It was only a few days ago I stood looking at the cauldron squatting in the yard of good friends, in it, small and insignificant flames consumed scraps of nondescript paper.

Upon those shreds, the pains and regrets for a year drawing to a close and the hopes and desires for the new year on the horizon. On one side was written what do you want to remove from your life, on the other side, what do you desire to draw into your life. Seems so simple.

Some had taken it as an opportunity for humor, while others addressed it with anger. I must say that after the year I have had, I contemplated my choices with the utmost seriousness. I had been at one time, a person to dismiss such things with a wave of my hand and a not so subtle tsk of the tongue. Today I am profoundly grateful that I have been able to return to the mystery that is the Universe and to have shed the cynicism that was such a large part of the person I was. To say that I have have grown and evolved over the past four years would be an understatement of monumental proportions.

The process I have undergone has been daunting, but I’m not done yet. I have spent the last four years deconstructing the person that I once was. Likened to the process a caterpillar undergoes during its metamorphosis, wherein it is completely returned to its basic elements before reconstituting itself into an entirely new form. A new form totally unrecognizable from the place where it all began.

I would like to think that is my current reality , reduced to my basic elements I have left my former life behind. The separation from all that grounded me before, family, friends, spiritual beliefs and traditions has left me seeking their replacements. The familiar even when uncomfortable provided continuity that was somehow reassuring. I am now searching for the blueprint of the person that Rachel will ultimately become. In the mean time the hollow spaces echo with their absence.

The physical changes that I have undergone would have to be experienced to be appreciated but the emotional and psychological changes have been even more profound. I have wondered at times, how much control do I actually have over where this process is going? How much say do I have over the person that Rachel will ultimately become and how much is that unseen blueprint.

The new year is almost upon us, the solstice is past and the light has begun its slow return.  The deconstruction of the person that Rachel was has been completed and the slow rebuilding process is under way. Please excuse the dust while I finish renovating.