Last week, for the first time since I started writing this blog in January, I did something I’m not entirely proud of.

I blew it off. Totally. Didn’t write a darn thing.

See, I was in New Mexico on a retreat. And I had a head cold that really took away my energy. And I had limited internet access. And I’m sorry I took off so completely without notice.

But I know in my heart that I chose not to write last week because I needed not to write. When I started this blog almost a year ago, it felt like the greatest work of my life. Inspiring, fun, enlivening.

These past few weeks I’ve felt a bit like I was “phoning it in”. So the break was quietly welcome, as I moved away from my keyboard for a while and simply observed life instead of needing to record it.

A few days ago, high up on a mesa in northern New Mexico, I had a flash of awareness that it’s time to change this blog. I am ready to make it something new, something different.

So this will be my last original blog posting at this web address. On Monday, Nov. 1, my blog will move to its new domain name, with a new format. I’m still working out the details, but I’m excited about what’s coming, and I think it will serve all of us in meaningful ways.

In the meantime, I want to share a poem with you, sent to me by my new (and already dear) friend Sandy Phocas. It mirrors well my life right now, and my hopes for this blog as it continues to grow and evolve.

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest

breathing
like the ones
in the old stories

who could cross
a shimmering bed of dry leaves
without a sound,

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests

conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and

to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away.

by David Whyte