Two weeks before we were to have our first recording session for the album I had an intense bright yellow light come to me in my morning meditation telling me it was the Archangel Raphael. Yes, as you can imagine I was taken aback. I went down to my local spiritual book store where they had just gotten Doreen Virtue's new Archangel Raphael cards in. I shuffled the deck and asked "Hey Raphael was that really you?!" I pulled one card out of the 44 card deck and it said "Yes". I laughed and went about my day walking on the beach and rehearsing for my first studio session that was in a couple of weeks.
As the days went on I began receiving more and more messages from Raphael, angels, my mom, friends that have passed on, and spiritual teachers that that have provided guidence to me throughout the years. The message got louder and clearer as the week went on. "We love you, we are here for you, and you are protected." Now I'm no newbie to all this. I journal it all and in the past when this has happened it was always a preparation for some major life event that ended up being extremely difficult. I was beginning to get concerned. So after four days of these communications I told my boyfriend. The loving understanding soul that he is and having some pretty incredible spiritual experiences himself, he was not all that alarmed.
After a week of more of this I woke up in a pretty rough state. I was in utter duress and seriously felt like I was going crazy. It was Saturday morning and we were packing for a camping trip in the Sequoias but I needed a walk on the beach to gather my senses. These loving beings kept letting me know they were with me yet when I asked what was going to occur they would only firmly state, "We love you , we are here for you, and you're protected." Although I was experiencing a lot of anxiety I could feel this circle of pure love and light around me. We got in the my boyfriends custom camper/surf van and headed up to meet a bunch of friends for a weekend of great food, music and conversation in the woods.
We stopped for a sandwich about two hours before our destination. It was getting dark and we had gotten in a fight over Whole Foods vs Costco for purchasing the appetizers and breakfast we agreed to bring for 15- 30 people. In hindsight it was a ridiculous fight. We patched things up, ate our sandwiches, and got back on the road.
It was dark out by now and we were starting to enter the foothills. My guy was singing and driving a bit fast but not radically fast when a hill came up with a sudden sharp turn at the bottom of it. As we caught air in the van at the top of that hill I knew there was no way we were going to make the turn at the bottom.
We spun around in seemingly slow motion. Every litttle moment was spread out into an eternity. I felt like I was watching a movie as the headlights lit up the fields whirling around us while my boyfriend tried to gain control of the van. Then, as if in an amusement park ride, the van started to roll onto my side of the vehicle! I tucked into a ball as glass and metal began crashing around me and just as we turned upright and began to go into another roll a bright golden yellow light came down and surrounded my body by about three to four inches thick around me. I said, "God I release to you" and thought, "well this is it! I'm moving on to the next life". What happened in the seconds after this I cannot recall. It's blocked out or maybe I blacked out. I don't know. The next thing I remember is that I was upside down, not sure if I was alive or in pure spirit form.
The horn was blaring and smoke ws coming out of the engine. I seemed to still be alive. I touched my arms and took several deep breaths remembering all the meditation I had done over the years to stay focused and calm. I was crunched in twisted metal and lots of glass and did some twisty yoga moves to free myself from the wreckage. I was barefoot and once outside of the cab, walked through broken glass and engine fuel to get to safety. I thought the engine was going to blow up. Then I suddenly remembered my boyfriend.
I yelled his name over and over until I realized he was still in the car stuck upside down in his seatbelt punching the window to get out. I'll never forget figuring out how to open up the upside down door and seeing his big blue eyes turn to me with blood dripping down his face. I told him to breathe and feel his body incase anything was broken before I released his seatbelt. He said he was ok and to just get him out of there. I pushed the ejection button for his seatbelt and he dropped on his head and rolled out of the vehicle. We held eachother tightly for a few moments and then some local ranchers and rural bar patrons began to arrive.
The amount of adrenaline I had running through my body was incredible. I now understand how moms lift cars off their children in accidents. I was sorting through the wreckage throwing heavy camping gear and backpacks in a pile to try and find my flip flops and purse. The police arrived and started talking to my boyfriend about what happened and gave him a breathalizer to make sure he was sober. He passed. When he told them there was someone else in the car with him they looked shocked and asked where. My guy pointed to me as I was cleaning up the mess, and they came over to talk to me.
They looked at me like I was a ghost! They asked me from several feet away if I needed to go to the hospital and I shooed them away with a no. No one ever took a look at me or asked me to sit down. I've been in a few minor accidents where the paramedics insist on taking a look at me but not this crazy crash.
After feeling I'd adequately gathered up as much of our belongings as I could, I sat for a moment on the perimiter of the wreckage. I thanked the Earth for taking the impact and thanked Raphael and the others for protecting me. Looking up at the beautiful star ridden Milky Way galaxy I had a new reverence for life and thanked the Universe. Just as I did that I heard thousands of people singing Gospel music and felt Christ sending the most nurturing loving energy into my heart and body.
My boyfriend came to get me as they had just put the cab of the van on the towing truck. The back of the van was completely splayed open and no longer attached to the cab. "Hey babe, you might want to see this, " he said. My side of the vehicle was entirely smashed down! I gasped looking at it, I had no idea it was that severe nor how I had survived. I didn't have a mark on my face and the entire front window on my side was folded in to the seat! My boyfriend said when the van stopped rolling he looked over and saw only the ground and thought "Where is Kristi? Where is my baby?".
A week later I was at Yucca Studios for our first recording session. I had a deep bruise and hematoma on my inner right arm and was only able to play for barely 4 hours instead of the 8-10 we had hoped on doing but I was there, alive and making my first album.