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.

Some election day breaths

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

wild funnel clouds taking up the whole sky

Taking breaths in the wild and breath-taking times: The wild sky above my friend’s house

Some election day breaths

Breathing for the collective

Breathing for the collective. Breathing for / with / towards the collective, or: just breathing. With the collective in mind. With the intention of a better place, a better way.

Or just one breath.

Inhaling and exhaling. For a better world or for feeling a little better in this moment.

Or just to remember that we can notice when we are tensing and holding, forgetting to breathe. Good job noticing.

Remembering to breathe now. Tending to the tensing through noticing, exhaling.

A breath for all of this

I know that many people who read what I write here are not located in the United States, but I also know that the agonizing tension of our high-stakes debacle is felt all over.

That’s fun, our national nightmare is also an international nightmare, great stuff.

A breath for how much it all is. SO SO MUCH. A breath for the enormity of the stakes, the enormity of the ambient anxiety.

A breath for remembering that I don’t have to carry the worry of the world, I can tend to what’s mine in this moment.

Nourishment for the collective

A thousand points, at least, to me, for staying nourished, for anything I do to stay nourished.

I have heard that some brave heroes out there (friends of mine) have been getting some veggies in with today’s stress-eating, and good job to them.

If pumpkin is a vegetable, then my cake-for-breakfast pumpkin bread included some veggie content. Also there were jalapeños in one of my rounds of snacks. A+ work, good job to me.

It all counts. Nourishment is nourishing. My body knows how to extract nutrients from stress snacks too. Good job, wise body.

Good job to me. Good job to all of us. Blessings upon the nourishment.

A breath for whatever we are doing to take care of ourselves

Any self-care port in a storm, any port of focus in a storm, and this is a hell of a storm.

Seriously it is WILD out there today. The vibes are banana-pants, as someone from 2016 would say, and certainly the trauma of November 2016 feels very present right now.

Good lord, I keep having flashbacks to the underwater feeling of that moment, the shock-despair-horror-dread of 2016 and thinking: I AM NOT PREPARED. And yet, here we are.

A breath for acknowledging that this is really not fun

It’s not fun. It sucks!

Also, fuck the electoral college, how do we still not have a representative democracy where individual votes matter the way they should?

Also I keep thinking about how deeply embarrassing it is that we are somehow here again, in this preposterous and terrifying moment of too close for comfort, of so much is at stake but it could go either way.

Feels like waiting to find out if the meteor is a direct hit or just a very uncomfortable bump that will also probably be bad but not as bad. Good times.

A breath for having to exist right now. We are brave and stalwart, we are getting through this moment, however we get there.

Movement for the collective

A one song dance party for the collective.

Rolling around on the floor for the collective.

Shaking head no no no no no no to the nonsense, for the collective.

A favorite stretch for the collective. A gentle neck stretch for me, and maybe a reclining side twist.

A five minute walk (or backwards-walk!) for the collective. Maybe I will walk to the mailbox and back.

Did I do 888 extremely modified sun-salutations for the collective because when I am anxious I need to keep moving until I calm down? Yes, that was me. I will probably do some bonus-jogging around the kitchen because I am full of nervous energy that needs to be expended.

A breath for wishes of safety

A breath for all trans friends, you are in my heart, held in love, and I know that is not enough, but we are hoping hard, wishing hard, invoking, lighting candles, taking a breath. Safety and sanctuary for you and your loved ones.

A breath for everyone in danger in this moment, for all of us looking down the barrel, so to speak, bravely keeping on.

Taking a breath. Taking sixteen breaths.

Shifting the moment by being present in the moment and acknowledging the fear, making room for this very human experience.

And if you are not functioning or barely functioning, you are in good company. That’s a reasonable reaction to current reality.

Make some noise for the collective

Laughing at a silly video of a pile of puppies for the collective.

Cry-laughing for the collective.

Screaming into the abyss for the collective.

We are making some sounds.

Distractions for the collective

Reading something that takes place in a different world for the collective.

Enjoying art for the collective.

Appreciating something delicious and decadent for the collective. A little hedonism at the end of the world.

I made vegan vanilla gelato, and it is so good, and I brought some over to a friend’s place so it’s there in a moment of need, and I hope that moment of need is joyous and celebratory, full of relief, but either way it’s there.

Counting for the collective / counting on the collective

Counting all the ways that Now Is Not Then. This moment might remind me of November 2016, and yet so much is true now that was not true then.

