Tune in to your truth…
Table of Contents
🌑 Happy New moon in Cancer, beloveds.
Last week was an ordinary week “saturated with extraordinary significance,” to quote words from Sam Keen in The Passionate Life.
Only when I dare to be unique can I become grounded in common humanity. I might be able to en/courage you to listen to your calling, but only your ears can hear the vocation that whispers your name. The voice revealing an individual’s destiny is usually a matter of a slight inflection. Easy to miss. If I tell you stories of moments in which I knew the direction of my destiny, they will seem quite unimpressive to you. Just ordinary little flashes…
—Sam Keen, The Passionate Life
Monday, July 6
I started my week off in my second week in a container of five weeks for practicing yoga daily Monday through Friday, sparing new and full moons.
I move my body around 8am, after coffee and journaling. It feels so good to study with the Sun, my teacher. And to synch my rhythms with the tides as I overlook the mighty Mediterranean.
The World Cup evening game was Spain vs. Portugal, with Spain coming away the victor. Cristiano Ronaldo, world revered, ended his international career with 11 World Cup goals in appearances from 2006 to 2026. He’s 41. Spain advanced to the quarterfinals.
Tuesday, July 7
The highlight of my day, and possibly my week, was attending Bear Hebert‘s Anticapitalist Business Office Hours, where I made some surprising connections.
The World Cup match of Argentina vs. Egypt deserves a mention. Sure, while I was all about Argentina in the 2022 World Cup, their advancing is unfortunately marred by controversy and scandal. I must chime in and lament my opinion that the “Racism” card was played against the Egypt team. This isn’t helped by the headlines that the FBI is investigating the Argentine Football Association for money laundering and tax evasion.
It really should be Egypt’s time, alas. Accounts of corruption sadly dampen the FIFA and World Cup experience.
Wednesday, July 8
I followed up with newfound connections from the Anticapitalist Business Office Hours the day before. That is, after practicing my daily ritual yoga.
And after a morning market overlooking Estepona and the feria ferris wheel in the view from the hill.
July 8th is my suegrita’s birthday. I sent her a message of felicidades.
And I had a meeting with “the agency,” a term my uncle laughs at when I say it out loud.
Thursday, July 9
The revelation of the individual’s destiny comes in just such ordinary moments that are saturated with extraordinary significance. Openings.
Sam Keen, The Passionate Life
During my morning yoga practice, I was quite surprised that someone else came to the platform during my session and practiced alongside me.
Having another body near me made me so happy. It was as if I wanted to go over and hug the practitioner. While the other and I never made eye contact, we shared moments in time and space. I smiled internally if not externally as well.
I got an email message that has quite frankly changed my life. An ordinary little flash.
A prospective web design client wrote me with this mature perspective.
I’ve been inspired by kening zhu’s concept of a “house on the web” rather than a brochure; a place that I want to inhabit and be comfortable in that I can also invite others into. That’s been a big shift for me. It’s a “for me” project now vs a business necessity.
When I looked into the work of kening zhu, I immediately became enamored and recognized myself and my desires within her work.
Later that day, I had a wonderful call with someone in my network. I shared with him my continued contemplation of “the secret mission,” a concept Bear offered at the Tuesday office hours.
As Bear has agreed to appear in Season Two of the podcast, I’ll be sure to address the concept in that episode.
Friday, July 10
Friday concluded a second strong week of yoga practice in a row.
“As I relax earnestly into the rhythm of my sacred space—the five-week container—and to my rituals, my life increases,” I wrote by hand in my journal.
I mused a bit more about my “secret mission” and wrote about it. I reconnected with the call from my network the day before by writing him an email.
I wrote the email subject line for the email I’d like to create as the welcome email for my newsletter. It’s in the works.
“How to read my newsletters,” is the working draft.
I jotted down the expression in Spanish “para gustos, colores,” which we would say in English as “to each their own” or “different strokes for different folks.”
I continued way down or farther down the rabbit hole of kening zhu’s work.
“house on the webs” and digital world-building
concepts by kening zhu
- introvert marketing for creative hermits—https://keningzhu.com/journal/introvert-marketing-for-creative-hermits
- build a world, not an audience—https://keningzhu.com/journal/build-a-world-not-an-audience
- house on the webs—https://keningzhu.com/house-on-the-webs
- digital ecosystems (digital ecosystems & world-building)—https://keningzhu.com/worldbuilding
- the tower as a guide to surrender—https://keningzhu.com/journal/the-tower-card-as-guide
Spain edged out over Belgium that evening and advanced to the semifinals. They hadn’t made it to the semifinals at the World Cup since 2010, the year they won it.
