironic, and it's the top of this body-vehicle (my brain) that's a bit wonky. Hmmmm...there's a metaphor in there somewhere. 

Slow forward... (never even bother to attempt purchasing a car during mercury retrograde.)

After seeing the car, post-accident, there was never any doubt I would replace it with another Honda. While the CR-V only gets 3 out of 5 stars for safety rating in a rollover, mine fell 40+ feet in the air before landing on it's roof.  Yet, there was only a slightly crunched roof edge on the passenger side, a small spider crack in the windshield. Safety ratings are one thing. Living through an accident in your car is another.


So, now there is a new spirit to establish a relationship with, the spirit of the Orange Honda Element who sprinkled a trail of purple magic from Massachusetts to Colorado, as she traveled the miles on an American Auto Transport car carrier.  This orange Element(al) spirit is a bit of a pixie. She's rather light, has a vintage kind of feel. She moves a little slower. She's artsy, even impish, a bit like I am after 10pm. I wonder what adventures we will share. I wonder who is this new me emerging who will travel about in  an orange car? What new life am I saying hello to?

The Adrenaline Wears Off...

So as the journey continues...

Having never had a car accident before or a concussion or lived in the Denver area (where I was now located), I was at a loss. Friends from all over gathered resources. Other than incredibly emotional, exhausted, and shaking a lot, I felt pretty good, considering the circumstances. People kept telling me when the adrenaline wore off I might feel differently. Eventually they were so right on.  Four days after the accident, after my totaled-car had been cleaned out, and left behind, and I had been driven from my post-accident-stranded-in-a-hotel-room site to a friend's in Lakewood, I started to feel really beat up. Random pains began to appear all over my body. They came and went. My neck ached. My right arm throbbed. It didn't work very well. I could hardly sleep on my head. The pressure from lying on it was nauseating.  A constant pressure seemed to be building inside. Then my head felt like it was going to explode out through my skull.


I walked out of the bedroom and straight to my girlfriend who had come to stay with me post accident. "I need to go to the hospital," I blurted.  I'm not sure I have ever known and communicated something I needed so directly.  We did a little online research of area trauma centers and emergency rooms and headed to St. Anthony Hospital. It was close and had a Level 1 Shock Trauma Center.


Mind you, I am not good in hospitals, ER's,  Dr's offices, dentists, physical therapy, etc. Stepping into one of these places is always a huge challenge. But my bruised brain was about to explode. It was radiating so much heat that my friend could feel it with her hand about 8 inches from my head. I had constant vertigo. It was time to step inside the hospital walls.  


As we waited to be seen, I breathed through an old panic response. I had fainted in ER's before. I didn't really want to faint this time. (What if I fell and hit my head?) Luckily the ER was slow that Thursday night. When the Dr heard what happened he immediately braced my neck. Now in addition to the exploding head I was practically choking. My friend was alternately cracking jokes and checking to be sure I was conscious. A CT scan was ordered. 


OK. A bit on the CT scan. That thing is weird. I could feel the waves of whatever it was they were using to scan my brain. Literally like I was sitting inside of some concentrated radio waves that were all aimed at me. It took all of 6 minutes and I was wheeled back to my exam room.  In a bit someone came along to remove my new collar. Then left. This seemed like a good sign.

Soon it was revealed that I had a severe concussion, (whiplash) strained neck and shoulder, and something not good with my 'brachial plexus'. Good news! No bleeding in my brain. No fractures. It was a powerful moment of gratitude. 

I returned home with the RX to rest, a prescription for muscle relaxants (what are they?) and strict instructions to my friend to keep on eye on me and see if I began acting strange. For anyone who knows me, I think you will appreciate the humor in this last instruction.


Clearly, I would need resources.  The first help would be from a distance, my shamanic practitioner and energy healing friends. Michaela McGivern, Amy Priest, Bonnie Serratore and all the Contemporary Shamanism folks, my hometown Healing Drum Circle, people I didn't know who were friends of friends. They  started doing healing on me from afar. Next I would need, PT, Chiropractors, SE, Dr's, Massage, Energy Healers, who and what else?

How did I begin to decide? First, friends and I gathered a list of possibilities. (THANK YOU ALL!)  Then I did the logical thing (much to my girl friend's horror).  I muscle tested to determine who to go see. After a number of Yes, No, Yes, Yes, No's, the lucky winners emerged.  More on each of these as we go along.

It made a better hat, plus I felt more like a queen this way.
But get that thing off my head too! It's just not comfortable anywhere....

 

...and so the journey of transformation and healing continues...

As my friend Kristen just said, "life continues..." She is the inspiration for this post and probably for getting me back to posting in general again.  As it never occurred to me to blog about what has been happening in the last year. Way to go Kristen. You're inspiring people to write just by being you! 

 So here's a quick catch up. I'll start on Feb 19th of this year, the year of great changes, the year of transformation, 2012.

On that life changing day, Feb 19th, I 'came to" (as in I had been knocked out and came back to consciousness) hanging upside down in the drivers seat of my CR-V. I was securely strapped in by the seat belt. Just previous to this, I had been driving through the beloved Colorado mountains on my way towards Denver to house sit for a friend.  It was a lovely evening, rather late, some snow on the roads and a bit still falling. I wasn't worried, had on my brand new studded snows. I'd made this drive a million times, and in worse weather than that.  

OK. To the details. Quick and simple. As I meandered along, I came across black ice. Some fishtailing ensued. Then my car 'did a 180', crossed over the mid-line and broadsided the rock mountain. At that moment, I was relieved, because the alternative was a 100+ foot drop off the edge of the mountain pass, no guardrails to stop me. The relief lasted milliseconds. As my car hit the wall, it bounced and veered straight for that cliff edge. 

In slow motion (it really does happen that way!), I realized I was about to die. My car was now headed for a head-first plunge down a steep mountain cliff, at 10:30 at night, on a not so traveled road. I was about to die. On top of that, I was about to die in the one way I have been afraid my whole life that I would die (YUP! by plunging to my death in a car that went off the side of a mountain.)

As the car began to tip over the edge something in me relaxed. There was nothing else to struggle against. It was now done. My last thought was a wish that I could be the one to tell my dearest I died in a car accident.

Then there was darkness, two huge bumps, nothing, then the weird sensation of coming back into my body and feeling something really tight against my belly and shoulder. Then the sensation of hanging upside down. I was hanging upside down in my car seat. The car had stopped. I was alive. How very weird!

And so begins another journey of transformation.....