Many things have changed for the better, in many ways I am more equipped for this moment. Counting and recounting.

Taking sixteen breaths for the collective

Having a good yawn or several yawns or thirty-eight yawns for the collective. Counting these too.

It all counts. Whatever we are doing. Good job getting through. Good job making your way through this emotional storm. We are here, we are taking breaths, we are here for each other. It counts.

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, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…

I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-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 or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…

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.

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 the 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. ❤️

Safety & Sanctuary / spells for scary times

by Havi Brooks | Oct 27, 2024 | my personal practice

light hitting a juniper tree and illuminating it

More small sweet joys: Gorgeous high desert October light hitting beloved juniper trees

A quick note about vocabulary

Obviously, we all have different associations with words.

I used the word spells here, and I get that some people reading might have an aversion to spells. They might prefer to think about Safety & Sanctuary wishes, someone else might be okay with the idea of a prayer or an intention for Safety & Sanctuary. An invocation maybe…

Rewrite as you see fit of course, as always, and with everything. Make it work for you.

For me, spells is a playful word that connotes possibility, and I also absolutely get that it might not have the same reverberation for someone else. Totally fine.

Safety & Sanctuary Spells / Spells for scary times

A story about a gate

While I was away for three months, on Operation Circumspice which turned into the Michigan Marathon of Mercilessness & Mercy, and culminated in the received wisdom of Not What But How, I worried quite a bit about how my tiny home by the forest was doing without me.

Every few weeks when a friend from town took a long country drive and went by my place, I felt relieved when they checked in on things and reported that everything looked good.

No broken bottles in the driveway tossed from cars, no invasion of skunks, no signs of disturbance.

But one day I got a text from someone I don’t trust, saying that my gate was knocked down, off its hinges.

It all hinges on speed

I arranged for a local handyperson to come by that weekend, and they got the gate to function as a gate again, though they didn’t wish to hazard a guess about what might have knocked down a locked gate, a sturdy metal farm gate no less.

Now that I’m back, I was able to get a second opinion and am having the gate more thoroughly attended to, putting on new hinges for starters…

The consensus now is that it wasn’t an animal or a force of nature; whoever did this was a person and they used a truck to do it, probably the kind with a bumper protector on the front.

My driveway is a little tricky to turn into, and the topography demands slowness, which means they had to navigate a long driveway slowly, then speed up fast when they got close to have enough power to knock it down.

Unease

It is difficult to imagine a scenario by which this could have been an accident, or user error, or alcohol-related or all the ways I want to make up a story that could explain away how this happened.

Reality seems to be that someone wanted to knock my gate down, did it with some level of aggression, and succeeded. Maybe they didn’t know whose gate it was, and maybe they did.

I have been feeling uneasy about this.

But/and/also…

I suspect I am also feeling uneasy about maybe twenty other things that are not this, at least, and the gate unease is serving as a nexus for all my other unease to land and to amplify itself, if that makes sense.

In other words, there was already ambient angst, ambient unease, and the distressing gate situation is magnetized in the right way that all the other unease can stick to it.

Stirring the stew of upset feelings

When I wake up at 3am feeling anxious about a noise or a dream, I find myself stirring this stew of unease about the gate.

I notice that feel very upset in addition to feeling anxious, and when I investigate feeling upset, I find that I also feel angry.

Some people feel anger first and then there is anxiety or grief or other feelings hiding out underneath it. Other people, and I am in this group, often feel anxiety first, and then upon further investigation find that the anger is the layer beneath it…

The messenger with one message

Something I have taken with me, taken very much to heart and mind, from Karla McLaren’s book on emotions, is that anger is a messenger, and the message is always the same message:

A boundary has been crossed, and a boundary needs to be restored.

A boundary has been crossed, and a boundary needs to be restored.

Making space for the messenger and the form of the message

Thank you, messenger, for the message, I say in the early dark hours when I am having anxiety and unease about the gate that turns out to be anger, but really it is about everything in my life and in this world we are living in, and not just about the gate.

Though also yes, I feel angry that someone knocked down my gate. More angry than I’d realized.

My anger is a helpful message; it is also useful if not particularly enjoyable to observe just how much resistance I have to the work or practice of restoring the boundaries.

What else do we know about boundaries?

