Turbulence - Week 2
Befriending the wild cat, battling the ocean, and building the brand of the future.
It’s tougher this time to write a newsletter, I can’t boast about the number of posts that I’ve published (although I did post some new stuff). Nor can I ride the wave of enthusiasm of doing a new thing. No, this time things are getting more serious, which always makes me a bit cautious. Getting too serious is a problem, we have enough of that in this world already. I want to keep things real, but also show that it’s not all that serious. Life is a big joke which we all claim to understand, while none of us do.
Anyway… although I missed writing discovery logs, I realized that it was taking a lot of my energy. Once I took my break and zoomed out, I crashed. Which wasn’t surprising, but the intensity was. Operating on my masculine energy is really taking much more of a strain on me now. I can’t maintain it anymore. This could be due to the shift in global energy that’s no longer allowing masculine energy to overpower the feminine. Or it could be because I’m still recovering to some degree from my burnout a year ago. Or it could be because I’m dealing with some form of stress from all the shadow work I’ve been doing lately. Or… or.. orr……
This is why I just can’t take reality as an absolute anymore. I’ve always seen way too many options for things to play out and now I’m honoring that. There’s some order in nature, but that order can easily be switched into apparent chaos.
Pivot
Through my search for the meaning of life, I found through Viktor Frankl’s work that all I can do is assign meaning to life myself: “Everything can be taken from a man person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”
When I recovered after two days of resting and thinking, I realized that not only am I not aligned with my North Star of “Healing to dreaming through truth and love”, I also kinda forgot about joy and humor again. Ugh! I’ve been working on that for months now, but sure… something about the astrological weather bringing up old patterns around this eclipse or something.
It wasn’t as bad for me as from what I heard others had to go through though. The Dragon’s Tails is still early in its development as an enterprise, so I can easily pivot right now. In general, I’ve learned to pivot on any kind of circumstance in the past 4 years; living offgrid does that for you.
Frankly, what I’ve done on Substack so far has just been me rambling. Now it seems like I’m actually going to be starting something (finally!). It all had purpose, no ragrets!
Transmuting Darkness into Romance
Sounds fancy doesn’t it? Really, it just meant that due to the cloudy days here in Central Portugal, my electricity ran out. The battery bank of my solar system has been an expensive lesson for me to learn that I should build a proper shelter for new systems – before I install them. Apparently gel batteries don’t like to freeze and become less efficient as they break down…
Which sounds like I’m a really impulsive person that doesn’t do research. It was more of a privileged and entitled decision back then: we really wanted stable electricity and finally had the money to acquire a simple setup. Buiding a brick and mortar shelter for the system would come “soon”. Just so you know: there’s a reason why you build things in order. You shouldn’t build the roof of a house before you build the foundation. Nor should you install a solar system before you can shield it properly from all of the elements (or absence thereof).
Or at least… if you do change the order around, you need to thoroughly know what you’re doing. As in, you can build a roof before you build a house, if you have the whole project drawn out properly. Similarly, I could have installed the solar system without issues, had I known for certain that I would have the permanent shelter built on time. But… considering that I got the system a month before the frost started: that wasn’t gonna happen. Ok fine! I didn’t know that gel batteries couldn’t handle the frost. Geez… These situations come with multiple explanations ok!
Anyway. Rather than getting annoyed at that time by not having light, internet or a working water pump. Which meant that I needed to resort to getting buckets of water out of the well. I decided instead to take the opportunity to howl at the moon, both literally and figuratively. I was just really enjoying the mobile data on my phone to listen to Spotify and sing my heart out as the romantic energies were flowing through me. Not having internet or Spotify at home for a while, has really made me appreciate both. And being able to sing out loud, outside, in the middle of the night; is one of the many benefits of living by yourself in a forest.
And then my phone ran out of power. Unfortunately, the neighbors (trees) can’t provide me with electricity. Although they might… but I’ve yet to learn this from them...
Which in the end, just meant it was bedtime.
The Key to the Ocean
The next day: no power! Because… the sun doesn’t shine at night. So I was like: fine! Apparently I’m still not supposed to be writing, so I’ll just follow the flow and do something else: an adventure!
