What's in the gallery?

We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.

We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**

* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.

** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.

What's in the gallery?

* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.

Not What But How

by Havi Brooks | Oct 11, 2024 | my personal practice

a labyrinth mowed into a green field

A labryinth meditative walking path mowed in tall Missouri grasses…

A small stone circle / space to hold what needs holding

I have been away a long time, and there is much to acknowledge and make space for, both here and out in the world, in this timeline we are in of great horrors and tragedies and hurricanes.

Safety and sanctuary for everyone who needs it.

In order to write about what I want to write about today, I am making a small stone circle in this space, and in mind-space, to hold what needs holding, a space for whatever is needed.

The imaginary stone circle exists to hold all the many things that want naming and acknowledging until such time as I feel brave enough to do the work of naming and acknowledging.

And it exists to support me in letting the words come so I can share them with you, to figure out where I’m at, what is most important to say, or at least what is most indicated in this moment.

Thank you, stones

A breath, a candle, a good exhale. Thank you, stone circle.

Thank you, sweet friends and everyone who reads, everyone who waited patiently for what was next. A thank you as well to the parts of me who were able to wait patiently (sometimes) for me to arrive at this moment of stone-circle forming, this moment of locating the words and letting them find a home.

Not What, But How

An odyssey, a blur

My trip, which my friends keep referring to alternately as my ordeal, my odyssey, or my shamanic underworld voyage, lasted twelve weeks, or a quarter of the year.

A sojourn, at any rate. I went, it was rough, I returned.

I don’t have much to say about it yet; it’s a bit of a blur. Maybe it will catch up to me or I will catch up to it, and a sense of what transpired will land in my body, or a cohesive narrative will form. Maybe.

What transpires over the course of twelve weeks

There was a week of driving from New Mexico to Michigan, towards an experience I named the MMMM (Michigan Marathon of Mercilessness & Mercy), aka dealing with family matters and health issues.

This also involved going through piles and piles of items that each needed someone to make some kind of decision about them, and the deciding person had to be me, for complicated reasons.

Then ten long weeks of sleeping on a foldout couch spent alternately making these decisions and recovering from the toll the drive took on my unwell body, combined with the barometric pressure shifts, the stress, the humidity, the ongoing unpleasant discoveries related to old mysteries and old secrets…

When is a mission complete? What instigates a turning?

There was an overwhelming amount of things to be done and considered.

There were also some side quests. Kind of a lot of side quests actually.

When I had some strength back and the season turned (and my drivers license was about to expire!), I headed back west and spent another week on the road.

The labyrinth

Five hours is as much driving as I can manage before my back gives out, or my ability to focus, whichever goes first really, and the last hour of that is honestly torture.

Sometimes I don’t even have a last hour in me, and that’s how I ended up at a rural airbnb in Holts Summit, Missouri, which my mind keeps wanting to rename to Holts Creek, maybe because I was in search of a creek, for ritual-related reasons.

A text came in from the guy whose little cabin I’d last-minute rented:

“I saw on your profile that you love to walk a labyrinth, as it happens I have one here, it’s overgrown and hasn’t been mowed in months, I will mow it for you so that you can walk it before sunset…”

Barefoot, close to the earth

He said this particular labyrinth likes to be walked barefoot.

I love it more than anything in the world when someone immediately reveals how eccentric they are, so I assumed he was right, and he was.

Of course a fellow labyrinth-walker would know what’s good, and if he says this labryinth is particular, I believe him. Labyrinths can have very strong personalities, in my experience. Some are funny, some are intense, some can be a little pointed.

But that’s the kind of thing you can’t tell people because they will think you are even more of a weirdo than they already thought when you were excitedly info-dumping about labyrinths and how cool they are, and how they are not the same as a maze.

He didn’t seem to care what I thought though, and I immediately cherished that about him.

Of the earth, bounded and bounding

The ground was very spongy, almost bouncy and the grass clippings were soft to walk on. Barefoot was the right path, labyrinth-pun intended.

I felt as though I was drawing power from the earth but also as if the ground was bouncing me lightly, like you would bounce a slightly overwhelmed baby.

A labyrinth is a beautifully boundaried place, and this one also had a bounding quality, isn’t that beautiful, how those words connect.

I am thinking about being held, being lightly and gently bounced, in an invigorating way and also in a soothing way, within a boundaried space.

What if boundaries are how we make space to be soothed and invigorated by the earth…

The gift/offering of a question

I always bring a labyrinth a question, and this question felt especially pertinent, both on my way out of what was honestly an excruciating, exhausting, frustrating three month voyage of one hardship after the next, and for the day before the eve of the Jewish New Year…

I asked the labyrinth what is next.

What is next felt like employing a question as a form of entry.

What is next

What is next for me? What is next after the Michigan Marathon of Mercilessness & Mercy?

But also, what is next for this quarter from fall equinox to winter solstice, what is next for this new year, what is next in general?

Show me what is next, reveal a direction, give me an instruction, anything. What’s next?

NOT WHAT BUT HOW

I asked the labyrinth what is next, and it said, very clearly: “NOT WHAT, BUT HOW”.

The gift-offering of an answer can also be the gift-offering of realizing your question needs to be adjusted.

Not what, but how

I exhaled, and repeated: Not what, but how

Tell me about the how…

The next question felt obvious, tell me about the how…

So I asked it about the how and it said, “Gentle, soft, slow and delicious….”

Then I asked what else I should know, about that and in general, and it said I should just practice Not What But How, and Gentle, Soft, Slow & Delicious until at least winter solstice given how the last quarter went…

Did I get a side-eye from a labyrinth? You bet I did, and it’s not the first time either haha.

So we have a mission

Even though my trip to Michigan yielded more opposite-of-clarity than clarity, suddenly I had a clear mission. I received the answer i was searching for or hoping for on this trip.

And there are two parts.

The how is more important than the what, in all things.

And the how, specifically is about gentle, soft, slow and delicious.

The rest is commentary (go and learn), as we say, in the tradition of Rabbi Hillel back in the first century BCE.

Something about pain

Literally everyone I know, from my friends to my doctor to people who know me pretty casually but do know something about how Long Covid has changed my life, advised me in no uncertain terms not to make this trip.

And wow were they right. It was hell on my body and nervous system and did a lot of damage, and I did it anyway and that is not a brag. It may well have been the wrong move, though little point in dwelling on that, since it happened which makes it the right move as far as I’m concerned. We are here.

I have never had so many panic episodes in my life, so many nightmares, or experienced so many different kinds of intense physical and emotional pain and discomfort at once. Or at least not since the 90s. It’s hard to compare.

This was not so much a visit as it was a crucible.

And something about pleasure

I don’t want to forget to acknowledge the parts that were beautiful, meaningful, hopeful, sweet.

Some are too personal to share but here are some…

A magical grove, suddenly, inexplicably

Arash invited me to have coffee. And, FYI, if you are ever going to splurge on an expensive fancy coffee and happen to be in Ann Arbor, I highly recommend the cardamom rose latte from Songbird Cafe – my brother sang the praises of the rosemary sea salt latte there, so you could also do that, but I am a sucker for cardamom.

