On my way to see God, I met an Indian
It's not what we see, it is what we don't see that can have profound change
I have a health wearable.
A Whoop. It tells me all sorts of things I find useful to improving my health and health habits. This little device provides me my average heart rate, my respiration rate, restorative sleep, HRV (Heart Rate Variability), overall sleep performance, restorative sleep length and a few other data points.
All of it allows an obsessive data oriented nerd like me the fodder I need to perform well as a relatively well adjusted human being and a competitive athlete; or alternatively fret over what caused me to move backwards in my metrics, as reflected in my performance recovery score.
Recovering from the hit and run accident has been eye opening from a physiologic standpoint. The concussion has taken a toll with all sorts of symptoms creeping out of the woodwork, some on tape delay from the time of impact 30 days ago.
Physically, I have experienced a full on-all you can eat buffet range of pain flavors. The concussion has been frustrating but I am methodical in my recovery, or as much as my work allows for. I still have to make a living.
The pain flavors ranged early on from the 4,000,000 Scoville hot sauce at the end of the buffet you know you shouldn’t try but do anyway, then regret it. When you get hit by a truck, it feels exactly like you think it does. But there are other pain flavors too, all different forms of hot, spicy, loud or dull. Categorizing them over time has been an interesting journey. Pain is not just simply pain.
But this week is a gift. I’ve retreated to central Vermont with my wife and Bernese Mountain Dog, along with our eldest son, who caught the train from New York to join us for the week. While I have no gravel bike with me at present, a fact that pains me greatly, its absence is forcing me to recover.
In part, this means very little screen time, including TV, minus the occasional glances of the Tour de France and Wimbledon. My cell phone only works in one spot on our deck, so recovery is my number one activity.
My Whoop over the past several weeks has told me a blunt and unforgiving story. Blunt force trauma like mine have a catastrophic impact on all your metrics.
I am still in the basement across all metrics, my body is solidly and constantly in a Zone 4 sprint trying hard to mend itself. Looking at my metrics from 45 days ago and a week ago, I would have bet money the numbers were from vastly different people. But, that is where I am. So my task is to climb out of the basement.
And that is where this story starts, in a dark basement. At the end.
This small device on my wrist stopped collecting one piece data on May 30th at approximately 5pm for just under two minutes. Heart rate. Everything seemed to spike for a second then everything slowed. Except heart rate and HRV. These two metrics disappeared for a period that appears to be just under two minutes.
In pouring through my Strava and Garmin GPS data at the request of the Detective in charge of the investigation, I was able to identify exact locations on my training route with very precise time stamps to help pin point potential suspects. Delving into my wearable metrics as part of this task is where I unexpectedly discovered the gap.
This person recounted hitting a cyclist 5 years ago and watching them tumble headfirst into a mailbox post after being struck. They watched the cyclist lie on the road’s gravel shoulder, unmoving as this person drove away. The author of the email was afraid of what would happen to them and the disruption of their life had they stopped.
So this person continued on. Driving into an existence where each morning they awake to the sound of hitting the cyclist and repeatedly throughout the day the vision from their rear view mirror. The waves of fear each day of being discovered. This person wanted my forgiveness for their sin. I couldn’t give it. Their confession, or their plea to me was underscored by their description of a life unraveled. A divorce. Addiction. Inability to keep a job. Depression. Panic attacks.
And an increasing level of suicidal thoughts.
But these are the unintended consequences of poor decisions.
Memories from the accident slowly emerge like landmarks appearing through a thick fog. Just as the barn on the side of the road slowly appears, having been obscured by the thick grey blanket, so do memories and sensory experiences.
Some memories or experiences you get a sense of, but they evade you, so you need to go hunting them without expectation but with intention.
I had to work backwards to find what was just out of reach. I knew it was there, but it evaded me, until the timeline I walked back on presented it.
What I found is what I experienced—irrespective of how you choose to judge what you read.
What is below is from an earlier article I wrote . That piece outlines what happened after this journal. Yet it was written before. Out of order. Maybe. But perhaps there was a purpose in that. I don’t yet know….
For a brief moment, I sank into it and enjoyed it. That was easy since that is all there was.
Then my body slowly started to come back online, which in turn slowly moved my consciousness out of park.
It was like waking up quickly from a deep sleep in a hotel which leaves you a bit disoriented. I didn’t want that. I just wanted to stay in the dark and enjoy the grass.
But this world noticed my absence. It grabbed me by the foot and drug me back.
That is where it ended. The beginning includes the memory of rushing into several large trash cans filled to the brim after being hit and wondering why someone would bother to paint their name on them.
