Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
At the very least, useful noticings about my relationship with wanting. It all counts.
♡
What do I want?
In March it will be NINE YEARS since I started this business.
Eight since I marched into City Hall in San Francisco (not sure if marched is the correct verb, I’m pretty sure it was a fairly tentative march, at best) to make things official. Nine since the vision, which is when I started documenting my material and incorporating it into my teaching.
I’ve been so fortunate, in many ways. Especially-especially to have this remarkable community form around this work.
The people who are drawn here seem to be universally thoughtful, kind, warm, playful and accepting. The culture we have built/revealed here is exceptionally welcoming. I genuinely like everyone who plays here. That is a special and unusual thing.
My thank-you heart is full of appreciation for this.
And, along with the things that are working, I’m also very aware of the things that are not working.
What do I want?
While we enjoyed a few very successful years along the way, the last couple of years have been hard: the big expansion that was a Spectacular Flailure, the breakup with my former mentor, and a cosmically ridiculous amount of painful personal Stuff.
2013 was supposed to be my sabbatical year, and instead it was the year I worked the hardest.
I want to keep doing this work, and…
If I am going to keep doing this work, things need to change, in a big way.
What do I want?
Community. SUSTENANCE and SUSTAINABILITY.
I want to stop doing the thing I’ve done way too much of over the past few years, using the success of one or another part of the business to keep other parts of it on life support.
I want this business to become more democratic: to be held by more people which in turn will allow us to offer things for less money.
And I want to run this like an entirely different kind of organization, the kind that goes, “Okay, we have a budget and we need to make our budget for the year in order to keep providing the beautiful things we provide.”
Mainly I want to devote my time to writing and processing: here and on the Floop.
Ha, I just noticed: each of those things is about [Sharing]. Sharing things that are close to my heart, sharing the carrying of things that need to be carried, sharing in community.
What do I want?
This is so interesting.
The spy who loves me is really, really into sharing. Whenever we make a compass together, he puts [Sharing] in as one of the directions.
Once he said that if he made a thousand compasses, they would all have [Sharing] in them.
I thought at the time that over the course of a thousand compasses, it would never occur to me to add [Sharing]. Not that I am anti-[Sharing], just that it doesn’t occur to me.
The qualities I pretty much always want are things like [Safety], [Sovereignty], [Shelter], [Play]. I also love [Agency], [Delight], [Presence] and [Plenty]. And Freedom. Freedom shows up a lot too.
Over this past year I have been making friends with [Sharing], and now it is the thing I want most.
What do I want?
To remember that Nothing Is Wrong and This Is Good.
To remember that all the best parts of my business emerged from the moment where I reached a limit. I got to a point of “okay, this isn’t working for me”, and that is where beautiful changes came in. Stuff had to break in order to be rebuilt.
And sometimes it didn’t need to break. It just cleared itself out.
The point is, this moment of noticing what isn’t working is useful and important, if I remember.
Otherwise it’s easy to get down about what isn’t working and sucked into the why-like-this.
The not working is good news. The noticing of Not-Working is good news. This is the door to consciously changing how I do things around here.
What do I want?
To be willing to start over if I have to.
To be willing to relinquish any rules I have about how this has to look.
To be willing to walk away from anything, even though I don’t know what that means.
To be willing to stay and love what is, and let it change in whatever way it needs to change.
To be a bell of peacefulness. To radiate trust. To ask smart questions and skip stones.
What do I want?
A new hat. The last hat.
Maybe it is the hat that runs this thing for now into the future. Or maybe it is the hat that shows me this form is done, that leads me to try something else.
What do I want?
Ease. Miracles. Simplicity. Perfect simple solutions.
Where/how do I want to start?
Replenishing Glass of Water. RGW!
Using the Floop and a playdate.
And! I am going to wear the Aspiration of The Me Who Knows Why This Is Wonderful And Trusts That It Is Wonderful Even If She Doesn’t Know Why Yet.
Anything else coming up?
Lately I have experienced many examples of This Wasn’t As Hard/Horrible As I Was Imagining.
So what if I can assume that?
And what if I can actually imagine what it would feel like to believe this is all good news.
