Gratitude for Vision

This summer marked the 30 year anniversary of the beginning of my meditation practice which began in 1994.

Two months ago, I started seeing little black floating dots in my right eye, which is my dominant eye. I also felt a weighted heaviness in the same eye. At first, I just thought it was tiredness, so I went to Kauai for R&R and the little black dots continued. I did a little research and I saw that they were floaters. So I put it in the back of my mind until I mentioned it to my best friend Kate. She said “Ele make an eye appointment just to rule anything out."

So I called the eye doctor in LA to make an appointment upon my return. I explained to him what was going on, he said “you need to see a doctor today or tomorrow. “ I could feel the urgency in his voice, and I knew I needed to take this seriously.

I was on the island of Kauai and it’s much more limited as far as doctor resources. Through a dear friend, I ended up getting an an appointment with a wonderful optometrist and ophthalmologist. During my visit, I discovered that I had a detached retina. My doctor told me that I needed to get an emergency surgery and I needed to fly immediately to Oahu. I opted to get on the plane and fly to LA instead.

She asked me if she could pray with me as I was crying and shocked by this news. She and I bowed our heads prayed together. She asked for the doctors hands to be guided. There was so much love in this intimate moment of prayer.

When I left her office, it was full adrenaline literally shot out of a canon energy, go, go, go, which ultimately brought me back to the city of Angels. 

After being on a flight all night in prayer meditation for 5 1/2 hours we landed. I was picked up by a friend who brought me to my two dear friends, Elizabeth and Greg Lauren, who greeted me with so much love and reassurance. Greg dropped me off at the doctors office at 7 AM.  Where I thought I was going into surgery. It ultimately ended up just being a doctors visit and they ordered me to have emergency surgery at Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown LA. 

When I got to the hospital, there was complications with my insurance pre-authorizing an emergency surgery, so the administrations walked me over to the emergency room. 

There was a long line to even get into the emergency room. My mom and I stood outside waiting.

At this point, I hadn’t eaten for 17 hours. I hadn’t slept. I was super exhausted and this was no easy task to stand in line. 

For comfort, I had a selenite wand in my hand, which the security guard insisted I needed to turn in. I handed it over. (If you get a chance, check out my IG to find out what happened to that selenite wand.)

Once we got inside, the waiting room was standing room only. There was nowhere for us to sit and it was extremely extremely uncomfortable. 

After some time, I ultimately ended up being brought back and the nurse put a port in my arm and sat me in a wheelchair by myself while my mom stood in the waiting room. 

I sat there in a wheelchair for 4 1/2 hours until it was brought up to my hospital bed. 

This is where the story got really beautiful and sweet. My nurse introduced herself and her name was Crystal. She was a sweetheart and many other wonderful nurses came through and were so kind and caring. 

Then, I was greeted by the assistant doctor surgeon, Dr. Iyengar. This was so significant for me because I’ve been practicing Iyengar yoga for over 20 years, it felt like a blessing to have him in the surgery room with me. 

When I was brought down to pre-op another nurse introduced herself as Tilly. This was significant as a piece of jewelry in my collection I had named Tilly. Then the anesthesiologist introduced himself Dr. Lee. Rearrange the letters and its Ele. 

All of these names felt like  little gifts from my angels letting me know they were with me and everything was going to be OK. 

As I was waiting through this whole procedure, I put myself in a deep meditative state and was listening to healing music, which helped me drop in and stay incredibly centered as all of this outward chaos was happening around. It was as if these past 30 years of daily meditation, all culminated in this moment for me to be able to walk through all of this with an incredible amount of grace.

As I was being wheeled into the operating room, sunshine poured down on me and as they opened the doors, I heard the nurse say, "it is 5:44." 

I said to my surgeon “At 5:55 we will be in the middle of which is my favorite time and number."

I was then given a twilight sedative by Dr. Lee . As I  drifted off into that special zone that I call "rainbow unicorn" …I felt a deep peace and acceptance of what was to be. 

I was awake for the entire surgery and very cognizant what was happening. I was able to see the most beautiful vision I have ever seen …

I watched as the vitreous fluid drained from my eye . Then I saw the colors , the shapes … A dance of magnificent cosmic visions. … it was beyond beautiful. There are no words.

After the surgery, I told the doctor and my mom it felt like I was the on the inside of a crystal. 

It was an experience unlike anything that I had ever witnessed in my life.

When I came out, they let me know. I needed to be facedown for seven days. That means 50 minutes of the hour I would face downward. 

It seemed a daunting task. 

I had no idea of what I needed to help support my body / head and comfort during that time.

Thanks to some research, I ended up ordering some beautiful support pillows that helped me feel incredibly comfortable during the experience. For those seven days, I went into a deep meditative state. I had zero vision in my right eye nor did I know it was going to return as nothing is guaranteed. I had no idea that this would occur as the surgery was an emergency  and nobody ran down that part of the experience with me before so that was a big surprise for me.

