It is the end of the year. Time for rituals of letting go and taking up. This year, I feel even more focused on letting go.

I have just sent my book out into the world. I told my story from birth until I arrived in Wendell in 2014. I feel like I have turned myself inside out and allowed anyone who cares to look to see how I am wired, how I am put together, where I have been, and how I have been shaped. I shared my pain, triumphs, confusions, and foundational beliefs. It is all out there. Of course, corners of my soul have been unrecorded, but most of my secrets are out, and there is no need to hide.

And so, although I have had many milestones in my life, times when chapters ended — a graduation, a marriage, a move, a death — this feels different.

The life I recorded in my book is over. My adventures these days do not include my beloved Chris, who has been dead for almost twelve years; my father, who has been dead for nearly four years; Shalom Mountain, where I worked since 1987; Timshel, the family home of three decades. I still have the stories. There is no place for them to go, and I will bring them out whenever I feel that they will have power. But these stories are of a time gone by. They are not current, and they are not about the Kai who lives and breathes at this moment.

Who is the new Kai? I actually have no idea. I feel like I am in the air between two trapezes. I have left one but have not yet grabbed onto the other. I am held in the void between the past, which I know, and the future, which has not taken form.

I could be afraid of this new situation but feel little fear. Most of my anxiety seemed to fall away in the last days of getting my book into print. I feel I was called to complete a project, and I have fulfilled that commitment. From here on, I will follow the demands of the book. I will go where it leads me. I will be awake to hearing the voices of those who will benefit. But I have no agenda.

My intention is to let go of anything that lets me fall asleep to the call of Spirit. Not my will but thine. I am yours.

I wonder how many of you are feeling in the void not knowing what is coming, yet feeling the energy of something new.