What are the qualities of my wish?
Sharing. Steadiness. Peacefulness. Trust. Archways. Pleasure. Play. Glow.
And the superpower of I Can See And Feel That I Am Not Alone.
What would help me move forward on this? How am I going to play?
Wearing the costume of the me who believes. Interviewing her. Finding out what the world looks like through her eyes.
Drawing a crown and a heart on my palm. Thinking: Crown. Heart.
What is my clue?
Last year Monsieur LeBlanc, the agent from the other Agency, stopped doing something that he had been doing for thirty four years.
At the time it seemed crazy, and in retrospect it is completely obvious that this was the right move.
What if my crazy idea is not crazy at all? What if following the thread is useful in and of itself? The reasons can reveal themselves later.
Anything else?
More napping. Sleep holds the answers right now. And if it doesn’t, then my rested mind will.
What else do I want?
Seeds planted without explanation, a mix of secret agent code and silent retreat dreams. Things I’m working on, or might be, someday…
- May Peacefulness Prevail!
- Announcements.
- Everything is getting easier.
- Miracles everywhere.
- Regular gigs at the ballroom, which is also the Spiegelsaal.
- This doesn’t require my input!
- Ha, it’s so perfect that it turned out like this.
- Past me is a GENIUS.
- I have what I need, and I appreciate it.
- There is money for this.
- Trust and steadiness. I can see why this moment is good.
- Hawaii.
- I am fearless and confident, and I do the brave things and give myself sparklepoints, and it is not even a big deal that I did the brave things but I still get sparklepoints, yay.
This week’s ops?
The Last Hat. Operation Nest of Plentiful Rest. Operation Rewire The Swishes.
I’m playing with…
“How is this useful?”
Attenzione! AGENTS.
I am deep in an undercover mission to get better at Gracefully Accepting Thanks. Or: Glowing Receptivity and Being Receptive to Glow.
This mission also resolves a question we get from people a lot, which is “I really, really want to thank you, except I’m not going to buy products and I can’t come to a Rally.” And it is also related to Operation Coming Out Of All The Closets, so I can share some experiences from Then where past-me thought her best survival strategy was not-sharing-how-hard-things-are.
If you would like to support my mission by sharing sweetness and appreciation for any aspect of my work, I would love that. You can do it with the magic of words, through the comments, or add something to Barrington’s Discretionary fund. (Explanation!)
And if the way you are glowing appreciation is quietly in your heart, I like that too. It all counts. ♡
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka My big dumb mitten visit…
My wish had to do with having ease and support during a hard thing so that the hard thing could be not-as-hard. It worked!
My visit to freezing-cold-Michigan, while physically exhausting, went better than I could have imagined. I feel happy and relieved.
Thank you, writing. Thank you, me who asked.
Keep me company?
You are welcome to drop in with wishes, gwishes, visions, personal ads. Small or large, and in any form you like. There is no right way to do this. Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is anything sparked for you.
Commenting culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We ask for what we need. We are on permanent vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play.
Let’s throw some things in the pot! And, as always, amnesty applies. Leave a wish here any time you want.
xox
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Spouse & I were talking about our respective art forms the other day – photography and poetry, respectively – and I realized then that *knowing why I’m doing something* is usually … a lot less useful/interesting/relevant than I had supposed. It’s often *years* before I figure out why I did… anything … and yet, I still did it, whatever it was. It still worked, or failed, on its own merits, perhaps unrelated to my reasons-for-doing.
And because of Quantum Physics & Entanglement and 11 Dimensions and all that, do we *ever* *really* *KNOW* why we do anything?
I’ve come to prefer the ambiguity and mystery of not-knowing, to what thinks of as “certainty” (but probably is at least partially mistaken).
I don’t plan anymore; I “go with the flow”, and that works much better than planning ever did. I have literally no idea where my life is going. And that’s okay.
I love everything you do, Havi, but have never been able to afford to attend a Rally, now that I’ve been unemployed (probably permanently) for 4 years.
I loved the e-book of yours I bought, though. And our ways of dealing with stuff and our values seem similar enough that I wish you wrote *more*, and *more-in-depth* than you do. So I could read it, and learn from it.
