Years ago, close to the end of June, I stood on a mountain top and released a bunch of balloons to symbolize a massive letting go of the past and a new future founded in trusting the path of my heart.

Being well intentioned, but not very environmentally savvy at the time (I now know better and would release biodegradable balloons or just blow bubbles), I was yelled at on the way down the mountain by a few people concerned about bird life and more eco-aware than I; yet who also missed the intent of my heart when I explained what the release was all about.

My divorce was finalized that day, and I was about to embark on major uncharted terrain of the self and soul.

That was 9 years ago, and what I didn’t quite realize at the time was that I’d woken the deeper self within, and she- I- was going to insist on a wild, creative life of finding trap doors to exit conformity and discovering hidden passages into realms unseen.

I had just taken my first brave steps into the untamed, unknown soulscape of an intuitive, quantum existence of brave vulnerability and heart-based living.

A couple years ago, I wrote an article about Trusting The Path of the Unknown.

At the time, I’d been living in Kauai for a few months, and I was beginning to experience what it truly meant to trade certainty for reinvention. I had once again heeded the voice of the deeper self, leaving behind my stable life in Alaska for a soul call, which urged me to create a life of greater spiritual, intuitive, and creative pursuits.

No longer a stranger to making wild jumps and gargantuan leaps of faith, I thought I knew a few things about walking the unknown path. On my previous journeys into uncharted soul territory, I’d been a wilderness wanderer for a fortnight or two (or maybe even a few), but eventually clarity and breakthrough came with blessed reassurance.

So, even though I didn’t know how it would look, I still thought “I knew” what I was doing and that I had what I needed to navigate this path.

Which means I showed up on Kauai, with my big open, faithful heart (yes!).

I was making space to listen to spirit/universe/intuitive self and trusting (yes!).

I had aligned my life with my deeper calling, clearing lots of space for new things to come in (yes!).

Now I was just waiting for life to do its part and give me the blueprint of what came next, so I could follow the directions. (NO.)

So much NO.

Because unlike my previous expeditions into uncharted soul, I had left base camp behind me. I was a stranger in a tropical and beautiful land- - and almost everything I’d oriented myself by in my Alaska life was gone.

I’d said yes to the deepest part of myself; my soul-calling and greater purpose, and I quickly discovered that does not come with an instruction manual.

To save a lot of time, I’m going to translate two years of deep soul work into the following words.

When it comes to our soul path, there is very rarely a set blueprint. Instead, the path of the soul is left open, with plenty of room for us to experiment, play, seek, reach, explore and learn. Life is big enough to meet us wherever we are at and help us create our soul-print as we go.

So many of us want to know how it’s going to look. We are afraid we will get it wrong or miss the path, and yet everything I have learned and continued to learn tells me that not knowing is part of the path. Because not knowing- which invites us to grapple with uncertainty and consider our options- helps us to find the ingredients we need to create the next step on the path.

That is what soul evolution is all about.

There are beautiful gifts that come with not knowing. Gifts which can only be accessed by being in a vulnerable space of uncertainty. Gifts we cannot find when our life is solid, structured, and sure.

Instead these gifts can only be found when we heed the call, jump full in, plunge the deep end, and learn to negotiate our trust relationship with the universe itself. In no particular order, here’s a few gifts that come to mind when I think about being in the space of the great unknown:

• The unknown invites us to be more aware of the present moment.

• The unknown leaves more space for creative evolution.

• The unknown challenges and strengthens us to trust our process.

• The unknown is one of the only places we will meet our wild self.

• The unknown allows us to be in deeper relationship with spirit.

• The unknown is how we find our answers to our deepest questions of self.

• The unknown is the only place where we can shed the cocoons of our old selves and grow the wings of our new becoming.

• The unknown is where we negotiate, refine, and define our relationship with the universe inside of ourselves and the universe outside of ourselves.

In other words, the unknown is a pretty rocking space to be if you are looking to grow and become. Yes it’s uncomfortable, and yes- it’s nebulous nature can feel very disconcerting. Yet it’s also the space where we get to romp though the mountainous wilderness of the soul. Our deeper self is free to roam and expand in this space, and bring new ways of being into our awareness when it it time.

And the answers will come in time. The heart just happens to have a rhythm and timing all its own; one that cannot be rushed, hurried, or short-cut. It reveals our truths in its own way. And we can absolutely trust in its timing, and trust that the divine will meet us there and help grow us towards our next step.

I’ve come a ways, since I was that girl on the mountaintop 9 years ago, and even since I wrote that article a couple years back.

The further I go, the more I realize how much I still have to learn.

But what I didn’t know then, that I finally know now, is that learning is part of my soul-work.

Learning about the nature of the universe, the nature of trust and allowance, learning about the soul’s wildscape and the untamed unknown- - that is part of what I signed up for and what I said yes to when I said yes to Kauai.

On the days, where I can lay down my questions and allow myself pause and breath in the moment, I realize these beautiful, tangled years of crazy leaps and quantum heart jumps have nourished and evolved my soul in a way nothing else could,

I will not live an unmet existence, and I will never have to meet my unlived self. And neither do you- - for we meet and live our deeper self every time we find the courage to let go and trust the heart’s path.

And that perhaps, might be the most exquisite gift of all that comes from saying yes when life invites us to tango with the terrific unknown.