1995

ETS Plus and MAP
DON'T WAIT TO CRASH
by Ann McCaffray

I first read Behaving in 1985 and started using Perelandra Essences in 1988. In 1990, I bought MAP and started working with a team. Everything Machaelle wrote made perfect sense to me. I used the processes from the Workbooks on my land and house and in my work. I smugly thought I was a model Perelandra student and all the while I had been ignoring a crucial piece of advice. Oh yes, I was a whiz at processes for my land, calibrations for myself and conings for the animals, but in all that time I had managed to completely put off making myself an ETS; my personal Emergency Trauma Solution.* My rude awakening happened in mid-October of 1994. I was working in my garden and standing on a very large rock. While reaching up to touch a tree branch, my feet shot out from under me, and I crashed down to the craggy stone on both elbows. Gasping for breath, I could feel my body begin to go into shock. The pain was so intense that I couldn't even cry. I got to the house, opened an Emergency MAP coning and grabbed my essences. I leaned against the wall and slid myself down to the cool floor, literally panting with pain and all at once, the enormity of trying to muscle-test for this situation washed over me. I now understood finally and completely what an ETS was for and why I was supposed to make one. If I had had my ETS, my body would already have been starting to balance itself. Instead, I was now facing the prospect of having to open many bottles and drop essences into my mouth with badly shaking hands. Testing was out of the question at this point, and I decided to just take a drop of everything. Fifty-one bottles later, I had begun to calm down, and I promised myself I would never again be without an ETS.

The very next day, I opened my MAP coning and with a matching set of black- and-blue elbows, tested for my personal Emergency Trauma Solution. I made up several bottles: one for the kitchen, one for the studio, one for the car and one for my pocket.

The bottle for my "pocket" went into the pocket of my windbreaker, which I was wearing exactly one week later. It was October 31st. On this wet, grey morning, while driving down a winding, tree-lined street, a van coming toward me slid on wet leaves, crossed into my lane and crashed into me headlong at about 40 miles an hour. My hands were on the wheel and with no time to swerve, I just recall the windshield shattering before I passed out. When I woke up in the ambulance, my hand was in my pocket and I realized I was clutching my bottle of ETS. I pulled my hand out of my pocket and squirted a dropperful of solution into my mouth. The ambulance attendant asked me what I was doing, and I had to explain essences and assure him it wasn't harmful. He told me they would probably take it away from me at the hospital. I told him they could just try!

I silently called for an Emergency MAP coning and continued to take my ETS. By the time we got to the hospital, I was totally clearheaded and alert. My ETS had kept me from going into shock and though I was a mess, the pain was manageable. My face was cut up. I had broken teeth. Both my knees were split open and bleeding, and that was just the stuff you could see. I marveled at the effects of the ETS. Taking it kept me calm and clear and well able to advocate for myself in the emergency room.

Three years later, I'm totally bored by this story of pain, blood, broken stuff, emergency rooms and year-long recoveries. But I still smile when I remember waking up in the ambulance clutching my ETS in my hand, the ETS that I put off making for four years, the ETS that I finally made the week before, when I fell off a rock.

*Editor's Note: This article was written prior to the development of ETS Plus.