To have zero vision in one eye and only see light for this time has been an unbelievable experience of surrender. 

I never knew anything of retina detachments, words like vitreous fluid, and what this journey entails or even that it even exists. 

Through the support of friends and loved ones I was able to connect with three people that have walked this experience and helped me understand and guide me through with love and support. This was huge. These touchstones of human beings gave me inspiration and a sense of everything is going to be OK. So important for us to have loving support especially when we are in vulnerable places in our life. 

I found that over the past month I’ve really really wanted to be by myself and spend lots of time just sitting and being in a deep meditative state as my inner vision has gotten stronger as my outer vision is gently finding its way.

A few weeks ago, I went on a spiritual retreat with Amma, the Indian humanitarian and hugging Saint. 

Right before I went up to receive her Darshan, I was describing my visual experience to a beautiful compassionate soul who helped walk me up and guide me through the waiting to have my moment with Amma. I covered my left eye and described to her what I was experiencing with my right eye. Just at that moment, I started to see a peak of my vision, returning over the top rim of my right eye. It truly felt like a miracle.

I had written a note to Amma’s interpreter Gita. I asked for Amma‘s grace and support and helping me have my vision return.

When I had my moment with Amma  and she hugged me, Gita read her my note. Amma released me and then grabbed me and held me deeply in her arms and started kissing me on my right eyebrow. It was so tender, sweet and just infinitely loving.

When I was in the little gift store at the retreat, I found a painted rock that was from the ashram where Amma lives.

On the rock was painted the most magnificent eye. I knew I was to take this stone to work with during my meditation to have my vision return.  

The next morning after my experience with Amma, I looked deeply into the rock covering my left eye. My vision was still very much a tiny little peek however I could see, and as I moved the rock down over my eye, I noticed that the bottom of my eye was acting as a loop! 

Everything was magnified and I could see in great detail super super close-up as I held it close to my eye.

This was such a surreal experience for me.

Here I am a jeweler with a built-in loop for this period of time. A wave of acceptance and laughter filled me. 

I really am getting a different perspective. 

I’m getting a deeper vision. 

I’m getting an opportunity to see life deeply close at a distance with barriers of light.

I am spending such profound time within. 

A gift of slowing down of listening of understanding. 

This summer has been a time of cocooning. Of angelic work on inner vision.

I have felt so incredibly vulnerable during this time and been difficult for me to be in my shop more than even a couple hours as I am healing as I am shifting my perspective. And I am giving myself that grace and space. My team has been incredibly supportive and loving.

This is truly one of the most profound experiences of my life.

This vision has changed forever. 

How I saw things prior to this and how I do now …it’s shifted greatly. 

Each and every day my vision is returning little by little. Every moment of every day, I am in profound gratitude for my eyes for the vision for the gifts for how I am seeing. 

One of the treasures of this experience is how I see people. 

The profound beauty that I am witnessing as I look into the faces of those that I know well with new eyes how beautiful everyone is how much I love them, their inner light shining, even brighter through this new perspective.

I am still healing.

Here are some of my crystal helpers during this time:

Fluorite of course I have been gently resting it on my eye.

My Selenite is with me as well as all my beautiful crystals that ask to be held at certain times …

I just listen. 

Each Crystal has its gifts and its offering.

If we listen both internally and externally, and we view from that vision, we will know who to work with, and who wants to work with us. 

My inner intuition has expanded greatly during this time. 

This has been an incubation of the next evolution of my soul.

I can feel it. 

Every day I wake up, I test out my eyes and I say “thank you thank you thank you for this beautiful beautiful gift of vision."

May we all appreciate what we see and ask deeply to be shown what we don’t see so we can continue to evolve. 

We help each other see what we can’t see. 

The beautiful quote at the top of this blog came to me this past Saturday. 

I was with my best friend Jason and he was sharing with me challenges that he was currently dealing with and I’ve been listening and I finally shared.

"Jason, you know I have been noticing that you’ve been pretty heavy lately."

It was really hard for me to share this with him because I love him so much and I also know that we all go through our phases and sometimes we do just have to give each other a little space to just be.

He looked at me  with so much love and said “Why didn’t you tell me I always wanna know please always tell me.”

Then he quoted:

“If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” 

I burst out crying upon him, sharing this, his openness to wanting to be shown what he couldn’t see in that moment. 

He said “Ele we have to be mirrors for each other. We have to love each other through what we can’t see. This is true friendship this is true love.”

This beautiful reminder, as I am regaining my vision. And part of that is sharing our truth with ourselves and each other. 

I pray for each of us to continue to evolve in all the ways. For all of us to be able to see with more clarity, our blind spots to be revealed with grace with ease and with love.

May we all love each other into the next evolution of our souls. 

I pray that your summer folds to be the most magnificent beautiful and inspiring one yet. 

Loving you from here with new vision and a bigger heart.

I love you, I see you,

 Ele