Hearing the screech of tires, I react quickly. Push foot to the brake and veer to the right of the car in front of me.
I “feel” the impact. The sound of the impact “hits” something inside me. Something not physical, per se, but painful nevertheless. One, two, three cars crashing. All in front of me. Metal against metal. Plastic bumpers caving in, useless against the velocity of cars speeding at 60 miles per hour forced to come to an abrupt stop.
How I avoided a collision, God only knows. I was directly behind the three vehicles in the crash. The woman in the car in front of me, was moving , but sat at the driver’s seat, as the driver whose car she rear-ended, had gotten out and walked back to speak to her. A man in the first car, a small sports car, remained inside with his car abutting the concrete barrier of Interstate Route 76. linking Philadelphia with Valley Forge, PA. He appeared to be okay. All cars were in the passing lane of the two-lane highway.
Wanted to stop and offer help, but “got honked at” by on-coming traffic in the right lane, that slowed, but never stopped. I edged my car past the wreck wondering how I avoided becoming one with them. How the driver behind me stopped before striking me.
Accident fallout still causing me pain
Got off the highway, known locally as the Schuylkill Expressway, and went into a part of Philly called Manayunk, a great Native American name that many of small Pennsylvania towns and sections have retained from the original land-owners. Drove in a daze until I got to Roxborough, still within the city limits, and decided to drive to the place some three weeks earlier that I had dropped off “Sombitch” Rooster along with the six chickens he sired. (Two hens, four nearly adult roosters. One was just beginning to crow!) Pulled onto the gravel road. Parked. Hiked up a walking path and whistled.
A white hen cackled and ran across the path some 30 to 40 feet ahead of me, darting into an underbrush and away from my sight. Whistled several more times, but heard nothing from the spot she had disappeared into. But, oh, my heart! They’re okay. If one of ’em is making the rounds at this far edge of the woods, I felt confident the rooster and his merry band of fowl would be doing just fine in the wild. I made the right choice in freeing them, I thought. The rooster was mean, because he had to “be mean” to care for them here.
One closed road opens another
It was no “accident” that brought me to this spot Sunday. I believe there was an intent, a development by design that led me here. To comfort me through nature. To assure me that all is well with the world despite my doubts and fears. Wish I didn’t have to be shaken so badly earlier to learn such a lesson.
Funny. All day long, I felt as if I was actually in the crash. My body hurt. My back felt like it was kicked, and my neck and shoulders ached. Hurt so much, I’ve made arrangements to seek a therapeutic body massage today, some 48 hours after witnessing the crash.
Having seen the hen, however, I’d say it was well worth it.
Now, all I have to do is tell my son what I did with the seven-member wilderness family of chickens that were once his pets. Don’t worry. I’m going to tell him the truth. This encounter makes it much more easier to break the news.
Contoveros 
you really shouldnt have lied to me about where you took the rooster and his young…i would have understood if you had just told me you couldnt find rosies house and that you took them to the nature center…i forgive you but im still mad that you lied to me for so long about them…we should go visit them again soon…well im in english/blogging class right now so i gotta go i will c u at home
-nick
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I did not lie to you. Nikolai.
I simply waited until the right time to tell you and the right time never seemed to come about until you learned of it from another source. Let’s go visit the area. You may want to look at other stories I wrote to see that my intent was in the right place, but my heart wasn’t. I did not want to cause you pain, is my only explanation. That’s no excuse. Only a mea culpa.
Dad
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Michael,
This is a hard period of time for you. When is your birthday? I noticed that many unpleasant events often happen with me a week before my birthday.
Helen.
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Are you talking about a “Spiritual birth?” Or “chronological” one?
I was “burped” out a month or so early — on December First, sharing a biorhythm with Woody Allen, Richard Prior (both comedians), Lou Rawls and Bette Midler (both singers).
May have been “touched” by the Light in some week in July. Never thought about it. But now I will . . . Thanks, Helen T.
michael j
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[…] mammalian frame could not contain so much of Him. (See: weekend-euphoria-needs-time-to-set, and accident-leads-to-a-fowl-self-discovery). You really do have to be “empty” in order for Him to fill you. Should have paced […]
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By the way Michael, where do you find such great graphics? Are they of your own making? They always seem to fit your writing perfectly. I’m new to this blog thing. The only way I can get photos on my site is to email them from my phone, and they turn out huge. Not ideal, but it is simple. Maggie B
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Ok, I think I can help you.
Let’s say you wanted a graphic to go with your dolphin story (click the hyper-link above, but return shortly after . . .)
