I know I’ve answered this question before, but it’s such a great thing to be reminded about… especially now, when an entirely new year has just begun.
We obviously want to plan for the future and be aware of the past, but we don’t want to live in either of them. The goal is to live in the present moment. Focusing too much on the future invites fear and doubt for things that have not yet transpired, plus potential disappointment when things don’t pan out how we thought. Focusing too much on the past allows for complacency (e.g., “resting on our laurels”) when there’s success, or repeat punishment when there’s failure. The present, however, is a nice and comfortable middle ground between all of those things, but it’s sometimes hard to stay there.
But right now, since we’re at the start of 2026, this is a perfect opportunity to spend some time looking at past and future in a healthy manner. We can examine the events of 2025 and feel gratitude for them, regardless of whether we’d assign values like “good” or “bad”… either way, it’s what it took to bring us here. We can then look forward at our hopes for 2026 and what we plan to accomplish.
And then? Return to the present moment and actually start doing the work.
Good morning and happy Monday, friends.
I’d like to wish you all a happy start to January and a glorious new year, which hopefully improves drastically over the last!
I’m returning after a brief hiatus. My posts from the previous two weeks were mostly scheduled in advance while Selene and I were off galavanting around, but it’s back to work now. I’ve accumulated an incredible amount of overdue writing and other various projects.
Last week, I promised you cruise pictures, so here’s a little glimpse at what we were up to: a short, two-night trip to Nassau aboard Margaritaville at Sea’s finest vessel, the Paradise.
Yep. That’s what it looks like! And here’s what we looked like once we hopped on and started sailing away from port.
There was a lot of food involved. Most of it looked like this stuff.
We had dinners at the ship’s restaurant, which was pretty mid. Not good. Not bad. I think my favorite place was probably the “Cheeseburger in Paradise” kiosk where you can acquire—yes, you guessed it—cheeseburgers.
Oh, and if you aren’t familiar with the Margaritaville brand, it’s all Jimmy Buffett themed. You can’t go anywhere on the ship without hearing one of his songs or seeing some of his lyrics written on something—a cup, a wall, doors, napkins, artwork, even the bathroom stalls. I’m not really a Jimmy Buffett fan, but damn… the man certainly built an empire around the idea of chilling out. I’d be so lucky to have someone plaster my song lyrics on a rowboat, let alone a cruise ship.
On the second day, we docked at Nassau. We had pretty limited time, so we made an itinerary with excruciating detail.
- 8:30 – 9:30AM: BUBBLY BRUNCH ON SHIP – EAT UNTIL FULL
- 10:00AM: DISEMBARK FROM SHIP
- 10:30AM: ARRIVE RUM CAKE FACTORY – PURCHASE ALL THE CAKES
- 10:45AM – 11:15AM: LEISURELY WALK
- 11:30AM: ARRIVE GRAYCLIFF FOR CIGAR TOUR
- 11:30AM – NOON: CIGAR FACTORY TOUR
- NOON – 12:30PM: EXPLORE, POTENTIAL INVESTIGATION OF CHOCOLATE
- 1:00PM: ARRIVE JOHN WATLING’S DISTILLERY
- 1:00PM – 2:00PM: EXPLORE DISTILLERY, IMBIBE
- 2:00PM – 3:30PM: EXPLORE ISLAND, FOOD, ACQUIRE DRINK IN PINEAPPLE
- 4:00PM: RETURN TO SHIP
Yes, I printed a hardcopy of this schedule and walked around with it.
How’d we do? Let’s see…
We woke up early and had a special brunch on the ship. There’s no pictures of it because it was a terrible disappointment. We even paid extra for it. Kinda felt like a rip off. Oh well!
As soon as we disembarked, we headed directly for the Rum Cake Factory.
And we bought a 6-pack of mini cakes. Piña colada, coconut, pineapple, chocolate, and strawberry. If you’ve never had these rum cakes, they are the greatest things ever. Also, piña colada is the best flavor so we got two of them. They will never disappoint, plus you get free samples for just being in the store.
