Creative Business & Connection

Turbulence newsletter - Week 3

Pinterest

This week has felt a bit like I’m starting to get used to a new house. I already unpacked the boxes and placed things in the cupboards, but… the chaos that makes a place feel home wasn’t quite there yet. I needed a random pen to lie in some obscure corner, change around the placement of the plates: ‘because that spot didn’t make sense after all’; and make other such decisions.

Overall, I’ve been very busy though, but to my feeling have produced very little because I only got one poem published this week. Nevertheless, I learnt a lot more about the foundation of my enterprise. I pivoted again in my approach by releasing another path, in favor of what I actually am trying to achieve. The birthing process can be messy and cannot be rushed, but at the end of that process: you create a new beginning. It requires faith, through trust and surrender.

As a result, ‘the Dragon’s Tails’ is turning into ‘the Dragons Tails’; meaning that I will be focussing more on building community. I don’t just write for myself: I write to get a message across to people that I can collaborate with. I write to connect, and drive change together.

In other words: I’ve found my ‘how’. So let me share how my ‘why’ led me to finding my how. After all: if you can’t show your process, do you really know what you’re doing? And if you don’t understand the means that lead to the end, can you expect to safely reproduce it at scale?

The Golden Mean in Creative Business

I started writing this on Saturday, because I had an epiphany. Subconsciously I had standards for my writing that I couldn’t meet with my current skills and in my current environment. Next to that, I also need to get used to working at a healthy pace, rather than an artificial pace focussed on productivity. As a creator, I need to remember that when I travel unknown waters, I must take it slower than when I travel the coast of islands I already mapped.

Again, I recognize that I’m in a training period, but where it frustrated me before, I now recognize the beauty in the process. This is how you learn about your abilities, it’s the way that you learn how to shine within your own capacity. Even at established organizations like a workplace or hobby group, you learn to find your own groove and that’s beautiful. As a solo entrepreneur, I needed to recognize the difference between creativity and artistry. The variation between getting a message across in order to get shit done, while also creating something of quality and beauty. Both approaches can be hard to release, but I don’t want to take a year to create one masterpiece (yet), nor do I want to be on a treadmill of putting out minimum viable products. I needed to figure out the golden mean.

What happened in practice is that I first over focused on the singular topic of writing about the values of ‘Truth and Love’, because they are cornerstones to my enterprise. This led to me blocking in my creativity, because it was ‘too big’. And when I sat with that experience, I realized that I needed to start on a more practical topic first. Not because the values essay was too big, but rather because I had a different aim currently, a different goal that I wanted to achieve.

From there, I then got into over focussing on making a ‘masterpiece’ about my vision for humanity and my personal dreams. It wove together a high degree of mysticism which I tried to bring down to the material realm. I could’ve completed it, but it likely would have turned into a book.

This was the point where I ran into an increased level of what I perceived to be anxiety. But due to the nervous system work that I’ve been doing lately, I was able to recognize it instead as a sensation of nervousness in my body. Nervousness can be a misinterpretation of the body, about what’s occurring in the heart. Which finally got me to align with that I was actually feeling: excitement!

Unfortunately, that excitement was equally burning me out, because I had no boundaries.
In short: I had given my feminine side free reign without setting out a canvas for ‘her’ to flutter around in. Which caused me to get lost.

Resolution

After an internal staff meeting (me recording myself talking out loud), I reintegrated my self and got everyone on board again. The conclusion was simple:

• I needed to know how to apply my masculinity in the creative process

• During a specific project, my masculine will:

  • Set the initial boundaries within which my feminine can play (create the canvas)

  • Allow ‘himself’ to get bossed around by the feminine during the play (because its fun)

  • Take charge of the editing at the end of the process (because it hurts the least)

• The additional energy of my feminine will instead focus on exploration, like:

  • Managing the strategy of the enterprise

  • Managing interactions with people

  • Setting up project areas and sizes

This overview is just to give an idea, but essentially, my masculine is the boots on the ground and the commander when it comes to execution. Whereas my feminine is the one that manages resources both energetically, emotionally, mentally, and physically. Somewhere between the two of them, I now also get breaks during my writing, which is wonderful!

