The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.
— Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

If you’re one of my loyal readers, you may have noticed that I haven’t posted for a while. I got the flu five weeks ago and it turned my world upside down. For several days, I was certain that I was going to die; there was simply no way that someone could feel so horrible and survive. Fortunately, I was wrong; evidently, feeling like you’ve got one foot in the grave is a side effect of our body’s defense mechanisms. The initial illness was followed by four weeks of coughing, exhaustion, depression and anxiety. I was surprised to learn that the latter two symptoms weren’t “just me,” they can be fallout from the flu.

I share this with you not to say, “poor me,” rather to explain why I have neglected my blog — and you, dear readers — so egregiously. I simply didn’t have the energy or the presence of mind to write.

The good thing about being sick is that it can force one to examine what’s important. As some of you know, I took 2016 off and wrote Faith without Labels: a Guide to Eclectic Spirituality. I spent 2017 working at a dear friend’s art and design consultancy, where I am still employed. It’s a great job and I’m surrounded by bright, imaginative people, but working full time meant that I would need to work on getting my book out into the world on “my time.” Instead, I spent my creative time writing entries for this blog, which is what the publishing world calls a “platform” for my book.

Fortunately, letting my book “sit” allowed me to see how I could improve it: major things like restructuring the workbook portion for clarity.

In the past month or so, my book has been calling me. Yesterday, I had a session with an intuitive healer. One of the questions that I asked her was about my book. She said that her guides said that there was a sense of urgency, that I need to publish it by the end of this year. When she asked me what it was about I told her, “eclectic spirituality.” She said, “That explains why they want you to get the message out so quickly.” She proceeded to talk about how the world needs light workers (my term) to share their message in this troubled time.

So, dear readers, I am going to take some time off from this blog to get my book ready for publication. Initially, my plan is to self publish it as an ebook. When I’m done, I will share the link with you. Until then, I say, “Farewell.” I hope that you will pray for me as I undertake this endeavor and that you will be here when I return. I will miss you all.