My last return to Jacksonville closed the loop of a thirty-year meander that took me from Jacksonville to Chicago, San Francisco, back to Jacksonville, Ashland, Portland, San Francisco again until it siren-songed me back in 2002. By then l had accumulated a lot of stuff, most of which did not fit into a modest, circa 1889 house.

A couple of years ago, I came across an idea that completely changed the way I view human evolution. What it said was basically this: that all spiritual growth and unfoldment comes from letting go. This simple little sentence was, for me, revelatory.

What do monkeys, the new year, and spiritual growth have to do with one another? Amazingly, quite a lot.