The Lightening has Struck: Allowing & Engaging Transformation

 I'm no longer hanging upside down in the car (although for sure it still fells like I am at times),the adrenaline has worn off, and a new Element has surfaced in my life. Lets stop here for a moment....

There is a question which has been toodling around in my mind since this cliff-driving experience. That question is about healing and transformation. Interestingly, my Master's thesis is on exactly this topic. I am wondering, post incident, if one (specifically me in this case) can be changed by a potentially life-changing event and if that change has anything to do with healing? 

 This of course brings up additional questions, such as: What is healing anyway? Is healing from a car accident (or any major life event, such as lost love for example, or any event which feels like the rug has just been pulled out from underneath you) simply the act of "getting back to" where one was before? Or is it possible that healing has something to do with allowing and even engaging the dynamic change that is happening, literally coming out of the event/situation as another person all together? 

Perhaps that means not that I will become other than who I am, but that I might actually be becoming more and more of who I am. All of the parts of me that were covering over my true brilliance are rusting away and falling off (if I let them?) Perhaps what served me before no longer serves me now. And to push, to try and force the old way into service of what is now, is actually anti-healing?

Me thinks the shamanic practitioner in me has been engaged. This is the perfect opportunity for the "healer to heal thyself."  We shall explore more as the story continues to unfold, as the mystery continues to unravel....

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?

...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.....