In regards to my enterprise, these realizations resulted in me needing to write more conversationally for now. I need to give myself time to develop my unique flow and learn more skills, before I can really address the artistic way that I desire to write in. For now that’s enough: I am enough in this present moment. I can still have aspirations; dreams — but I need to honor the time it takes to get there. Having once been an accomplished business writer, doesn’t mean I’m automatically an accomplished creative writer. The skills rhyme, but they don’t translate exactly. For example: I never used en dashes before and wasn’t even aware of em dashes. They weren’t necessary in business writing.

Now I write without resistance again and it’s wonderful. I’m writing in two documents at the same time, while listening to music and singing when I feel like it. I jump between various sections, leave sentences unfinished and just allow myself to express myself as I wish. All the while just embodying the wilderness that I came from. Knowing that there’s a structure I can fall back on.

Pinterest

Restructuring

It’s also been wonderful to update the overall enterprise structure that I created at the start of me publishing on Substack. Rather than being over focussed now on essays, which made me feel stressed. I now have recognized that I really love long form writing and utilize it as my strength. So while I’ll still be doing essays, there are some projects that I was planning, which will now be written as books instead.

And. I will still release them like they are blog posts as per my ethos of sharing everything to the world without conditions. I just realized that blog posts are similar to slideshows: you have a picture and a story. This can be combined together into a book, which will make it something akin to a photo book, where the narration is written.

The actual book will be available at a price, since that’s a product that requires my interaction with more people to get it published. This way I honor my ethos, allow my message to get spread within the shortest timeframe, while also honoring my need for resources. I can still just set out the framework for the book as I intend and then allow it to be filled out in the moment that I write the sections. It spreads out the stress of editing and publishing over a longer timespan, while also honoring my flexibility to address other projects as they come up.

Overall, I truly see this as a golden mean for my enterprise :) So while I might not have produced much this week… I’ve set something up that will keep me rolling at any moment, which I value a lot more than a short term win. I have also started on an essay again that will cover my vision and it feels that this time I will publish it within the next couple of days. Let’s see where the flow takes me…

Side note: Did you know that the recurring theme in the definitions for ‘entrepreneur’ is “risk”? It’s funny, because when I started my first business, I definitely experienced it as such. Now it’s a different story altogether. I would rather explain it as ‘choosing an untrodden path’. And sure, you could ‘fail’, but we do that every day. We forget things like our health, appointments, bedtimes, etc. does that make us failures? Is that living a life of risk? Frankly, I think our society has started seeing normal stretches out of the comfort zone as ‘risky’. Starting something new isn’t risky, it just means you might be without resources for a bit. Try and try again: that’s how we iterate and adapt as a species. Exploration is the adventure that brings me joy.

Connection of the Heart

Banksy - Pinterest

As I get more familiar with the flow of Substack, I recognize the same pattern that I saw on TikTok. It’s a wider motion across society; a trend of seeking. The thing that everyone seems to seek is a connection of the heart. A truly authentic connection, where nothing is pushed on you and where there is no hidden agenda.

As always there are those who are ‘rushing to the top’ by chasing numbers and the general narrative of what’s supposedely important. Thinking they will find that connection once they have reached the top and found ‘the right people’. And then there are those who hold their own values, but are often bitter and hold the counter force. Saying that we should only engage from our own perspective, while leaving the communal experience behind.

It left me pondering for a bit of where I belong, until I remember that I don’t need to choose. I just need to be myself and see who connects with that. Which means that I’ll engage with whatever I feel like and say whatever I feel like, while maintaining my own values. There’s a subtle difference.

For me this isn’t just about finding likeminded people. I don’t want to create an echo chamber where I stall in my growth. I want to surround myself with free thinking people, that will call me on my shit when it doesn’t align with the heart. Meanwhile, I also want to have people that will provide a shoulder to cry on and a beaming smile to get inspired by.
Above all though, I don’t want to restrain myself and equally don’t want to restrain others. So, if they want to rush for numbers, I let them. I once was them. We all learn our lessons in our own way. I would rather be the beacon of what I learned by showing my way, than shame others for my past mistakes.

