Excalicauldron: The Space Between Dying and Resurrection (& Big News Once Again) - Issue #13
The contractions and expansions that connect heaven and earth, and us to ourselves and each other
As the light dies on this day and the year it formed part of, I'm answering my own call to reflect on the 365 days gone by. I'm writing this on the banks of the Adriatic Sea, the land around me steeped in 1,400+ years worth of history. Battles have been fought, victories lost and triumphs gained, lives come and gone. Just as it always has, and always will.
The Year That Was: (Outer) World Crisis Edition
2022 was quite the year. From the personal to the collective, it was a year of HUGE change.
On a macro level, Russia invaded Ukraine (almost as soon as I started travelling again post-Covid - what a way to welcome my being back in the world at large 😔), and it had a tremendous economic ripple effect the world over.
Energy prices have skyrocketed, especially in Europe due to dwindling Russian gas supplies, the global supply chain is a mess, since Ukraine is a leading supplier of wheat, sunflower oil, and various metals, and Russia’s the dark overlord of the Black Sea. Economies are in recession and inflation is through the roof, with the world waiting with dreadful anticipation for the US Federal Reserve Bank's next inflation war move. A stark reminder that our economic fate is by and large in the hands of a handful of global players whose actions can be akin to cranky toddlers being let loose in a candy store.
The Web3 industry entered a crypto winter that's hit people really hard, with a constant slew of centralisation disasters making the news. The high cost (not all of them monetary) associated with the fall of Luna, Celcius, Three Arrows Capital, FTX, etc. is causing ripple effects that will be felt for years to come. (My thoughts on the psychological motivations of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison were covered by Be in Crypto.) As a founder who raised funds just before this fallout, it was a year of immense stress, but also unending gratitude, that our team was able to keep building despite the temporary industry collapse.
The Year That Was: (Inner) World Shapeshifting Edition
On a personal front, this year made me eat an elephant. Bite by bite by bite.
One year ago, I wrote about 2021: "In some ways, it was one of the most challenging years I've had in a long time because most of it was spent locked away between the same four (and a bit) walls." (Excalicauldron: Courage, compassion, and connection - Issue #5)
2022 was clearly the exact opposite:
Three continents, seven countries, more cities than I care to count, an endless amount of flights, beds, boat trips, train seats, bus rides, cars... Back to pre-Covid normal, it was a year of being on the move. The extent of which I couldn't have predicted when I announced our back-on-the-roadness in January 2022 (Excalicauldron: (Big News &) Borderlands of Being - Issue #6).
And yet, once again I'm able to say it was an incredibly challenging year (I'm starting to see a pattern here 😆). This time, though, so much of the difficulty lay in unlocking parts of myself, my mind, my life. And not in the ways I anticipated (does it ever go down like that 🤷♀️)
Area 1: Writing (Air)
Although writing is my sensemaking drug of choice, my intention to replace the frequency of Excalicauldron with pop-up newsletters (Excalicauldron: And on the 7th Day, She Took Pause and Bid a Momentary Farewell - Issue #7) didn't materialise. Instead, I went (mostly) off-grid, though I did transition Excalicauldron into an ur-newsletter, for a total of 12 (now 13) annual issues in total.
However, I do have a HUGE announcement to make! Stay tuned to the end - first gotta fill the spaces in between 😅
Areas 2-4: Wellness (Water), Family (Fire), Career (Earth)
In 2022, I boundaried my time (Excalicauldron: Recalibration - Issue #8) to fall within three categories, and three only: Wellness, family, and career. It was hard saying no to everything else that came knocking, or the very many things I used to sail out to meet. But I did, and my life - as painful an experience as it was all throughout the year, for change brings death to what used to be - is all the better for it.
In 2022, I learned to (appreciate) sleep. I discovered that time spent in self- and other-care is not time wasted but inner freedom gained. And I overhauled how I approach work; not as the big rock around which everything else must wrestle to fit, but as an optional add-on to the fundamental core of who I am as a person.
