From Ashes to Regeneration 🔥

An odyssey through love, loss, and the vision of a regenerative era

Six months ago I stepped down from leadership at ReFi DAO to focus on my own path of inner regeneration after the most challenging year of my life. Along this pursuit I felt called to experiment with psychedelic-assisted therapy as well as indigenous plant medicine ceremonies. In this post I want to share some key insights from a recent ceremony with a group of leaders in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico as apart of the OYASĪN Awakening Retreat with my good friend Moniek van Erven.

I believe that just like blockchains and artificial intelligence, psychedelic compounds are powerful tools that we need to learn how use in order to navigate the complex, systemic challenges of our time. Sacred ceremonies may be one of the most powerful technologies we have to enable a just transition towards a regenerative future—but the problem is most of us haven't yet learned how to use them.

In the end I'll offer a little teaser of a new venture I'm working on along with an invitation to join me on the journey for those leaders who feel called to realize their unique vision of regeneration—inside and out...

To divorce with love

Last summer, I sent my wife a letter declaring my intention to end our marriage. We'd been together for nearly 12 years and had navigated the turbulent waters of critical illness, autoimmune disorders, repeated miscarriages, multiple startups and the perennial challenges of living in community. Despite having two beautiful children and overcoming intense difficulties together, we found ourselves in a toxic spiral that pushed us both to our limits.

After years of couples counseling and doing everything we could to make it work, I finally decided that I needed to move on...

I did my best to make the decision from a place of love, to communicate it with compassion and to do the deep work of healing myself, but things got messy in tragic and unexpected ways. The pain of my decision crushed down upon my chest with an unbearable heaviness.

I never thought ending the marriage would mean losing my children.

I needed help.

Fan the embers of an ashen heart

Upon arriving to Portugal I began working with my body as a tool for opening my heart to the full spectrum of my emotions. As someone who has lived their life mostly in their head, sprinting from one deadline to another, bodywork opened many doors for me...

I remember one moment in particular, a few days after I sent her the letter: I had just finished a bodywork session at a beautiful wellness center in Lisbon called Open Hearts. I was feeling the radiant glow of catharsis when I heard a voice emanating from the speakers in the corner of the room. The words the stopped me in my tracks. I sat all the way down on the hardwood floor and closed my eyes to listen.

"The real work you have to do is in the privacy of your own heart. All of the external forms are lovely, but the real work is your inner connection."

I realized in that moment that I had spent my entire life building external ventures to fill a deep and intense void in my heart. I sighed a release and continued to breathe in his words:

"...in each of us there once was a fire, and for some of us there seem as if there are only ashes now, but when we dig in the ashes, we find one ember, and very gently we fan that ember, blow on it, it gets brighter, and from that ember we rebuild the fire."

As he spoke I saw my ash-encrusted heart and felt that ember burning deep beneath. It was the ember of my childhood—the flame of my youth. In a moment I blinked and witnessed the hands around my neck, the open coffin of my teammate, the limp body of my ex-girlfriend dangling above a turned table—a cascade of unprocessed wounds flashed before my eyes.

I breathed in again and focused on his words, searching for my flickering ember—my flame:

"...though we've lived our life totally involved in the world, we know, we know that we're of the spirit. The ember gets stronger, the flame starts to flicker a bit, and pretty soon you realize, that all we're going to do for eternity, is sit around the fire."

I felt tears drip down my face as I felt a part of myself that I'd neglected since I rejected the faith of my youth. I felt this deep inner longing for a connection to an infinite love that surpasses all understanding, for a sense of home that transcends all boundaries, all reason, all time.

I realized that I needed to integrate this part of me, to welcome this deepest longing into the fabric of my life. I wanted to live a different story—pregnant with meaning, in every atom and every cell, swooning with the love and light behind all of it—the magical dance that cannot be contained, the wonderful name that cannot be named, the mysterious way that cannot be known.

An ancient, ceremonial fire

Nine months later I found myself sitting on the ground of an ancient Mayan ruin with 12 other leaders at the OYASĪN Awakening Retreat, with each of our hands cupped around a glass candle. The Mara'akame told us that we were to protect our candle's light throughout the ceremony, that this represented our inner fire and it was our job to keep it lit. He and his wife would use a stick from the central fire, the "Abuelo" (grandfather), to light our candle whenever it was extinguished, but our job was to keep it in view and to protect it from the wind.

As I glance up from my flame to witness the circle of the group, I thought "I wonder if this is what Ram Dass meant by 'sit around the fire?' I’m sure he sat with the Abuelo…"

This stood out to me as an incredible metaphor for the journey of a leader dedicating their lives to build something meaningful: You can contribute as much as you want towards the central flame but if you do not do the work to keep your own flame alight you will inevitably lose your ability to show up as your fullest self, aligned with your deepest values and contribute with your highest potential.

I glanced up at the central fire. It exhaled a steady hiss, slowly consuming every stick. The wood burned our every offering and every prayer, our every fear and every song. The cicadas chirped in the night sky, the pine needles swayed in the wind. Every sound seemed to pulse with the rhythm of this single unifying flame.

An ancient communal technology

I opened my eyes and witnessed the Mara'akame's wife take a stick and sweep the red hot embers deeper into the fire. I realized in that moment that this ceremony was an ancient technology—a way to bring people together to connect deeper with themselves, to connect deeper with one another and to realize their rightful place as a part of nature. This ceremony offered a structured process to heal, a way to purify strengthen through the darkness of a seemingly endless night.

