10:59 p.m.

I’m shutting the lights off in the living room and peer out the window, twisting my neck to get a glimpse of the moon. I can’t see her, but I see her illumination in the night and I feel her tapping me on the shoulder as I turn to head to my room.

Come outside.

I pause. A moment later, I’m pulling on thick socks, my winter coat, a pair of boots. I step outside the door and look up. There she is—an unblinking eye, right above the farmhouse where my apartment is nestled below. 

I tilt my head back and stare her in the eye. Both fierce and soft is her gaze. 

I’m here, I say. And then a few minutes of silence pass.

I see planets and constellations in the near-cloudless sky. Out here on the farm, there are no street lamps or neon signs, no lights from nearby buildings, or headlights from cars. Out here, the sky is a lung that inhales deeply without congestion—a stage whose curtain is pulled back to reveal the players that have always been performing behind the scenes. 

I scan this great expanse and inhale deeply, too. 

I’m here. You’re here. You’ve always been here.

And in this space of a moment, a download comes. 

This is the same sky I stood under 3000 miles away, but so much remained hidden. There were too many artificial lights obstructing my view. I had to journey across the country, out to this remote place, to stand in the darkness and see what has always been.

What has always been.

Life is cyclical, like the moon.

I left one relationship, one life, in order to see more clearly, live more truly. I entered another relationship, another life, and had to leave this one, too, for the sky was not as visible there as I imagined. 

Each leaving is an exhale of stale breath, of soul congestion, and an inhale of crisp night air. 

Each leaving is a step toward true darkness, where the sky opens up a few more pinpricks of light and I see what has always been.

Even leaving, itself, is cyclical. 

I am still leaving the one I left seven months ago. I am still leaving the one I left four months later. Every time I choose to walk away from all that impedes my healing, all that is not in my highest and best, I leave again. And again. And again. Every time I stand firm in my truth and my worth, I take another step away from the ones I had to leave in order to fully live and love, and a step toward that illuminated sky. 

Somehow, the moon conveyed all this as I stood and stared up at her in silence. 

Keep coming out to these places of true dark, she said without words, and watch how the sky opens in revelation. Keep pointing your compass toward the home of yourself and see how you, too, come alive. 

I stared into her fullness and saw myself, maybe not as I was this night, but as I would be further on in my own cycle, when I know how to embody my wholeness in the world. 

And then I went inside and said goodbye, once more, to the ones that I’m still in the process of leaving.

That means this space, too. Goodbye, Elephant Journal. 

We’ve been through many cycles together, and I’m grateful; but now, it’s time to seek my fullness somewhere else.

May you truly be of benefit in all you offer.

And may I, wherever I go. 

~