We sat beneath a row of trees at the edge of a parking lot and talked for hours, and somehow our conversation turned parking lot trees into a magical grove. I can’t really explain it but everything disappeared until we were just us, sheltered by an arbor of trees.

There are some truly good-hearted people in this world, and also some high-magic people with whom you can enter into a non-conventional experience of time and space.

What a special thing it is when a person has both these qualities, and what a treasure and honor it is to know this particular one. What remarkable good fortune.

Brunch of Circumstances

I did not have it in me even slightly to do any cooking on this trip or even to clean a kitchen to be able to cook, and I don’t have much of an appetite these days anyway.

The best and really only solution I could come up with was to coax myself into consuming one meal a day, one that didn’t require cooking or thinking, the same meal every day, for three months.

We’ll call it autistic excellence and leave it at that.

Good job to me for staying nourished in the way that worked for me.

When my brother came for a week, he joined me in this daily ritual, and it was honestly a delight.

Leisurely plus instantaneous

We took our time, luxuriated, laughed, told stories, got angry about the same things together, made coffee with cardamom, oat milk, vanilla sugar and the predictably stale Israeli instant coffee that is a staple of familiarity.

The word instant doing double duty here because not only is the coffee instant but it functions as an instantaneous sensory portal that whooshes me directly back into the 1990s and early 2000s.

Yup, my brother said, this tastes like strong memory.

It’s not good coffee, you couldn’t say that, but it is extremely powerful as a nostalgia device, and so, in the moment, it was good coffee, you just have to tweak what good means to you.

We remembered things and we laughed until we cried. We did this every day for a week. It was the best part of the three month odyssey.

The joy of a cowboy hat

Everyone loved my cowboy hat, including the checker at the supermarket who said, “Girl, you are WEARING that hat!”

But, compliments aside, probably the best hat-related moment is when my dad stole it off my head and put it on, and wore it for the next twenty minutes, absolutely grinning his face off and checking himself out in the elevator mirror. He even posed for pictures, and my dad hates having his picture taken.

LOOK AT THIS HAT, he said, at least twenty times.

Yes, it’s a great hat, and also: everyone should try on being a cowboy at least once.

I will be the one who

When I went to meet Arash, whom I had not seen in many years, we had a conversation like this…

Arash: “I will be the one who looks like me.”
Havi: “Got it. I will be the one in a giant cowboy hat.”
Arash: “Perfect, I will look under every cowboy hat I see until I find you…”

The many great mysteries

I went to visit my mom’s grave (ten years this week since she died), which seems impossible because did I not just write about her gravestone one year after her death, yes, I shared it here, how can it be ten years…

Time is truly a great mystery, among the many great mysteries.

It was pretty easy to find the Jewish part of the cemetery; there are zero crosses, and lots of stones and pebbles for placing on the low flat headstones.

But the last time I was there was at the burial, which was a trauma, and my brain refused to give up even a hint of a memory about which direction I might go in order to look for the correct spot.

Geese

I wandered in the drizzling rain, hoping for a clue, and there were geese absolutely everywhere.

Picture just the most plump, contented, happy-go-lucky geese, absolutely taking over the cemetery. Not a person in sight, just dozens and dozens of good mood geese.

I could hear my mother’s delighted laugh at these geese, at how content and at home they seemed, at the unexpectedness of the encounter.

Just when

Just when I was about to give up, I found the right spot, and placed some stones and talked to her, as if I hadn’t already been talking to her the entire trip, wrapped up in her blankets on her couch.

And I cried some more, as if I hadn’t already been crying the entire trip, and I felt a little worse but also a little better at the same time.

Thank you, stones. Thank you, happy geese.

And thank you, soft rain, speaking of things that are gentle, soft, slow and delicious.

An unanticipated sensory state of pleasantness and comfort to walk across the green grass, surrounded by green trees, in this very soft mist of rain. There is a superpower in there somewhere.

Entry for a new year

I spent the eve of the New Year at the Cactus Motel in McLean, Texas, and was too exhausted to do anything to mark it, so I set the intention that I would welcome the new year later…

Any grace period in a storm, right? And luckily for me, Judaism is very big on grace periods, as is befitting since we all have ADHD as far as I can tell.

And in the meantime I did a tiny amount of journaling on two questions.

Journaling question: This new year is for…?

This new year is for…

joyful steady playful ritual
creative time, writing time, bobcat time, cowboy chore hour time
envisioning
not what but how
gentle, soft, delicious and slow
being process-oriented…
an aesthetics of activity / aesthetics of not doing and undoing / restful rest / contrast / intentional unwinding
being generous with myself
being attentive and accommodating with my neurodivergence & disabilities
whatever is the opposite of twisting myself in the interest of accommodating others
staying committed to life-enhancing deliciousness

Journaling question: What is already new and joyful?

What is already new and joyful?
A great new haircut, my first in ages, thanks to Ronnie, an absolute angel, who offers covid-safe haircuts, masked, on the porch or outdoors or in your space, and with the option of minimal conversation if you prefer. I have mostly been cutting my own hair and this was a treat.

(If you know someone in southeast Michigan, send them to Ronnie.)

New tires, this was not joyful at all since mine were definitely supposed to last until I made it back home but it is new, and new is something.

A new book to read, and a new desire to spend time reading, which has been difficult for me since my concussion in 2021.

The new and very joyful wisdom from the labyrinth to guide me for this new quarter, new year and beyond.

Some new excitement, some new hope bubbling up. Some new feelings.

Grace

I mentioned before that I want do-overs for entry into the new year.

And this is ongoing, the practice of do-overs forever, but I did take a beautiful side trip to have ritual by the Gila river in a lovely canyon.

I stood on a rock and talked to the river and tossed in tortilla chip crumbs to symbolize all I wish to let go of from the past year.

Most of my would-like-to-let-go-ofs are either in the category of times I was impatient and even unkind (with people, with situations), or too busy with my own shit to be a good friend, or in the category of ways I neglect myself or neglect to take care of myself.

And of course these are all related…

Related because when I neglect myself or neglect to give myself as much care as I need, or judge myself for needing so much more care than I used to, this exponentially increases the state of overwhelm and sensory overload that lead to being impatient or careless with myself and others.

All in right timing, all timing right timing

The sound of the rushing water was so peaceful, the light glancing off the cottonwoods making the silvery leaves shimmer in the breeze was so magical. It felt so good to be back in beloved New Mexico, home.

It was a grounding experience, and such a helpful reminder about All Timing Right Timing, and When Late Is Actually Right On Time.

Something about the superpower of What If The Right Moment Is When The Moment Happens To Happen. I hope I can keep remembering this.

A breath for this trust in time. Nothing is late, nothing is broken, it worked out how it worked out and now we are here.

And here we are / now we are here

Yes. That is the important part, I think. It worked out how it worked out, and now we are here.

