Excalicauldron: Whispers from the Edge of the World - Issue 16
Dancing with shadows, singing to the stars
Ineffable. Rolls off the tongue like sticky honey from a 2,000-year-old pot of liquid gold discovered during an archaeological dig…slower than before, but never entirely stuck. Which is just as well, because that's about as much talking as my mind's tongue wishes to do these days.
If nothing else (though naturally my cornucopia runneth over 🙏), travel has taught me that there's no such thing as Just One Such Thing. We don't need to look to the heavens to find aliens. We live right next door to each other.
Culture, language, location, generation, gender, sexuality, income bracket and a thousand other things besides all create entirely distinct realities that differentiate you from me and us from those people.
At the same time, we're all so very much the same. We would be, we're a species. But we're a species that builds cultures and explore or suppress consciousness. And that makes all the difference.
So by Gregorian (calendar) standards - a reality most of us choose to share (even willingly so), I'm exactly 13 days into the new year. Yet by Nadja (OS 🤖) principles, I'll be ready when I'm ready and not a day before.
It's been only two weeks into another trip around the 365-day (not much to do with the seasons, actually) trip around the sun. This kind of time frame (a week, a month, half a year) is always a mini-lifetime in these parts, which is perhaps why I've been so reluctant to dive into this one until I felt ready to rise up and meet it.
Despite my resolution to cut down on travel this year, I'm on my third country. But this one and I, when we met again last month for the first time in three years (seven years since we first locked eyes), we decided to try each other out for a while.
And so I’m back, and here we'll linger for a while. A new opportunity for our family to make a house a more permanent home. Tonight's hotel will soon be replaced with next week's new home, and with it, an era of active* digital nomadism will be replaced by another batch of slowmadism…or perhaps there's a different label we'll come to lean into this time.
*lately far too active - I travelled to 92 cities in 21 countries on 3 continents last year, some very many multiple times. I think it's safe to admit I need a break 🫠
I'm writing this in the dark. Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl on the (Spotify) radio (I miss the radio!). Down below, the city continues to hustle, shining nightlights the shift replacements for early evening's golden dusk show. Across the street, a green canopy replaced by a mysterious darkness.
I decided that I'll be ready to start 2024 on January 15. I am. Another day or so and this DMZ that separates the old year from the new will be replaced by a superhighway of mission statements, annual goals and OKRs that will serve as Wise Ones to bring the year into fruition, birthing the next 12 months worth of personal development, professional growth, business success, and relational cultivation. There's a lot to look forward to, as there always is 🙌
And then some - this is a pivotal, game-changing year for me, our family, the company, the tech and web3 industries, and the world at large (starting with the global economy and workforce).
But this doesn't render the year that was any less ineffable.
I usually publish here only once I've unlocked a new level exploring the deep undercurrents of my life journey. This is not that day.
I suspect that the threads of everything that happened in my life in 2023 will in some case take years to unravel, and contrary to Navel-gazing Nadja's usual knee-jerk insistence that "No thread be left behind," I'm letting this one simmer and stew for as long as it needs to make its way around my psyche. It'll put itself into words when it's ready, and not a day before.
In the meantime, there's bright new days to greet, missions to fulfil, everyday happinesses to be savoured, and humans to work with and love.
May the year ahead be kind to you when you need a loving hand and gentle when guidance is what you call out for ✨️🙏
As for what's in store for this sporadical newsletter, I have absolutely no idea. I’ll have to live through it to find out 😅 Catch you around the interwebs (and when we're lucky enough to have our paths cross IRL), my friends!
With much love, always ❤️
Nadja