#019 The center of the storm

Greetings, traveler. Did you ever feel in the center of the storm? I am always feeling like that. In an ever-lasting change, trying to find balance, keeping some discipline without knowing the day of tomorrow. I have the mental image of that gif of a flying cow being dragged by a tornado, with the subtitle "Is just a little windy". Or Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada saying "Oh, please, It's just, I don't know, drizzling!". Do you know the feeling?

The solar seal of the Blue Storm is also the archetype of the Agent of Change. The events that catalyze change in our life and also our own power to self-generate our energy. Tone 6 of Rhythm invites us to find balance in the pace of our journey being present in every step.

To your self-reflection:

How can I extend my equality to others?

Some years ago I was teaching one of my classes about how to be in sync with the zeitgeist (a previous version of how to experiment with other temporalities) in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. It was not my first time giving lectures and classes there, but that time was special. During lunch, while we were organizing the day ahead for the new class that was about to start that evening, a friend, Nina Trevisan, that is also a Yoga teacher and an incredible person, invited us to do some practice together. That practice was different. She invited us to shake, strongly, vibrantly, our whole body. That was it. We spent, I don' know, half an hour or more, following her instruction to shake our legs, shake our arms, shake our heads, until she started to try to do it all at once while increasing the intensity. I just wanted to give up.

Standing there, while every muscle of my body was shaking, she gave us a new step to follow:

Now try to find a point of inner peace in the middle of the chaos. Don't try to change anything, just observe. Observe even yourself out of control. Become the observer in the center of the storm. We can't control what is happening around us. A lot is happening and a lot will always be happening. So what about, instead of meditating peacefully sitting like a lotus to escape from the chaos, accepting the chaos? What about embracing it?

That practice changed my life. Thank you, Nina, for offering that practice that changed my life. I had started to cry just to remember. I spent a lot of time in my life trying to control what is happening around me. Also, what will happen, since I am a future-oriented person. Is something that creates the illusion of safety. Probably you identify with this behavior. But that year, with Nina, I learned a new skill. To embrace the storm and to discover with presence where I can float if not trying to win against the tides.

It doesn't mean, in any sense, giving up. In Chinese philosophy, TAO/DAO is the absolute principle underlying the universe, combining within itself the principles of yin and yang and signifying The Way, or code of behavior, that is in harmony with the natural order. The interpretation of TAO in the Tao-te-Ching developed into the philosophical religion of Taoism. I read it only years after the episode but brought me the same sort of questioning. "Yes, I am a person of action! How come I will be doing nothing??", I used to think. But the TAO says that it demands a lot of presence and energy to be able to stand still and find the right moment to start to act. Not before. Not after.

Last year, a project about Brazilian Ancestralities was initiated by my friend Luciana Bazanella, co-founder of White Rabbit Trends in Brazil. The ethics of this project was the Decomposition of the old narrative to open spaces for A Radical Reimagination, where the diversities of ancestry and their valuable contributions to the resolution of the crises in which we find ourselves are celebrated. She trusted in my suggestion to approach the project through a dialogue between 4 perspectives: Africans (blue), Asiatic (yellow), Indigenous (red), and Europeans (white), creating a gradient between these colors where we abandon the myth of pureness. In Brazil, we are the gradient of these colors, and now of so many more.

We were a big team doing that study. 24 people were directly and indirectly involved, to represent that gradient. My role was more like a connector between narratives. In the beginning, I was more "in sync" with the African and Indigenous since I have studied more about that perspectives. I learned a lot about the Asiatic and felt interested (still feel) in deep diving in the TAO/DAO philosophy because it is really connected to what Time and Temporalities had taught me over the years. And in the end, I was in charge to help to close the narrative of the European perspective. It was a lot. To you understand, even my 23andMe ancestry composition and timeline I mentioned here before are presented as part of this project that has the energy of this amazing group. This project was fundamental to making me find peace while embracing the center of the storm.

The thing is that every time I accept a new challenge that is stepping out of my comfort zone, out of my idea of safety and control, I learn so much. So I am writing that also as a reminder to myself since life feels so out of control at the moment. These are opportunities to be open to imagining new possibilities in the middle of the impossibilities. So I'm saying out loud that. I am open. To conclude with another learning: the opposite of Chaos is not Order. It is Cosmos. It means "beauty". Beauty is what emerges on the other side of the chaos. That's why time is Art.