August 2019 ~ The Broken Collarbone Messenger or A Tip Off the Old Clavicle

One of the music therapy positions that I've picked up in Vancouver is with ET Music Therapy at the Pacific Autism Family Network on Sea Island, where the airport is. Every time I have more than 10 minutes to myself I go to a spot under a tree by the ring of ocean that surrounds the island and I sit and meditate, or I eat blackberries, or if I'm lucky, I watch the heron who comes here to fish. We have referred in previous posts about working with animal symbolism, which often means looking them up online or in a book and reflecting on the significance of the animals based on their general behaviours or traits. On this particular day however, likely inspired by my work with young people on the autism spectrum, where the saying goes, "if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism," I felt inspired to let go of everything I thought I knew about the significance of a heron, and just ask the heron if it had a message for me. The words and images that arose in my mind's eye surprised me for two reasons:

1. Why would a heron want me to do that?

2. I don't want to!

The message was "sell your mountain bike and get a city commuter."

Out of respect to the heron and to my intuition I made a note to start looking into selling my beloved bike. The next time I went for a ride I came down an unfamiliar trail a bit too fast and my brakes didn't stop me in time when I could see that I was going to miss the ladder and instead go over a rooty, five-foot drop.

I went straight over my handlebars and was heading towards the ground head first thinking, "this is going to be really bad." My shoulder hit first on the flat ground below. I sprung up quickly and noticed I couldn't breathe. "Oh, I must have knocked my wind out... ok, how about now? ... still no breath... what about now? ... nothing... oh, this really isn't good. ... maybe I am dying?... " My soundless gasps for air and my doomsday inner-dialogue went on way longer than I had ever thought possible from being winded. Eventually my breath came back and then the pain in my right shoulder took over. I knew something in my shoulder was broken and a couple hours later the x-rays confirmed that I had cracked the tip off my right clavicle (collarbone is the colloquial term for the same bone).

Exactly a month later, the doctor at the cast clinic shared his surprise and amazement a couple of times, as he told me that the follow up x-ray revealed that it had completely healed on its own. He said this was much faster than he'd expected— and he deals with this type of thing a lot from all the crazy mountain biking that happens here. I smiled, feeling proudhumble about this confirmation that I had heeded the call. (putting two words together like that is a technique I borrow from aboriginal writers to describe the spaces that the linearity and objectivity of the English language has a cumbersome time getting at). What follows is a story of the month of healing. I write this with awe and gratitude for the beauty and wisdom of this amazing life.

The first two weeks were mostly hard with a few smatterings of blessing. Lots of physical pain, short sleeps sitting upright on the pull-out couch, or lying awake beside Margo trying to stay quiet while we had a friend staying on the pull-out for a few nights. I was working with the yogic idea that all pain is self-created and asked myself, "why did I do this?" Immediately a voice rose from somewhere deeper than thoughts and said, "because I am not happy with the way things are going." In the ensuing days, my mind scrambled for what about my life I needed to change.

As an antidote to the mind stress, re-awakening my dormant-since-childhood love of reading fiction novels (that had been left by a previous tenant), was a major blessing. Also, my body craved being immersed in salt water, so even though I had previously thought it too cold for swimming, Margo and I started eating dinners at the ocean so I could float.

In addition to powerful Reiki treatments from Margo, I used a comfrey poultice, known to herbalists as "bone-knit" and listened to 45hz, known to sound healers as "bone regenerator" and felt immediate reprieve. Inspired by these early successes, after less than two weeks I decided to go back to work for two days, with a couple rest days between. I pulled my arm out of the sling only when it seemed necessary. On the second day, one of the parents asked, "how are you doing?" The pain overrode my professional filter and I responded, "I shouldn't be here." I booked the next two weeks off.

We had a work check-in online the day after and I shared the following story. My colleagues were so amazed by it that they asked me to write it up and share it on the facebook page. (If you read it already, feel free to skip ahead to the next photo).

"I broke my clavicle a couple of weeks ago going over the handlebars of my mountain bike. When I have a lot of physical pain I feel the physical pain, but almost more prominent than that is sort of a psycho-emotional disorientation. I went into work for the first time last Wednesday, which was almost two weeks after my accident. When I pulled up after the forty minute commute, I realized that I had forgotten my fob key. I always keep my key in my backpack, but because of my broken clavicle, I decided to bring my things in a handheld bag instead. Luckily the person at the front desk had a master key and they were able to let me into the studio. I put a reminder on my phone and my iPad saying “key” for Sunday morning which would be the next time I would be going in.

Sunday morning all my reminders went off and I arrived at the centre with my key. I had my first session and the pain was getting quite strong by the time the session ended. The client left and I went out of the studio to use the bathroom and realized I’d left my key inside and locked myself out. This was Sunday so there was nobody working at the front desk. There was one other car in the parking lot, so I went upstairs, looked around and finally found an office that had a person in it. I told him what happened and asked if I could try his key. He said he didn’t think it would open any other door and I agreed because I had once been on the opposite side of that situation and my key didn’t work to let the person into their space. Anyway, he came down with me and sure enough, to both of our surprise, it opened up. I was relieved and it gave me time to set up for the next session.