We were each here on our own journey, with our own flame, but we were not alone—we navigated the ceremony together, sweeping like the hands of a clock around the central flame—always in the same direction, the opposite direction of time.

"The closer you sit to the fire, the more powerful the visions were be," said the Mara'akame.

I dragged myself closer, embracing the discomfort of the stone beneath me—accepting the heat in my face and the exhaustion of the night luring me with a wall of darkness on all sides.

Sacred cryptoeconomics

Mo asked me if I'd like to play a song, knowing the role that music has played in my process of grieving, of healing and of growth. I walked counter-clockwise to the guitar and was shocked by the intensity of the medicine was coursing through my body. My muscles felt weak with fatigue and yet my veins beat ablaze with a desire to play, to sing, to worship.

I closed my eyes and strummed the strings, forgetting the words and allowing my voice to emerge in the presence of now. As I sang I felt a resonance with my voice that I had never felt before. I noticed a subtle vision begin to emerge behind my closed eyes. I witnessed cascading lines of code falling into my consciousness. I saw our technological society driven by a slave master: A story of human progress rooted in the illusion of separation. I saw us all blindfolded, dizzy and distant—accumulating wealth, extracting resources to protect ourselves from the dangers of the people and the world around us, but above all to distract us from the world within...

I saw smart contracts and distributed ledgers laying the mantle of a global, decentralized system upon which new modes of governance and value exchange could emerge. I saw the incredible opportunity we have right now to embed new values into these systems at the earliest stage to finally take care of people and the planet.

I recognized a shift as a new story began to take root in the hearts and minds of those who made these systems, who wrote the code and invited others to join—a story of both uniqueness and interconnectedness, a story of interbeing that values all of life. I saw this story inviting profound generosity: Gifts of the heart, unconditional basic income, legal personhood for all of life.

I witnessed the emergence of bioregional clusters of human coordination, organizing around the water basins and the water cycle—the sacred flow of water upon which all of life depends. I felt the transition from carbon tunnel vision to a vast kaleidoscopic wheel of impact, diversity and beauty. I glimpsed the convergence of ancient cultures and wisdom traditions with modern science and emerging technology.

I felt the pressure of rising temperatures, economic fragility, political instability and institutional collapse—all of these forces moving us toward a new chapter in evolutionary history. I felt immense gratitude as I could feel mother earth giving birth to a new kind of civilization, a new kind of song.

We are her instruments.

I heard the celebratory call of a new story as we finally remember what it means to be human.

We are not separate—from each other, or from the earth.
We are at the same time an individual and a whole.
We have more than enough—we are enough.

We are not regenerating nature—we are nature regenerating itself.

Technology and the age of regeneration

I felt a deep knowing that ancient wisdom traditions and indigenous elders are essential guides to learn how use these exponential technologies of web3 and AI towards their ultimate purpose: To usher in a new era of planetary flourishing for generations to come. I saw humans maturing from their adolescent delusion as dominions of nature to assume their rightful place as a keystone species whose highest ideal is the prosperity of all living beings.

I saw the most brilliant and talented leaders of our time leave their private concrete mansions for multi-generational eco villages made out of loving hands and living soil.

The wind blew and I opened my eyes to cover my flame...

I realized that we have all the tools that we need to survive this transition away from fossil fuels, away from centralized systems, away from corrupt power structures, through climate change, biodiversity collapse and systemic injustice into a new age of civilization. I saw the transition through a regenerative era into an age of symbiosis—an age of prosperity and abundance for all living beings.

I realized that we have all the capital and all the talent we need to finance planetary regeneration, to cultivate biodiversity in every bioregion, and to build just economic systems for all—especially those marginalized by our current society.

What is stopping us?

We do not know who we are.
We do not know what these tools are for.
We have not done the work of the heart.
We do not know how to work together.

So we continue our headlong sprint toward the cliff of catastrophic climate collapse, geopolitical instability, engineered viruses and all out war, and yet I couldn’t help but feel these crises are merely an opportunity to do the deepest work of our time and to rediscover what it means to be a leader in the age of regeneration.

Cleansing waters

As the morning sun rose through the aquamarine sky, I felt a deep relief from the oppression of the night sky and a visceral urge to cleanse myself in the sacred waters of the Cenote outside our circle. I undressed and smiled as I watched a baby turtle dive into the water looking for food. I shook my body to fend off swarms of fish nibbling at the goosebumps on my skin.

I dipped my head under the water ten times, uttering Hebrew blessings I learned from a Jewish friend studying Kaballah in Portugal. I felt a deep yearning to sleep, to cuddle my children, to tell them I loved them and yet I knew that it was not the time to return home. I needed to rest, to integrate and to process everything I'd experienced that night around the fire.

Rebirthing leaders in the age of regeneration

In this year, my 33rd year of life, I have been completely reborn as a person. Every part of me has been stripped away through the searing flame of divorce, the prism of separation and the silence of introspection. In letting go of my identity as a founder, I rediscovered myself as a human.

Out of the ashes of these trials I have learned to embody powerful gifts that I feel called to share with other leaders who have committed their lives to the work of regeneration and are willing to give everything to show up as their fullest selves—no matter how much it hurts.

I am building a 12-week Keystone Leadership Program to take founders on a journey through indigenous wisdom, nervous system mastery and regenerative leadership— culminating in a transformative rite of passage in nature with sacred medicine. I believe that in order for humanity to realize our rightful place as a keystone species we need a small network of leaders to pave the way.

If you’re a founder or a guide interested to walk this path with me, I’d love to hear from you. Hit me up on Twitter (or LinkedIN).

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