Some would call it a beach day, but for me… I’m not that comfortable with showing my body off. A behavior that has prevented me from going swimming for most of the time that I’ve lived in Portugal. Which… isn’t great, considering how warm it gets here in summer. However, I didn’t do all my shadow work for nothing. The weather wasn’t sunny, so I figured that I’d probably have the beach to myself. I was right!
Full enthusiasm I threw my shirt off as I arrived and jumped into the waves. Apparently the ocean is stronger than I remembered… because I never actually swam in an ocean. I was thinking of a sea, which has cute waves in comparison. The experience left me pantsed, upside down, and humbled: I loved it. Moarrrr!
After about twenty minutes of battling the waves, getting a little wiser, but mostly just meeting the sandy beach face first: I stepped out to catch my breath. I walked to my shoes and as I did, remembered that I had thought several times about taking my car key out of my pocket before going into the ocean. Surely I had done that, I’ve been ‘mister responsible’ for the past 10 years as father and husband; I don’t forget these kind of things.
But everything in my life is different now, there is no more structure, no more guarantees. And a whole lot of emotions that I’m starting to listen to, now that my heart has opened again. Unfortunately this also meant that I effectively threw my car key into the ocean, when I threw myself enthusiastically into the waves.
If you’re now like: “Oh no!”, that’s how I would’ve responded as well, basically my entire life before now. But now… I just had to laugh like a deranged Emu. Because: why not? It’s just a key and with everything I’ve been going through, it’s not a big deal. There are ways to survive and clouding my mind with worry never helps. This was just hilarious.
Long story short: I went to a nearby cafe and got someone to call in a locksmith to open my car. I also remembered during this process that by ‘coincidence’, I had recently put the reserve keys in the car and as such was able to drive off without problems. Was it a more expensive beach day? Sure. But I was grateful that I had the money to manage this situation. It was a real gift.
Did I have fun? Yes! I actually sat at a cafe near the beach by myself. Something I probably wouldn’t have done, if this hadn’t happened. Meanwhile, without a phone or wallet, I did just sip an iced tea and curiously waited to see how this moment in my life would unfold.
Even when the locksmith told me that he might need to break the window to get into the car. Or when I later got caught by a speedcam. I didn’t let it ruin my day.
What happens: happened. No point in crying over spilled milk. I have no clue what the future will hold after all. What I do know, is that this was the magick of the moment.
Doorposts
With a current total of 24 posts on Substack and some stuff on TikTok too, I’m done with posting stuff to keep the door open; no more doorposts. And although I immediately want to jump into writing about my deepest darkest shadow. I realized that I need to become a bit more gentle in how I approach that particular topic. I was resisting to write it, because I put myself down as a villain. But truly, it’s a redemption arc and I should write it as such. So yes, I have been / am a villain: but I’m also a hero. The story will be shared, when the time is right.
There’s inspiration in every moment and I personally find that there’s too much ‘love & light’ approaches out there. Not just in spirituality, but media in general is making life look fake. I know that I’m craving to see real life portrayed as amazing in both its darkness and its light. It’s a reason that I want to provide this myself as well: ‘be the change you want to see’. ‘All’ it requires is being shameless, because honestly: that’s just wounding of past generations. We didn’t come into this life with shame.
And I’ve gotten over my shame now of showing and speaking for myself in public. It’s time to start talking about what’s actually within my heart, instead of what’s on my heart. As such, I’m working on an essay right now that’s called ‘Truth and Love’, which will be partially covering the vision part of my mission statement: “Healing and dreaming through truth and love”.
Once the vision of ‘The Dragons Tails’ is shared, it will be easier for me to continue building out quality content from there. I’ve overcome the ‘how’, now I need to address the ‘why’.
Oh one more thing! Charles has become my cuddle buddy :) It’s really quite cute how that turned around. I am Disney prince(shhh), whisperer of cat folk, dweller of forest. (if you want me to expand on that story, let me know!)
Published This Week
That’s it for this week. I also posted two poems before I stopped with the daily discovery log. I hope you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.
See you next week!
