So Why China? (conclusion)

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There are many reasons why a dark night of the soul experience presents itself.  For me, the dark night occured as an opportunity to salvage the remainder of my life when living had become full of disharmonious habits and I was not living consciously or virtuously.

It has been a mentally painful process.   At one point, I even felt like I had crossed the threshold into clinical depression.  I can only describe it as melancholic terror. I'm not all the way through the experience yet, but I can see hints of the coming dawn.  I know all I have to do is quit fighting and surrender, but there's such a difference between knowing and doing.  It's up to me either to build upon this whole China thing and change or to return to life as before and stay unchanged but comfortable. So I'm not yet figuratively "out of the woods," but I'm physically going into the woods of the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey for a nine-day course about the Native American Vision Quest starting July 24th.  It's time for decision and commitment.

This is the final posting I have planned for tom-in-china.com.  I need to look forward, not backward.  My challenge is to honor this time I've spent in China by allowing it to change how I live the rest of my life.

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