Canaries on crutches

My sprained ankle, although more or less healed now has taken on new importance. A couple of weeks after I did my ankle, my friend Michael sprained his. Then, on election day, I flew to New Jersey and attended an Obama party with some old neighbours. That night, I heard from my kids that my mother had fallen and broken her ankle. I thought that was a strange coincidence until the next day, when I heard from Janet, with whom I had set up an appointment, that she had fallen on Election night and had (you guessed it), broken her ankle. I was on my way to a lunch with Tuesday's Children when I got the call from Janet, so at lunch I recounted the story of the ankles. Julia, my Creative Insights teacher told me with amazement she had just dropped off her daughter in the city, because she had a broken ankle! Now it was just getting weird. And then Julia said something that makes so much sense, it just has to be true. She said that a psychic had told her that a sprained or broken ankle represented a break in old karma and the beginning of new karma. The fact that so many ankles have been sprained or broken during this election seems telling. A break with the old, in with the new. A break is painful, no doubt, but it reminds you of your vulnerability, how to take care of yourself, how to ask for help, reminds you to appreciate your mobility, and to empathize with others' immobility (spiritual or otherwise). These all seem like good lessons. My mother is having to conquer her fear of crutches, and become stronger in order to use them properly. As she scuttles around on the floor in the meantime, she is getting a whole new perspective on the world. When I told her the relationship of ankles and karma, she laughed. "I was feeling so sorry for myself," she said. "But now I feel like a canary in a coal mine. As though its the sensitive souls who can detect such karmic change (and who have thus sprained or broken their ankles). Our world is in upheaval, and we must learn to see things with a new perspective. Finances, politics, war, health. But with change always comes growth, and that is something I always welcome with open arms.