It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
I just want to say that this week was kind of jinxed, in the way where you hope someone is going to say that Mercury is in retrograde or something like that because WHY LIKE THIS.
What worked?
Well, I got to practice a lot.
A lot.
The great thing about everything going wrong is there is no shortage of opportunities to remember that nothing is wrong and everything is a door.
To smile at all the broken pots.
Code.
Code solved things.
Next time I might…
I don’t know. Take December off? Declare a holiday of my own?
And listen to more music.
Music helped.
A wise thing a dance teacher said this week.
Applicable to everything, so substitute life for “dance”….
“Think of this move not as a move but as part of stream, you’re not doing anything, you’re just heading down the stream.”
That was Jon.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Solstice. I was so excited about my plans for solstice and then I had the worst day. A breath for that.
- Got locked in a bathroom because the door handle fell off in my hand. And I didn’t have my phone. And then the same thing happened AGAIN in my house, except not in the bathroom. A breath for all the perceptions of [stuck].
- Hurt my leg on the way to dance class when I tripped over a fire hydrant while attempting to avoid a creepy person on the street. Had to go into the mall to clean up my leg. A mall is no place for a Havi, but a mall two days before christmas is the worst. Also the bathroom was full of vomiting children. And I missed my bus. A breath for that whole stupid annoying day.
- Continuation of last week. Hard news, hard decisions, a lot of pain. In the middle of this, the spy who loves me had to disappear for nine days on an important mission. A breath for getting through the hard things.
- Hard news means I am headed to Michigan in a few days, where it gets dark at 3:30 in the afternoon and is just impossibly, ridiculously cold. This will be first winter visit since either 1995 or 1996. A breath for everything related to this.
- All the things need doing, and I do not wish to do any of the things and I am not in fact doing any of them and they are getting more and more urgent by the day, and also: oh so many monsters. A breath for the perception of tightness, in many forms.
- […] A breath for everything that is hard right now.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- Friends. A breath for friends.
- Even though solstice was an unmitigated disaster in pretty much every possible way, I got to spend most of it at the Playground in the company of people I really like. And I got to see the Vicar too. A breath for companionship.
- I got to spend christmas day with three of the amazing women from my 2012 Crossing the Line retreat. Good food, sweet companionship, piles of blankets on the floor, napping by the fireplace. This was the best thing ever and now I want to do this every year. A breath for comfort.
- Everyone is coming together to help me handle the Mitten visit. A breath for support and for treasure.
- Even though I miss the Agent from the Other Agency like crazy, I am so glad that he is on this mission. A breath for people in my life who pay attention to and follow their Next Indicated Steps, who live their lives the way I try to live mine.
- Dance. Beautiful dance. A breath for feeling grounded through movement, a breath for being a gazelle.
- Good food, warm blankets, comfortable clothing. A breath for being safe.
- Everything is going to be okay. It just is. A breath for knowing and remembering.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
Lots of ops.
Mission ###
Operation #&%!%
Operation REDACTED REDACTED
Operation Big Dumb Mitten Phase I
WHAM! BOOM!
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
The power of trust, and the power of renaming.
I am the PROPRIETRESS of a magical ballroom. This is its own set of superpowers.
Superpowers I want.
The power of stepping onto the new path with lightness and excitement.
Salve.
The salve of protection.
It is an extra layer of force field. Extra cushion around you.
Everyone who needs to see you can detect your light. Everyone who needs to not know you are there doesn’t register you. You are shielded, and you can feel it.
The only things that can come into your space are qualities, in pure undiluted form, in the exact right amount that you can receive them.
If you are not a salve person (today or in general), you can have this in tea form, pill form, as a bath, whatever works for you. Not only is there enough salve, there are also enough ways to receive it.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band via my phone, when I was trying to say gesundheit.
The Grains Heist
I am pretty sure this could also be a movie, probably one I would like to see. They play Memphis blues with a salsa edge. And apparently it’s just one guy…
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I am deep in an undercover mission to get better at receiving in all forms, or as I’m calling it: Glowing Receptivity and Being Receptive to Glow.
This involves, among other things, acquiring the skill of Gracefully Accepting Thanks.
And it is related to my mission of Coming Out Of All The Closets and sharing, particularly about my personal experiences with not-sharing-how-hard-things-are, when things were actually the hardest.
If you would like to take a part in this and support me on 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. ♡
Come play if you like…
Join me in the comments. Some of us share hard and good, some of us say hi, or maybe we’re on silent retreat. My ritual doesn’t have to be your ritual. Whatever works for you. Almost three hundred weeks of this and there still isn’t a right way.
Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We don’t give advice.
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever you like, it’s no big deal. And I am blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers. I love that you are here too.
Follow
A chicken to help me remember it is Friday, because I am on vacation and it is heavenly.
The Good:
All the wrapping paper made me feel like I had too many treasures in my house. All of the things I love don’t all need to be out everywhere on display all the time. So, I bundled most of them up, and put them away and relished in the empty space. And then I found things I could give away and send along and say goodbye to. And now I can breathe. And I can remember that I don’t need to save *every* book from my Nana, just the ones with her little notes and names in them.
The clearing out led to looking at everything in new ways and now the kitchen is different which meant there was room for the sewing machine which means I have new bags!
The clearing out of old friends has whoosh made room for new ones, true ones.
One of the best Christmases in a long time. Small and quiet (except for when using the race car track) and perfect.
The Mysterious:
My capacity to be inside my house doing exactly what I want to do, happily, by myself sometimes worries me. I so want a lovely man friend to do things with, so I should remember to go out places a few times a week where I at least have a higher chance of meeting one than when I’m at home.
Oh, this week!
What worked:
Breathing and the pause. A lot of difficult moments turned out to go away on their own if I could just keep breathing and wait them out.
Sovereignty. Playing “my stuff/not my stuff.” Trusting myself.
Saying “I would like to do this better next time.”
Continuing to listen past the first obvious place to say something other than “flalaleelaloola.”
Next time I might:
Try the breath or the pause as a practice in moments when FUD or HALT.
A superpower I had this week: all doors open before me! Yes.
A superpower I would like next week: An Army Of Minions So That The Queen Can Stay In Her Council Room At All Times, Unless She Doesn’t Want To, Of Course.
Love to all the chickeneers and silent lurker mice!
Cheers, Chickeneers!
Wow. Much week. Such happenings.
Shades of Good:
+I am embracing my internet persona and having a ton of fun with it. And it is useful, even though it’s silly.
+Sooooooooo much progress on my bedroom decluttering. Yay for Boxing Day, which isn’t a thing where I live, but is now a thing for me!
+Taking pictures, and becoming more positive about them.
+Interesting TV=learning things!
+The parts of Xmas I like: fairy lights around my bed. Chocolate. Presents, all either useful things or stuff to play with (play, yay!). Music I love. Silly hats.
+I am ok for money right now. This is such a blessing.
+Did a really hard-for-me thing, and it wasn’t a big deal, and I’m so glad that I did the thing and asserted myself so I didn’t have to do [thing I didn’t want to do].
+I finally got Operation B, which was a thing that I didn’t let myself think I could actually get!
+Playing on my phone
Shades of Hard:
-Even with all the hippie woo-woo stuff I did, decluttering took up so much of my energy. Le tired.
-I really need to shower
-Family pictures, which was a long, hormonal day. Fake smile featured in way too many of the takes.
-Misplacing things, and old patterns popping up all over.
-A lot of sad feelings have been coming up. I’m not sure if it’s the holidays, the constant darkness, or what.
Superpower of the week: Refilling all the Wells.
Superpower for next week: Release and Completion. Removing everything that I’m done with, completing the things that need completion, so that I can be present with today.
Clew: Doors! I’ll start by investigating the “related articles”, all with doors in them!
The main bathroom in my grandparents’ house, when I was a kid, had a fiddly lock. One day when I was about 6, I accidentally locked myself into this bathroom. And I was in there for hours because my parents didn’t notice I was “missing”, and no one could hear my efforts to get out. Then the police called, looking for one of my cousins, and when I told them I couldn’t bring him to the phone because I was locked in the bathroom, … well, a squad car showed up at my grandparents’ house. My parents were very angry and upset *at me* and … now I am phobic about being locked into bathrooms. (Or locked into any place it might be difficult to get out of.)
A long-winded way of saying, Havi, I can empathize with at least some of your misadventures.
Ah, Doorknobs Falling into Your Hand. That happened to me a few times this week, but now the doorknob has been fixed.
A hard week all around. Lightning bolts of confusion and pain and not knowing what the next steps are. Surrounded by love, but not always help. Gale force winds. So many curtains closing, or hallways to other rooms. Maybe empty rooms. Losing my favorite jacket.
What helped: Cups of tea. A refuge at night. Partners. Unexpected support. Finding my favorite jacket. Sunshine.