Would we do things differently next time? Absolutely. And, also, now we are here, at this moment of what is new and joyful, or at least what is new and possible, new and potentially hopeful? New and grounding.

New and here.

What’s next? I have no idea, but I do have that beautiful clue from the labryinth.

It’s not about what, it’s about how

Not what but how. Gentle, soft, slow and delicious!

I am going to try to remember this hopeful and exquisite piece of wisdom, and when I forget, and of course I will forget, I am going to kiss the palm of my hand and place it on my heart and take a breath of remembering.

What are your wishes for this new quarter?

What are you seeding? Or, again, maybe not what but how…

And maybe this question also needs its own grace period, its own cocoon of time, maybe this question needs to percolate. Here’s to the percolation process.

Here’s to gentle, soft, slow and delicious in a variety of forms. To asking, and letting the question ripple out across the water, trusting that whatever is revealed will show up when it shows up.

(Now we are here, what treasure to be here.)

Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company

You are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped or anything on your mind, make some wishes, process what’s percolating…

I am lighting a candle for us. Oh wow, what beautiful wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.

Or if there’s anything you’d like to toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.

Whatever comes to mind (come to heart?), let’s support each other’s hope-sparks and wishes…

Thank yous, in the circle of stones

Thank you so much to everyone who reads. Here’s to loving breaths, the winding path, the many clues that land when they land, receptivity, keeping on keeping on.

Thank you to everyone who thoughtfully emailed or DMed to tell me that the website was down and to send their good wishes. Thank you to everyone who sent money to the Discretionary Fund. Thank you to Amanda who reminded me of the power and beauty of a stone circle, and who has seen the one on my property.

Ongoing wishes related to safety & sanctuary, a peace vigil of the heart

I am wishing safety and sanctuary to and for everyone, or whatever it is you need most, and I am especially thinking of friends in the paths of hurricanes, friends in the Middle East, and all of us who have loved ones in these places where awful, frightening, nightmarish upheaval is or might soon be whipping through the terrain.

At the same time I am thinking of friends whose emotional terrain is being torn up by terror. Wishing safety and sanctuary for them too.

There is too much hard, unfair, challenging and awful going on to acknowledge it all or to do enough acknowledging, but I am trusting that the circle of stones can hold my heart’s intention and can glow a steady peace vigil for us.

Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!

If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.

This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream. I hope now that I’m back from the epic road trip of trials and tribulations, we can get on a schedule again.

Get the ebook on how I play with time

Aka fun bonus material on how I relate to time and map out my quarters for the year.

Anyone who gives to Barrington’s Discretionary this week (see below) will get this by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place (long story), so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!

I have some ideas for the next ebook but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.

A request!

If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously. Between Long Covid and traumatic brain injury recovery, things are slow going.

I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.

And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️

Strawberry tip water and other apotropaic delights

by Havi Brooks | Jul 6, 2024 | my personal practice

colorful jars of preserved lemon slices in oil on a wooden countertop

I wanted to share an image of a card that says protection from cynicism, and features a line of colorful decorated prayer flags, but for some reason this was the one image on my phone that I couldn’t upload, so I looked for another photo I have that feels aligned with the theme of PROTECTION FROM CYNICISM, and found these jars of preserved lemon slices in olive oil and spices that I made last year for future joy…

Just a little heads up:

Talking today about death, grief, loss, the hard stuff, no painful details included…

And a small housekeeping note! I have been offline for the past two weeks, so if you sent me an email, I haven’t seen it yet but hope to catch up this week.

Announcement & ebook reminder

If you’ve already given to Barrington’s Discretionary last year or this year, you should have received my ebook (by email) on how I approach and plan my year, how I think about time and am in relationship with time.

You’ll get a copy as a thank you when you give any sum to Barrington’s Discretionary Fund, hope you enjoy!

More housekeeping: You can subscribe to posts by email again!

If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.

This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and yikes to that imaginary number, once a week is the dream.

Strawberry tip water and other apotropaic delights

The card draw

I don’t know why this card hit me so hard but it did.

The card says protection from cynicism, and features a line of prayer flags…

It’s from a deck called Portable Fortitude by Corinna Dross that my friend Goshman gave me a few years ago when they visited me at the dome (was that 2018?), and each card is a different form of protection.

Something felt important about this card. Protection from cynicism.

And the idea that prayer flags maybe aren’t so much about the prayers as they are a way to divest from cynicism. Maybe that’s the prayer. Maybe.

A new-to-me word

I love that there is a use list included for the cards, and that list includes: valentines, cheap health insurance, prayer flags, apotropic charms, writing prompts…

You know how much I love a new-to-me word, so I wanted to look up what apotropic means, but I turned off wifi for the summer, so I had to ask friends to look it up for me, and here is what I learned.

apotropic = to ward off evil

apotropic charms = something you wear or use for protection spells

Someone else sent me a dictionary definition for a version of this word, spelled apotropaic: “having the power to avert evil influence or bad luck”, from Greek apotrepo “to ward off”…

The gate

I was painting the gate across from my little home. It was the exact right day for gate-painting: not raining, not too hot, plenty of cloud cover on a beautiful New Mexico summer day.

This gate painting project has been wanting to happen for years, but there was always a reason why it wasn’t the time, and I thought it wouldn’t happen before my trip, but then Sunday it was the time.

I took a break from gate-painting and went inside to drink water. There was a text for me from a number I didn’t know, letting me know that my friend Michael had died.

Michael

Michael was many things to me, all of them wonderful, but above all else he was my co-conspirator in cooking experiments.

The person I would text first about an idea, an intriguing recipe, a flavor combination I’m playing with, or what I made for Luscious Breakfast.

The person whose warm perspective I am always attuned to inside of the creative process of being someone who cooks. Someone whose take I always want, whose opinion I always cherish.

You might remember him from a story I told here last year I think, a story about the quality of refinement.

Refinement

We were talking and I’d said something about how I thought maybe I was stuck in a bit of a rut in the kitchen, making the same things, just with tiny, tiny changes. And he said, no, no, this is good, this is the process of refinement.

He was always so encouraging and reassuring in his framing of whatever I was working on, always enthusiastic, always happy for me and excited with me.

I miss him tremendously. Grief is also a process of refinement, I think. You do a lot of the same things, maybe eventually slightly differently.

Movement

When I received the news, I immediately needed to move, to be in motion, a state of doing, not where I was.

It felt as though, if I didn’t do something in that moment, something active, that I would simply explode? Like my body would go through some sort of shattering event.

I painted the rest of the gate. Then I painted a table that did not need to be painted but it was there, and I had paint leftover in the tray, and I had to be in motion.

Then I moved some rocks around. The paint was all dry when the rains came, and then I opened all the windows and jogged in slow figure eights in my kitchen until it was dark outside.

Strawberry tops

It would be impossible to list the many gifts and marvelous delights I have received from knowing Michael, in addition to memories of our conversations and beloved themes, but here is one:

Michael taught me that whenever you have strawberries, you can save the tops and make strawberry top water. Strawberry tip water? Like a refreshing spa water.

