There are two reasons I am alive tonight. As the three of us left the retreat center this morning, we surrounded my forest green Honda Accord in a bubble of white light for the 300 mile journey from the Pearlstone Retreat center in Reisterstown, Maryland to my home in West Hartford, Connecticut.

After breakfast, we hugged all our new friends - men and women from all over the world who had gathered for Christine Kloser's week long Transformational Authors retreat and jumped in the car. We waves to a woman from Malaysia, a Danish man from Malta, an American from Dubai and several Australians. By comparison I didn't have far to go on my trip home.

The three of us in the car continued our story telling, laughing and sharing our hearts as I drove along the busy highway.

Suddenly, I was coming to a stop, just one car length away from a four car pileup. The weirdest thing: I hadn't suddenly jam on my brakes. I was relaxed and calm as I watched the cars seemingly in slow motion. One of the cars, some kind of SUV came across my lane perpendicular to the front of my car smashing into the car just in front of me.

I waited till the motion of the four cars involved in the accident came to a stop. I surveyed the scene, saw someone calling, presumably the police and pulled into the median to the left of the accident. We sent a blessing of healing energy to the people in the cars and drove on down the road. My passengers and I were safe and unharmed and our positive thoughts and prayer were what we could do for those in the accident.

The second reason, I am alive tonight is that my vision has been getting better and better as I age. When I was a 28 year old professional photographer, I was diagnosed with keratoconus, a genetic eye condition, where the cornea gets thinner than it should. "You need to consider your life should you go blind," said the ophthalmologist, without a trace of compassion, "It is genetic, so there is nothing you can do."

That set me on a path through many kinds of alternative medicine: acupressure, massage therapy, nutrition, Integrative Manual Therapy (IMT), Matrix Energetics, Wisdom Healing Qigong and more searching for answers for myself.

The result is better vision today at age 54 than at 28 when I was diagnosed with this genetic eye disorder, an autoimmune condition and migraines.

In the accident, I think what happened is that without consciously realizing what I was seeing, I saw the beginning of the accident in my peripheral vision. I let my foot off the gas, slowing the car, so that by the time I consciously saw the SUV cutting perpendicularly across my lane it was easy for me to brake and avoid the accident.

I was calm because I was taking in so much information through my intuitive senses, my gut feelings plus vision, hearing. I had enough information to know how to navigate the situation safely.

I feel very fortunate to have enough information to be able to navigate my life safely. In many ways, I live a charmed life for which I deeply am grateful.