Embracing the Beautiful Unknown
Photo by Logan Lepper
Today is my 2 year anniversary of coming home to Michigan.
In many ways it feels like yesterday that I was getting on that plane before sunrise on New Year’s day, saying goodbye to the life I’d built for 16 years in Austin, leaving behind the community, my belongings, the friends, the achievements, the favorite spots, the independence…and stepping into a new life. And in many ways, it feels like ages ago, given how much I’ve learned and the big shifts I’ve made, particularly through 2020.
So today as I mark not just the beginning of our New Year, but the anniversary of my homecoming, I feel called to share my story of how I ended up here and what led to my leap of faith. How I learned to trust in mystery.
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At the beginning of 2018, I had zero intention of moving home. It was somewhere in my mind as something I would do later on down the line, but probably not anytime soon. Especially given that I was a pillar in so many thriving communities in Austin, TX. It seemed like I was just hitting my stride as these communities I had helped to build all started breaking through to new levels of success and creativity. And to top it all off, I was just beginning a 12-month Universal Kabbalah Ascension Program - an alchemical journey of intense self-illumination, self-clearing, and self-reclamation - that I had been chomping at the bit to experience.
Right at the beginning, we set goals for ourself in the form of a petition that outlines all that we desire to manifest and create. We were advised to go BIG, to not worry about logistics, and to make fearless requests on our own behalf.
What if you could live the life of our dreams?
What would you want and need for that to truly happen?
As I meditated upon it in class, I had to dig deep past my inner fears and worries. And as I attempted to be fearless and audacious, I kept hitting up against questions of self-worth. Who am I to ask for these things? And so, while others created lists pages long, I stuck to one page. A page about Self-Love, letting go of the old stories of not good enough, not smart enough, not strong enough, not lovable enough, and learning how to love myself fully and unconditionally as I am. And I declared my petition to God, to the Tree of Life, and the Higher Powers that be.
Hindsight 20/20, I see now that that’s where it all began - that was the seed I planted. My journey home to loving myself required journeying home to my roots...literally.
I began getting signs of it in meditations, in readings, my journaling, on billboards, headlines in the newspaper, in the synchronistic conversations that were happening around me. I kept reasoning with myself that it was just symbolic and that it couldn’t mean that, right? Right?
But as I’ve learned is true in my studies of Hermetics and Kabbalah, we cannot judge something by what we think it is or expect it to be. We can only judge it by its fruits. And the fruits were consistent and, soon, undeniable. A calling to leave Austin. A calling to return home to where I grew up. A calling to start over from scratch and leave behind what I had built and who I had grown to become, getting louder every day, every week, every month.
I didn’t dare tell anyone. That’s funny to think about now, but at the time, the thought of it overwhelmed me. And my belief was that if I spoke it out loud, that it would escape my control and manifest in ways I didn’t want it to. What would I do about all the communities I was a part of? What I would do about all the hopes and dreams we were looking forward to? What would I do about this awesome life I’m being asked to leave behind? How would I say goodbye?
And then, of course, others started telling me.
My Kabbalah teacher, Martina, pulled me aside in late August as we entered the final 3 months of the program and asked me point blank: “Are you thinking of moving back home to Michigan?” As I blanched and tried to hide it with a nervous laugh, fearing whatever she might say next, she put her hand on my hand and said lovingly in her wonderful Scottish accent, “I think it would be really good for you, Jonathan.” And then a week later as I was working with my business partner, Aaron, he stopped mid sentence, looked at me with a puzzled look, and then his eyes widened and as he said, “Bro, are you thinking of moving home?” Honestly, he was the one I was most afraid of telling, as I didn’t want to let him down or leave him and the business in a lurch. I braced for his response. But just like my Kabbalah teacher, he said, “I will support you no matter what in whatever you choose. I think it will be good for you. You’ve helped us out so much…maybe it’s time to help yourself.”
And that was that. So after nearly 16 years, in September I began planning to move home and I began to tell others. And across the board, across all the different communities I had been rooted in, the response was similar:
Loving, Supportive, and Excited for me.
So now that I had finally broke the seal and everything was falling into place in Austin, I began seeking guidance in meditation regarding what to do when I returned home to Michigan. There was obviously going to be a lot of work to do and I wanted to be ready for the challenges that awaited me so I could hit the ground running and start building a new life right away!
But as you’ve probably guessed, I didn’t get the guidance I was expecting. No matter the Master of Light, the archangel, the wisdom keeper, my Spirit Guides, or my Higher Self, the answers were, again, consistent.
“Why do you want to know? You’re not even there yet.”
"Focus on where you are now. Honor the years you’ve been here and enjoy yourself in the final days before you leave."
“Knowing what to do in the future doesn’t help you know what to do in the present.”
And then, my favorite, the most popular response by far: Silence.
<cue crickets>
The guidance that I did receive was regarding when to move home. The Universal Kabbalah program was ending in early December, and I figured I would move home in time for the Holidays. But I received a clear directive to wait for the year to end and spend the Holidays in Austin, “so that this cycle ends completely and a new one can begin in the new year.” Fly home on January 1, 2019.
And so I did as I was guided. I booked my ticket and soaked in every moment, every conversation, every sunset, every delicious street taco, every bike ride on the streets of Austin, every bit of sunshine, every Holiday gathering and fond farewell. I didn’t worry or fret about what I would do in Michigan. I didn’t even worry when I was packing and clearing out my apartment, the part I usually dreaded the most - I just let it all go. And I focused on honoring the Spirit of Austin and how much I’d learned over the years and how my life had taken so many unexpected twists and turns while I was there, not excluding all the ones happening in that final month alone…and how incredibly grateful I was for it all.
And I can tell you that that month was one of the most joyful months of my entire life.
Steady consistent joy! Because my energy wasn’t tied up in being one or ten steps ahead, like usual. It was right where I was: here, now. And with no expectations to measure and judge each moment, I was freer to experience how big and rich each moment can be. So much possibility. So much to look forward to. So much to discover! So much I would have missed otherwise…
And that was how I came home. Guided by Spirit to answer a calling that led me directly into the unknown. To finally be open to facing my biggest fears and taking a leap that would reveal more of me than I’d ever experienced or expected.
Because how can you love parts of yourself that you don’t even know are there?
The experience of being in Michigan with my family for these past 2 years has allowed me to become more fully me than I ever knew I could be. To emerge as a leader in a way that has pushed me to my limits, again and again…proving to me that I can overcome. To learn how to be strong and compassionate, for myself, for my family, for my community, in ways that I never thought I would have to be. To shine as a beacon of Light in an area where I stand out even more and cannot hide, and so therefore must embrace my unique Light and magick more than I had previously. And to doing crazy things like leading meditations at park community centers, speaking at conferences, leading meditations online, writing a weekly newsletter, dreaming of one day opening a healing center in Metro Detroit, publishing a website…things I wouldn’t have done if I had stayed in Austin. And it was all from that seed planted in 2018, my request at the beginning of my 1st journey up the Tree of Life through Universal Kabbalah:
To Love Myself Unconditionally, with no limits, no caveats, no justifications. As I Am.
And so as we step into this New Year, if you’re feeling uncertain or lost, know that that’s okay. Many of us don’t know either. But allow me to pay forward that knowing what to do in the future isn’t necessarily going to help any of us know what to do now.
So invest your energy in doing what you can do now.
Feel free to let go of expectations.
Release the pressure of needing to know so you can make room for Faith.
