I'm halfway through the longest holidays in over 3 years.
Here's a quick update of the most interesting things:
Pico Winter Gathering + Dream Come True
We decided to come together as a community and spend quite some time together over this Christmas / New Years period. I've updated our documentation with our activities.
One of the most exciting take-aways for me, was to have my musician self totally reawakened. We've spent a lot of times playing music (especially drums) together, which brought me back to one of the most magical experiences of my life:
Being a part of Beasties drum crew for the Beltane Festival in Edinburgh, back in 2017. What a magical time that was:
I can't wait to whack a BIG LOUD DRUM again. And itโs a total dream-come-true to have this possibility in Pico.
The Real Skills
I finally had the time to ditch the computer and learn some real skills, such as building shelves:
โฆand filling them with books we'll be reading in 2021. We're still waiting for a couple as deliveries to Pico take a looooong time. It feels amazing to be surrounded with physical books again.
We're starting to work with our trash, and it all starts with careful separation. We're now collecting 11 different types of waste, with the long-term goal of reusing most of what we discard.
The top shelf was build with our cat Kiki in mind, and it makes me so happy to see her having a good old blast.
Oh, and our spinach is growing into some epic proportions.
Christmas always brings the masterchef in me. This time I made 5 cakes and 2 liquid desserts, all vegan and sugar free. The one below was my favourite โ a poppy seed cake combined with a blueberry cheesecake โย an epic fusion inspired by my grandmother's baking badassery.
And tomorrow, I'm baking again. Yum yum.
Rebooting
Most of all, this holiday period I'm giving myself permission to do nothing and enjoy more spontaneous lifestyle. Normally, my life is very calendar driven, with meetings scheduled weeks in advance. It's great to have an empty calendar, wake up whenever I want and go with the flow of the day.
But after two weeks of that, I'm feeling a strong desire to get back to my routines and start the new year with a serious energy bang. I'll be spending the next two weeks recalibrating in nature, reviewing 2020 and thinking about the practices to cultivate in 2021.
Exciting times.
Year of Practice Sold Out!
Last, but not least:
Our Year of Practice sold out all 20 spots. Wow. It's the first time when we launched a program that really took off. It brings me a big sense of financial relief (as we have a few months covered and we can focus on delivering an amazing experience for people), as well as responsibility โ to show up as my best self for all these amazing humans who decided to participate in this journey.
Sending good holiday vibes from Sunny Pico โ๏ธ
Michal