Change, even when it’s necessary, can be so excruciatingly difficult; company on the journey lightens the load. If you find that you have to … burn all the barns (bridges? whatever?), so that you can move forward into The Next Thing, I’d want to read about that too.
You are a remarkable person, and a wonderful writer.
I want sleep. And hugs. And time to do things that I want to do, not just things that I feel I have to do.
And a way to make Leeks Lucullus without the leeks.
Really, deeply appreciating this, not for the first time:
We are on permanent vacation from care-taking and advice-giving.
I just love that so very much. Thank you!
I am looking forward to the new hat. Anticipation… (Hummed with appropriate gusto.) Bravo for This Wasn’t As Hard/Horrible As I Was Imagining. I’ve had a few weeks of It Could Have Been Worse But Was Pretty Hard and not sure when it will let up. But I am working with Nothing is Wrong. Transitions. They are not easy.
Thank you for being a Bell!
Into the pot:
–focused writing for Thing One and Thing Two
–compassion and sweetness for the me that worries that I am missing out on X
–release for the tightness in my shoulders
–expansion of teatime
–clothing and cooking conundrums solved happily
Leaving a wish for peacefulness.
I know what this is reminding me of!!! It’s been bothering me that I couldn’t place my finger on it.
Community Supported Agriculture model – where a bunch of people SHARE the cost of investing in a local farmer/bunch of farmers each year, and then get boxes of produce in return over the course of the years. People who share and believe in the values of SUSTAINABILITY, local, (usually) organic produce, COMMUNITY, etc etc etc.
And it’s so radical in our culture because it’s not a *trade* – because there is no guarantee of a return. Nobody can predict the weather, acts of [god], etc etc etc. But there is a good likelihood of return, these are experienced farmers, they know what they’re doing, it’s their calling etc, and so it’s a risk worth taking for the supporters for the sake of the greater good of having local food producers around so we’re not beholden to Big Ag Inc, etc etc.
I totally need to find out if there is a CSA near me now. But also – this is what the hat wish is reminding me of.
BIG LOVE AND SUPPORT FOR THIS WISH.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Gwishes into the gwishing gwell….
– more noticings about hushpuppiness. Given it is a tooootal reframe this is likely. So, I’m gwishing for USEFUL noticings!
– peace in the house over the school holiday child caring negotiations. (related).
– methodical mapping.
– rhythm emergence.
*fairy dust*
<3 <3 <3
Claire! I love this! THANK YOU
Yes! CSA is a lovely model! My feelings on reading this wish were wildly caroming off into wondering how I could participate, what I could contribute, and how amazing it would be!
Hearts to you, Claire!
my heart had been humming a happy hum since I read this. <3 Leaving some love, support, sharing, and possibility.
There is a whole lot happening this week. Tomorrow feels especially big and scary. I am asking for ease, and other delightful surprises.
Another wish: a new name, a congruent, meaningful name that is neither my ex’s or my father’s. MY name.
I’ll play with sleeping on it!!
*fairy dust*
Havi, Ease, Miracles. Simplicity. and Perfect simple solutions came my way this fall/winter. Followed 8 weeks of doing nothing I didn’t want to do and a lot of doing nothing. For me, no work, no social obligations, no deep reflection. Just playing with cats, sleeping in, walking dog, SciFi reruns, creating for the fun of it, and good food. Seemed like a lot of time to waste at the time. Ah, past me. The change that came to me out of 8 weeks of nothing was simple and huge and entirely unexpected by me and others. The speed at which things changed after that was astonishing. The miracles that showed up kept my mouth dropped open, awestruck, for most of November and December. So simple, so perfect.
We now live on the beach, on an island, in a home whose previous owners left us their pirate flag. Surrounded water, sand, trees, sky, stars, and a community or creators and writers. Friends live in our Seattle home now and run the coworking space out of their home now. I’m left aware that I didn’t make it happen. Was more sort of just a bouncy-house slide that I and my family slid down. I will never doubt 8 weeks of nothing again. In Lori Land, big nothing is the doorway to big perfect easy miraculous change.