for the last several weeks, something remarkable has been underway in my life. I am calling it “the shift.” so significantly noticeable to others that in this period, a number of people have asked me if I was going to write about this journey I’ve been on. indeed, I remember a chiropractor of mine who I saw after my brain injury in 2009, asking me the same question. thus, almost 10 years ago, I began making notes. so now, I’m putting it out there: “brain injury trans* formations: releasing the river I’ve always been…” is officially underway!
and this highly possible epigraph appeared this morning, from Anzaldúa’s Light in the dark/Luz en lo oscuro, from the concluding chapter, appropriately titled “now let us shift…”
“Often nature provokes un ‘aja,’ or ‘conocimiento,’ one that guides your feet along the path, gives you el ánimo to dedicate yourself to transforming perceptions of reality, and thus conditions of life. Llevas la pesencia de éste conocimiento contigo. You experience nature as ensouled, as sacred. Éste saber, this knowledge, urges you to cast una ofrenda of images and words across the page como granos de maize, like kernels of corn. By redeeming your most painful experiences, you transform them into something valuable, algo para ‘compartir’ or share with others so they, too, may be empowered…. You stop in the middle of the field and, under your breath, ask the spirits—animals, plants, y tus muertos—to help you string together a bridge of words. What follows is your attempt to give back to nature, los espíritus, and others a gift wrested from the events in your life, a bridge home to the self.” (Anzaldúa, 2015, 117-118).