Early Thanksgiving week, I was working on a painting project with one of my nearest and dearest friends. I tend to get introspective around the holidays. And much to his chagrin, I launched into esoteric spiritual reflection… aloud.
Spirituality is one of my favorite topics and one of his least favorite topics. Since we were painting, he couldn’t just walk away, which is what he probably would have done, if he could.
Finally, totally exasperated, he exclaimed, “Do you want to know why I think you’re crazy?”
The fact that he doubted my sanity came as no surprise. The disparity in our philosophical perspectives had been soundly established, and crudely summarized as follows: I fart butterflies. He pees acid rain.
Still, I was curious as to which of my many idiosynsracies he’d choose to focus on. In response to my nod, he continued. “You think everything has meaning. You manage to find a message in everything. A bird flies over, and it’s a sign. Christy. Sometimes a thing is just a thing.”
I thought about that. Hard. His accusation was true. I see signs and wonders in everything, from the miraculous to the mundane.
I was talking to my daughter, Callie, about it. And Callie sent this excerpt from Paul Coelho’s book, The Alchemist:
“He knew that any given thing on the face of the earth could reveal the history of all things. One could open a book to any page, or look at a person’s hand; one could turn a card, or watch the flight of the birds… whatever the thing observed, one could find a connection with his experience of the moment. Actually, it wasn’t that those things, in themselves, revealed anything at all; it was just that people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a means of penetration to the Soul of the World.”
Where some people see coincidence, others see signs and wonders: messages of love, spiritual synchronicities, divine orchestration. These synchronicities are like cosmic inside jokes. If another person doesn’t have historical context to understand the joke, they just won’t “get it”. These are little gifts, specially wrapped for the recipient. We can’t expect them to be meaningful to other people.
Interestingly, I have no problem believing in the little signs and wonders. It’s the big ones that give me trouble. Those big miracles make me doubt my self-worth, or even my sanity. But when you think about, there’s really no difference between a little miracle or a big one. Any spiritual “sign” challenges the linear nature of time or the natural laws of physics (which is the reason we consider them signs in the first place).
I had one of these big events happen this summer.
At the end of August, I was in a bad car accident. Just after midnight on August 23rd, my daughter, Callie, was driving 75mph, on an interstate highway, going through Nebraska. We were pulling a pop up trailer with our Honda Odyssey minivan. Callie drifted onto the shoulder, causing the trailer to fishtail. She over-corrected, and the fishtail intensified. Feeling the car sway out of control, Callie hit the brakes, and the trailer jack-knifed.
The car spun 180 degrees and rolled off the road into the median. Before the airbags had the chance to deploy, my side of the car hit the ground. My own body weight caused my ribs to break against my right arm. I remember the feeling of my skull going through the glass, then the metal frame of the door. The last word to form in my mind was simply “Oh”.
That word, “Oh”, was in response to an image of my life.
I’ve heard it said, that at the time of death, a person’s life flashes before them. I didn’t see events, or even people. In that final moment, my life was a single picture: one that felt so precious – so perfect, innocent and beautiful – that all I could say, was “Oh”. It was an expression of gratitude and wonder. It was also an “Oh” of surprise, that in the flash of an instant, it would all be gone.
Then, there was a pause. Time froze. On some galactic sewing table, the pachamama, who weaves man’s destiny into the fabric of time, checked her text messages, and said “Ooops!”. Then she pulled out a stitch, and the cosmos rebooted.
When global consciousness came back online, the car’s interior lights were on, the airbags had been deployed, and the car was filled, not just with dirt, but with angels. Yes, angels. Not just one, but tons of them. The car was lousy with spirits. I wondered how we were all able to breathe. They had their hands in the air and were yelling “Wheeee!!!”, like they were on a roller coaster ride.
In that moment, I was completely calm, fully assured that Callie and I would be fine. The minivan rolled three times. On the final roll, I even felt strangely excited, like kid on a ride at the fair. The angels were having a blast and their enthusiasm was contagious.
When the car finally came to a stop, in the middle of the road on the other side of the freeway. Trucks were flying past us, trying to dodge debris in the middle of the highway. I instructed Callie to pull onto the shoulder. Callie and I emerged from the crumpled minivan.
The pop up trailer was in matchsticks. Its fridge, sink, and beds were scattered across the road. Callie and I cleared debris off the highway, then called 911. As we waited for the ambulance to arrive, Callie was distraught at having caused so much distruction and endangering my life. I told her over and over that it was o.k. We were both fine. That’s all that mattered.
The ambulance team examined our injuries. Callie had a bad bruise and scrape on her left hip. Though she had a headache, she didn’t show evidence of a concussion. My right arm was badly bruised, a couple ribs on my right side were broken, and there was a minor scalp wound on the left side of my head. But the right side of my head, the side that supposedly went through the door frame, was completely fine. Not a scratch or even a bruise. The window wasn’t cracked. There was no evidence of impact. When it became apparent that our injuries didn’t require hospitalization, I got a hotel room.
Callie spent the night talking in her sleep. In the morning, I asked what she’d been dreaming about.
“It was so frustrating,” Callie exclaimed. “All night, people acted like the van was a ride at an amusement park! They were standing in line, trying to give me money. I told them I wasn’t going to roll the car again. But they got in anyway. And sure enough, all night long, I kept rolling the van!”