What lay between the names painted on the trash cans which was my last memory before the gap and the smell of grass which oddly was part of what I write about here and seems was the linkage between here and there.
This will become clear shortly.
The first thing to return to memory was akin to the scene from the opening of the movie Gladiators. Russell Crowe was walking though a field of wheat. The camera focused on his hand brushing over the tops, slightly out of focus. Etherial almost.
I recall exiting a pine forest, stepping over a wide and clear brook. The high pines behind me retreating to reveal an expansive grass and wildflower filled field. Clean cool and crisp air. Only the sound of the brook babbling and crows cawing.
Pine forests hold a special place for me, they always have. I find powerful and high frequency energy there. They have been a constant in my dreams for nearly three years now.
Here in Vermont, the sound of crows in the early morning up in the Green Mountains, I find oddly reassuring.
Through meditation and dreams over the past year I have found myself in a place seemingly near this meadow numerous times. And on many such visits, I have met what I can best describe or feel as being a Lakota Medicine Man. Or at least this is the form I have been allowed to see. I have no idea why.
I can go back to my journal all the way to the fall of 2021 and identify with detail the what, how and where of each encounter. Every time in a green mountainous space, straddled by dark pines. Either fire or water present and my Lakota.
I won’t recount the various details of those experiences However, they stick with me as lessons and reminders of the possibility of what is rather than what is experienced.
The two philosophers from across the ages, Alan Watts and Marcus Aurelius both have noted that our ordinary consciousness leaves out more than it takes in. This observation holds greater sway with me today than ever before.
But it isn’t just philosophers who believe our understanding of nature is limited. This belief is held by many devoted to science as well.
The famous Quantum Physicist, Werner Heisenberg said, “What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.”
There is far more to nature than what we are capable of registering.
We fail tor recognize and register so much that surrounds us because we are either immune to it, fail to believe it or simply choose to remain asleep.
Stepping across the brook, I found myself walking as Russell Crowe did through the meadow. I was in no hurry, surrounded by the lush, tall grass and flowers. I could feel them brush across my hands. I could smell the grass. Feel the gentle warmth of the sun.
After traveling some time across this meadow, I am not sure how long, I look up to see the now familiar Lakota in the near distance. I continue my walk unconcerned as he walks towards me, matching my easy pace. We had all the time in the world.
We stopped to face each other ,an arms length apart in the shimmering light. His hair is black and kept short. He is a deep reddish brown from a life—or a Millennia in the sun. He is bare chested with a number of necklaces and a kind of vest with matching buckskins dyed a brownish-black. A single redish-brown hawks feather hangs from the side of his necklace. His face is expressionless, his eyes dark but kind and full of an intense knowing.
He’s rarely spoken to me in words and when he has, it is little more than a whisper. The sound of wind flowing through the pines.
During that day and that time, as we stood there, he came to once again quietly speak. These are the words I now recall clearly, as the memory has reemerged and as I describe.
You may find this description fanciful or simply a trick of trauma. Perhaps. But that is a label you chose to place on it. I see too many overlapping threads to write it off. And so choose differently.
And, if notable Philosophers from across the ages and modern Quantum Physicist now write with conviction of there being far more than we perceive, I stand with their perspective.
Standing in the meadow, he said to me, “This is not for you. Here. Now. Please go back to the forest. I will find you again on your way. Before you cross, leave the stones you carry behind.”
Without question or further dialogue, I turned to retrace my steps, finding myself again at the brook. There I took from my pockets three heavy stones. As I stood balanced on one of the large rocks scattered throughout the clear and fast moving stream I dropped them in.
They quickly vanished amongst the myriad of smooth river rocks two feet below the clear surface. I looked to spot them, but they were now gone. No longer mine to own or carry. Turning on the rock in the stream, I again faced the meadow, for one last long look at its incredible beauty. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, finding the sweet smell of…
For a brief moment, I sank into it and enjoyed it. That was easy since that is all there was.
This is an inventory of what I experienced leading up to and on the 30th day of May, as well as, my recollections and thoughts of the events since then. The world is much more than we see or know. Which means we can choose to move beyond the experiences of everyday life and choose to grow and experience what we encounter in ways we wish. The pathways and intersections and even experiences open to us are far greater than we generally believe.
Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected, of their relatedness. All things are implicxated in one another and in sympathy with each other. This event is the condequence of some other one. Things push and pull on each otehr, and breathe together, and are one.
—Meditations, 6:38, Marcus Aurelius
If you want more, seek to find what others cannot see.
I’m glad you got to Vermont, that should speed the healing