I wonder how many pictures we have sent each other of strawberry top water.

Many, I’m sure. Hahaha. Probably a downright silly number. I could look but I don’t want to.

Refreshing

Michael was a talented baker and a creative chef, and could plate anything beautifully, but something about remembering those pictures of a jar of strawberry tops in water is a calming and grounding image in my mind right now.

It is good to have something that is both refreshing and surprising (in a good way).

And sometimes that something is a drink, and sometimes it is a friendship.

It’s good to be taken by surprise like that. I am grateful to have been surprised.

Breakfast delights / the PRIMACY of delights

We both were enormous fans of breakfast, both as a concept and as a criminally underrated event in the world of cooking.

We talked a lot about breakfast.

Sometimes you need to wax poetic about the simple things, and all that is possible inside of simplicity, inside the simple things.

Also

Also: there is a time and place for everything.

Also, a great Michael-ism: “I know we’ve already discussed the primacy of the chocolate-cake-and-coffee breakfast…”

Primacy! I love this so much. The primacy of decadence, the primacy of cake for breakfast. This feels so important.

Also: fuel for what is to come.

Also: homemade salsa macha on everything.

Yummy culprits

Once I asked him his thoughts about this flavor combination versus that one and he said, “Oh yeah, that’s tough to narrow down, lots of yummy culprits to investigate.”

That’s also a great Michael-ism.

The world is full of yummy culprits, and they need to be investigated!

Apple trees

Our last conversation was about apple trees.

He was telling me about an orchard he liked to visit, and asked if I was going to plant starts, or if I had another plan for apple trees here.

I told him about my plans, four trees to start, and how someone I know from the farmers market is married to a fruit tree expert, so I will ask them.

He said: Go ahead and do it! In spring, or whenever the appropriate time is.

Whenever the appropriate time is

Obviously it is never a good time to be surprised by loss, and it is also never a good time for an expected, anticipated loss.

Loss fucking sucks. That is a known entity among the. many unknowns, and remains true.

But the timing of how I found out was right timing for me, even though the person sharing the news felt bad that it had taken the amount of time it had taken to get in touch with me.

The timing happened how it happened, and I am not upset about it nor do I regret anything. Go ahead and do it, in the time that feels right for it, whenever the appropriate time is.

A SMOPL

I am thinking about my personal practice of SMOPL, a ritual of Something Meaningful On A Personal Level, and what these will be for me, these small Rituals Of Michael.

This morning I ate a plum for plum season, enjoying the fruits of the season is a very good way to honor Michael, and if you also would like to really enjoy the hell out of some fruit for him, I would love that.

Something delicious is there to be treasured and enjoyed

Make something delicious.

Or eat something delicious that someone else made!

Or eat something terrible! Michael was always trying bagels, even though Arizona is generally speaking not a place that excels at bagels, and then being annoyed that they were not good enough.

I love that. Yes! Be justifiably annoyed at something not good enough! Now or whenever the appropriate time is.

More Michael things, more rituals of Michael

He liked to forage and be outside. Maybe I will taste something of the earth…

He loved to make shortbread. And gelato. And ferment things!

We were both cranky childhood victims of early 1980s obsessive health food culture, so we would laugh about the tragic carob desserts we had to eat then, and try to make up for it now. Have some real chocolate for Michael if you like chocolate.

Or something else. Something deeply pleasurable, now or whenever the appropriate time is, whenever that turns out to be.

What do I know about grief

Here is what I know about grief.

Grief is messy and disruptive and huge. Grief is a doozy.

And: our culture simply does not make enough (or any) room for this, even though reality is that we are walking through this world in pain.

Tattered, etc

Endings and transitions are so challenging, and sometimes I have to whisper to myself that grief is messy, it’s okay that it feels messy. Why wouldn’t it. Messy is the nature of the experiences.

Like tattered prayer flags, the tattering is how the prayers are set free, supposedly.

That’s kind of all I want to say about that.

Getting to know Michael has brought me a great deal of joy, contentment, laughter, and appreciation for the pleasures in life, and I hope that reading about him will make you want to really enjoy the hell out of a plum, for example.

For example

Or maybe you will go for a walk outside, for example.

Or simply decide you will do something for joy, when the time is right.

Or have cake for breakfast, when the time is right.

Or something else.

I am going to learn more about planting apple trees and also I am not going to stress about apple trees. It will happen or it won’t, I am going to trust in right timing.

I am going to trust in right timing

Yes, I am going to trust in right timing, I am going to drink strawberry top water, and take a breath and another breath and feel earth under my feet. To life.

The important thing isn’t the apple trees, the important thing is that I am holding on to aliveness. To a desire to participate in this experiment of aliveness.

His memory is a blessing, and also I’m mad about that? He should still be here. I am mad about grief and loss, and that is also the human experience.

To joy

Michael was someone who really, truly took joy in the pleasures of life.

So I have been adding the word JOY to my morning sun salutation poetry. And ready. Ready to re-dedicate myself to joy. Ready for a devotion of joy.

I am ready to be grounded in joy. Ready to be strikingly joyful. Ready to be powerfully joyful. Ready to be fearless in my pursuit of joy. I am ready for the fierce joys, to be fierce in joy.

May it be so, or something even better.

The shrine

I wanted to go somewhere, for Michael, if that makes sense, and I didn’t know where that was, and so there was a long winding drive, and also I ended up at a roadside shrine. Like, a Catholic shrine. A very New Mexico tiny shrine.

Michael and I are both Jewish, so this might seem odd, but I figured he’d get it, and there it was, and there I was, and I needed to talk to him and to place a stone somewhere, other than by my gate.

And being there felt preventative somehow, like chicken soup.

Or strawberry top water. A holy dose of protection and sanctuary in the moment.

Apotropic / Apotropaic

I don’t know if strawberry top water wards off evil spirits, or if anything does for that matter, but I do believe that it is a fundamental human experience to wish hopefully towards hopeful things, and at other times to fervently try to hope ourselves away from the hard and scary things.

So here’s to the fundamental human experience, and to my own ability to make believe.

I am going to imagine that strawberry top water wards off whatever needs warding off. Maybe it can encourage more delight in the world.

And god knows this world could use some delighting, some intentional fierce pursuit of joy.

Some intentional fierce pursuit of joy

Yes. The world could use some of this. I could use some of this.

Protection from cynicism, in the tattering times. Fierce pursuit of joy, in the tattering times.

When we can, to the extent that we can.

Strawberry top water for good luck. Pleasure for pleasure’s sake. To life!

Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company

You are welcome to leave a stone for Michael or light a candle, real or imaginary.

And you are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped or anything on your mind, make some wishes! I am lighting a candle for all of it.

Or anything you’d like to toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.

Whatever comes to mind (come to heart?), let’s support each other’s hope-sparks and wishes…

Thank you to everyone who reads, porch breaths, the winding path, the many clues that land when they land, receptivity, keeping on keeping on.

New ebook alert!!!

Aka fun bonus material on how I relate to time and map out my quarters for the year.

