Lessons in the Blood
I wasn’t taking good care of myself. I was worried over money, and so while my kids were away, I was skipping meals. I worked long hours that day, and other than the coffee at work, neither drank nor ate adequately. That night we had our monthly drum-circle which is usually a pot-luck of snacks that show up. This month wasn’t so lucky with actual food, but a friend showed up with a bottle of wine, and I drank a few glasses on an empty stomach. Not advisable.
Long hours later, I’m in bed asleep when the witching hour of 3:00 am strikes and I wake up with a thirst so great that it came with the panic of a life or death emergency. There was no cup by my bathroom sink, so I rushed to the kitchen with only the moonlight through the windows to guide the way. I was in a cold sweat, yet burning hot, nauseous, and my arms felt so heavy when I raised them to the cabinet for a glass. I stood there clothed completely in white, as the filtered water poured in from the fridge door dispenser. I turned into the doorway to the living room intending to sit down and made it one more step, having not yet taken a single sip…
I’m guessing that low blood pressure and obvious dehydration caused me to faint. I know now that I had a ridiculously low vitamin D deficiency, too, that maybe had something to do with it. Fainting is something you see in the movies a lot more than it actually happens in real life. I’ve never seen anyone *actually* faint, so it was just a caricature to me–a movie stunt.
What happened next is remembered more like an out-of-body experience. The memory is of “throwing” my consciousness across the room, visualized like an old, men’s overcoat, heavy and thick. It crumpled with a clunk across the coffee table as if the pockets were full of rocks. I remember a disembodied sensation of violent, awkward pain, as my chin met the edge of the coffee table, that my head almost wrenched free of my neck. I felt very heavy and bony as my chest scraped down the edge of the table, and that the floor hit me rudely hard. This memory is two-fold, both that I was the “coat,” so irreverently cast aside, and I was also observer who threw me and watched me crumple and thunk.
How long I lay there, I don’t know. It felt like a long time that I lay bleeding into the carpet, dreaming. Eventually, I realized that I was very cold, and wondered who stole my covers. Followed closely by, why am I sticky? Slowly I became aware of my blood-wet hair clinging to my face, tangled in my eye lashes…that there were blue lights too close to my face for this to be my bed…oh yeah, those are the lights from the Wii in the TV cabinet….
Where am I? Why am I…?
That is when the searing pain brought me to my senses and I touched my face; that sticky wet was everywhere. Then the nausea…and the gut-wrenching thirst screamed. I tried to sit up, but when my head was raised higher than my heart, I nearly fainted again. So I marine crawled first to the bathroom, leaving a trail of bloody prints on floors, light switches and counters. I wanted a mirror, but seeing what I was at that moment didn’t help. I thought I’d drink from the sink, but the black edges would crowd in whenever I stood up, and AGAIN there was no cup.
I crawled on hands and knees back through the broken glass I’d dropped in the living room to get to the kitchen again, fainting once in the middle, creating a second bloody puddle, but I made it to the kitchen sink and guzzled down cup after cup of tap water as fast as I could between stints lying on the cold vinyl floor.
I think I lost consciousness a total of four times, before I made it back to my bed. I threw back the blankets and lay there under the ceiling fan bleeding into the white sheets. I was covered in my own blood from head to feet, sweating, heart racing, and praying to all that is holy that I may survive.
I did consider calling 911. I will confess to you that, at that moment, I chose to tempt death rather than rack up a medical bill I have no ability to pay. You see, I know what hospital bills and ambulance rides cost, and I stubbornly refused to be bankrupted by that racket. I honestly thought I might die alone in the dark. Mind you, I am not in the least bit afraid of dying, when the time comes. Actually, I look forward to the Next Big Adventure, while being in no hurry to get there.
As I lay there talking to my guides, focusing on the Reiki energy I tapped into, and allowing the water to work it’s magic, I thought about many difficult things:
There was no one in my life who lived locally, to whom I felt close enough that I could call them at 4:00 am. In recent years, I’d been bricking myself into a tower away from the intimacy of true friendships, for fear of losing anyone else that I loved. If I keep them at a distance, at least I can keep them.
Anger I thought long dealt with welled to the surface; anger at my ex-husband for leaving me to be alone at this moment. Even anger that he had my 11 and 9 year old children at his house and I had no one to cry out for. Where is my promise of “in sickness and in health?”
My mother was in an inspirational marriage, but was nonetheless snuffed out while alone. She called her mother who lived two doors down, who came running to find her brain-dead on the floor. My mommy is dead; my family lives far away; Who do *I* call to come running?
What if I *did* die at that moment? Who would comfort my children? How long would it be before someone noticed I was dead? My co-workers would eventually wonder where I was, probably find me…would have to call…I dunno…who do you call when you find someone dead? Would someone else carry on running The Sojourner? I spent time thinking of all the work still left undone.
To my horror, I suddenly remembered that I’d never updated my Will since my divorce! Would the nurturing of my children, all my assets, and all my dreams, fall by default to my ex-husband? I honestly had no idea what that Will even said anymore, but it was a relic of a distant past, and a long-dead former life. All my endeavors would go to shit if I died unprepared, and that was reason enough to live!
Drinking the water was enough to restore me. Eventually, I got up, faced myself in the mirror, and took a picture for proof of the horror I’d become. Then I sat on the floor of the shower and watched entranced as my blood swirled down the drain.
In the end, I needed a few band-aids, an aspirin and a few months for the giant knot of a bone-bruise on my chin to heal on it’s own. Many people were very angry with me because I didn’t call 911. A side-effect of this night is that I found out exactly how loved I am by a great many friends who would have gladly taken my call for aid. But I am glad that I did not waste thousands of dollars of my kid’s grocery money on an ambulance trip because I was too careless to drink a glass of water and have a meal while they were gone. You can be sure that I’m not taking this second chance for granted! **
Moments of clarity like these do not happen randomly, not to witches. These kinds of revelations are like the Universal Gong ringing so loudly in your consciousness, that all your thoughts just fall into harmonious rhythm with Highest Divine Mind. It is sometimes called the Cosmic Clue-by-Four smacking you upside the…chin…in this instance. You can’t help but walk away from that moment a transformed person.
I realized how precious and delicate human life truly is; how stupidly easy it was to kill yourself through neglect. I also realized that it was very important to me to live on and raise my kids myself. I know that no matter who I have in my life, my home, my heart –ultimately– I entered this life alone, I am solely responsible for my survival while here, and I’ll depart this life alone, but it is up to me to make that trip a healthy one. I was reminded that I have to cultivate the support structure of relationships that I desire.
This all comes to mind because the wheel of the year turns back to Samhain, and the long hard stare into the maw of death. Today I am grateful for the lessons this taught me — yet did not kill me — so that I can enjoy the miracle of my life as it is unfolding now, with the correct people. I’m much healthier now.
Thank you, Cosmic Clue-by-Four. I remain open to your lessons, but next time, I humbly request that the experience not leave my house looking like a scene from Pulp Fiction, nor require professional carpet cleaning to remove blood from ALL THE THINGS. However, I’ll keep these scars as a gentle reminder.
Blessed Samhain-tides,
~Heron
**This right here is why I just bought Accident Insurance through AFLAC. It was amazingly cheap (relatively speaking) and would be the bridge between my rather lousy medical insurance (that is all I can afford) and would help me cover the co-pays, lost income and things like ambulance rides and hospital visits. There is also a small accidental death pay-out to cover final expenses. Buying this policy feels like the most important Samhain work I’ve ever done for myself.
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