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The Transcendental Tent in the Woods
by Leah Sellers
2008-07-10 09:02:38 |
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"What statement are you making by living in that Tent in the Woods?" my relatives ask incredulously. It’s a good question. A reasonable question. A question that let’s me know that they are perhaps ready to listen to the real answers. It is my Act of Civil and Ethical Disobedience.
 The multi-tentacled leviathan Insurance Companies manipulating the Workman’s Compensation system of America are shamelessly and arbitrarily set up to make injured workers want 'to give up and go away’. It is their Intention to frustrate injured workers at every turn with delays, denials, and numerous time consuming litigious hearings for every treatment and procedure. They have had years to perfect their paperwork and legal tactics and stratagems. The name of the game, and the bottom line, is for them to be able to hang onto the Insurance Companies money at the expense of the injured workers health and future prospects.
Since my student injured my back and left hip at school over 16 months ago, the Worker’s Compensation system has enabled my employer’s insurance company to maintain my crippled condition and drive me into poverty. How? In the state of Texas, teachers are considered 'seasonal workers'. As a result, I have not received income benefits for almost seven months.
They forced me into circumstances in which I finally had to expend all of my savings, while continuing to struggle with their system for expedient health care, in order to stay afloat during the almost seven months I have had to live without a pay cheque. But they have not broken my Will. I think that they must mistake a broken Body for a broken Spirit. If anything, everything that has transpired has only stiffened my resolve to make sure that Workman’s Compensation does 'the right thing’ by me. I am not giving up, and I am not going away!
However, on a good note, during the task of having to find legal representation for the innumerable hearing processes (since I was just a poor school teacher) I was directed to a State Ombudsman. Fortunately, she turned out to be a woman of ethical intent and bearing and procedural knowledge, whom it has been my great pleasure to get to know and to work with. I honestly feel as if I am in good hands now regarding the WC hearings. We’re all just doing the best we can - each of us playing our parts within what feels like a rigidly systematic House of Cards. It's the Dealer's game and the deck is rigged.
My only expectation, at this late date, is that through some miracle or act of God, Workman’s Compensation will actually be allowed to finally heal me - fix me - and get me back up on my feet again, so that I can return to work and my active life. What can I say? I’m a cock-eyed optimist! Hope springs eternal!
 My six-foot Transcendental Tent is located on one of my sister’s and brother-in-law’s property. I’m nestled deep in an oak grove upon their beautiful 'little piece of hill country heaven'. In fact, their goats, my cats, their dogs, a family of visiting wild raccoons (I caught one of the teenage raccoon's red-handedly making off with one of my writing pens one evening during one of their masked midnight raids) and horses are my nearest neighbors when I awaken. I’m learning all sorts of new languages! In fact, I’m thinking of changing my name to Doolittle.
During the scorching 90 to 100 degree summer afternoons, I stay within the comfort of my family’s lovely air-conditioned home. So, my Civil Disobedience is, at times, somewhat tempered. Between those visits, the queen-sized trundle bed with air mattress (and support boards), and the barest of necessities within my Woodland Tent, my life has been greatly simplified. Everything I own is in storage.
When I look at how everything that happened over 16 months ago has turned out, I am greatly mystified. Where is the Rhyme and the Reason? How has any of this unexpected and seemingly fruitless struggle with the Workman’s Compensation system and the Insurance Companies bureaucratic-corporate absurdities and capitalistic overkill been of benefit to me (an injured civil servant)? To the community at large? How does leaving me broken down; unable to work effectively; unable to live life fully; dependent on the ethical aid of a system that does not want to be ethical or of aid benefit anyone?
The Blessing of this back and hip injury? It has forced me to be ’Still’!
Everyone in my life used to complain about my inability to be "Still". I was always running around Doing Something, Being Something, Helping Someone, Being Someone. Never Still. Always in Motion.
How different We become when we are forced to remain Still - to remain Quiet unto Ourselves for an extended period of Time. There is great power in Silence; in Stillness The Silence that comes from within Us. I found a Deeper Source - a Deeper Well within My True Voice; within that Silence; that Stillness.
I was always used to fighting battles for Others. I had never in my Life fought a battle for myself until this battle with Worker’s Compensation. I did not expect it. I had been raised to trust Worker’s Compensation (and most governmental entities) as a good and just system; a system to be relied upon, only if you absolutely needed it. Workman’s Compensation’s dysfunctional, abusive and unjust treatment of me (because it has been corrupted by all too powerful Insurance Companies and their allies); the way I discovered that They also mistreated Everyone Else, went against my Ethical Compass at the very Moment that I was lying within the Blue-Green, Fertile, Translucent Waters of my Oceanic Stillness. Finding My Primordial Voice. My Illuminated Voice.
My little Transcendental Tent in the Woods is the metaphor of my Civil and Ethical Disobedience - It is my Line in the Sand - my Statement of Intent and Purpose - my Determination in the Face of Unjust and Perverse Adversity - my Rooted Stand within Nature against That which (in my view) is Unreasonable and Unnatural! My little Transcendental Tent in the Woods is a Mirror held up to the Avaricious Vanity of a cruel and amoral Tyrant! A Mirror of Transformation! A Mirror of Hope and Change!
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