Anyone who gives to Barrington’s Discretionary this week (see below) will get this by email as a pdf!

A request

I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to Barrington’s Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.

Solstice Wishes

by Havi Brooks | Jun 19, 2024 | my personal practice

metal labyrinth in copper frame

When it’s too hot to walk a labyrinth, I can trace one with a toothpick, and that too is a form of intentional wandering…

Announcement & ebook reminder

You’ll get a copy as a thank you when you give any sum to Barrington’s Discretionary Fund, hope you enjoy!

More housekeeping: You can subscribe to posts by email again!

If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.

Solstice Wishes

What was this past quarter about for me

Seasonality, really watching how things change as weather conditions moved me from snow days all the way into siesta days…

Exquisite self-tending, even when I didn’t want to.

Slowly planning the particulars of a big trip, which involved (and continues to involve) a lot of improvising. Aka the ability to stay flexible and agile, not reacting too much to the many obstacles, just keeping it moving.

But mainly it has taught me about what happens when I can’t keep it moving, when a period of Enforced Rest presents itself, and how I can be both more patient and more playful when this happens, instead of fighting it or seeing it as a portent of doom.

And of course, it always comes back to rituals for me

Ritual ritual ritual ritual, but also letting the rituals change. Rituals plus fluidity, adaptability, curiosity, playfulness, a willingness to allow things to find a new shape.

Cake & Coffee Club, also known as C&C Ritual Club, was the perfect thing until it got too hot to bake and too hot to care about coffee.

Now it’s all about very cold juice. Thank you, Kellan, for the recommendation to add a splash of lemon juice and a pinch of salt to cold watermelon juice. That is sustaining me right now.

Giving the rituals room to move with the seasons. That feels important right now. When it’s 95 degrees (36 Celsius), I am not making cake. I am in bed. And the rituals can move with me.

What worked?

Early to bed.

Cowboy Chore Hour.

Morning jog.

Analog Chrysalis (experiments in reducing screen time).

What was delicious?

More hiking. More focus.

Fried shallots with sweet corn and jalapeño.

Taking more time.

What wants or needs to be eliminated?

Oh good lord, everything? Most things.

Did a deep spring cleaning but I think it’s kind of a situation of everything must go.

On a more internal level, I would like so much more high regard, to hold myself in higher regard, expect to be treated with so much more respect, walk away sooner and faster when I am not.

Let’s eliminate the putting up with less than, or maybe the phrase is settling for downgrades. Let’s be done with that. Let’s rededicate to being held in high regard.

What wants or needs to be illuminated?

Staying focused on what is working, and strengthening that, anchoring that, adding on more things that work.

Staying attuned to weather and mood and external factors, and then, given the circumstances, not trying to push things that can’t be pushed.

What motivates me? Checking in on that without judgment. Use what works.

Deliberate beauty, or: deliberate attention to beauty. Follow that. If it brings you joy, there’s something there.

Again, I am noticing the pattern where I judge what brings me joy, but what if I skip that part?

Let’s name some wishes for this new quarter! Wishes of…

First a wish about releasing anger and resentment — both of which are very legitimate and reasonable, so first I want to acknowledge that by noticing how they keep showing up in my arm, and get better at protecting myself from and in these situations that elicit resentment.

A wish about sacrosanct writing time, even if it’s for my own journaling.

A wish about a glorious return to things that work, with no judgment about taking a break for however long that break was needed, or however it happened to go.

Wishes about the feel of doing, the feel of not doing

A wish about Aesthetics of Activity, bringing more pleasure and awareness into the movements of the day’s work.

A wish about Aesthetics of Rest, something about cozy nesting time and upping the deliciousness of the times that are for Not Doing, or Doing Some Beautiful Nothing.

Wishes about…

There is no early and no late. I am right on time in my life and process.

Approaching with kindness.

Glowing boundaries with less effort: they hold themselves and adapt as needed, because the principles still stand. Again, this is about holding myself in higher regard.

Finding the good without forcing yourself to find the good

Finding treasure in the tangled, maybe even in the hurt.

Not forcing this, just staying curious and receptive to some hidden good.

You can’t push a silver lining and you can’t rush a silver lining, but you can stay ready, you can train at noticing.

We trained for this.

Solstice Obsessions

Let’s welcome some sweet summer obsessions.

Maybe I don’t know what they are yet, because I am in travel mode, on the road. Or pre-travel mode.

Though today I am traveling because I need someone to tend to my arm.

Maybe the new obsessions will reveal themselves. I hope so!

I love nothing more than landing on a good obsession. Or maybe it will find me first. Either way, I know it will be fun.

What am I looking forward to?

Is this even the right question? It doesn’t feel like it, or at least not yet.

Maybe that part is a surprise.

Right now I just want to get this trip over with, but what if I can be surprised by joy, surprised by sweetness, surprised by Loving Clarity, surprised by good things?

Seeding the qualities

Agility. Prowess.
Tenacity. Fierce.
Steadiness. Wildness.
Glowing. Alive.

I am tough, powerful, striking, dangerous, capable, and very funny. That’s a place to start. (You are here.)

Devoted to freedom, devoted to pleasure, devoted to devotion.

Finding the treasure in the deficits

Am I a bit of a chaos agent? Yes, but maybe that is what this mission requires. We trained for this.

Is it possible that I will get to Michigan and after twenty four hours be like, oh you know what, fuck this shit, I am out….????

Oh for sure, that’s an option, maybe even a likely one. Listen, babe. This trip doesn’t lose its value if we call it off as soon as we get there.

Am I feeling anxious, apprehensive and irritable? Sure. That’s reasonable!

The perceived disadvantages are not disadvantages

None of these things need to be disadvantages or reasons to think I can’t do what is needed. Or they don’t have to be.

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Or something like that.

I am the person for the job because I am the person for the job.

Solstice self, what do you know?

Solstice self says: stay with what you’re good at. Keep training compassion on yourself with a steady aim.

You will find the joys and the pleasures, you are good at that. You will stand up for yourself. You will be a beacon of loving clarity and high self regard.

These will be challenging, but you can do it. Eyes on the prize. (The prize being, as always, taking care of yourself because no one else is going to.)

Did you figure out what you’re angry about, babe? It’s that you’ve had to fight to take care of yourself, and you perceive that people don’t appreciate the amount of care and effort and fighting involved in making this trip happen.

Solstice self, what is needed?

Solstice self says: It doesn’t matter whether or not people understand your needs. You have to just stand on it anyway, you know?

Your needs don’t change based on whether external sources validate them or not. Your needs are your needs. Travel accordingly.

Don’t argue with people. Just build your time as needed, take your time as needed, nap as needed. I need to rest now. That’s a full sentence. Use it. Use it before you need it.

Any other advice for me?

Solstice self says: stay attuned to bobcat powers.

Bobcat powers include…

Unapologetic rest. Steady and fierce. Leave when you’re bored. Fully committed to instinct and reflexes. Stretch it out and luxuriate. Follow what is pleasurable.