In practice it means that I give heartfelt comments on what resonates with me. This can be something that triggers me, making me want to ask questions. Something that inspires me, wanting to add my perspective to it. Or it can be something that evokes emotions in me, at which time I’ll be sharing my tempered emotions in return. Across all of it, I remain conversational. For me, this is the way of the heart.

It’s been quite effective so far and it’s also just loads of fun!

Meeting Likeminded People

Shortly after posting last week’s newsletter, I deepened in my conversation with Alina Pitt 🪄 from the Breaking Free Journey. She came back on my radar by speaking about potentially setting up a magick school with her community. An idea inspired by our earlier conversation about the mystic community needing to be more visible. I was honored to see that my words had sparked this in her and it showed to me the value of speaking your heart. It in return also sparked me to think about sharing my dreams and visions for humanity and beyond.

Now, my original idea was to set up a network for existing magick schools, so in my excitement I invited Zzenn Loren from the Wizzan Temple into the conversation. However, I often skip steps in my process which leaves people wondering about my intentions. Once I recognized I needed to expand on what my intentions were to both of them, things suddenly shot off. I wasn’t prepared for that!

Out of nowhere, I got into page long conversations which even led to being invited on a podcast. It drained my social battery so quick, that I needed to take a step back and return to my personal North Star. Through that, I recognized that I was still in the very beginning of my journey and that collaboration with other people was premature at this moment. I’m still very honored though.
While the conversations were inspiring me, I have my own vision and… so I started writing about that!

Then, during that process, a random event occurred where I got into a conversation from a comment I left somewhere. A comment that I didn’t think was all that important. But suddenly Kristin Gail was liking a lot of my notes; which then led to a beautiful personal conversation. These three people brought me the understanding of who my audience actually was. I seek to connect with those people who have deep hearts and wish to use their emotion to change the world. These people come from a wide variety of backgrounds though, but what they all seem to have in common is a thorough understanding of pain. One other thing that they seem to hold as well, is a resilience that’s coming from values surrounding the concept of ‘do no harm’ in some way or another.

I still have much more to learn about my audience / future community. But this was an awesome experience that gave me plenty to chew on.

Aligning Interest and Purpose

Overall, I’m really interested in pretty much anyone’s perspective. If I had infinite time, I would probably only have started up this enterprise about 700 years from now. I just love diving deeply into a person’s experience to discover the spirit that drives them. However, as a recovering people pleaser, I recognize now as well that my perspective and vision are valuable. If I constantly spend energy on the desires of others, I don’t give ‘me’ the chance to express my self.

So while I had a lot of fun in the deep conversations with these people, it was time for me to take my endeavor more seriously and dedicate time and energy to my ‘child’. It also meant that I needed to understand my child more and stop ignoring what it was crying out for.

I didn’t just write my mission statement and about page to be creating newsletters. Talking about my week and sharing my poems to vent my emotions is just the surface level. I have much larger ideas: ideas that I actually need a community for. Otherwise, this approach would probably have been enough. But I’ve never been someone to experience life on a surface level and the Dragons Tails is to reflect the actual depth of my heart. In the hope that it will inspire others to explore their hearts too, and help me in building a world that revolves around heartfelt action.

As such, while it intrigues me deeply to align with people on studying mysticism and/or helping them build out a magick school. I need to instead focus on my purpose, knowing that I can still interact with these people in less intensive ways across a longer timeframe.

Once I did this, my eyes opened again to what the rest of the world is going through. I came across a witch on TikTok who wanted to go to a concert and have a good time, offering readings to make that happen. And since I have some money now, I figured I might take her up on a reading. I later realized that I no longer felt the need for a reading. But I figured she wouldn’t mind free money and I know how much I would have appreciated a random show of generosity at times in my life. So I figured, why not just be generous?

