Shadow and Light

Last week my daughter and I were almost killed. Or worse... paralyzed and/or our bones splintered into 1000 tiny shards. When it happened, every single cell in my body was on heightened alert and supercharged with enough orgasmic electricity to power a float in an electric light parade. I've never felt anything like it. Course, I've never come that close to death (well...except for the time I tripped and nearly tumbled off the edge of Waynapicchu)

We were on a lone stretch of freeway driving home from Las Vegas. It was a wet, moon-starved night. Suddenly, in front of me was the dark silhouette of a UFO (unidentified freakin' object). At freeway speed, there wasn't time or prudence to slam on my brakes. I sharply jerked the steering wheel at the last possible millisecond....sending our car into an uncontrollable swerve. We BARELY, (and by barely....I mean my eyebrow hairs could almost touch it...)  barely missed hitting the UFO. Only now I identified the unidentified object. Sitting stone still, camouflaged against the inky ebony sky, was an inky ebony car...without lights or reflectors or orange warning triangles. It sat, stoically, at a 90 degree angle, blocking the entire lane.

After getting my car back in control, my arms and legs mimicked the car's response by going into uncontrollable swerves. But they somehow managed to steer us home. Crawling into bed that night at 12:30 am, the gravity of the situation hit me and I melted into a puddle of sobbing spaz. I had a real, honest-to-goodness freak out! After which, I recovered with a profound reverence for the power of our mind-body connection.

Since then, I have had several playbacks seeing myself on the brink of my own erasure, only to be acquitted at the last moment by some divine combination of luck and arrangement.  Now, in grateful reflection, the shadows have given way to a broad expanse of time stretching out before me like a flower-saturated landscape.

Field of poppies in Tasmania. Photo by Artie Photography

Now...
It is not the nearness to death that gives me pause. 
It is my second chance at life.

What have you done with second chances?

*Editor's note: At the time, I didn't even have the wherewithal to call the police and report the deadly hazard SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREEWAY! Although, there was a police car with lights and sirens speeding toward our location. I assumed it was coming to the UFO. I can only hope.

Top Photo by Spiritual Blue