Surround yourself with these panther and jaguar powers, this Big Cat Entourage of spiritual qualities, find your fierceness again and stay with it. You trained for this.

Be the big cat. This is your game.

Entering as we wish to be in it…

And exiting as we wish to continue…

Something I am taking with me from equinox to solstice: reacting less, resting more.

Something I am releasing: being too flexible and not boundaried, letting situations rattle me.

Something I am inviting in: those fierce yet playful bobcat qualities and abilities.

Let’s stay agile and let’s stay striking, nap time is for napping, play time is for playing, I can shift modes as needed.

Are things feeling intense right now?

Are things feeling intense right now? They are for me.

I think it’s the full moon, but maybe it’s this sensation of everything moving and shifting at once, even as I practice stillness as self-preservation.

What are your wishes for this new quarter?

Let’s keep asking these questions and see where they take us. What would you like for this new quarter?

I am lighting a candle for us. Oh wow, what beautiful wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.

Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company

You are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped or anything on your mind, make some wishes! I am lighting a candle for all of it.

Or anything you’d like to toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.

Whatever comes to mind (come to heart?), let’s support each other’s hope-sparks and wishes…

Thank you to everyone who reads, porch breaths, the winding path, the many clues that land when they land, receptivity, keeping on keeping on.

New ebook alert!!!

Aka fun bonus material on how I relate to time and map out my quarters for the year.

Anyone who gives to Barrington’s Discretionary this week (see below) will get this by email as a pdf!

A request

Stillness as self-preservation

by Havi Brooks | Jun 11, 2024 | my personal practice

high desert view of pink thistle flowers on a dusty trail

Resilient pink thistle flowers bringing some beauty to the dusty path…

Announcement & ebook reminder

You’ll get a copy as a thank you when you give any sum to Barrington’s Discretionary Fund, hope you enjoy!

More housekeeping: You can subscribe to posts by email again!

If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.

Stillness as self preservation

Various flavors

The American Southwest is going through a heat spell. A heat dome, they call it.

Love to be in a climate emergency, and all there is on offer is more phrases for the various flavors of disaster. A dome of heat. Fun times.

I am extremely fortunate to be high up at elevation, blessed by cool evening breezes.

The little metal box I call home gets pretty hot during the day, and I don’t have air conditioning, but I have a system.

I have a system

Siesta Life is based in getting up at an eerily early hour.

There’s movement practice for sanity, that happens in the dark. Then knocking out a couple hours of cooking, kitchen chores, clean up, answering emails if I have energy, and then calling it a day by 10:30am…

My bedroom is cool and dark and tiny, I keep the curtain closed and the little evaporative chiller filled with water, I climb onto the bed, and wait it out.

Last week, temperatures got up to 97 degrees Fahrenheit (36 Celsius), and some people might be thinking that’s not too bad compared to a lot of other places, and they’re not wrong, but also if that’s what they’re thinking then they might have air conditioning and probably don’t live in a metal box.

Nothing new under the hot sun

Obviously I am not the first to come up with this system of early morning doing, long afternoon nap, followed by a spell of not-doing, and just waiting it out. Siesta life already exists in the many hot places of the world.

It’s also how I was living nearly during my farm work in the desert days.

But the hours here are different and my living space is considerably smaller, so I put in some serious hours in bed, in part because there is nowhere else to be…

Well-meaning

Well meaning beloved friends keep texting asking if I’m staying cool, and it’s not that there’s anything wrong with the question, and I know they are concerned and trying to be kind…

And also, there’s not much I can do with that. Like, yes, I am laser-focused on staying cool, and I stay cool by doing absolutely nothing from 10:30am- 8:30pm, that’s the trick!!!! That’s my life!!!

Just living next to the chiller in my underwear, doing eight hour shifts of nothing.

Sometimes I’m a little ornery on the topic of staying cool, my only summertime pastime, but also: I don’t really think I mind it.

I don’t think I mind it

I don’t even think I would choose to have air conditioning given the option.

Though sure, I would absolutely choose towards some other home improvements that could help with keeping the sun off the metal siding, a better curtain situation, and so on.

These are things I sometimes think about during my long, long afternoons, from the sailboat-style bunk of my tiny bed in my tiny bedroom, in the dark, with the chiller pointed at my face.

Hibernating. Practicing some good Do Less To Get More. Or just doing less for self-preservation. As is required in this moment.

I don’t even know what I wish people would ask me instead.

Something about honoring self-preservation

Maybe it’s just that of course I’m staying cool, I literally have to in order to survive, my self preservation instincts are working, yes, good job, instincts.

Stillness is a form of self-preservation. Stillness as self-preservation.

Is it boring? That’s the wrong question. Is it the path? It is right now.

That’s the reality: this is not the season for doing.

Or, it’s the season for getting up at 3am and doing, and being worn out by mid-morning when the sun is high. I’m okay with that.

Something about hope

I live by the seasons more than many, or at least more than many I know, that’s not a bad thing.

Winter has its spells, its joys and obsessive behaviors: I kitchen-jog to stay warm, throw raucous dance parties to stay warm, make big pots of tea.

And summer here has its rituals as well. As wells.

If I can find joy-sparks, I can sustain hope. And if I am living with the seasons, then there is something hopeful (for me) in that.

I am staying close to my yeses, existing in slow time.

Something about devotion

Staying in bed all day might not seem like a devotional practice, but what if it is.

Drinking cold watermelon juice: a devotional practice. A three hour nap: devotional practice.

Fighting with myself: a devotional practice.

The great escape

This summer is somehow the fifth summer since moving out here, but two of those years were partial summers, because of other circumstances…

So it’s really only twice that I did the entire summer from June heat waves through monsoon season and made it through.

This summer I am taking off for points north and east, making my way to Michigan for a [mixed-feelings] project.

It is a little funny to plan a grand expedition from bed, but that’s how it’s happening.

Pain

My arm is hurting again, this happens when I am stressed and when I am angry.

I am asking the usual questions: what am I upset about, what do I need, what would help?

And from this additional place of forced rest, what can emerge?

Lost in perfect timing

My friend Cate met me very early in the morning by the auto body shop, and took me on a hike in the area so that I didn’t have to wait there while my car got fixed up for the trip.

We walked pretty trails, met some friendly dogs, got lost twice, and ended up taking a meandering way back through town. Just when we made it back to her car, the call came that my car was ready for pickup.

It worked out really well that we got lost.

Where is the treasure

I have been thinking a lot about Aesthetics of Activity — referenced by Thi Nguyen when considering cooking.

What makes an activity enjoyable or pleasurable or doable, or at least reduces friction? Where is my focus during that activity? What supports flow?

If my current summertime activity is living in bed, mostly, then what contributes or supports that? Where is the treasure in any of this?

Embarking

My voyage to Michigan is about undoing and releasing, shifting the energy, emptying a space, doing whatever is needed, exquisite self-tending, and a lot of quiet hours.

What is needed to enter into that state of mind, other than what I am already doing through Rest & Ritual & Readying?

