After the Fall

After the Fall

 The accident: I fell down the cellar stairs when I was home alone in Maine and smashed my head on the concrete. I flew up the stairs….. Angels, or shock (depending upon your preference), guided me to the phone to dial 911. I sat screaming in a pool of my own blood on the porch, as a woman on the other end of the phone instructed me how to stop the bleeding. Finally, the ambulance came and I was strapped into a stretcher, completely immobile as the paramedics hooked me up for fluids just in case. I was staring up at the ceiling of the ambulance, thinking this can’t be happening, how did I get here, this was not the plan. Then, as if I turned on a dime, I realized it did happen and here I was, I had to go with it.

 

I consider myself very lucky. I did not pass out, so I didn’t bleed to death. My skull was thick enough not to crack. I just fractured my wrist and radial head on my left arm and I had a bruised leg. It looked like a tree trunk and I had a swollen ankle. The damage was on the left side and I also had a concussion and a nasty cut on my forehead that went down to my skull. As I was being stitched up my neighbor Marilynn walked in and took my hand. I was happy to see her, because my husband was away and I had no shoes or car. Then she fainted. Like a comedy routine, we were both dismissed from the hospital. She not only drove me home, but she slept on a cot at the foot of my bed and stayed with me until my husband drove up from New York. When I say Angels I mean her, and the woman on the phone and the paramedics and the ER team, not to mention my dear husband. They were all connecting and doing what earth angels do without thinking about it.

 

I spent a lot of time between worlds. I have always had this ability, but this was different. In the space of perhaps minute as I was in the Cat Scan I was visited by my parents, and an Indian guide. They each came separately and made vivid appearances. My parents are alive. I had never met this particular Indian guide who called himself White Deer. JC also came and put his benevolent, healing hand on my forehead. I thought I was a Buddhist. The truth is I am, as well as a Sufi, a Kundalini Yogini and a practitioner of Shaman and meditative technologies of the sacred. When I came out I was staring at a technician and he told me to look at his nose so he could adjust my head.

 

During my recuperation this visionary seeing continued. There were a great many beings to help me out and I became clearly aware of the great orchestration that is going on all the way through the universe between form and formlessness. My background as a dancer and energy healer really helped me through this perfect storm. I could observe my healing process happening physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I also had  plenty of time to witness these levels of healing and a lot of help from my friends..

 

For the first week, I was so porous I could feel the natural world running through me. I slept outside on the deck each afternoon. I wrapped fractured wrist and elbow in comfrey leaves. (It is also called bone-set). I used Arnica Montana internally and a salve of arnica for the bruises that were everywhere. I drank rose petal and borage tea. I dabbed my forehead wound with lavender essential oil and water to prevent scarring.  I contacted friends to send me their good vibes. It became clear. All I had to do was to heal, and everyone else would do what they needed to do.  I could surrender. I went to see a cheerful orthopedic surgeon, who not only took out my stitches in my face but he said I was on the mend. It it would take six weeks to fully recover. My teaching and writing travels in Europe were cancelled. My husband also cancelled his business trip to be with me.

 

It is two weeks now and my doctor friend Cathy was amazed by my progress. She credits the comfrey leaves for healing the fractures. I can move both arms now, and in the beginning I couldn’t open a tube of toothpaste or a jar. I still need to sleep, and I’ve just read that sleep is one of the biggest healers our bodies have going. In the past, I rarely allowed myself a nap in the day, and now it’s a must. What a delight. The hammock is swinging under the deck by the comfrey plant just for the occasion of napping. I am also walking up and down the road, and even on the seashore at low tide. Of course, it helps to recuperate in a beautiful place. I like to put my leg in the seawater. When I was growing up, I was told seawater heals everything. I put some green clay on the contusion on my leg. I scooped up a handful of green clay from under a pile of seaweed at low tide. The mud drew the bruises into what looks like a deep blue Island on my leg.

 

The plants and the earth are capable of sustaining us. If we work with nature she will work with us. However did we come to the idea that the earth is just an inert thing to be plundered and fought over for resources and profit? Our bodies, which have been equally neglected, are amazing in the way they produce fight and flight response for our rescue, the way blood clots and bones heal with enough time.  We also have the ability to see beyond the normal range and realize the vivid, animate world, if we extend our sensitivity and our senses. First we have to come back to our senses. The time of the body and the earth is a slower rhythm. When we find resonance between the body and the earth, we can know directly what we only thought about before. – the value of life, the value of all life.

 

This gratitude, and the simple joy of being alive, now in the moment, is a mystic treasure.  It came to me like a lightning bolt when I flew up the stairs I had just fallen down. Now that I can walk the road, I have heard about some amazing falls. Frank, my friend down the road, fell 20 feet from a tree with a chain saw and lived to talk about it. George, my neighbor, fell out of a plane and couldn’t move his legs for 100 days. Elizabeth, a dancer, fell down the stairs and injured her back. Isabel, a filmmaker, also fell down the stairs and broke her wrist and Cassandra, an artist fell headfirst down the subway stairs in Manhattan. Susan, my neighbor, must have fallen around the same time I did. She is wearing a splint on her wrist and has a steel plate in it. Martha, a friend from grade school, fell down the stairs and broke her leg. These accidents are all reported within a small radius, so it is easy to imagine how people are falling as I speak.  When I was walking down Dutch Neck Road on a meditative healing walk, I stopped to talk with Frank, who was out on his lawn mower.  I asked him if he felt lucky. He said that he sees the world quite differently now. He’s more careful,  (mindful is my word), and he says – yes, he’s very lucky.  This sense might be share by everyone who suffers a major shakedown. It is what I call a Kali moment. Having time to reflect and spiritual tools to see it in perspective, makes a catastrophe into the great adventure into the meaning of our lives. We have an opportunity to discover significant new insights as experience to back up and challenge our ideas, and we can connect on deeper levels to our souls. Once the value of life is tasted, the earth and the world take on a different luster. Priorities are rearranged and the personal attitude can become clear as a bell.

Susan Osberg