Shattering, then reShaping my Shades of Gray: A recovering diary of a black young senior, yog

Recently while researching Yoga and dance in the new emerging culturally rich Cuba, I had a serious auto accident, fracturing my pelvis, leaving me unable to walk.

Though I have authored articles, books, and curriculum that speak to my work in comprehensive health education and kinesthetic healing, until now I have never personally felt the need to share my intimate knowledge as to how these experiences must be used as survival tools. Survival of each aspect of myself physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually is exactly where I am now. I’m literally clinging to the me that I have consciously cultivated in my private life, and professionally given voice to for the last several decades.

As a dance educator/performer, kinesiotherapist, and Yogini, I have known since the beginning of my time that movement is a key contributor for everyone’s health, healing and happiness. However, within the last year each of those places have been significantly challenged my inability to move. Movement as I have known it has been stripped from me, twice this year. In June 2016 I slipped and fell, broke 4 ribs, punctured my R lung, and loss 40% of my breathing capacity. In spite of the lingering residue of that unsettling experience, I reclaimed much of my strength & stability, thus allowing me to journey to Cuba to further reconnect with the joy of movement.

On the 6th day of my illustrious adventures tracing

Cuban dance roots and emerging Yoga practices, I was met with an auto accident that paralyzed me, and the rest of my trip.

I was immediately ambulanced to one of the Cuban well-intended hospitals, where I was administered compassionate, but limited emergency care. The pain that I experienced from my fractured pelvis was unbearable. I have given birth to two children naturally, and as a dancer endured other extremely uncomfortable physical challenges…but nothing matched the intense trauma my body was undergoing…and I couldn’t move!

Transporting me on a gurney from the ER to the 4th floor of the hospital by stairs, because of nonfunctioning elevator, left me also in shock from pain.

The mild pain medication again proved to be grossly ineffective while returning back to the USA. Unable to bear any weight, I literally had to be picked up and transferred from one wheel chair to the next during the entire travel between 3 airports. I abandoned all pretenses and allowed myself to scream, cry and whale when necessary in attempt to dispel the agony I was undergoing.

It was only after being administered to Piedmont hospital in Atlanta that I was able to calm myself and listen to “Spirit” assure me that I don’t have to undergo this alone. It was at that point that I reached out via email to my healing community for help. How I am using “Spirit,” your support, and my deeply innate wisdom to guide me back to the path on which I have been known to travel, is what this blog is about.

I need you to stay with me on this journey, continue to send loving energy to me, and listen to me almost daily, as I clumsily figure out how I will reclaim and reshape each of my shades of Gray.