I was talking this over with my friend Cate when we went on our monthly hike, something I missed terribly while I was away. I missed Cate, and I missed our walks at high elevation amidst the grasses, the juniper trees and the magical light.

Cate said something very reasonable and relatable about a fear of over-doing boundaries, like what if we just keep walling ourselves off until nothing is left…

And I think sometimes we can confuse a boundary with a wall, when a wall is only one very specific type of boundary. Provisional boundaries exist. So semi-permeable boundaries, like the way that cells that know how to take in nourishment and filter out what is not helpful.

A boundary can take many possible shapes and forms

A boundary can take many shapes and forms, and right now I am thinking about boundaries as filters, something that allows you to welcome in support and decline what is not supportive…

So I am dropping this idea — that boundaries do not necessarily need to be walls, into the cauldron of solutions, as a sort of conceptual bay leaf, just in case that thought is helpful for anyone else.

If it feels like too much to think about right now, or is bringing up too much stuff, we can let it go.

Into the cauldron of It Solves Itself

When I notice that I am non-stop worrying about the worry-inducing things, or the seemingly unsolvable mysteries, or I think I don’t yet know how to restore the boundary, or I do know but I am feeling anxious about putting it into practice…

In all of these scenarios, I imagine a large, round three-footed cauldron over a fire. Solid, cast-iron, formidable, taking up space. There is a vitality to the relationship between cauldron and fire.

This is the cauldron of It Solves Itself, and I put all of my wishes and all of my worries into the cauldron of It Solves Itself. With love, and with patience, and knowing that the most vital ingredient is time.

It is not my job to be the problem-solver, that is for the cauldron

My job is to notice what wants to go into the cauldron of solving, not to solve it all myself.

It is not my job to solve every single problem, and certainly not at 3am when I am too tired to come up with good ideas or generate solutions anyway, or even to differentiate between what is solvable by me and what isn’t.

My piece in this is to notice the fear-worry-anger, the fragility and vulnerability, the wish for elegant simple solutions, the wish for restored boundaries, the not-knowing, all of it.

And to deposit these into the cauldron. To let the cauldron do the work while I sleep on it, and beyond.

Safety and Sanctuary, into the cauldron…

When I can’t sleep because I am upset about the gate, which is also me worrying about the very-soon upcoming November United States presidential election, cycling through anxiety about how fucking much is on the line in this election…

Or, when I can’t sleep because I am upset about the gate, which is to say that I am feeling upset and furious that Netanyahu is still in power in Israel, which is also broader geopolitical angst, which is also existential worry, and is also the very human distress at the ongoing progression of horrific developments, and so on…

All of these scenarios have the same need, the same wish. Safety and Sanctuary.

Into the cauldron

Safety and Sanctuary.

For me, for the literal physical entry point to the place where I live.

Safety and Sanctuary for everyone who is in harm’s way whether from an election or a terrible government or the horrors and abominations of a cruel war, the ongoing atrocities…

Safety and Sanctuary for all of it, safety and sanctuary for each of us, and for everyone we love. This wish is going into the cauldron, may solutions emerge swiftly and speedily, may the solutions bring an easing to the unease…

X breaths, backwards breaths

When I can’t sleep, I count a certain number of breaths backwards of into the cauldron of it solves itself…

For example: 50, It is solving itself, 49, Into the cauldron of it solves itself, 48, I agree to let this solve itself…

Letting things percolate in the cauldron of It Solves Itself is also related to taking breaths of Ten Percent More Relaxed.

Sometimes I do both at the same time.

Oh right, I forgot about the option of a little bit more relaxed

Sometimes just the act of depositing my worries into the cauldron of It Solves Itself can remind me that being Ten Percent More Relaxed is even an option that’s available to me.

Or two percent. We can start wherever feels possible. We can just give it a try. What would that feel like, to be a small amount more relaxed?

I can feel my shoulders soften a little. I can let my jaw release a little, and then let it release again. Maybe a good yawn. Yes, that feels good. Settling into a position that’s a little more comfortable.

Yes, let’s do a clearing out

How much of this worry-anxiety-tension that I’m experiencing is really and truly mine, as opposed to bits of ambient worry floating around in the air, that I may have picked up from the internet or just from existing?

If let’s say that 2% of my anxiety belongs to me, then this other 98% of accumulated external anxiety can be given to the mountains to transform into potential energy…

How much of this worry-tension-anxiety is from now, and isn’t old anxiety from then that I have been lugging around with me out of habit?

