First off I want to thank @deadsun for this image he created! What a fantastic piece of art. I am writing this post in response to @krnel for the contest.

Never lose hope...

I remember sitting there in that lift chair staring at the paneling just thinking all I really want to do is die. It seemed to me at the time that all hope really was lost. I had survived a horrible accident, had been on 2 emergency medical helicopter flights and had needed resuscitation a couple of times. I suppose I was fortunate to be alive at all but without the use of my legs, what was the point.

Those were extremely tough times for me but as I look back now some of my greatest learning experiences in life came from those darkest days. I had received bundle branch nerve damage in several areas of lower back mostly from the L3-L5 region. My sacrum and ilium had both been crushed and the left sacroiliac joint was crushed. I had very little use of my right leg and my left leg was completely numb. No feeling, just dead weight. And here I was, just 5 weeks later, sitting in my house alone with the thoughts of what western medicine had said. "There is a very real possibility that you will never walk again, at least not without assistance."

When an idea is given to us by those we consider to be authoritative, our conscious mind clings to it. But this has very little sway initially over the subconscious. From the very moment we begin to assimilate information, our subconscious mind has been soaking up every tiny bit of information that his been passed by its many senses. For the most part the input is endless and the capacity of the subconscious seems limitless. When you take this into consideration you start to get a picture of how various repeated programming has led to how we receive our thoughts in the conscious mind. This is how the said authoritative figure gets so much respect from our conscious brain. We are programmed to do what we are told from the moment we open our eyes.

After sitting around for another 3 weeks or so in my chair playing non stop hours of PS 2 taking ample amounts of drugs and feeling like I would re-break things if I moved, I decided to kill myself... or at least I thought I would. 30 percocets did not do the trick. Ironic actually, because the long term effects of the acetaminophen on the liver are certainly evident.

So after that decision failed, I decided to turn inward and face myself...

The devil inside

The demons I faced in this first true awakening of self were undoubtedly troublesome. The tormented mind is out of sync with the broken body. It is totally disproportionate in all directions. I understood very little of my mind in those days and I still understand very little today. What I did discover was that if you have the will sometimes there is a way.

After my failed attempt at dying for the 3rd time in 3 months I decided to focus all of that anger and rage and unresolved madness into one thing. Move, move, move, move, move, move... That was it. I sat and I stared at my feet and I told them to move. When someone would move me from bed to wheelchair, I told them to move. When I would close my eyes to go to sleep at nigh I told them to move. I told them to move every second I could keep my conscious mind focused on it. I said the word out loud, I wrote it on paper, I wrote it on my hands. I cried and when I cried I would scream at my legs and I would say you are going to fucking move!!!!

And one day they did...

The rest of this story entails more pain than I wish tell. In a matter of 6 months I managed to walk again with crutches. Within the year following I was down to one crutch and dragging around a nueropathically impaired piece of meat I called my left leg.

I would later go one to hike to the caldera at the Summit of Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii at 13540 ft. above sea level.

I have had a tremendous journey as I have followed my path that was chosen by me for me. I studied nursing and then psychology and in the end I still struggle to find balance on a daily basis, and I damn well hope I continue to to struggle. In most of the moments of my life where I have found great meaning, I have been terribly out of sync with my self. To be completely balanced and remain is to no longer be.

Peace,
The Last Sage