#1 The Cosmic Curator
Some words on Darkness, plus things I'm listening to, reading, and integrating that bring in the Light.
Howdy folks,
This is the first post in a weekly series that I’m calling “✨ The Cosmic Curator” where I’ll be sharing the best movies, shows, books, and music I’ve been enjoying from the week with you all, as well as the spiritual musings that come up in the journey of entrepreneurship.
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After this week, ✨The Cosmic Curator will be part of the paid offerings here at Smokin’ Hot Book Funnels. Here is a coupon for 10% off a paid subscription available to you until next Tuesday. Enjoy! :)
📚 Books I’ve Been Reading
The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer
I am currently in Quazi Johir’s Reality Mastery coaching program for entrepreneurs, and the biggest themes that have surfaced as roadblocks towards growth lately have been listening to the heart and surrendering to Life’s flow.
I’m embarrassed to say it, but no, I don’t really follow my heart much anymore. I’m ashamed to admit that the story since I was 18 years old playing in repeat in my mind has been, “How do I make money?,” utilizing only my cold, leaden mind to answer this question, while childlike pursuits, like writing fiction, drawing, and travel melted by the wayside.
Month by month I have been reclaiming the voice of my heart, and while it’s not been easy, it’s been worth it. Reality Mastery has been a wonderful container to repeat to oneself the urgency by which we need to quiet the mind and listen to the heart.
If you need inspiration to balance your mind and your heart, especially if you are a business owner or entrepreneur, read this book/give it a listen. The audiobook is narrated by the author himself and is included in Spotify Premium.
In Ashes Lie by Marie Brennan
I picked this up in a Little Free Library in Rockmart, Georgia as Jeff and I were passing through on the Silver Comet Trail (a 61.5-mile bike trail that runs from Georgia to Alabama).
We had done an overnight bike trip on the trail when I was back home in Atlanta between 2 European months earlier this year, the first in Sicily and the second in Bulgaria.
Lately, all I’ve been reading has been nonfiction. I think this is a trap entrepreneurs and business owners fall into. All we want to do all day is solve problems, and when we hit a roadblock, reading a nonfiction book to solve it seems to temporarily soothe the anxiety. Reading nonfiction sometimes has a stench of virtue-signaling, too.
Reading fiction stimulates the imagination and creativity. It relieves stress, is fun, and induces play. Do not underestimate the importance of reading fiction as an entrepreneur. I want to get back to writing more fiction, especially fantasy.
This book, so far, has been quite good, and is the second in a series about a faerie court that lives underneath London in the Elizabethan era (and during the Great Fire of London in 1666). Cue the intrigue!
🎶 Music I’ve Been Jamming
Bright Lights by The Killers
My favorite band from high school (and probably of all-time). They haven’t created music as their original lineup for many years, and this is their first song as the original four band members. So excited for them. And, not going to lie, their music as all four just sounds better.
Also, anything really by The Killers. They have such a diverse sound. The below song Your Side of Town was their latest release before Bright Lights and has their signature British-pop, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys sound. I don’t know any band that can release an ‘80’s-style synth track in one heartbeat and then turn around and release an almost ‘50’s-style rock track the next. While staying on-brand.
Professional Rapper by Lil Dicky
Life is a stage. Lately, I’ve been donning the costume of “online professional” and “sales professional” and feel serious and silly simultaneously. Naturally. Each time I put on makeup and real clothes, the hook to the song “I’m about to be professional, homie I’m professional” plays in my head and I have to jam the whole song on Spotify.
✨ Thoughts I’ve Been Thinking
On Death
If you’re an entrepreneur, you wake up every day with the intention to shake things up, make sales, and make progress. As of lately, I’ve noticed that anxiety can become exacerbated if the thoughts aren’t managed. Thoughts like, “I have to,” or “I should, or else” can become detrimental if left unchecked.
Lately, I’ve noticed that beyond the money, there is an internal driver to build a business to not only realize my dream of leading an elite, service-oriented team, but also to prove to myself that I have some sort of purpose or worth in this world.
I’ve noticed that I’ve been running, running, running to prove to no one but myself that I have worth. Not only has it become exhausting, but the chasm of purposelessness began to open its jaws when I’ve been asleep.
I’ll wake up at 2AM, thinking dark thoughts.
“What if I actually have no purpose?”
“What if I actually have no worth?”
I began to toy with these questions, so that instead of running away, I got fed up and finally ran towards. There is a meek, survival-oriented part of me that is awash in tears at the thought of having no purpose. And yet, there is another part of me that takes that meek part of me, holds its head in embrace, and loves it unconditionally.
My heart cracks open. For itself.
What if I actually have no purpose? What would it mean?
It would mean I have no value. No value would mean no money. No money would mean…death.
And what is death? In meditation today, I closed my eyes and floated into Death’s warm, silent pool. Her fingers reached out to me, and I met her there.
Death would mean a disappearance. A dissolving.
Thus, reconciliation. With the Earth. With the Energy that is the precursor to all Life. If Life is kinetic energy, then Death is potential energy.
Death is the potential energy that comes before the ball can roll down the hill. The potential energy in the coal that powered the steamships across the Atlantic. The potential energy of the seed that emerges as an oak.
Death is the reconciliation with the Energy that is all things. Totality. All of it.
The Buddha called this śūnyatā: the void from which all things originate.
Dormant. Waiting. In awe. In embrace. In everything, everywhere, and all at once.
This is the teaching of Richard Rudd’s The Gene Keys (I highly recommend getting your own profile.) I’ve read my Gene Keys profile at least 40 times by now, its mystery to me steadfast. It wasn’t until this week did I begin to understand what it means to embrace my own purposelessness. I thought everyone had a purpose, a dharma? Why did I continue to wrestle with my own shame with a lack of purpose?
I don’t know.
But I do know that if there’s anything that will save you, it’s your own wreckless compassion for yourself.
I hope this week you can remind yourself that there is a part of you that will never let you go, and it has loved you with the intensity of a trillion suns now, since the beginning, and will till the end.
And you’ve never had to earn it.
Much love to you,
Renee