Any anxiety that is not from right now can also go whooshing out of my body-mind to be transformed by the cosmos, not my job.

I am releasing this excess worry and asking for Safety & Sanctuary, for myself, for my home, for the people I love, for everyone in harm’s way, this beautiful wish can go into the cauldron of It Solves Itself…

Into the cauldron: Safety & Sanctuary, ceasefire now, miracles, miracles, miracles

I have people I love with family in Iran, in Lebanon, in Gaza — safety and sanctuary for the people I love and the people they love; safety and sanctuary for everyone in harm’s way.

Obviously I worry tremendously about my friends and family in Israel protesting the nightmare of a government and trying to maintain some semblance of sanity in between air raid sirens, our hearts with the hostages and their families, and at the same time I also experience this same tremendous worry and terror for everyone in Gaza.

Like everyone I know, I am broken by the images, the heartbreaking horrors and agonizing devastation of this cruel war, the appalling war crimes, all of it.

Safety and Sanctuary for everyone, ceasefire now, miracles, miracles, miracles, this is the prayer that is going into the cauldron, up into the sky, deep into the mountains, wherever it needs to go.

Everything connecting

When I am thinking about how upset I am about the Israeli government, I am also thinking about what it means more generally when the government of your country is run by zealots and narcissists, which could be coming to a theater near me.

That is to say, I am worried about the upcoming U.S. election, and all the potential avenues for chaos, regardless of outcome, but I am also worried about the outcome…

And so on. Some of this is from then, aka reverberations of January 6, and some of this is from a further-back then, aka ancestral.

I am noticing all of it, and breathing compassion for myself, and letting it all go into the cauldron of solutions.

Into the cauldron it goes

Safety from hurricanes, safety from cruel laws, safety from bombings, safety from unjust systems, safety from the kind of people who think a gate (or any form of a boundary) is an invitation to try to knock it down.

What would it feel like to give this to the cauldron of solutions instead of being the 3am stirrer-of-anxiety-stew?

A breath for remembering that this is even an option.

A breath for being a human in this world of scary situations, keeping on keeping on.

Is this enough?

Of course not, in the same way that voting is not enough. Into the cauldron is not the endgame, nor is it the answer.

And, at 3am when you can’t sleep because of the too-many-worries-to-name, it is absolutely enough. It is enough for that moment, because all we can do at 3am is meet the moment.

Tending to ourselves in the tender moments, this is the work of life. It’s good for us and it’s good for the collective.

To whenever that may be, amen (peace, compromise, amen)

The scary things aren’t going to get less scary, until they do, whenever that may be.

We can acknowledge how scary they are, cultivate fortitude, glow sweetness towards ourselves, and keep wishing for a better word, and yes, all that is an accompaniment to whatever actions we choose to take out in the world.

This is one of the many ways we can support the collective, and it is definitely not everything.

There’s work to be done; we are going to do our best to stay grounded and clear so that we can take part in it in whatever way we can. A breath and a candle for this too.

Peace, Compromise, Amen

I keep wishing for peace (peace, peace, peace), and when I do this, two things come to mind.

One is an English professor I studied with in the mid—90s reading The Wasteland, reading to us but really doing a reading for us, channeling T.S. Eliot and something deeper:

Shantih Shantih Shantih. Peace Peace Peace.

Asserting it. Invoking it. Naming it three times.

But I also think about the wise words of Etgar Keret, who knows and reminds us that peace prayers can be wishful thinking or political lies, and that compromise and now are the real prayers.

I am also thinking about how he told Terry Gross that when we say “bring them back NOW” about the hostages, the now is like an amen, both in the sense that it is a heartfelt plea, and in the sense that it feels hopeless to ask (god, the government, anyone) for help in this terrible situation.

Belief and not belief

I believe in the power of naming, invoking, asserting, or at least in the ability of these practices to calm us, ground us, inspire us, reassure us, keep us holding on.

Not sure what else they do, but also not sure the what else is the important part, if that makes sense.

I am more focused on the 3am moments, and placing what I can into the cauldron, as a practice, but yes, maybe also as a prayer.

May it help. Amen/Peace/Compromise/Amen.

Back to the gate

So far one part got solved – an electronic gate that needs a code to open, but unfortunately someone delivering a package found a workaround and was able to pull the gate open enough to walk through, so now I need a workaround to counter their workaround.

