🔥Fireside Chat: Party Granny
Last weekend I danced with my 88-year old grandma and a handful of Colombian aunts who once changed my diapers.
I was sipping an alcohol-free piña colada, watching my dad take shots of aguardiente (Colombian liquor) with my uncles while my cousins danced old-school reggaeton on the dance floor.
What shocked me was that I was neither indulging, nor judging.
If you're new here, I spent my twenties as a hard-partying, alcoholic and drug user.
I'd drink 80-cent, 10% alcohol, cheap beers and Bacardi coconut-lime.
Partying 5 nights a week.
For years.
Until I destroyed my relationships, my health and my career.
I then spent the next decade undoing the mess.
(or so I thought!)
Hundreds of ayahuasca ceremonies.
Thousands of meditation hours.
Meditating at the cremation grounds of Kashi (Varanasi) to face my fear of death.
Lived in the Andean rainforest with shamans, initiation after initiation..
Dedicating my life to God, being of service the spiritual path.
I was very, very good at being 'spiritual' 😅
Until it -somehow- happened again.
I destroyed my relationships, affected my health and hurt my career.
It was during my divorce last year that I realized the pendulum had swung all the way to the other side.
I did not feel good enough growing up, so I partied, drank and was casual with women to feel validated and prove my worth...
Then I did not feel good enough, so I became holy.
I drank ayahuasca and became so pure I barely let myself be human, even in my marriage, all to feel validated by my elders and prove my worth.
Only looking back I notice that the same wound was running the show.
I'm grateful for it.
But you cannot see when it's too dark...
And you cannot see when you're blinded by a light too bright.
Funny, eh?
I went from being the life of the party,
to not partying for years.
Judging everyone who did
Feeling like my energy was contaminated just by walking into a venue or hearing a song that wasn't about God or healing.
And here I was..
Years later in the middle of a wild Colombian wedding.
Not judging the music.
Not trying to fix anyone.
Not feeling superior to those who indulged.
But also not indulging.
Just being present.
Dancing when I felt like it.
I even clocked a few salsa songs with my mom, my aunt and my godmother.
And as I sipped my piña colada, I realized that maybe the point of the game is to play it well, without forgetting it's just a game.
Not to get lost in it and suffer...
Nor to try to transcend it
and suffer.
What if the point all along was never about becoming holy,
but about being whole?
Yesterday was the fall equinox, when day and night are nearly equal.
Light and darkness sharing the same space, in balance.
Even if just for a moment.
For many traditions, it's a time of harvest and preparing for winter. In the southern hemisphere, it's the turn toward spring.
Either way, it's a threshold, a moment that supports us in coming back into balance.
In learning to enjoy this wild party God threw for us, called life.
So I made you a little gift to help you find where you're out of balance right now.
Use the prompt below to see how this equinox is landing in your life, and get some tailored guidance for the months ahead.
With you on the path,
Nico Canon
🤿 Deep Dive: The Equinox Prompt
Open ChatGPT or Claude and paste the following prompt.
(If you aren't using Forged, the free Ai Coaching tool I built, click here to open it up for a better response.)
Copy, Replace the blue items & Paste in Ai.
I was born on [DATE]
at [BIRTH TIME IF KNOWN]
in the city of [BIRTHPLACE]
Please use these together with the current equinox/transits, to give me a direct personal reading.
First, calculate the relevant chart placements accurately.
Then answer these 3 things:
WHAT AM I NOT WANTING TO SEE?
What is the truth, advice, or realization I am most likely resisting right now because accepting it would require me to change?
Identify the underlying blind spot running the show.
Complete:
“You think the problem is __. The deeper problem is ____.”
Tell me what I may already know underneath the surface but keep avoiding.
WHAT MUST I LET GO OF, TO RETURN TO BALANCE?
What identity, attachment, relationship dynamic, ambition, behavior, belief, fantasy, or old version of myself appears to have reached its expiration date?
Then show me the hidden pattern keeping me stuck:
Trigger → reaction → behavior → hidden payoff → long-term cost.
Tell me what I secretly gain by holding onto it, what I am afraid will happen if I release it, and what this equinox is asking me to leave behind.
Assume what my health, finances, relationships and spiritual life may look like given this pattern running me and state that.
WHAT IS LIFE ASKING ME TO BECOME?
Tell me the boldest, cleanest move available to me now.
Find the one leveraged shift that would change everything else.
Then speak to me as my higher self: loving, uncompromising, grounded, and direct.
Tell me what I need to stop waiting for, what I will regret continuing to postpone, what deserves my courage now, and who I am being asked to become.
End with:
One thing to stop. One thing to choose. One action to take now.
Do not flatter me. Do not give generic spiritual advice.
Look for the strongest pattern and tell me the thing that is most useful for me to see, especially if it is the thing I least want to hear.
