By Dana Stovern
December 5, 2018
Paonia, Colorado
A chance encounter that could have gone so wrong but didn’t.
I was lucky tonight as the light waned on the western horizon behind me, the earth of the Uncompahgre rise heaving up to meet the night sky. I was lucky for my dog companions, Peanut and Jasmine, securely tucked in beside me in the car. I was lucky, so grateful for a gracious Universe to give us good food, good groceries in such a remote valley — that singular tractor-trailer from Denver, Colorado, crossing mountain passes several times a week to fill our grocery shelves.
In that luck, I sometimes drove the rolling road between Hotchkiss and Paonia, Colorado, in dangerous twilight, like tumblers in a lock, unfolding the gentle secret of a treasure in its curves and hills. I was almost lured by the ease of darkness enfolding my car like a friend, yet I was alert for the sometimes night creatures that freeze in the headlights. And tonight, I was lucky. The doe deer who danced on the middle yellow line in a fast tango with my car’s headlights did not leave any blood or hair on my bumper, thank God. Others haven’t been so lucky this season — drivers or deer.
Tonight, I was lucky and took the deer totem as a signal of the gentle lure to adventure. The luck of soft beginnings. The luck of connection. Her lithe body streamed through my lights unscathed, her hooves barely kissing the steep grassy embankment as she tilted into the night dream of the river not far off below. She left us with luck. The luck of tide. The luck of rhythm. The luck of being in the breath of the moment.
Dana Stovern is founder and coach of The Magic of Somatic Money, and author of the blog Along the Learning Curve of Life. Even though her profession is body-based money relationship coaching, her first love is words, writing and exploring the depths of the human conscious (or unconscious) condition in body and soul development.