There is one possible option that would do the trick and keep everyone out but is expensive, another option that involves putting up a sign saying something to the effect of “electronic gate, please don’t pull”.

Or there is the option of simply not ordering anything to be delivered, something I only do maybe twice a month anyway, and simply giving the cauldron some time to offer up a better solution than either of the first two options…

What comes first, let’s find out

Maybe once I am feeling less prickly about this crossed boundary, a creative solution will emerge.

Or maybe I need to just protect the boundary, for my own sense of safety, and feeling less prickly can come later.

Noticing, adding compassion, noticing some more

I am noticing that I am having a very strong physical and emotional reaction to the idea of someone opening my gate when I don’t want them to open my gate.

Then I apply Acknowledgment & Legitimacy to this noticing; add compassion and stir.

Acknowledgment & Legitimacy, in practice:

Of course it is logical, reasonable, so very understandable, that I’m having a strong reaction to a boundary being crossed after three months of dealing with non-stop boundary issues in what my therapist friends refer to as the ancestral home, the place I remember from childhood, a time of the opposite of sanctuary.

Of course it makes sense that I am upset about the gate when I have neighbors with flags that say TAKE AMERICA BACK.

Of course the gate is a stand-in for any number of fears, and, even if it was just about the gate, it’s also okay that I am upset about the gate.

What a human reaction to someone crossing a boundary, what a human reaction to a loss of privacy, what a human reaction to perceived threat, whether intentional or not.

It is okay that I am feeling what I am feeling

It is okay that I am feeling what I am feeling, I am letting both the emotions and the narratives move through me and find their way out of my body.

Safety and sanctuary for me, for the situation, for whatever the situation is bringing up or the ways it might be reminding me of experiences in my past…

A human being in a human moment, a breath and an imaginary candle for comfort, safety, ease, release.

A breath and an imaginary candle lit for everyone. Safety and sanctuary all around. Regrounding. A peace vigil of the heart. I want better for everyone. A breath for that too.

(Now Amen Peace Compromise Yes)

What would you like to give to the cauldron of It Solves Itself

Maybe the question itself is something that can be given to the cauldron.

Maybe some of what we put in to the cauldron doesn’t have words yet.

Safety and sanctuary for the process and practice, for being brave enough to trust and try.

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, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…

I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-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 or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…

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.

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!

Small sweet joys

by Havi Brooks | Oct 23, 2024 | my personal practice

the tiniest chocolate muffin on a tiny ceramic plate, with a penny for scale, the penny being about an eighth of the muffin

Small sweet joys, literally: I baked the tiniest chocolate coconut muffin for what would have been my mom’s 80th birthday, penny for scale

Small sweet joys

Strawberries, always

A friend gave me a jar of crushed strawberry vinegar, found on the sale rack at the back of a supermarket. I love that people in my life know I am always in the market for an unusual vinegar.

At the moment I am infusing a cup of it with cloves in a glass jar on the kitchen table, and missing Michael.

When I am missing, what am I missing

Michael is my wise and funny chef friend who died this past year, my co-conspirator in all taste-related joy-experiments.

I want to tell him about the cloves, ask him what he thinks, if it’s too much intensity. I think he would do coriander instead.

But also he knows about how I am a Flavor Maximalist, so he would support my choice. He’d be excited to know how it turns out either way, I can tell you that.

Hanging out

The clove-infused strawberry vinegar is for a peach shrub. The peaches are macerating with sugar and smoked cinnamon in the refrigerator, they have been there since Thursday.

I think I’m going to pull out my mom’s immersion blender and give them some help. With the immersing. I am missing her too.

And then I am going to add the vinegar infusion, and give it all a few more days to hang out.

I want to ask Michael about this too, what he thinks about infusing the vinegar separately. So the vinegar is hanging out with herbs while the fruit hangs out with the sugars, and then they meet up.

Infusion

I want to ask Michael about infusions. He always had dozens of ferments going, jars upon jars, so many gorgeous vibrant experiments.

Michael: a joy-infusion of a human being.

How am I going to keep infusing things with pleasure and meaning, how am I ever going to know enough about this work of melding? I guess I just have to keep going and find out.

I know from decades of movement practices (yoga, feldenkrais, dance etc) that you can infuse a moment.

You can infuse a moment

You use intention, attention, and breath.

Maybe a little magic, I don’t know how to explain it better than that. But it can be done.