A question is brewing, but what is it

Let’s skip a stone, or toss a question to my various incoming selves or current aspects of self…

Who is here? And what is the question?

Let’s confer with the selves.

And I want to ask about all of the above, about self-treasuring and siesta life, about this trip to Michigan, about living with the seasons, about devotion and rest and pain and healing and what is needed in and for all of this…

Can I love myself into doing less? What does that look like?

The Self of Cowboy Up says…

As always, you can absolutely focus on what is working, that’s your starting point.

Your chore time is limited, sometimes by illness and disability, sometimes by weather, sometimes by circumstances. We work around that, we bring focus when focus is what’s needed, and we rest when rest is needed.

Releasing judgment about chore time is a big part of chore time. We’ll get it done.

Analog Chrysalis self says…

There isn’t much to do but wait it out. Read one page of a cookbook and rest.

Are you inspired by all the symbolic liberation happening for the collective?

Your friend K submitted work for a course they started seven years ago. Your friend C finished the quilt she started making from her late husband’s shirts after he died nearly twenty years ago.

You are on your way to empty a house of things. Everyone is working on this together. The answer is not going to be on screens. The answer is going to be through touching objects with your own two hands right now.

You aren’t on your own. The collective is liberating things with you. Feel the support.

Scofield Self says

Work forwards and work backwards. You don’t need as much of a plan as you think.

What you do need, and you’ve trained for this, is a sanity plan.

Make a document that lists the things that help, the people who are there to lovingly listen and support, what you’re going to do when you get stuck in the muck of it all.

Cherry Season Self:

Oh, we absolutely trained for this.

Bring your Lush Plush & Slutty Summer self, your Devoted To Transformative Pleasures self, your Maximum Comfort Self, your Recalibrating Towards Joy Self.

What else is delicious other than cherries?

What are the summer delights, go seek them out or let them come to you, but stay attuned to pleasure.

Start with the simplest pleasures and give yourself over to them.

The Assassin says

We trained for this, we trained for this, we trained for this.

You can travel light. There’s always a country station. You can talk to all of us on the way. You are not alone in this. You can call Cate in the middle of the night if you need to, but you won’t need to. You’ve got this.

We trained hard all winter for a reason. It might be too hot for jogging now, but there are endless methods of training.

You have rested up for this. You have napped the long naps, you have put in the hours of Glorious Nothing. You have quick reflexes and good instincts. All is well.

What are the lessons in Stillness As Self-Preservation

Patience.
Devotion.
Loving Clarity.
Compassion.
Strategy.
Pleasure
Sweet Slowness.
Hope.

What are the pleasures in Stillness As Self-Preservation

Still figuring this out. Staying still. Figuring this out.

If you have spent many hours watching a bobcat (this is what I did back in Arizona), you know that in bobcat mode, there are times to wait patiently and gather powers, and there are times to pounce.

And of course, lots of naps.

I am gathering powers and napping, and the best thing I can do is remove judgment and add pleasure, expand my capacity for healing pleasure.

What’s next?

Hoping I can be on the road soon-ish.

There are still some things that haven’t fallen into place yet, and I’m waiting, but it’s coming. I can love myself into doing less. Or maybe I can’t, but it matters that I thought about it.

Temps are headed back up, but that’s okay too. I trained for this. Stillness as self-preservation, stillness as devotion…

A breath for our hearts, these times, existing in this time

These are heartbreaking, terrifying, agonizing, infuriating times, they just are, and it’s hard to hold onto hope for the world or for myself.

And, also things move and shift, this is known too, and I can support that through ritual and through my own stillness. Lighting a candle for peaceful swift solutions.

Things are moving and shifting whether I have faith or not. Solstice is coming.

Solstice is coming

Solstice is coming. The longest day and the longest night, and a new quarter begins for a new adventure.

Time to start seeding wishes, time to trust the stillness and the slowness, there is some good magic brewing even if it looks like nothing is happening.

The nothing is the work. The stillness and the waiting and the hoping is the work.

Or at least it’s one piece of the work, and the next piece will emerge. Trusting in that is also the work. Lighting a candle for this too.

Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company

You are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped or anything on your mind, make some wishes! I am lighting a candle for all of it.

Or anything you’d like to toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.

Whatever comes to mind (come to heart?), let’s support each other’s hope-sparks and wishes…

Thank you to everyone who reads, porch breaths, the winding path, the many clues that land when they land, receptivity, keeping on keeping on.

New ebook alert!!!

Aka fun bonus material on how I relate to time and map out my quarters for the year.

Anyone who gives to Barrington’s Discretionary this week (see below) will get this by email as a pdf!

A request

The dream of there and not there

by Havi Brooks | Jun 5, 2024 | my personal practice

high desert view of low green trees with mountains in the background

Hiking is where I go when I feel disoriented, when I need to reset perspective and to remember the place of remembering…

Announcement & ebook reminder

You’ll get a copy as a thank you when you give any sum to Barrington’s Discretionary Fund, hope you enjoy!

More housekeeping: You can subscribe to posts by email again!

If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.

The dream of there and not there

A recurring dream

When I was little, like three to seven, that age, I used to have this recurring nightmare that I couldn’t find my parents, or really, that I couldn’t trust them to be themselves.

Which really is an incredible way for a child to subconsciously process an unstable situation.

In the dream, I would be looking for my parents, and then I would see them and run towards them, but it always turned out to be a parade of couples who all looked exactly like my parents, strolling past me.

Some would ignore me. Others would try to convince me that they were my real parents. But I had no way of knowing, and they all looked identical.

Familiar and not familiar

I have a number of friends who also are dealing with a Dementia Parent right now, and two friends who are dealing with the situation of Schizophrenia Kid, and so we trade stories about a very familiar situation.

The person you are interacting with looks like and sounds like the person you care about, and they are, but also they aren’t.

They’re there, and they aren’t. And it’s hard to say which of these is more bewildering and disorienting.

They are and they aren’t

Sometimes they misunderstand what is happening at such a fundamental level that there is no way to bridge to where they are.

Sometimes they lash out and say cruel things. Sometimes they seem to be here with you in shared reality but are actually in a delusion.

Sometimes the delusion is horrifying and sometimes the delusion is ridiculous, but I prefer it when it’s clearly a delusion either way, and not when I have to piece together what might be real.

Will the real Slim Shady please stand up

I am actually surprised there isn’t more cultural output on this topic, given how common it is.

It shows up in horror, a genre I don’t spend much time with unless I’m listening to Sarah Marshall talk about it on a podcast.

And Eminem wrote a song about, among other things, being surrounded by imitators, and the disorienting feeling of trying to find yourself when everyone is trying to be you. Which is not the same thing but it lives on the same plane.

And of course there is the trope of the imposter, the lost beloved person who returns after a long time away, and is or isn’t a conman. The not knowing.

Pandemic life

I am an immunocompromised person with Long Covid, and it is impossible for me to know who is sick and who is not, because no one tests, and there are new variants, and no one cares, and something like up to 60% of people don’t show symptoms.

