Edgewalker™

Scene: three weeks ago

We’re basking in the glow of the newly created Edgewalker Academy. We’re participating in the community of fellow edgewalkers and feeling the love. We’re excited to get back to the work of directly helping people instead of working on infrastructure.

Then we receive this email.

Dear Pace and Kyeli,

I own the trademark for “Edgewalkers”… This is a friendly request to ask you to stop using the name “Edgewalker Academy” and to not use the term “Edgewalker” in any of your courses or workshops or coaching.

It was indeed a friendly request. We spoke with the author of this email, Judi Neal, and she was very kind and supportive of our work.

But the fact remained that we had to change our name and our branding. Again.

Grieving

We cried. We researched trademark law. We leaned into our coaches and our close friends for support. We railed about how frustrating it was to find the perfect name, and then feel like it had been yanked out from under us. We blamed ourselves for not thinking to check the trademark registry. We swam around in the sea of blame, and almost drowned in it.

We felt angry. We felt sad. We grieved. Then we asked for the strength to accept what truly is.

And we received it.

Namestorming

We came up with over a hundred potential names. Some were slight deviations from “Edgewalker Academy”, and others were completely different. We ruthlessly narrowed the huge list – if we didn’t both love it to bits, we scratched it off.

We spiralled between grieving and namestorming for ten days. At first, we hated all of the names because we were still pining for “Edgewalker Academy.” Then, we only hated most of the names. Progress!

The one we kept coming back to was, simply, “Pace and Kyeli”, at PaceAndKyeli.com.

We checked in with our hearts, and got a yes.

We are Pace and Kyeli.

Letting go of Edgewalker Academy was an exercise in humility. I felt like I needed a thing to be my Great Work. I felt like I needed to construct something – like an academy – to give my life fulfillment and meaning.

And I needed to let go of that.

Feeling a little whiplashed?

We hear you. So are we.

We’re sorry to make two big shifts so close together – we wouldn’t have done it unless it were truly necessary.

Let us reassure you that we intend to be Pace and Kyeli for the rest of our lives, so you can settle in comfortably now. (:

What’s changing? What’s staying the same?

We’re changing the academy theme, but we’re still going to teach courses. We loved that coat of arms. We loved the skyline – we were even going to ask Marty to add a crooked tower and a floating island to make it look more fantastical and less Disney. It’s hard to let it go.

But it just didn’t feel right. Once we switched to PaceAndKyeli.com, the academy felt tacked on instead of baked in. So we’ve got to follow our own advice and move forward wholeheartedly.

Our domain name is now PaceAndKyeli.com instead of EdgewalkerAcademy.com. We’ve redirected our past websites so you won’t run into any broken links – please let us know if you find any!

Our community is now called Pace and Kyeli’s Backyard instead of the Edgewalker Academy Commons. It’s still a safe space for you to connect with other members of our tribe, to discuss our weekly articles, and to share what’s going on for you in your journey toward a wild, crazy, meaningful life.

Our eZine is now called Wholehearted Every Day instead of Edgewalker Weekly.

And everything else is staying the same.

Do you identify as an edgewalker?

That’s awesome. There’s no law against that.

Kyeli and I both still identify as edgewalkers. In fact, when we found out that “edgewalker” was trademarked, we were as stunned as if we had found out that someone had trademarked the word “lesbian”.

During the namestorming, we tried to come up with another label for our tribe, since we could no longer use “edgewalker” in the same way. Nonconformist? Not powerful enough, and taken. Outcast? Sure, but we want to encourage oneness, not “us against them” mentality. Misfit? Not bad, but it doesn’t have the epic spiritual feel that edgewalker did.

So instead, we decided to describe ourselves instead of our tribe. We are “two starry-eyed queer spiritual nomads here to guide you to your wild crazy meaningful life.” If that sounds good to you, then you’re in the right place. (:

Thank you.

Thank you for your patience, and for bearing with us during this time of transition.

Now we’re excited to get back to the reason why we’re here – helping you live your best, most wholehearted life.