Happy weekend Chickeneers!
Cluck cluck, hello hello
What happened this week?? A LOT. A lot of things happened. Let’s chick en….
Some harder things….
* two people I love and feel responsibility for are prone to getting in people’s space and annoying them. I feel frustration and grief for this. Also I get pissed off which is not a helpful response or that much less annoying for the people getting invaded. So, winning!
* visions being ignored in favour of someone else’s visions. Again. Hey, tradition!
* regrets.
* oh my god but this time of year is expensive. And my $900 fairy didn’t come through. Nearly, but not quite. Ah well, next year for sure!
* overstimulation. Hair-trigger emotionality. Project Bedtime going to shit because of All The Exceptions, for illness, for exhaustion, for special treats, blah blah. Oooff.
* Little Lad is not hardy. I say this nearly every week. It is hard to live with. Ear infections that go away and then come right back. He kind of clicks the joint in his thumb this way and that as a stimming thing but now he’s got a tendonitis-y thing happening from overdoing it. I’m glad he’s stopped picking his nails to shreds but this clearly isn’t the solution either. Mysterious rash. He says his feet feel cold a lot. Still spoon-feeding because otherwise he doesn’t eat enough. He’s so thin and hyperflexible and doesn’t build muscle, so staying upright all day is exhausting. I know he’s doing so, so, so fine, according to any scale of wellness and not wellness…. really he lands up the well end of possible positions. But… it feels like there are narrow margins of health. And it feels like putting up a tent, when one corner gets nailed down the one you just finished sproings right back out again. Hard.
* Wonderbaby is learning how to throw tantrums, and say ‘no’ and run away laughing. Oh terrific, progress! Yay.
* So. Much. STUFF!!!! Where will it all go? I think I need to rearrange. And really, I need to be able to bang some damn hooks in the walls but the landlord is so bloody uptight they want to send a contractor around to do it so could I please wait until there’s something more substantial blah blah blah blah just let me put up a damn shelf already! In the meantime…. move this pile here, to make space for this other pile …..
* baking fails. Repeated baking fails. Ouch, my confidence in my cooking hurts.
Exhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaale…..
Aaaah.
Also there was some good stuff and this included:
* helping my friend rearrange and reorganise her house. Maybe I could be a professional organiser. That would be fun. (possibly).
* all the delicious foods, yum yum yum yum yum. Including my substitute spectacular dessert when my pavlova failed, twice!
* my generation took care of Christmas cooking and it was delicious and easy and looked after the mums. This was good for me to see play out.
* we are on holidays now.
* there was, despite my dashed vision, peace in the house.
* there is enough money, enough energy, enough health. Not much more than enough, but yes, there is enough. I’ll take it.
* family, friends, floop.
Cluck cluck, yo. xxxxxxxx
I can never say enough times that I.LOVE.THE.BAND.OF.THE.WEEK!!! Yay! it makes me giggle every single time!
I am sending warm wishes, literally, for your trip to Michigan. I am visualizing you in soft warm socks and soft silk long underwear and something snuggly to keep your ears warm.
As for me, I went to a family Christmas thing that I didn’t want to attend and there was a surprise DOG there and it was good. And, I started re-gifting my gifts already, made a co-worker very happy with a book I got that she wanted!
The hards are too many to mention, but a big sigh for Christmas being OVER.
Go, Surprise Dogs, Go!
Hello, Saturday. Hello, y’all.
What worked?
Making [b] and [c] the day before.
Waiting until the day of to deal with [c4].
Next time?
The heavy-bottomed pan for sure.
Some hard or challenging or vexing things:
1. Uncertainty re treatment
2. RIP Eudora Welty (friend’s cat)
3. Learning curve feels stupid steep
4. Finding out about a deadline after committing $
5. Dog escaping from the yard
6. I’m the least physically fit I’ve been in a while
7. Mouse droppings
8. Some of the transplants look so sickly…
Good, reassuring, squeeful…
1. Friends surprising us with food and wine
2. Studying with the dog at my feet
3. Compliments from a client
4. Refunds and rebates helping with the bills
5. My hair once again matches my glasses (i.e., vivid green accents). Receiving compliments at the nursing home and prison as well as in general.
6. Oh, sweet disco naps, I could not have survived this week without you.
7. Threw out a tired red camisole, a jar of blueberry jam that expired over a year ago, my accounting homework from high school, assorted lists and clippings…
8. I am desired and I am loved. It sure beats high school. 🙂
Dance story I keep revisiting: Vienna Teng’s Level Up
Warm wishes to all y’all.