Considering my experience with the angels in the van, that was pretty weird.
But that’s not the strangest part of the story. On August 4, two weeks before the accident, I was on a group Zoom call with Anne Brady-Cronin, who is a psychic / medium. She’s an incredibly grounded, down-to-earth lady. The call was recorded, so Callie and I were able to go back and listen to the recording. As we listened to the recording, Callie broke down in tears because she realized the accident was predetermined. It wasn’t actually her fault. Here are a few of the messages Anne channeled, through her spirit guide, during that call:
You are careening out of control.
It is time for all of us to recognize the need to let go of the wheel.
We are feeling like we are in this hairpin turn, driving way too fast. Way, way way too fast.
Take your hands away (from the wheel).
You are in the sacred tumble, and we are in that tumble as well (of course, from an observer’s perspective).
It’s the time for you to sincerely allow us to intervene on your behalf.
Please understand that in this time, we are taking the wheel from you.
This time feels like that tumble. It feels like you have completely lost control of the vehicle, and so you are airborne, moving out of control. And yet, we have you, and we would never abandon you; particularly not in times of great need.
We hold your heart alongside of you. We walk these pathways and byways and even the treacherous trails, at your feet, helping you choose your footsteps.
Figure less. Be guided more. Release without question.
The thing we beg for, is that the greatness of your gifts, the things you were sent there to do, take a front seat in this ride.
Many or you have become accustomed to tucking those gifts into your back pocket, keeping them sometimes in the trunk, or in a vehicle that is not even being driven by you. It’s time for that to stop. Your divinity is what is desired.
In this time of tumbling. We are there with you, orchestrating your every movement. It is like a beautiful dance, being performed on the highest stage. Each step is perfect. Truly. Believe us.
All is on purpose.
This is the time for finding peace in the midst of tumultuousness.
This is a time of incredible discomfort. We have compassion for your struggle. And yet we ask you to release the wheel. To let go of the car. To trust that things can be done for you, on your behalf, that are greater than your human mind can contrive, conceive and orchestrate. We can do this.
This is a time for you to be awake, not to go to sleep. Be alive inside of those incredible vehicles. Do not skip this part. Often times, in your discomfort, the desire is to shut down, to ignore it, to pretend it’s not there, or to tighten and close your eyes like it is a bad dream and hope for it be over. Not this time. Everything that is being removed from your pathway is truly an obstacle. You may not notice the jarring motion of your toe against the rock until you hit it. But we see it coming first. Allow us, please, to move with you, and through you. To orchestrate on your behalf, in your divinity. You are sacred beings. We are meant to walk this journey with you. And in this time, to move fences and mountains for you.
You will leave behind the tumble. You will leave behind, the feeling that you are careening out of control. It is short-lived. Uncomfortable, but short-lived.
By the end of August, 23-27, (my accident was August 23) we will be moving out of the sense that we have lost control of the car, and the tightness of that turn, and the feeling that we are tumbling out of control. That will be leaving us near the end of this month. Again, August 23-27… we will be walking out of this fog, and greater levels of clarity will start to come in. And with that, we will experience a sense of easing. Like, “Whew”. The long breath at the end of an arduous process.
Remember, this call was two weeks before the accident. I had no reason to believe Anne’s words had anything to do with me… which is the reason my response to that call was so bizarre. As Anne was speaking, tears were streaming down my face. My chest was heaving. I was sobbing and struggling to catch my breath. As I rose from the couch to get Kleenex from the bathroom, my knees buckled, and I fell to the floor.
On my hands and knees, wave, after wave of GRATITUDE, poured through me. Though the accident wouldn’t occur for another two weeks, on August 4, I was completely in awe; humbled and grateful for a miracle I had yet to experience.
As mentioned, I see signs and wonders in the most mundane circumstances, and have no problem interpreting them as evidence of God’s love. But that car accident created significant angst. I wrestled with it for weeks, searching for a greater meaning. Was it a wake up call? Sometimes I can be shallow and self-absorbed. Do I need to develop more empathy? I spend a lot of time on my own personal fitness and spiritual introspection. Am I supposed to be doing more to share my gifts, instead of keeping them to myself?
In a quest to find a reason for the car crash, and other miracles I’d been experiencing, I enrolled in a 10 day spiritual retreat, at 15,000 feet, in the Peruvian Andes, with four Peruvian shamans.
So there I was, sitting in ceremony, day after day, beneath Asungate, a mountain regarded by these shamans as the most sacred in Peru. Each day, I begged for answers and waited for something to happen. And each day, the mountain stared back at me in silence. I don’t know what I was expecting. Imparted wisdom would have been nice. Maybe some kind of clarity?
But other than some freaky sounds of unknown origin in the middle of the night, nothing happened. So two weeks and thousands of dollars later, I went home empty-handed.
A couple weeks after that, it was Thanksgiving week. My friend and I were painting when he said, “Christy, sometimes a thing is just a thing.”
You want to know something? He was right. Whether it’s the message in a sunset, the words of a song that speak directly to our hearts, the divine orchestration in meeting the right person at precisely the right time, or the saving grace that delivers us from a serious illness or a horrific accident… a thing is just a thing. That thing is love. And love is the greatest sign and wonder of them all.
Visit Anne Brady-Cronin’s website to learn more about her psychic coaching and Lamplighter’s channeling group.
