Strands of Silver: The subtle highlights of experience worn gracefully by the Heroines who’ve earned them. These are the stories told through time, passed down with love, and marked with strength. They honor the women who are reinventing, celebrating, and owning every chapter of their Heroine journey – who wear their strands with honor and let life’s breeze guide them into the next chapter. After all, Seventy is the new Fifty. Fifty is the new Thirty. Silver is the new Bombshell Blonde.

I’m staring at an exquisite scene, a charcoal drawing sketched by a woman on retreat. Her mode of daily reflection is her art. In the picture, a path wanders from foreground to background in perfect perspective, patches of tattered grass on either side. Stretched across the palette stands a stone wall, decorative rocks of varying sizes and shapes, with an arched opening a little off-center. Any hint of colorful hues defers to the stark beauty of black and white.

“And that’s where I am today,” says my friend. “I’ve been drawing a little bit each day, as I feel led, but I haven’t been able to see what’s through the arch.

“When the time is right, though, I’ll know,” she adds, “For now, I’m just walking into the mystery.”

How many times I’ve been in that space—and here I am again: A new year has begun, and I can’t see where I’m going. Shouldn’t I be making some New Year’s resolutions? Setting some goals? Paving a path for my future? In the past six years, I’ve set up my private tutoring business and written six books, at one point four of them overlapping each other. So where do I go from here?

It’s a disconcerting space to find myself, this place of unknowing. But from this end of life, from my strands-of-silver perspective, I know it’s perfectly normal. I’ve found myself here many times before, and I’ll face it again and again.

The not knowing.

The dwelling in a place of mystery.

This is life.

My mind travels back across the decades. Leaving Minnesota for California with my new husband in a little yellow MG convertible…what would life hold? Taking a challenging job sight unseen in a town I knew nothing about, and settling into said town…a treasure trove? Or a foolish mistake? That first pregnancy, and the second, third, fourth, and fifth…would the pain of childbirth be bearable? Would I be the kind of mother my children needed? Would they grow up to be happy and healthy, self-loving and creative? Striking out on my own…could I do it? Quitting my job when it was sucking the life out of my soul, and before I had something else in place…where would my next house payment come from?

My life has been replete with opportunities to walk into the mystery. And in that scary space, I’ve learned some comforting news. All the sources of wisdom throughout time have pointed to variations of the same truth: Our path will take us exactly where it should.

Say it how you will. All shall be well. The goodness in life writes straight with our crooked lines. Good overcomes evil.

The sky is darkest just before dawn. Resurrection follows death. The Universe is beneficent. Empty your plate and it will fill up again with treasures unforeseen. Intention has power.

You are exactly where you should be at this moment. Let go of fear, embrace what life has in store, and magic happens. Be, as author Michael Singer calls it, an “untethered soul,” and surrender to life’s flow.

I’ve learned all of those lessons, many the hard way.

Yes, the path is cobbled, that is, roughly or clumsily put together. Yes, there are valleys, some frighteningly deep. Yes, blinding fog descends on our road, familiar paths disappear, ruts threaten to derail us.

But they have no power over the one who resolves to walk into the mystery with the armor of trust.

I want to be one of those.

The stone wall is daunting, covered with age-old lichen and twisted vines. The other side casts no light, a pocket of murky darkness. But the archway beckons.

And here I go.

Into the mystery.

We’d love to hear from YOU…

Where in your life are you walking into mystery? When did you step into the unknown and learn something amazing? Leave your answer in the comments below! 

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business owner, entrepreneur, goals, life stages, March 2016 Issue, online business, risk, unknown, women in business