#002 Contratempo
Hi, traveler. Welcome, back. To the ones just arriving, a brief recap: My body was feeling a high vibration when I published our pilot, a "000" edition. Black holes, cosmic suns, lunar eclipses, closing cycles... I woke up and I needed to write, words really far and really close to the daily routine of the reality. Everything, everywhere, all at once. But we do not exist only during eclipses and big announcements, right? In "001" we properly started, back to the energy of birth and new beginnings. I wrote about the power of starting a movement, showcased some of the best communities I feel part of, and talked about the role of self-investigation to discover what we, here and now, can build together.
The main idea I shared, and, really, one of the main ideas of my time studies, was about Time Sets. Packages of raw, unprocessed data, that we – artists, creators, makers, researchers, and strategists – download from the field in collective opportunities that we feel synchronized not only with the actual ideas of the world that already is but with the potential ideas of a world to come, a world becoming. From my research about social change since 2013 to my recent projects on temporal literacy in 2020 and 2021, this is a concept I believe we should talk about more often from now on, in the long term this decade, and beyond.
Today is just our "002" date and I have my weekly therapy session (relevant side note: please, consider starting or restarting doing therapy), several work meetings to be, events to attend, and project deliverables to focus on. And I needed to write. I want to write. My first step to being able to be fully recharged and present for all of these tasks and events was a good 8-hour night of sleep I gave myself. This is a lesson learned for me, but maybe you will recognize your inner saboteur on it as well. The worst thing that can happen is self-sabotage by trying to start to do everything on the to-do list and skip good sleeping. So I woke up restored today, made the bed, went to shower, and suddenly a word came to me:
Contratempo.
Do you know what it is? I shared the word in Portuguese because it arrived like that, and also because it has "time" in its writing. In English, "contratempo" is a setback. It is an event that delays your progress or reverses some of the progress that you have made. Do you know the feeling? Sooner we start a new individual or collective movement it feels that real life comes with a challenging schedule of other tasks to do, the uncertainty in between the praise of some friends, the judgment of some friends, and the silence of others. A thousand subjects suddenly appear, unfinished, in a line, asking for permission to have your time and energy. It misses words, the right ones. It misses efforts. The ideas remain there, so close and so far. Raw, unprocessed. What to do with it? How to deal with it? We just don't know where to start.
But this is not my first time on this spiral, traveler. I know what to tell you about it. What about asking: from where to start, universe? Yes, asking to THE universe. Believe your endeavor is important enough to bring the question to such a high court, as I learned with my friend Camila Fraga. You don't need to have any specific set of spiritual beliefs. Remember, you had downloaded the current time set, everything is already there, waiting to wake up. The ways we will feel confident doing it are just the tools. Ask. Universe, from where to start? The Great Spirit, the universe, will answer to you: don't, freak out. Breath. You just need to be yourself"
The setback, the challenge, is an invitation to you "do you". To you perform being you. And, from within, we also can be the observer of this version being performed. You are the great spirit you've ben talking with! (To the ones that watched Wandavision and know who Agatha Harkness is, now is playing in my head the song "It was _______ all along". It was you all along!) From this two versions of you dialoguing, from this polarity you can experiment, explore, and experience the necessary setps, that will allow you to become who you need to become.
(Just a quick story about polarity I added after finishing writing. Yes, now I'm time traveling from the last words to this point. Do you know that our Earth had a challenge with its tilt, but after the hit of a celestial body with the size of Mars, it was able to correct that, balanced by the gravity of its new lunar companion, our Moon, and finding the spin it has today? So now you know. Thats also explains the image I used as a cover, recreating the first time we were able to look back to Earth from the moon, called "Earthrise". You can connect the dots. I'll go now. Back to the present-time.)
What does the universe, the spirit within, are telling you today about the challenges you need to face in the next 260-day cycle? Sometimes is a subtle message, sometimes is a loud one. Sometimes is cloudy, or noisy, just like the challenges ahead, but sometimes, justs sometimes, the messages are also crystal clear. To regain the skill to communicate with this inner version of yourself, other version of yourself – perhaps also known as higher self? – is the important learning of today. This communication has the power to change the way you deal with your personal challenges. And also to save you from a lot of trouble.