The next client was a six-year-old boy with autism coming in for his first session, accompanied by his mom. He was immediately drawn to the foam alphabet letters. He pulled them off the shelf, stuck the top letters, A, B, and C together. His mom and I acknowledged that that was neat and she explained that he loves the alphabet. We then encouraged him to transition into something else and I don’t even think he looked up, he was so focused on rummaging around the letters. He started pulling letters out from inside their borders, and the whole thing seemed pretty chaotic. He then cleared a little spot on the floor and much to our surprise, arranged the letters to spell KEY...

He hadn’t said anything to me, hadn’t really even looked at me. His mom said, “wow, it often surprises us what he comes up with." The client did not know anything about the misplaced key, or my travails that morning."

I shared this story with my colleagues because I knew it was significant, but I didn't know how the significance informed the changes I was meant to make. It added to my confusion.

When I'm particularly confused and stuck I reach out to Joan, a teacher/friend of ours who married us and continues to support our evolution. My notes from that session read:

The mind interferes. Trying to fit into some model that it already knows, making it seem like I’ve gone off track and need to return to something, when in fact I have outgrown the familiar tracks and I am in a new country, or on a new planet, and don’t know the language or the familiar sign posts and am learning. It doesn’t mean that I am lost.

How to go about my days if I don't know how to go about my days?

I started a voice-dictated journal to keep track of the signs, and to monitor my tendency to figure them out. I moved slowly, and prioritized sitting in the forest and chanting a mantra, a tool I'd used extensively in my early 20's when I'd lost "my maps". The thoughts and emotions that harden my interpretations are softened in the mantra and eventually rise up and away like vapor. When pain developed from sitting for extended periods on the forest floor, I would get up and move slowly, stepping with my breath. After a week of these practices, I started to be more oriented to the new terrain and my movements began to feel like sacred dance, like I was sashaying beautifully, slowly, perfectly, through honeyed, caressing air.

My journal entries describe the new land:

August 19

Today doing my chanting, I got up and moved and it was so beautiful, really having the sense that this is the world that I am being invited into. And yet also aware that I don’t need to know yet. [Issues and concerns came up] in my chanting, having the sense that I needed to act on them, [they dissolved and floated away] as I rested more and more into the spaciousness of being, where life is obvious. I feel that I haven’t been there in quite some time, and there are not many places I would rather be. ... I was most struck again by a beautiful moth that landed on a mossy branch. I felt devotion rising up towards the moth, remembering that a moth has already been a part of this clavicle journey.

Later, I saw a bottle cap with writing on it, I leaned closer and it said, 'Old English 800'. This immediately struck me as significant, since I am so loving reading this novel written in an older English of the 1800s, even speaking that way with Margo today and letting it come through in my emails. These both struck me as extra heart opening, when I heeded Joan’s advice to allow the connections to be noticed but not judged, i.e. figured out. I am learning a new language, in a new land, and I am so happy to have been invited here, or to have found my way here somehow. ...

While I slept last night, I once awoke to the intense pinching feeling in my shoulder, and just as I had done throughout the day, I brought my attention to my heart and the pinching quickly went away. Thank you messenger.”

My mind was receding, my heart was stepping forward, that much was clear.

August 20

“Problems that were problems are no longer problems.” “Gratitude flows from my cells.”

August 22

“Everything that was an issue before seemed insignificant, which is what I knew would happen if I went to the forest and chanted. I no longer feel afraid of going into work on Sunday, I no longer feel lost and disoriented about my work in the world and what I’m supposed to be doing. I love you.”

Sitting on the edge of the Squamish River, taking the weight of my trusted messenger onto my lap.

When I returned to work, this time after 4 weeks, something started to happen. A map started to form that was practical and applicable to all aspects of daily life. That first day driving to work I stumbled onto a podcast with an interview from one of the founders of The Heart Math Institute. He talked about leading from his heart, he experienced life as having no ceilings. He said that the practices that bring him into his heart have helped him decipher mission from ambition. YES!

Aug 23

“I am excited, like I’m looking out onto the horizon, like I am creating something that I want and not just something that I think I could get.”

“It is interesting that heart wants to go somewhere in this life. It feels so good to acknowledge that, it makes me want to cry. That my heart has a vision…”

A few days before my one month doctors appointment, I proposed to Margo that we set aside a day to make a 20-year plan. She started to cry. The clarity of the heart ended up laying out a 70-year plan, with financial planning and everything taking us into my 108th year.

Here are some victory photos. It feels good to share all that. Yay Life!

Wearing a backpack!

Doing the friggin' front-crawl! In Cabin Lake on top of Black Mountain—absolutely stunning and well worth the hike.

...And a little more celebratory front-crawl this time in a mountainy pond known as "Yew Lake".

My 70-year plan mate eating some wild blueberries at Cabin Lake. She took wonderful care of me, with regular Reiki treatments and was a star of patience as I navigated this particular shift...