Life is. New challenges are around every corner. Two mornings ago I awoke healthy and feeling vividly alive. Within two hours life flip-flopped, leaving this perfect little body with a new version of vision. Two retinal tears opened up in a display of flashing light and a big, solidly dark fishhook shaped impression splintered leaving a cobweb covering of constantly moving floaters in my left eye.

Why? How? Who knows? I don’t. Not even the retinal specialist I found my way to within hours had an answer. It happens. It happens more often with people over 60. The doctor anchored the tears with laser surgery and a strong recommendation of limited activity for 4 – 6 weeks. According to traditional medicine, I am at risk of more tears right now. It is fascinating to face the possibility of blindness. Odds are, it will not go that far, but it can.

Leaning into that reality opens a new clarity, new appreciation. It seems funny to me that a loss of vision actually helps me to see more clearly. For a long time now, my body has been the battleground for spirit. I would prefer a playground yet it seems I learn so much with each new physical challenge.

In the past three years, I have survived an extreme infection in my jaw, accompanied by brutality before unimaginable to me. I learned compassion for myself, for the doctor who was so abusive and all beings who find themselves on the outskirts of financial ability.

I fell from the top of an orchard ladder, landing on my hip and shoulder. There was little residual to that one as long as I stayed present, and did not retell the story. If I stayed in the story, in the past, the pain was intense.

I faced a preliminary diagnosis of cancer, that after a few nights of settling into the possibility, magically changed into something less. I learned that it is okay to go Home now. I need do nothing before my return to the Source. Sitting in the warm embrace of Home, of course I chose to stay.

And now, faced with losing vision, I am gaining even greater clarity. Compassion and love for this body, this body I have so criticized in the past, amplifies exponentially.  Self-love is now a bottomless well. I have been swallowed by wonder for this existence we call life. Each battlefield scar opens me wider, deepens the love welling up within, seats me in the reality of ‘no control’ and leaves me better able to live, to love, to dance, to sing.

Healing energy has been coming through my hands with a burning intensity. The more tours of duty on spirit’s battlefield, the greater the flow of energy. I find myself of use to others although I rarely find the ability to heal myself. It feels like the healing energy requires two, one who acts as a channel for it, another who openly receives it. Maybe that is what Jesus meant when he said, “Whenever two or more are gathered …”

As I was settling into this new eye energy, I heard a question, “If being blind would make you a better healer, would it be worth it?” My answer was immediate, unconditioned, before any need of thought. Yes. Was that spiritual justification for what is happening to me? I do not know. The thought and the answer were real and resonated at a core level in my body.

This morning I watched a ruby-throated hummingbird as it and its friends frolicked in the sunshine. The rich red color seemed more intense, its features more delicate, the dance more perfectly choreographed. As I stepped from the window, I was more finely attuned to the movement of my legs and the perfection in the ability to walk, the sumptuousness of this senses. As I come to terms with the stunning gift of vision nothing matters the way it used to. The clothes I wear, whether or not my hair is combed, how I look, what others see, what I see in the mirror … none of it matters. Without sight, where is the meaning? Is it not in the precious miracle of sight itself rather than its contents?

A captivating picture flitted through my mind. I saw an old woman, a rat’s nest for hair (perhaps there was even a rat living within). She was dressed in rags and yet she walked with a grace unlike any I have seen. I laughed when I saw it. Not an uncomfortable laugh, but the laugh of freedom, of not caring if she was me. She was absolutely blind, and yet she was absolutely clear. She was me, one of the crazy, insane, in this world but not of it, blind to the lower density pull of the ego’s demands. An amazing energy poured through her. With every breath she transmitted love.

She is all of us. Remembering that Life simply Is, the battle wanes and a little wiggle room appears. All the self-judgment, the hidden beliefs that I should have been able to prevent, and if not prevent, at the least heal my eyes, drops away. This time the thoughts did not last long. They fell away into that deep vat of remembrance that I have no control here. In relinquishing the idea of control, the battleground becomes a playground.