A journey that brought a woman from being nearly paralyzed to walking again has taught her to embrace mysticism and believe in miracles.

Mary Swander, distinguished professor of English at Iowa State, has just written and published her ninth book, “The Desert Pilgrim: En Route to Mysticism and Miracles,” which details her journey from injury to finding health through the power of human spirit.

It all began the Friday of Dead Week, 1995, at an annual Christmas party in West Ames, Swander calmly says. “When I left the party I wanted to avoid Lincoln Way, because I knew there would be a lot of drunk drivers out, so I decided to take Sixth Street and cross the bridge. That’s when a car came out and hit me,” Swander says. “It was cold and icy, and I spun completely around.”

Although Swander didn’t lose consciousness, she says she was disoriented and didn’t find out until later that she had broadsided a drunk driver who had run a stop sign. Swander was taken to Mary Greeley Medical Center, where she was later released for neck injuries.

Swander revisits and shares her memories of the accident as she sits in her eclectic office, host to — among other things — a one quart water bottle attached by a pulley weighing down a sling that Swander must pull down and strap her head into. This “homemade traction machine,” as Swander calls it, lifts her head upward with the weight of the water bottle and has now become a full two-hour regimen she must fit into her daily schedule. The machine was built to help take pressure off of Swander’s spinal cord. “I brought it to the office because I am supposed to do it in half-hour increments — morning, noon, afternoon and night, and now I can do it while I work,” she says.

Despite this difficult daily regimen, Swander has come a long way since that fateful night in December almost eight years ago.

“I was supposed to teach at the University of Iowa the following semester, but after I moved I got the flu. I thought I was getting over it, and then I woke up one morning in February and couldn’t move,” Swander says. “The flu had settled in my spinal cord and infected the whole vertebrae, making me immobile.”

Swander was misdiagnosed with gout and told to go home. The doctors told her she would be better in a few days, she explains.

But Swander didn’t get better.

“I had to have friends come in and help me with day-to-day living, such as going to the bathroom and making food,” she says.

It wasn’t until September 1996, when Swander went to visit her neurosurgeon to try and get out of a visiting appointment at the University of New Mexico, that she was finally properly diagnosed, she says.

“There was a lesion on my back from the infection that had settled in my spine, and I also had a ruptured disc. My doctor would not give me a letter to get out of going because the climate in New Mexico is wonderful, and he said I needed to go. So I hired my neighbor’s son to drive me there,” Swander says. With the aid of a walker, cane and helpful students, Swander taught creative non-fiction writing in New Mexico for a semester. She was introduced to herbal medicines from a curandera, or Mexican healer, and with the aid of a Russian Orthodox monk she slowly recovered both physically and spiritually, she says.

“It is funny that you only confront a sense of faith when you have a crisis. Unfortunately that is the way humans work and illness or injury forces you to be reflective. I ended up embracing mysticism, which is a sense of divine force unifying all of us and all of nature,” Swander says.

John Donaghy, St. Thomas Aquinas Campus Minister and acquaintance of Swander, says he is always looking for people who are searching for the meaning of life and a sense of recovery of their faith in a different way.

“‘The Desert Pilgrim’ is the story of someone on a pilgrimage; that is, finding a holy place where one becomes whole,” Donaghy says. “Once you get into it, you definitely want to see where it is going.” Donaghy, who has already read the book since its release on Aug. 19, says the book isn’t an easy read, but its message really hits home.

“It is most intriguing when someone shares so deeply about their experiences and has a willingness to share difficult and deep aspects of their life,” Donaghy says. Swander says she was motivated to write “The Desert Pilgrim” because she felt as though it was a compelling story that should be told.

“Anytime you can write and objectify the experience, processes and claims all at the same time, it helps,” Swander says.

Even though her latest book has just been released, she is already thinking about the future.

“I have ideas for five other books and a play,” Swander says. With a small laugh, she adds, “I plan to keep writing until I die at age 99.”