In the Tzolkin, this inner communication, to listen this inner voice and also the skill talk words that are coming with no judgement directly from the spirit are represented by the visual set – or solar seal, this package of abstract and conceptual information that comes in an image – called the White Wind. Because, like the wind, is a fresh breath that brings you clarity of mind that helps you to find confidence about what to feel, what to do. In our journey, this skill is still being challenging to us access. Yesterday I mentioned a framework of 13 time units starting with the birth of the mission we are starting, with the question "what is my purpose?" and now I offer to you to reflect about the second one as a gift: what is my challenge?
If you feel uncomfortable in any level about this conversation about talking with the universe, and with the spirit of the wind, don't worry. I was you. I was – or I used to believe I was – the rational strategist believing that technology is only what the modern humanity is building out of plastic and silicon. When asked about it, Ailton Krenak, indigenous leader I had the honor to meet and to share stage in Brazil, says these are just human-made toys. We are the most depent society from science and technology but we not even know what science and technology are. But we are about to (re)discover, as humanity, what technologies really are. And I feel that to talk about temporal technologies just like the ones we are sharing here is my tiny contribution today.
Maybe telling you this I just made you feel more uncomfortable – like happened with me in the past – maybe not. So I want to also recommend the ideas and practices of two world–renowed authors that I love and have an important contribution to my own journey. The first one owns the title of my favorite TED Talk. Elisabeth Gilbert offering some perspece about shifting the idea to be a genial person, to live out of such pressure and approach ideas as the "genius", entities that are temporarily inside of us. She also speaks about several of these genius around, going from person to person, right now. Yes, the time set again. I watched several times, and I cried in most of them. If I show it to you someday, believe, we are sharing a special moment.
One of the many contributions of this TED Talk to life is to setting the believe that your creativity can live beyond your traumas, beyond your fear. Liz Gilberth is the author of a book of self-investigation called "Big Magic" that deep dive on it and we should do a reading session together, eventually :)
She was also invited to record a 1-hour masterclass about the subject to Calm. Calm is a meditation app and I listened waking at the park, one of my favorite ways to listen any audiobook, podcast or class. If you don't have you can click here and claim a trial for free. It just takes one hour to listen the masterclass and after that you still have a month of guided meditations and good stories before decide if you want to keep or cancel. – By the way, don't think twice before cancel to every subscription service you feel you will not use this month. The subscription service model exist exactly to that and they will not judge you, you still can sign up again and again when you feel like it coming back.
The second tool is a creation from the author Julia Cameron, "The Artist'' Way". The book is a guide to people start their own journals in order to unblock creativity and it helped several people to find confidence to interact with this inner voice we are talking about. Julia brings also the no bulshit approach to say to you "yes, I talk about God, The Spirit, The Universe. But, don't worry, the god you don't believe I also do not believe". It was Alvin Toffler that said that the illiterate of the 21st century would be the ones without the skill of unlearn to learn and relearn, you know that. This is an opportunity to of unlean whatever the church taught you to find back, as an adult, your own relationship with these concepts. As Julia will show you, is also a journey back to your inner child.
During the first year of the pandemic, the tsunami of live streaming sessions also brought us the opportunity to hear Elizabeth Gilbert AND Julia Cameron together. I started a support group on whatsapp with people doing the Artist's Way journey and we all watched it. The book itself goes for 12 weeks but I am doing my morning pages for more than a year now. Sometimes I struggle to keep my "artist's date", to take some planned time just to myself and my inner child, but she mentioned this is the hardest part to most of the participants, not the journaling part.
The group I mentioned promised to do some support sessions to talk to each other about our creative process of "becoming ourselves". You, traveler, can also be part of it if your want. I think you understood already that you got an open invitation to everything, everywhere, all at once. (Yes, I will keep connecting the strings between every reference ever mentioned here, get used...). So I'll stop for now, once again. Wrapping up: Time set as a package of necessary ideas available in the field for our time, "the genius around". Setback as the challenge we need to face, the world needs to face, in order to become something else. The Spirit, as your connection with the voice of your inner self, your higher self. The Wind as the archetype for the subtle whistle that this voice can be.
"Universe, from where to start?"
With love,
Gustavo Nogueira de Menezes
NS1.34.11.18, Thu 20 May 2022
Kin 002 Lunar White Wind