It took me two years to fully leave Ontario behind. With all my stuff arriving right prior to the beginning of my Hearthkeeper year in apprenticeship, the parts of me strewn across the country were quietly collected and laid deeply into the BC earth. I have finally arrived. And no surprise that i have done so in the year of learning to attend to the hearth. Life is still a rollercoaster ride, full of surprises both ecstaticly enticing and the ones that hit hard, leaving you to wander aimlessly down an unlit road. But i can breathe here and hear myself. I can set the pace, make different decisions and carefully select my choices, which seem to really be a predominant theme of my life here. I am lonely and craving the deep connection of another, a like minded kindred whose face might be recognizeable as belonging to my kind. Some days i am tired of sleepign alone while others i wonder how i will manage to fit them into my life having be single for what seems like forever. Yet i remain relentless about the quality of connection and relationship that will exist in my life. A long journey of pot holes to pavign my way to solid ground. Although some days i remain trapped within a never ending battle with myself, about all the things screaming to be fixed, other days i am profoundly blown away by all the progress i have made, the long trips i have taken to the tunnels within myself and still come back more alive then when i started. I have this amazingly brilliant kid, whose tender and colorful personality and never-ending compassion, i feel blessed by everyday. She truly has taught me more than she will ever know. We live here in the mountainous and luciously green forested lands, close the the freshness of the ocean, nurtured by the raindrops and glittering in the sunlight. Our temperment has helped me experience more rainbows in a year than i have been priveleged to view in a lifetime. Community is forming, eclectic and diverse, colorful and creative. I went from building a marriage, to building a career to finally building a life. And it amazes me that all the obstacles i placed inf ront of myself were obliterated unther the magnitude of the call of my soul, my heart and in doing so quieted all the objections in my mind. Whenever i stop to truly think about it, the only thing i could possibly surmise is that truly and most authentically i am incredibly blessed.