Gil The Grid

Today marks my 34th Solar Return. Every year, I get confronted with different truths about myself and others on this day; sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but always leaving me with new knowledge.
This week, I find myself in Japan, a country I fell in love with - and a beautiful place to be on Earth at this time.

Growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness until I was in my teens, we didn’t celebrate my (or others’) birthdays - thus shaping my relationship to this day as often very different than most people around me. In my later years, and often still in the last years, I sometimes feel uncomfortable with this celebration. I also see that for many, your birthday is cloaked in expectations, often accompanied by emotions like disappointment, in addition to joy or happiness, because the day is centered around ‘you’.

Celebrating this year while taking my tribe to Tokyo, as for me, it’s also about giving. The best gift is to celebrate life with your dear ones, rather than just receiving, in my eyes and experience. To receive would be a one-way street; I wouldn’t solely want to walk. My values don’t align with that, and emotionally, it wouldn’t feel right. I gain happiness from the receptiveness and interaction of giving and receiving.

I have been through a pretty challenging year, which taught me a lot but was in many ways a challenge on where I used to be, asking me to find perseverance through the hard days and a new kind of faith, born from hard work, continuous kindness towards others and a understanding of what I am capable of due to proving this to myself over the past years.

For the coming year, I will continue to uncover what has been hidden and develop myself and my authentic expression to greater heights. Surrounded by loving people, I step into a new year.

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200k, and I am grateful for each individual.

Thank you for the continuous support, messages of love, and wishes for blessings on my journey of movemeant alchemy.

Although 200k is ‘just’ a number, it reflects a great deal to me, and I feel deep gratitude for all who have encouraged me.

As a ‘black sheep’ in the past, and sometimes even in the present, this support is showing me that being the most authentic person someone can be eventually bears fruit.

Recognition, resemblance, and resonance are found by those who either walk a similar path or feel they need a push in a specific dimension.

Thank you.

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Envisioning how my future self embodies the lessons and growth from this moment.

Photoshoot with in Tokyo, Japan 2024