Mahalo, Hawaii.

I am observing myself living in an active major change cycle. I do not know where it will lead. The destination is predetermined: Boulder, Colorado.

I will be leaving Hawaii on Thursday, just a few short days away after concluding my final exams of the year.

Looking back on the year has shown me visions of how I reacted poorly to change and pressure from school and work, and how I adjusted to a complete uprooting of all of my grounding practices, habits, and ways of life. School and work became 100% of my focus, without any time for fulfilling on my promises to myself of good health, adventure, and spiritual practices.

Going through a growth spurt without proper nourishment and cultivation is difficult on a human being as it is difficult on a plant. With too much water, the plant is overwhelmed and rots. With too much sun and not enough water, the plant is scorched and withers. With no nutrition in the soil, the plant's growth is stunted. When the plant grows in too many different directions all at once, its strength is spread too thin, and yields poor, flavorless fruit. With pruning, watering, sunlight, good soil, and good air, the plant can flourish and bloom. When the plant is not nourished well enough to grow tall and strong, change as represented by wind, comes along and snaps its branches, as the plant hasn't grown strong, flexible, and firmly rooted in its soil to weather the change when the winds of change come to stress it.

This year has seen me go through depression, gloominess, indecision, inaction, anger, resentment, frustration, apathy, resignation, cynicism, hopelessness, as well as courage and determination. Most of these emotions are all associated with the wood element. These are all emotions associated with growth.

As I embark on a new growth spurt after planting the seeds of a new plan to pursue my choice of nourishment in a healing modality defined around assisting human beings in all transitions in life, I embark this summer with renewed enthusiasm, and loving support of my friends and family to reap the fruit of my labor by entering a new community in Boulder.

Letting go of the old stresses, objects, places, habits, decisions, resentments, frustrations, old hopes, and old excuses is the biggest hurdle to any new growth. Old growth must be pruned back after it has withered and died, because it will choke a new plant and prevent it from manifesting its potential. In this manner, I must settle all expenses here, with my short sale, and with my car. I must be willing to lose a branch of old growth after letting go of the grief over it, and the fear of not having all the resources I need to begin a new growth cycle.

Today I sold my car. It will be picked up on Saturday after my last clinic shift at the school. I'm getting less for it than I would like, but it will help buy me a new car in Colorado. Letting go of it brought me an hour or so of grief, as the symbol of my last major physical and financial attachment to this place dissolves itself in preparation for the new. I must learn to live in the unknown without worry and trust that all will be revealed at the right time, and the road made clear.

I am blessed to have had these lessons, and though I find it so difficult to be thankful for them, I know they exist for me to learn the nature of the elemental flow in life in the areas of my weakness, such that I can learn the becoming of mastery. I know them to be lessons in humility - the acceptance of my lack of mastery in so many areas of my life - all pointing out the areas of pain that need the most attention. Trials by Pele's fire, they have been and her particular brand of education leaves burn marks as reminders that the lesson is not learned until the scar is fully healed. Mahalo Pele.

As my current school's final exams cause a welling up of a brief frenzy of activity, and fade away in an aftermath of collective sighs of relief - they leave the class with feelings of anticlimactic completion mixed with awe at the cumulative year-long accomplishment, and simultaneous exhaustion. Four more finals next week. One on Tuesday, and 3 on Wednesday.

Wednesday night I pack, do my laundry, clean my room, settle any final expenses, seal up my remaining box of books, and go to sleep. On Thursday I take my box to the post office, and drive back in time to have my roommate take me to the airport.

Maryland, and a cross-country trip await shortly thereafter. Till then.