I Am No Longer Broken

This past weekend, I went to the Readers’ Studio, an event sponsored by the Tarot School.

The jaunt to New York was my first since breaking my heel. Frankly? While I’d long planned to be there, I almost didn’t go; the idea of crutching my way from session to session didn’t appeal to me. In the end, though, I hoisted myself off the couch, balanced myself between a crutch and a suitcase, sucked it up, and went.

As anyone who reads my books will tell you, I’m not much for ritual. I frowned a bit, then, when session leader Corrine Kenner outlined what, at first, seemed to me to be an elaborate and lengthy exercise with little practical value: the construction of a Tarot labyrinth.

Each of us, we were told, would be issued a card to represent our current selves. Ten people were given cards and selected to be stations in the “labyrinth” — essentially, they were human positions in a room-sized spread. Walking the labyrinth involved moving from person to person (or position to position) and discussing how your card interacted with theirs.

Corrine instructed us to look at our personal cards, consider their meaning, and inscribe some affirmation or observation on them. At some point during our movement through the labyrinth, we were to leave this card behind; at the end of the labyrinth, we would receive a replacement card symbolizing our transformation.

Frankly? I found the exercise a little too “New Agey Hooky-Spooky” for my tastes. Still, I was deterimined to play along … so I opened my little packet and took out the card that had been randomly assigned as my “current situation” card: The Hanged Man.

Have you ever seen The Hanged Man? He is generally considered a traitor, a Judas, an unfortunate wretch. He usually hangs in a tree, suspended, as was once the custom, by his heel.

By his heel.

Since breaking my heel, I’ve felt more like The Hanged Man than ever. I’ve been immobilized, spending day after day on the couch. Because I broke my heel while moving from one house to another, I associate the break with my entire world turning upside down. One day, I was comfortable and happy in my house on Baxter Street; the next, I was bruised and broken in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable condo.

I stared at the card, wondering what to write. Attending the conference was already working a subtle magic on me; forcing myself to move from one place to the next was, in an odd sort of way, bringing me back to life. Frankly? Simply taking the trip made me feel more like myself than I’d felt in weeks.

From out of nowhere, a phrase popped into my head: I am no longer broken. The minute I wrote those words on the card, I was tremendously moved. A weight lifted, and I surprised myself by bursting into tears.

I covered this reaction quickly and made by way to the labyrinth. I went from person to person, position to position, and finally found myself at the station that represented “My Greatest Obstacle.”

The woman standing there revealed her card: The Hanged Man.

I almost lost it again. I could do little more than hold up my own copy of the card and repeat aloud what I’d written there. “I am no longer broken.”

The woman holding the Obstacle card sensed the importance of the moment, and, almost reverently, lowered her voice and said, “It’s true. You are no longer broken. Now go and get back to doing the work you are meant to do.”

I left my copy of the Hanged Man there. As I exited the labyrinth, the fellow at the final position gave me my new card, The Fool: reincarnation, rebirth, creativity, and new beginnings.

Since returning home, my writer’s block — a constant companion these past eight weeks — is gone. I’ve created a daily schedule, dividing my time and energy among several different projects. I’m writing thousands of words a day, every day. This week alone, I’ve received more leads and more requests for work than I’ve received during all of 2005.

The day after the conference, I set my crutches aside and began walking unassisted. Wednesday, the doctor made it official: no more crutches, no more boot, back to normal shoes. “You are very lucky,” he said. “Your kind of break almost never heals without surgery. In fact, your progress has really surprised me.”

I am home. I am writing. I am walking.

I am no longer broken.