Next up was some coddiwompling. We walked in a vague direction, sort of pointed toward our next destination, but with plenty of time to see what was around.
And eventually, we found a big Christmas tree, so we took a picture in front of it. If you’re tired of all the kissy selfies, deal with it now because there’s more coming.
At some point, we made our way to Graycliff, which is like… a hotel, restaurant, cigar factory, and chocolate factory… all on one little block. Although we did not stay or eat there, the hotel and restaurant seemed very nice. Our goal was the cigar factory tour, which we had scheduled in advance.
I took this picture of a cigar box guitar that they had hanging on the wall.
The cigar factory tour only lasted about 15 minutes, but it was really neat to see a bunch of people hand-rolling cigars with equipment that looked like it was 100 years old. They gave us a couple of cigars at the end, which we haven’t lit yet, but they smell amazing. After the tour, we sat around for a few minutes, walked through the chocolatier gift shop, sampled some chocolate, and then sat around some more.
My beautiful wife found Santa Claus.
Our next stop was the John Watling’s Distillery, where they give free tours and free piña colada samples, but it was again a very leisurely walk with time to explore. One thing I noticed is that there are randomly placed (or to me, at least, they seem random) metal detectors on the sidewalks—I’m curious as to their use. Anyway, back to the distillery…
Oh my, that’s a lot of barrels of rum.
After that experience, we decided to just head back to the ship with a brief pitstop at the beach. It was only about 70ish degrees, not really warm enough for a dip, although there were many people who felt differently and were hanging out in the water.
But we did take the photo op. And seriously, the water was ice cold. (I didn’t experience the temperature firsthand, but I did witness Selene attempting to dip a toe and then quickly running away, which was enough empirical evidence for me not to do it)
How did we do recreating ourselves from our previous visit? Can you tell which picture is from last year?
Yes. I am wearing the exact same clothes. Apparently I am a creature of habit when selecting my cruise attire.
So… we basically did everything that we planned to do. The only thing we didn’t have time for was locating a proper drink in a pineapple, but that’s okay.
Later on the ship, we took more kissy selfies.
We had another dinner, then attended the show for the evening, which was rather acrobatic in nature… people swinging from ropes and twirling themselves on giant hoops and such. All in all, it was actually pretty impressive.
We even took a picture with the performers. It was a late night, followed by a very early morning.
When we got back to the Port of Palm Beach, it was 30 freaking degrees as we stood outside in warm-weather clothing to wait for an Uber. That was a weird return.
I will tell you this, my friends: sometimes vacations can be exhausting. After finally getting back home, we passed out for the rest of the day.
That was New Year’s Eve. After napping, we had to get ready for our yearly tradition of bringing in the New Year by being in ritual. It is my contention, and will always be my contention, that staying in circle like this somehow shields us from the effects of time, but feel free to check back in with me after several more decades (at this point, we’ve only been doing it for like… 8 years straight).
We had an awesome ritual, though, doing some of the magickal groundwork for making 2026 a successful year. I can’t show you pictures of that, since it’s top secret, but I can show you a fun cauldron fire.
It’s really easy to build up a small collection of various petition papers and other assorted spellwork items over the course of a year. We did a quick gathering mission around the house and then burned a cauldron full of those things shortly after concluding the ritual. If you can’t remember something’s purpose, it might just be better to burn it and release the energy… but of course, your mileage may vary.
The next day, we got pizza and watched Avatar: Fire and Ash. It was not quite as emotionally moving as the first two, but still very enjoyable.
And the next day? We walked around the Wellington Mall and ate a bunch of sushi. Like, a bunch of sushi. I’ve actually never eaten so much sushi in my entire life.
Also, the Wellington Mall is like walking through the entirety of 1990. It was awesome. There was even a Spencer’s, a Hot Topic, and an FYE. I have absolutely no idea what FYE sells anymore—and after taking a walk through it, I’m even more confused—but it was still a lot of fun.
That’s it! Now we’re back and it’s back to work. I have a pile of writing to catch up on and videos to edit. Stay tuned for more soon!
Aerik Arkadian 
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