In the spirit of closure, there was another space-time shift this year. The relationship I've reflected on in past issues deserves a parting mention as I close off 2022. Since the experience resides, for now, in a space between spaces, I'd like to call on word-helpers to express the needed on my behalf:
There was struggle, there was overwhelm, there was defensiveness, rigidity, stubbornness, and a test of faith - many times over.
There was persistence and grit, perseverance and resilience, inner resources we didn't know we needed...but which we found that we had.
There was courage...so damn much of it. And love. Selfless giving. Friendship. A caring that fed the heart and fortified the soul. Beauty. Hope. Promise. All the good, beautiful, life-giving things.
There was one more inch ahead of hitting paydirt, but a mile worth of fatigue. At last, two roads that had been running parallel, split into different directions, heading for two separate mountain ranges.
I honour beginnings, balance, abundance, slowing down, listening, and now, letting go.
Area 5: Life (Spirit) - as I Know it, and as I Don’t
If the four elements are contained within, and infused by, a fifth unseen element, then tag, this year nailed it.
The year’s shifts stirred up (a fancy way of saying it brought about a disturbance in my previous, carefully balanced, equilibrium 😅) elements of life and self I wasn't anticipating.
Creating space - very apt, since my 2022 Word of the Year was Interstitial, the spaces between spaces - was hard. The universe abhors a vacuum, and where space opened up, it was quickly filled with things I've kept hidden not only from others but far more significantly, from myself. So it became a year of looking into the abyss and standing tall and firm for the abyss to look back at me.
It was very much a time of, as I wrote when we found ourselves in Kosovo (Excalicauldron: Of Mice and Men - Issue #9),
"....those phases we find ourselves in, whether in relationships or in business, when you don't quite feel just yet as if evolving a newly forged - sometimes still being mined - identity is full formed enough to stand on its own, to take up space in own right. There's internal turmoil, conflict with old identities that in some ways can be hard to let go of."
As I draw this issue to a close, and the year straight thereafter, I am reminded that endings are simply doorways to new beginnings. So bidding farewell to this year with all its changes, deaths, and resurrections, I'm told by August 2022-me (Excalicauldron: The (Imperfect) Art of Living/Loving - Issue #10):
"For me, the art of living is in developing inner strength that protects my soft, tender core by keeping it intact. My life is my art. My work has always been a little messy to the naked eye, but there's an endlessly active creative process in my subconscious to convert the primordial chaos of my inner Big Bang into the makings of vast universes, new galaxies, and groups of planets spinning around fiery suns."
Big News. Huge. :)
Perhaps the biggest transition from 2022 to 2023 has to do with this statement I made when I declared that I'd be putting Excalicauldron into semi-retirement for a time (Excalicauldron: Ignore the World - Issue #11):
"...my capacity for public openness (especially the expectation of regularity with which society's imbued any kind of output) is always in ebb and flow."
On January 1st (that's tomorrow - hello new year!), I'm launching my biggest, most fun project in a good-long while: Web3 Explained.
Why it's fun:
I'm writing a book! 🥳 (Some of you know it’s my dream, yet #nevernotime)
In real-time! (Cos writing a book's all by your lonesome ain't always very fun)
Participation-style! (This one requires an explanation. Here’s the intro video.)
Why it's big:
I'm building with the garage door WIDE open.
My audience will be able to see, experience, and shape, the direction the project takes, as it unfolds, for better or worse, till the publication date does us part
I'm declaring MAJOR accountability.
Remember what I said above about scheduled creation being for the birds? Well, I've signed myself up for DAILY vlogging to capture the process. 365 days in a row. Yeah. My sentiments exactly. A weekly compilation will be uploaded to the YouTube channel, with the daily video finding a real-time home on LinkedIn.
A weekly newsletter to track what's happening, so that by the end of Week 52, readers will be as immersed in the progress of the book as I am. Sign up here :)
This will be as exciting as it will be daunting. Which is why I love it and why I need it.
May 2023 Treat You Well
Till our paths cross again in the new year, my friends, far as you all are from me at this moment in space and time, may the year ahead gift you the strength you need for the healing you seek and the joy you deserve. Much love, always 💞
xNadja
I admire you for who you are. Eloquent with words and feelings, as if one. Level of transparency is astonishing. Keep on going.