Saturday, July 11
I decided while on a long morning walk that lasted about 3 hours and 14,000 steps that if I ever hold private yoga classes again or a retreat, there won’t be cameras or phones as part of recording or documenting the class itself.
At some point later this day, I changed the headline on my Retreat 2027 page: “From the deeply digital to the deeply analog,” a phrase from a call with Chris Musei-Sequeira.
My aunt and uncle and I watched the movie The Sound of Metal, about a drummer who loses his hearing.
The movie wasn’t so much about hearing loss as it was about self-discovery.
When I tune down noise—whether through reluctance or acceptance—I’m more able to sense the quiet urges for rest, silence, and writing from the depths.
Perhaps, like being deaf, being a digital hermit is not something to “fix.”
Sunday, July 12
Something I’ve discovered while here in Estepona is that I like being out with the sun… Waking up with the sun.
Sitting out on the patio. Waiting for it.
Waiting.
Something I’ve noticed really wanting this year is art making. Sitting and writing all the essays in my head.
Earlier, in December, I wrote about Entering the Minimalist Era.
Letting go of “shoulds.”
I jotted that down in the morning as I had coffee on the patio.
My cuñadito played in Sabinillas, so Ángel came along to see us in Estepona and support his little brother…
Ordinary little clips.
Monday, July 13
I got back to my rhythm of yoga practice first thing in the morning.
Then we prepared for a day at the beach.
By this point, I had started and re-started the draft of my newsletter many times already.
I’d sensed into truths or a truth I was preparing to say, but not yet gripping the words to express it.
Tuesday, July 14
Spain advances to the World Cup finals…
…for the second time in history, following a 2-0 game versus France.
The finals game is Sunday, July 19, when my mother arrives for her summer visit and to celebrate my aunt’s 70th birthday.
I feel super blessed.
In other news, I learned that the word ensayo in Spanish is the same word for both rehearsal and essay.
I had no idea.
The Truth
I’ve intuitively known since the beginning of this year that I’d be dropping Substack for email newsletters. Now it’s time.
I don’t necessarily want to write a big manifesto about it. That can come later, if it does.
Even if I don’t totally drop Substack altogether for its algorithmic and discovery properties… I realize my world predominately belongs on my website. Substack to me now is just social media to link back, and I should probably rely more on Kit for newsletters, in terms of email.
In phasing out Substack and having it become a generic profile, I have decided on a few directions I’m heading…
- Taking down the paid subscription option. The tip jar is always available if so moved.
- Not “consuming” people. Instead, seeing you, appreciating you, and consciously taking my time to read your writings. Tending relationships. That may also mean unsubscribing if this is not the right time.
- Moving my podcast hosting so that my website generates the RSS feed that Apple and podcast players pull from.
- Slowly and gradually, art over content.
These gradual changes reinforce how deliberate I’ve been about owning my infrastructure, from degoogling to, now, “digital world-building.”
Kening Zhu explains it all.
The artist-entrepreneur, web designer, and creative guide says it best in her bold promise of build a world, not an audience:
if you can build a rich digital world, then your right audience will find you. everything else that you seek will come easily.
why? because when you have a digital world, then all of the things people chase, those external markers of success — validation, visibility, connection, community, subscribers, money — they are easy, external byproducts of your internal process.
when you build a world, you’re creating from your power.
success is a byproduct of your creative rituals & process.
Sure, while a digital world can be built on platforms like Substack…
I don’t want that world tied to chasing numbers, likes, subscribes, or spending time locked in.
And while my list has grown (a little) and I’ve made great connections there… I’m also feeling way, way more fulfillment in the real world and my real life, from the deeply digital to the deeply analog.
The truth is that I want to write my memoirs.
Yoga tomorrow.
I’m in Week 3.
It is in responding to these revelatory moments that the individual finds his or her tailormade destiny. In this way, the outlaw’s pursuit of an individual calling leads through the threshold into the lover’s world, where any flower in a crannied wall, any grain of sand may reveal eternity.
—Sam Keen, The Passionate Life