__________________________
Now that I got your attention, let me tell you the terminology. You just clicked on what computer people call, a “hyper link.” You get it by placing your mouse pointer at the very top of your computer, where you see something starting with the letters “http: blah, blah,blah…” By “right clicking” the mouse, you “copy” the entire line. You can then go to story you are writing, place the mouse pointer at the point of entry in the story, “right click” and click on “paste.” A blue line of info should appear in your story. You can edit it and even change a word to suit your purpose, just as long as you stay within the blue area.
Now for something called “images.”
Google a term for which you want an “image” or graphic. Hit dolphins and you’ll see several story lines. Go to the upper left hand corner of the page, and look for a line of individual words, one of which will be “image.”
Click on that word and you’ll be provided lots of pictures and plenty of pages of images to choose from.
Right click on one that you like. “Copy” it. Go back to your story and “paste” or insert it into the section of your writing you’d like to see it. (I look for a halfway point)
The graphic will appear. Go to the upper left hand corner of the graphic and two symbols will show up as you glide your mouse pointer over it. The one will “kill” or remove the image. The other will allow you to “edit” it.
You can not enlarge it, but you can keep the same size (100%), or reduce it like I do most all of the times. You can also type in a “cutline,” what we in the newspaper business call the written “caption” that appears beneath pictures. There’s an art to it. Condensing a message using the info provided in your story can be fun. Kinda like playing with a catchy headline that you hope will capture the interest of a reader “glancing” at your story and wondering if they should invest their time in reading what you present.
Make sure you click your “save” button on your WordPress site. Preview the story before publishing it, and make any adjustments before striking the magical “Publish” button for the world to see for now and evermore.
Enjoy!
Note: Go to your library that has computer access. Try experimenting there. A librarian can help you like one or two have helped me in the past. Be forewarned that libraries have different “keys” to “copy” as well as “paste.”
michael j
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I love reading your stories, recounting your day-to-day experiences. It obviously wasn’t your fate to be any more involved in that accident than you already were. I once heard a spiritual teacher say that God sometimes takes what would’ve been a knife wound, and turns it into a pin-prick, as He sees fit. As I see it, a huge amount of Karma was rendered down for you, just right. I know the feeling of being in, or close to, a situation like that. You all have my sympathies.
Blessings, Maggie B
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Got my back “fixed.” Learned my “sympathetic nerve system” had absorbed punishment from witnessing the taumatic event.
Got relief as “Dr. Bob,” as we call him, spent less than 15 minutes apply pressure to straighten out those parts of my body that got “tangled up,” knocked out of whack. Felt like a million bucks and actually clicked my heals together twice, jumping into the air “Yankee Doodle Dandy”-style, like Jimmy Cagney did when winning the best actor award in the movie about George M Cohen . . .
Ran out of office, handled a family crisis, and met with two persons in a crystal shop to talk of “angels” later that evening.
Don’t know how all of this fits together, but I don’t think you would hold any of it against me. Would you?
Not my Spirited Soul Angel
Love you!
michael j
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My daughter does holistic healing too, so I know your story would resonate with her very well, and with what Dr. Bob did for you. As I read your account I kind of came to the same conclusion: there was a sympathy factor at work that your body worked to absorb, and just couldn’t. Not without a lot of pain.
Sorry that you had to let the sumbitch rooster go. Must have been quite a hard decision.
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Wolf:
While meditating in my “Sanctuary” at an “angel” meeting last night, I “visualized” “Sombitch” Rooster when asked to think of the loved ones in my life. He strutted right past my dead dog, Willie, and got in front of a woman who “channels,” another one taking me on a Shamantic “journey,” as well as my Buddhist friend of whom I took vows with.
Also, Not less than five minutes ago, I walked on a curb with arms out to balance myself and I could think of no one as crazy as I was except . . . you got it!
Wolfshades!!!
Missed you buddy. You might just be an angel in disquise, but don’t let the ladies know. You know what they all wanted to do with “Michael” in the movie played by John Travolta.
michael j
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So glad you did not become part of that scary pile-up of autos. But even gladder that it brought you to an awareness of the healing power of Nature–of which we are all part.
shanti om
I hope the fowl are ‘happy’ in their new freedom & surroundings.
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It’s where the rooster and his crew belong with a fighting chance to survive in the woods.
Still have five hens ranging across our back yard.
Nature has a way of bringing all of us a little closer to what really counts in Life. All we have to do is open ourselves up to it . . .
thanks.
michael j
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Do those free ranging hens lay any eggs? If soooooo…they ought to be very tasty cage free.
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Yes!
But, they went on strike after I took away the rooster. Gotta show ’em that I’m now the boss, and maybe they’ll cooperate more.
By the way, there names are Hilary and Michelle. One is tan, the other dark.
Thanks.
michael j
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LOL–Are you learning ‘to rooster’? Curious how the hens take to you.
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