Much like my childhood nightmare, this is also a situation in which I can’t guess who might help me and who might harm me.

And sure, maybe they don’t know either, but everyone is pretending that everything is fine, when nothing is fine.

Even getting a cold could send me to bed for a month. People think I’m paranoid, but let’s be honest here, I don’t think I am nearly paranoid enough.

Alive

I think a lot about trauma shifts reality as well, and how to stay anchored in the right here right now, even when there are mind tricks.

For me, pleasure is what is grounding. Returning to sensation. And if I can’t access pleasure, then ritual.

Also though I keep coming back to this amazing piece by Etgar Keret called Alive…

Alive

By Etgar Keret:

Alive
Sometimes,
when I look at my rabbit
lounging on the living room rug,
he seems to be waiting for something.
It only looks like he’s waiting,
he’s living.
With me, by the way, it’s the opposite:
I’m always waiting for something,
it only looks like I’m alive.

Can’t stop

For me what makes a good story or poem or a good anything is if I can’t stop turning it over in my head. But not in a distressed way, in a curious and hungry way.

That “by the way” is so good. By the way.

It reminds me of Justin Townes Earle hauntingly perfect laughing-question / question-laugh in his luminous cover of Graceland, which I wrote about in early pandemic, when I was fully losing my mind.

Fully losing my mind and coming back to the place that I go to when I lose myself, the saguaro national forest…

Returning to my wise friends who know about deep roots, flowering crowns, pulling sustenance from every drop, holding steady, marking the path with love.

Disorienting

What am I waiting for? For the world to re-orient itself? It won’t.

So I need to attune myself to something that is both new and familiar, something that is mine, that makes sense to me, something with a coherent-to-me logic.

Sanctuary space, while still craving community and dreaming up future ways it could be an option again.

Reorienting

When I talk with my dad and he says things that are not grounded in any kind of consensus reality, this situation feels familiar to me, but also disorienting. It is both at the same time.

Sometimes I feel as though I am falling down a tunnel, that is both forwards and down, losing my orientation in space.

It is the dream again, but not.

Reestablishing connection with the earth

Things that help (for me) include…

rolling around on the floor,
sixteen breaths,
naming what is around me,
going for a clue walk, or just taking one with my senses,
dancing it out,
listening to a trusty song,
making tea or cooking something,
rereading a page of a favorite book that I have read many times

Returning to place

Got beautiful clues from the Abacus Corvus newsletter, which had an image of homing pigeons and the words return to place, as a spell.

They took the words from Sefer Yetzirah, “and if your heart runs, return to the Place”.

This must be The Place

That’s a joke, kind of. In Hebrew, The Place is one of the names for god, or divine source, or whatever your word for that might be.

This must be The Place. You are here.

Here we are, existing, in the hardships and in the miracles of it all.

Here we are, existing. (You are here.)

Here we are, existing, just doing our level best at life, and then we encounter these situations that are bewildering, disorienting, sometimes terrifying.

Of course our sweet heart wants to run. That makes so much sense.

And do you know what is also true: we can always call it back to the place. Calling ourselves back to the place.

Homing time, to the one steady home. What a great clue from Abacus Corvus.

What do you do

I mean, other than calling to my heart like calling to a puppy friend who went ahead on the path.

Come on, sweetpea, are you coming back to meet me? Oh! There you are!

I don’t know.

It is also a bewildering experience for when I am in my own periods of memory not working, or a ptsd episode.

You never know

But at least that’s between me and me, and I am able to find my way through.

It is an even more bewildering experience when someone I know loses that grounding in reality and I have to find a bridge of connecting.

Maybe there is one and maybe there isn’t. That’s the thing, isn’t it? You never know.

The advice

Don’t argue with them but also don’t lie, was the advice I was given regarding talking to a dementia patient who says things that are wildly untrue (but possibly true for them), and that’s been working so far. That, and subject change. That, and distractions.

And talking about food. What did you eat today? It’s grounded in the here and now, it’s about nourishment, and both of us need to be reminded to eat.

Mainly though I just agree with him. Oh, you’re planning on doing something that is impossible in ten different ways? Sounds great, keep me posted. Sounds like an adventure, let me know how it goes!

Dreams

Please enjoy this brand new to the world cover of All I Have To Do Is Dream

I keep having dreams about people coming to visit me. I dream about cooking for people. I dream about being happy to see people.

Maybe this is about missing how things were before.

In one dream my dad came and told me stories that weren’t true about how I got into cooking, and in the dream, I knew the stories weren’t true, but he was so happy to tell them, so why not.

Why not.

Repeating

I love hearing about people’s recurring childhood dreams, especially if Roz Chast is the one talking about this, and am always surprised that mine doesn’t show up on the list.

People have a lot of dreams about being in their underwear. And for whatever reasons, I dream about people being physically recognizable but they are not really there.

Or maybe they are but I can’t determine which version of them is trustworthy. There are no reliable narrators. Just illusion and delusion.

I have to trust myself.

Isn’t that something?

Last one standing

It’s a zombie apocalypse and everyone looks fine, and is acting like everything is fine, and things are not fine (for me). It’s like a Cassandra complex but I’m not predicting anything, it’s just happening and people think I am paranoid.

So in a lot of ways I relate to my dad, who thinks people are trying to steal his things and gets upset when no one believes him. I get what that’s like too.

I think people are trying to steal what’s left of my health, but I know that there’s no point in trying to talk about it, everyone is back to “normal”.

Maybe consensus reality isn’t always the best reality. But now I’m the one repeating myself…

Returning to returning to returning (to place)

Yes, a glorious return to the things that help, the things that work, remembering to call my heart to stay with me, let’s be here now, let’s stay attuned to place, and to The Place.

This must be the place.

This must be The Place.

What’s the answer?

If you’re going through any of this or similar or same-same but different, I am sorry that you are going through it.

And also I am sorry that I don’t have any answers for you.

Haha, not only do I not have your answers, I don’t even have my answers.

But what I do have — for me at least, right now at least, is a couple starting points…

Some possible starting points…

Starting with and starting from:

Compassion — for me, for the situation, for the person, for the unknowables, for the gap of the great unknown. All of it.

Patience: May this solve itself beautifully and elegantly. I can wait and see.

Comfort. What would help me, support me, comfort me, ground me, stabilize, offer some nourishing sweetness here?

Devotion. To place, to sky, to earth, to ritual and repetition, to porch breaths and heart breaths, to chopping vegetables and saying thank you for all of it.

Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company

You are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped or anything on your mind, make some wishes! I am lighting a candle for all of it.

Or anything you’d like to toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.

Whatever comes to mind (come to heart?), let’s support each other’s hope-sparks and wishes…

Thank you to everyone who reads, porch breaths, the winding path, the many clues that land when they land, receptivity, keeping on keeping on.

New ebook alert!!!

Aka fun bonus material on how I relate to time and map out my quarters for the year.

Anyone who gives to Barrington’s Discretionary this week (see below) will get this by email as a pdf!

A request

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