Picture a man on a tightrope under a full moon.  He has stepped off the edge of his roof and is walking forward.  Now, picture that he is holding the end of the rope in his hand (instead of the high-wire extending before him, some destination on the other side, such as another roof or one of those platforms you see in a circus). More of the tightrope is unraveled under his feet with each step forward.

This was the image on a greeting card handed me by my friend, Anna, as we sat in front of her wonderful old stone fireplace last Friday night. As I stared at the card, it felt a bit like looking in a mirror, seeing my life reflected back.   

A little over a year ago in the autumn of 2008, I stepped off solid ground.  I was following an inner call first heard 10 years ago.  It was the call to write a book about an 18th century mystic rabbi and healer, the Baal Shem Tov.  For the next ten years, I worked on and off on the book, while juggling the balls of my life and being juggled by life.  

Then the time came when on and off no longer worked.  I yearned to be on all the time, to bring the book to the finish line and hand it to whomever would help bring it into the world.  So I jumped into the unknown, knowing only the passion I felt and the rightness of following a path that did not yet exist.

Not only did the book pull me powerfully towards it, several things pushed: I had turned sixty. My dear mother's Alzheimer's was progressing rapidly, revealing the transitory nature of life and of a sharp mind. And to top it all off, I got a wicked case of the shingles causing me, who almost never gets sick, to consider my mortality.  The time had come not to wait.

I did not even notice the tightrope while I hovered in a timeless groundlessness, devoting myself to the book.  I became a recluse spending most of my waking hours in the 1700's, in the Polish countryside, relishing the company of the Baal Shem Tov and others whose lives he touched, like Leya, Rifka, and Channah, who I grew to love.  

Now the book, The Tremble of Love, is just about complete. Looking down now, I see the tightrope beneath my feet—no destination visible yet.  Before this—despite the "risk" of falling (i.e., failing)— I took step after step in a rich darkness that was sacred space.  Maybe, I was in the womb, being birthed along with the book. Now, I have been thrust into the bright lights of "reality" where I must make my way, carrying the book, balancing carefully until we arrive…