Gift

27 November 2021 🌗

Dear Santa,

I am in a privileged position of my basic monthly expenses being more or less covered by my online business, at least for now.

It wasn’t easy to get here.

It took four years of being constantly challenged by the entrepreneurial learning curve. One of the biggest difficulties revolves around money. In a nutshell: I feel very little alignment with the current capitalist system and I’d like to embody a different paradigm.

But that isn’t easy when I depend on my own business to bring income. On one hand I am fully committed to release products that genuinely enrich lives and contribute to co-creating a beautiful planet where all beings can thrive. On the other, I feel pressure to make enough to pay the basic expenses. With the entrepreneurial world saturated with content prioritizing making more money rather than why and how aligned, it’s been hard to stay grounded and maintain a relatively steady course aligned with what my heart believes in.

But it’s been kinda working lately, and I feel that my work is tuning in more and more with my values, while bringing in enough financially to sustain my basic needs, and leaving more time and energy to give freely to work that matters that I don’t want to charge for within the capitalist economy.

Because, I deeply believe that not everything should be monetized.

Regenerating the land.

Healing oneself and others.

Sharing the Light to inspire and encourage more people to enter into the upwards spiral of the beautiful world that our hearts know is possible ¹.

These are my priorities, and while I’m committed to this path anyway, I could certainly use your help. That’s why I’m writing this letter to ask you for a Gift.

As a minimalist on a constant journey to have less items and more space, I learned that offering a gift is a beautiful but challenging art. For example, for a long time my family kept giving me stuff, which while being given from the heart and therefore appreciated, was, generally speaking, useless for me and only created unnecessary clutter.

What I learned through this process is:

a) experiences generally make much better gifts for me.

b) it is my responsibility to communicate clearly which gifts are the most aligned with what my heart points me towards right now, instead of expecting another person to know that intuitively.

This letter is an externalisation of these two lessons in a form of a public wishlist, supported by a firm belief that there is plenty of abundance of different sorts all around, and that within the Gift Economy (which we are indeed all a part of) the gifts gravitate towards the place where they are needed most.

I’m not saying that the items on my list are universally speaking the biggest voids in the universe waiting to be filled. I already have all that I need. However, it is possible that you are in a position to fill these voids for me, and thus make a real positive impact in my life, and, through ripple effect, the lives of others.

Whether that’s the case or not, I’m grateful for your presence, and I wish you wonderful Winter Holidays, whichever and whenever you choose to celebrate.

With Love and Gratitude,
Michał.

ps. The List:

Education

• Permaculture Design Course, residential in Portugal (or even better, in Azores) or online, because I believe that permaculture is one of the most important fields to study right now, and I have pretty much zero experience with it.
• Kernel Online Course, because web3 and blockchain open amazing possibilities for regenerating the world at scale, and I’d love to start my journey in this area by building something beautiful with other amazing people.
• Thriving Networks online course, because I’m building a Regenerative Network in the Azores and I could really use some extra support with the upcoming challenges. Knowing the humans behind this course, I feel that it’s precisely the right place for me to be.

Personal Growth

• Contact Improvisation residential gathering/course in Portugal, because connecting with other humans through dance is one of the most effective ways of addressing one of the biggest fears I’m working though at the moment, and it’s part of the healing that is very important for me to experience.
• Sailing opportunities of any shapes and sizes, ideally to/from/within the Azores, because sailing is the core foundation of my soul and I want to bring this gift to the world by hosting regenerative retreats at sea.

Items

• A sailboat. Yes, it’s a bold ask, but you never know. A sailboat would allow me to ditch flying for good, and move between the islands in the Azores (and beyond) to catalyse the regenerative network, as well as host transformative experiences at sea.
• A functioning typewriter, to write letters
• A compact mechanical keyboard with Bluetooth, EN or PT layout, to write digital letters
• A hardcover book about astrology in English with strong focus on charts and visuals. I want to study different types of maps and astrology is a map.
• A hardcover edition of Tao Te Ching
• Solar panels to power my tiny cabin and the community space next to it
• Travel Berkey Water Filter, because drinking highest quality water is essential

Other

• TDF Carrot Tokens 🥕🥕🥕

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