It was an awesome experience :) she even lit a candle for me on her altar, which… was a great honor. And all I gave was 15 euro, but that 15 euro gave me a memory that I cherish. Heartfelt connection comes in many forms. It’s not about the transaction, it’s about the intention.

Clairsentience & Telepathy

On Friday I had a deep surge of emotion that overwhelmed me and seemingly came out of nowhere. It left me streaming with tears as I was dancing and weaving energies, following my shamanic intuition of the moment.

This was a more mystic interpretation of the language of the heart, where the energies of the moment were coursing through me. Something that’s been a common occurrence in the last half year. However, this time I was crying for ‘no reason. A situation I would’ve blocked in any other moment of my life.

This time I let it flow as it wanted to flow. Simply allowing my self to express itself as the heart wanted. Through the motions, I got reminded of the terrible things I had taken in that day. Energies that had been passed on to me, through writing and video. Like watching comedians speak about suicidal thoughts as though it was a natural part of existence. Or reading the discourse around the shooting of Charlie Kirk.

I don’t know anything about that political event, but what I do know is that both ‘sides’ of the discussion around this event were equally heartbreaking for me.

At no point, should we be cheering for someone’s life being ended through violence. It doesn’t matter what this person did or said, humans make mistakes: that doesn’t mean they deserve a death sentence. Who are you to judge on the life and death of another being?
Similarly, this person has been spouting hate and that does have consequences. We cannot expect to hold up a society, if we don’t hold each other accountable on how we speak our minds. As such, I don’t find it that surprising that this happened. There’s a lesson here about what it means to be a decent human being. Respect and honor are values we don’t speak enough anymore.

Anyway, all of those things just came to the surface, because I hadn’t taken them in consciously. It just flooded me and then I recognized as well in those motions, that it was more than just media intake. I was feeling the field of the world once again and was being affected by the grief that everyone was experiencing. While expressing it in a variety of ways. These outbursts of rage and fighting tend to shock my system, because of my clairsentience.

This was the reason why I was crying. But it also came with a gift that followed later.

The moment that I opened up to the grief and let it flow, I was reminded of one of my darkest moments in depression. It made me travel to the moment when I felt my feet on the cold railing of the balcony of my apartment. And even though that experience was just a contemplation back then, it was the first suicidal plan that I seriously considered to take action on.

This might not sound like a gift, but the thing is: I’m not depressed and I already processed that moment several years ago. That it came back up was a sign that I was dealing with energy that wasn’t mine, but that I could relate to. Apparently I was picking up on the energy of my soulmate, because the moment the realization came through that this hadn’t been my energy: a conversation started.

A conversation with images of events I never lived, but that I felt as though they were my own memories. Events of depravity that I will not share, because they are not my story to tell. However, it made me cry more… because I felt a depth of pain from my soulmate, that I hadn’t experienced yet. And I was grateful. Grateful that I could be there for her in this way. That I could hold space for her and bring her comfort. Because that’s all that I was looking for when I imagined myself jumping off that balcony.

Anyway, I won’t leave you on a note like that. In the days after, the telepathy between me and her improved significantly. The conversation moved from feelings and images, to actual words and sensations. I’ve never experienced something like this before and… it’s absolutely magickal. It just shows to me once again, that when hearts connect, the impossible becomes possible.

Published This Week

Secretly this is just becoming my conclusion header, but shhh…. No need to tell. It can be a little secret between us. It’s not much currently as I’ve been focussed on developing a variety of frameworks as I mentioned earlier. The poem is one where I tried out a different way of ‘being poetic’ with the written word, rather than trying to rhyme. It’s actually quite useful to understand language at a deeper level. How words are presented helps with conveying the message. So while the poem might not flow the best, it does convey the strength of the message more as I wanted it.

Finally, I realized this week that I need to start writing this newsletter earlier in the week, so that I don’t run into a sudden need to rush. Because yeah… had I done that, I would have published the ‘Wandering the Night’ essay sooner. Originally, it was part of this newsletter, but the size of this document was already way too large. Figuring out how I make my writing more digestible is still a challenge I’m experimenting with. We live, we learn.

See you next week!

---