Glad it’s over:
– Driving for 5 hours…and being super tired for 2.5 of them.
– Physical reactions to eating too many different types of holiday foods.
– Triggering nightmares that clouded my being all day.
In the box of good memories!!
+ Christmas morning with twin 2-year-old nieces. Reading books. Stacking blocks. Talking like Cookie Monster. Smiles!
+ Time with my sweet little Granny with Alzheimer’s and the cutest little perma-grin. I read to her and she actually spoke coherent sentences…two each time I read to her! The pics are precious and I told her I’d be her pen pal and send her fun things in the mail. She raised her eye brows.
+ Frozen waffles with syrup and whipped cream for breakfast.
+ The license plate on the highway that said: EEEEEE
+ Coming home to the kitty and seeing that he’s even more personable than he was before we left!
+ Collage night with my friends: Pizza, avocado rolls, chocolate cake…oh my!
+ Lots of mom hugs and not having to do any dishes while I was at her house.
Waving goodbye to the week that went whoosh, too fast and full to recount
Waving hello to the Chickeneers, and to the present moment.
Technically speaking, this particular week was hit with WAY worse than Mercury retrograde. Cardinal grand cross involving Mars, Uranus, Pluto, Jupiter.
At first I did not think that I needed the Salve that is an Additional force field with Added Selective Invisibility, but then I read on the package that it is Especially formulated for Temporal Transitions – like from 2013 to 2014. Since I am playing with exiting 2013 and entering 2014, I have activated it.
The Good – A Christmas card from my monsters. Of course, I have to draw it, but so far The Quest, fuzz bugs and Hecklers, Brod Caster, all forty-seven Iguanas, the Giant Iguana in the garage and Niggles are in it. So is a monster that is Mainly Butt who says, “You call that Anal! Here’s how to be Anal: etc., etc., …” I think it was the one that suggested making large gift bags from scrapbook paper, last week. Some who I don’t know what their things are: two shy ones that are clearly Very Afraid of me, and some kind of Ninja with sharp knives and a shuriken (throwing star) on his tail hiding behind the banner.
Receiving compliments on my hand-made gift card envelopes!
Found money, adjusting a toll to what we can pay, the store replacing a light bulb that I dropped and broke at home, possibility that The Government Goofed and Will Give Us Our Money Back. A gift card to a thrift store! This is so exciting! I can keep money on it and when I get a Vibe that there’s something good waiting for me at one, I’ll have money to get it.
Sister declaring that we are now co-religionists!
Finding the silent T (tea) in rehearse that makes hear(t) that I hear with my ears.
Sending the mundane Christmas cards after Christmas.
Being affirmed as being able to Give Good Gifts.
Everything Done that Needed to be Done.
Super Power of Stubborn Perseverance, which was the only way I got the nut on the old toilet seat undone. Beautiful new toilet seat.
What was hard or mysterious? – Ruminating on a better word for “work” and finding Undertaking to go with the Hearse in Rehearse and exits.
The Dude taking a trip – head missing a wall, just scraped and a tweaked back, but whoa, breath for it not being Worse.
Not brushing my teeth before bed.
I’m missing one outgoing gift. I’ll put my best Fictional Detectives on it.
A thank-you card loaded with a guy’s stuff. Shredded it.
What worked?
Focusing on the goal due next, but remembering fractal flowers. A Heckler said I wasn’t getting one thing done, but I realized that what I was doing, once completed, would give me more space to do that thing. Sparkly fractal flower for me.
Permission to celebrate the met goals and to not sweat the postponed or eliminated goals.
Wearing My Style. My Older Sister, (who is actually younger and an in-law) who has Her Own Style that I admire intensely, loved the dangly earring/short earring I wear and is going to wear her earrings like that. Hm, it might grow to be fashionable.
Putting on socks as soon as I get up in the morning.
What I will try in the future?
Leaving the lights on the tree, wrapping it in the sheets that are used only to cover iguanas during the holidays and the floor under the tree, and sticking it in the closet. So next year, we pull it out, unwrap it, put on the Essential Ornaments and Call It Good! WHAM Boom. It’s ready for next year.
Return to the historic Generosity Celebration goals.
Get busy on making more of My Style pants.
Deciding how many vacation days (20), holidays, and which ones I will give myself when I’m on The Quest full time.
Oh, please take as many blooming jonquils as you want from the flower bed! The whole plants, please.