What my broken foot is teaching me
By Lian Brook-Tyler
On Friday evening, I broke my foot, though at the time I did and also didn’t know it was broken (the paradoxical Schrödinger's Cat experience of living through a mythical lens.)
My husband was out and I watched a film with my children, afterwards we decided to dance to one of the songs on the film’s sound track (for those of you who, like me, like details it was ‘Ooh Wee’ by Mark Ronson, Ghostface Killah and Nate Dogg)
I’m somewhat notorious for my crazy dancing (#shamanicproblems), only this time it was clearly another level of crazy - I threw a shape, slipped sideways, and landed on my overturned foot.
As I fell I saw a comic style caption hovering right over my foot saying “SNAP!” So I knew it was broken, though the pain didn’t arrive until ten minutes later.
(The more we consciously work psychically, for example through shamanic journeying or active imagination, the more spontaneous, accurate and also downright strange visions can become.)
I got into bed, my son brought me frozen peas and a pillow to ice and elevate my foot, and it was to this scene that my unsuspecting husband returned home.
As you can imagine, his first thought was to take me to hospital but I asked to wait until the morning.
I knew my sensory sensitivity would be overloaded by the lighting and chaos of a Friday night in A & E (#autisticproblems), and I knew I would be better having a restful night in my own bed and then going in the morning.
We got to the hospital late Saturday morning and I was looked after beautifully by the medical staff. It turned out I had a broken and displaced metatarsal in an unusual place (it’s a common bone to break but it’s usually in a different place - photo of the x-ray below). There was talk of needing to operate but they decided to leave it for now, give me a boot and crutches, and review again in a week’s time.
Since arriving back home, I’ve been pondering the meaning of the break. As a symbol (and many things can be that when we remember the language of myth) it’s an especially rich one - bringing with it powerful themes of a rupture, pain, incapacitation, the ending of one reality and the beginning of a different reality unfolding to the one anticipated, a call for surrender and acceptance.
Death and rebirth.
"Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans." John Lennon, Beautiful Boy
(Looking up the source of this quote and seeing it’s actually a Lennon lyric, I realised this the second time the symbol of John Lennon has arisen in the last 30 minutes. I mentioned it to my husband, a huge Beatles fan, who told me the anniversary of his death is coming up on the 8th December. This is an example of how symbols weave with other illuminating symbols when we’re paying attention.)
I’ve also been thinking back to a similar symbol that arose nine years ago - via breaking the same bone on the same foot.
The last time I broke it was just after I met Jonathan and we were moved to co-create something together. My solo business and identity had to die, and the broken foot meant I had to slow down, rest, and learn to create in a different way to how I had in the past. A month after the break we birthed Born Happy (which was our first evolution before Primal Happiness and then Waking The Wild)!
And what about this time? Believe it or not, we are just in the process of conceiving a new evolution… We’ve been preparing to birth something that has been whispering to us for years but it hasn’t been the right time.
This evolution is not convenient or easy, after all, we only became Waking The Wild exactly a year ago (this week!), we had really intended to spend longer building on that foundation.
But when Spirit calls, we’ve learned to listen.
So maybe this broken foot is teaching me more about death (the gift that keeps on giving), is showing me it’s time to slow down and create in a different way, and is heralding the mythical birth ahead.
I am deeply grateful for its lessons.
🌟🙏♥️
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