Today I’m feeling particularly grateful to be alive.

Having come as close to dying as I can remember getting … on Monday I walked away from being blindsided T-boned with just a bump on the noggin’, when the super-tank-sized white Bookmobile (of All things!) crashed into my driver’s door after I’d not seen it, somehow … I consider myself not only fortunate to be alive, but am more than ever aware of how much more there is for me to put out there before it’s “my time” to leave this earthly realm. Just in case, I gave instructions to my consort Carter to finish my work for me. Before my time … is up.

Time is relative anyway. Sometimes it stands still. Other instances it rushes away from us like a never-ending spin on a glass-splinter-strewn highway. The road after our impact, this Monday. When that big white metal wall came crashing into me, metallic jaws wanting to eat my life, my head bouncing into and shattering side windows, Yes, I thought, This is It. I’m dead. Hit squarely on the side of my head, shoulders, hips—just as the recurring, eerie premonition of being T-boned I’d had for the past year or so.

But I didn’t die. So easily I could have. I iced the goose bump on the window-side of my head, and the next day there was hardly a trace of the bruise. Truth is: If it weren’t for the strong bent metal frame of my trusty old Chevy Tracker, I’m absolutely sure I would have sustained much more grievous injuries than being shook up, which I am.

For the past few days I’ve kept still. Lots of quiet time. Feeling my life, pleased I’m still here. Not much thinking, just feeling. What about?

chest-expanding awe at being alive!

heart-pumping gratitude to be breathing, still!

spine-tingling sensations of what I’ve been saved (entrusted, really) to do …

to share with as many as I can, about the magic of being alive.

I’ve felt it since childhood, yet that feeling keeps intensifying with each passing season, moon phase, setting sun and changing tide.

When a person has both experiences of the interior and exterior sorts, and the ability to translate it into a form where it might be meaningful to others as well (visually, musically, through art of some nature) this is my life’s purpose, for which I’ve been spared.

LordFlea, for over seven years I’ve been writing and sharing art with you, I’ve given snippets of what my work has been about. Many drawings, paintings, and sculptures (click here if you want a glimpse), a feature film with my beloved consort (click here for LithiumSprings, the movie), and a mention here and there about the book(s) I’ve created, awaiting publication.

For years I’ve been writing books. So why has it taken this long to get any of them into print? Five completed story-driven books are already done, some nonfiction narratives; somewhere in-between novels and memoir. Regulars at LordFlea have heard mention of a few and seen an excerpt or two from titles such as Angels Anonymous, Illusions of Love, Dharma Brat, Global Bliss NOW, and Heart Island, the trilogy.

Now the first publicly available (tree or e) full-length book will soon be ready, and not just in blog-tease form. Allow me to proudly present my soon-to-be-available illustrated book:

Zen Love: the true journey of a blended family

The very last stages–of line-editing (catching obvious flaws) and polishing, giving the story a sheen of careful presentation–is almost complete. Now I begin the stage of presentation. As soon as I finish this post I’m back to working on a chapter-summary (it’s much harder to make one after a book’s been completed, trust me) so I can submit this book to a major spiritual publishing house. I’m not going to count on the smaller, indie publisher who asked me to submit based on a much earlier version of Zen Love. I’m going to “fish” for whatever bite I can get, out there in the Ocean of Marvelous Literature

So–what’s my thought after the great crash up on our hysterically-crowded US1 South where I almost died, but didn’t?

Simply: It was not my time. This is what nearly all NDEs (Near Death Experience) I’ve ever heard of say they experienced, and then instantly their soul/spirit returns back to life from the state they call dead. I didn’t die in my crash three days ago. But a part of me is hyper-aware how very fragile my existence, all our existences, are here on earth.

It’s time for me to do what I know I must, further sharing my writing and arting with as many people as I can. After all, that’s the reason I’ve been blogging and milking other forms of social media all along. For this day that has finally arrived. At last: a book.

This is why it’s so funny and ironic that I was smashed into by a flippin’ garbage-truck sized Bookmobile, on its way to some school somewhere, the front bumper and its admonition “READ” not even dented from my little vehicle’s demise.

Life! Ain’t it grand. Funnier than fiction, more intensely real than any reality show could do justice to.

I’ll keep you posted about the adventures of Zen Love‘s publication. If no bites on my hook, I’ll publish it myself, have no fear.

In the Light, shining bright and breathing appreciatively,

Lord Flea, aka teZa Lord