I am back in the ICU. A couple of my friends may have saved my life, or at least from having a seizure, stroke or paralysis.
I never intended for my blog to be used in this way so move on if this isn’t your flavor. I’m not supposed to be thinking right now, but I am a writer and I need to express myself. By the way, I am easily overwhelmed right now, so though I love your supporting comments, I might not respond to text very quickly. Here we go.
They engrave into our psyches that our lives are on a trajectory. But really, life is a creative process. Creativity only happens in the beautiful moment. All around us, there is budding, resting, expiring, all around us. All that matters is the now.
I am not out of the woods, they say. They put burrow holes in my skull a few days ago to release some of the blood and it immediately made a difference. Tomorrow we’re going to create an embolism or like cauterization in one of my arteries in my brain to lower the chances of a bleed happening again. Yay more crappy tube down my throat. Them 30 days of waiting with 10% chance of a rebleed.
The poufy, airbag-like clouds still surround me and there is no knowing the future, even the next few days. I wait for moments of sunshine that make me rise to the kitchen, perhaps out to the mailbox under the sky.
I realize now, with my lapses in time, that I truly did lose consciousness at the scene of the accident. This explains a lot. (I wrote that paragraph before I went back to the hospital.)
This week, I think I lost 36 hours. More blood pushed my brain further off center. Andre says how metaphysical… that to become centered, you have to let your brain expand slowly and physically find center
Here’s the before and after picture. Grey is blood and black is air. They couldn’t take out all the blood or I’d be an airhead then there’ll be too much space for my brain to move around in. My brain needs to expand slowly. Thinking contracts, the brain. Stop thinking.


Pretty cool, right?
I have pictures of staples in my head too, but I don’t wanna gross you out. Instead, I’ll give you this one. E.T. PHONE HOME!

So, how am I doing? So much of ‘Am I happy?’ has had to do with ego, my standing in the world, whether I feel loved or am accomplishing things. But in the past years, I’ve been publicly humiliated, vindictively fired, and thrown out of an organization with no apparent reason. All separate chapters. My patch quilt, awkward ego has been stripped off. I am down to the bare bones. A lot of things don’t hurt or confuse me anymore. It is quite freeing to notice where and how life really rushes into the room.
The hardest part of not being able to work is a small, fierce remnant of my ego: my pathological desire to impress my boss’s new boss whom I have not yet met. But my boss (who is really my friend; we have been through thick and thin together) has already been on my case for taking things way too seriously. Many people go to work and they just be there. I would like to try that. My life-long East coast (puritan?) work ethic has been so severe, I am guilty of harshly judging those around me, whilst bewildered in how people even get or keep their jobs when so little is done.
This thinking is a thorn in the thicket. I can be still. There is no reason to walk right into it. I see that more important than bullet points checked off a list, is being part of the fabric of community. The gentle eyes, the seeing how we fit together, the purpose of the work we do, what can be done and what cannot be done. In every space, the woods, the weeds, the high hills, the edge of the ocean, there is space and time to feel and perceive. It’s just how close the thorns are. Slow down.
The unmentioned secret from my last blog is that during the shamanic healing, I was able to reabsorb Raven into my being. Years ago, I asked one of my mentors where the line was between ourselves and our power animals. In true form, he mentioned that these mysteries, we will never understand. All I know is that I feel my bones are my bones again. Even my feathers. My body is familiar, the best place to hang out. I am home. Raven sees so many things. I have been in double-trouble for my mismanagement of the things that I see, but this time I was told I will be well. If I feel an uncontrollable urge to speak, ask the Raven for the right words. No need to throw away a gift. Let her compassion seep through and trust. I love her with her rough-and-tumble sense of fun and courage, her resilience and self-sufficiency, her knowing of the back roads in the night.
Move carefully in the woods. Swoop high in the skies. The attention is the same. The sense of wonder, the same.
Who is your power animal?
If two very nice Honda dealers send the exact same email verbatum, does a bear shit in the woods?