Excalicauldron: There is actually a lot of room - Issue #4

Shorter than usual (which, being as verbose as I am, is a good thing 😆), some brief thoughts on buying into the illusion of busyness.

There’s the space that seems to be out there, like the sky and the ocean and the wind, and there’s the space that seems to be inside. We could let the whole thing mix up. We could let the whole thing just dissolve into each other and into one big space. Practice is about allowing a lot of space. It’s about learning how to connect with that spaciousness that’s inside, and the spaciousness that’s outside. It’s about learning to relax, soften, and open — to connect with the sense that there’s actually a lot of room. - Pema Chödron

Artist: Tang Yau Hoong

Lies We Tell Ourselves in the Light

It’s Tuesday. I’ve been writing this newsletter on Sundays, publishing on Mondays. Last week was such that I’m still reeling from it and have had time to do neither. I referred to my writing and note-making spaces to grab hold of an idea that didn’t involve “Omg so busy”, which has become a default setting feeling slash response. 

The first sign that, yes, last week was busy as heck, was the absence of random little notes I leave myself that offer a pulse on what I’m thinking about. Didn’t I say I’d be inviting my subconscious to the party? Well, it was an office party and only the staff received invites.

But this so-called busyholic ‘truism’ is one I’ve started growing suspicious of. Am I really 100% preoccupied 100% of the time? It certainly feels that way due to the sheer number of things that require my attention all day long. And judging by last week’s sleeping schedule - barely a day went by without calling it a night before 4am - I have evidence to back up my hypothesis. And yet…

Artist: Tang Yau Hoong

I continue to grow in my capacity to prioritise time for nurturing, self-care activities. Since other-accountability comes easier, those scheduled into my calendar that involves other people - weekly calls with friends, enriching topical online and offline events, massages - continue to receive priority no matter how busy my week gets. That’s progress. No longer does work have an exclusive security contract guarding the entrance to the cave.

Finding the Pause

One of the week’s notes caught my eye: 

“Holding space leads to spacious stories.”

Whatever I might have meant when I wrote that, it got me thinking: What was last week’s theme, really? I could make an entire list of personal and professional growth opportunities - after all, these are what we’re trained to view as accomplishments. Things that look good on a list.

Instead, I realise that what deserves most of all to be celebrated is the fact that, amid all that rushing back and forth, the here and there’s, the this’s and that’s, what I wanted to do was to find the pause.

Artist: Tang Yau Hoong

The question isn’t whether I succeeded. Success is not a factor here. It’s a shift, seismic in nature but micro in movement, that’s pulling at the seams, creating that interstitial space I wrote about last week.

Excalicauldron: Embodying Hypnagogic Liminality - Issue #3

Negotiating for Negative Space

Negative space, in art, is the space around and between the subject(s) of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space occasionally is used to artistic effect as the “real” subject of an image. - Wikipedia

The beautiful work of Malaysian illustrator Tang Yau Hoong featured in this issue illustrates the fact that the gifts are always there, waiting to be discovered… but it requires a willingness to want to see.

Inbox Love

I enjoy communicating with you 1:1 so hit reply and it’ll land straight in my inbox 🥰 It’s been lovely to have real conversations with friends I haven’t spoken to in ages post-Facebook again, and I remain happy with my choice to stay off the platform. Unless there’s a happening to share - like publishing this newsletter - which is both ironic and freeing, cos using Facebook as a utilitarian tool is very different from pinning the responsibilities of your social life onto an app.

Till next week (and happy holidays!)