The thing about not knowing / the grief of what is missing

There is a lovely certainty I can access when I am trying to feel into the qualities involved in missing my friend.

That is to say, I know without a doubt that Michael would be enthusiastic about my questions, happy for me, excited for my experiment, curious, imagining all the flavor combinations, his beautiful brain generating further experiments. These are the knowns.

And then there are all the unknowns. The coriander, for example. The ideas and suggestions he would have that I am not thinking of, the questions I don’t know to ask.

Imagining

How do you know the unknowns? You don’t.

I don’t know what he’d say. Something wise or caring probably, something that would fill my heart with warmth.

I have to imagine what these missing pieces are or might be.

Missing

I want his take on this shrub because I want what I am missing, and what I am missing is not just him but all the missing pieces of what he would say in this situation.

Or any situation.

I miss him, and I miss what I am missing, and I don’t know exactly what I am missing because it is missing.

A peach shrub is a small sweet joy

I wrote last year (the year before? what is time?), okay, a while ago, about the theme of Something To Look Forward To, about how vital it is to have sources of positive anticipation in your life.

Something to look forward to (a peach shrub).

Stay here, stay with us, there is going to be a peach shrub, and it is going to be delicious. I am infusing strawberry vinegar with cloves for us.

We will drink it with sparkling water from tall glasses with a metal straw. The light will be bouncing off the cottonwood trees, which are a vibrant shade of gold. Stick around, it will be so good.

Another fun thing

In addition to countering my fear of abandonment and fear of loss with infused vinegars and jars of fruit sitting in brown cinnamon sugar, I did something else with the gift of crushed strawberry vinegar.

I took a handful of dried cranberries and simmered them in a tablespoon of the strawberry vinegar and two tablespoons of water (I am at high elevation, if you are not then one tablespoon water should be fine) until they became plump and sticky.

These got added to warm golden rice along with diced jalapeño, it was a flavor combination for the ages.

Let’s come up with more flavor combinations for the ages. That’s something to look forward to too, right? Yes.

Fall

Here in the northern hemisphere at least, fall is here. It got a very late start in New Mexico, but it’s here with wild winds and fall color, with bursts of rain and surprise rainbows.

I love fall, and also it always comes with some melancholy, some trepidation, knowing that the cold and dark are coming, knowing that I am, as always, unprepared for the bitterest moments. I am going to have to tough it out like I always do.

Gotta stay ready.

Gotta stay ready (name the small joys)

There are lots of ways to stay ready of course.

Stocking up on tea lights. Making batches of soup stock to freeze. And of course, listing small joys, little delights I can look forward to.

Listing them, yes. Let’s name small joys. Let’s have an abundance of small joys that we can call on.

Like a dopamine menu — a big thank you to Alexis Reliford for bringing this to my attention, among many other great suggestions.

Or maybe it’s more like a things that work menu, because sometimes it’s hard to remember what dopamine feels like.

Things that help more than you think they will

I keep a running list in the category of [Things that help more than I think they will even if they don’t help as much as I want them to].

Here are some of mine in case that helps you figure out yours…

Five minutes of stretching and rolling on the floor for example.
A one song meditation.
A DIY mini-pedicure by the front door.
Massaging hands with sunflower seed oil.
Heating pad. Tea. Favorite socks. Warming things. Or cooling things, depending on your season.
Journaling (stone skipping) for a few minutes.
Petting my imaginary dog who is also not-not a real dog, Ruthie Bean Bean, a stuffed animal toy puppy whose quiet reassuring soft company got me through my ordeal of a trip to Michigan and back – some day I will remember to post a photo of Ruthie Bean Bean so you can see their sweet face!

Ritual

Many of my small joys are rituals or ritualized.

Like making chocolate cinnamon banana bread for C&C Ritual Factory, aka Coffee & Cake Club which is sometimes Chai & Cake Club, my little pre-breakfast of sweetness and warmth.

Or massaging my wood bowls and cutting board with oil on new moon and full moon, spa day for the wood, it feels so happy, and then I am happy when the wood is happy.

A friend calls this a house-blessing, and while it is not quite the phrase my brain is looking for, there is something in there. Something about magic and intention, something about the way it calms me.

What calms me

There is the repetition element of ritual, the repeated movement is soothing, but also the repetition in the calendar, there it is again.

There is also room for newness, for innovation, for switching it up.

I am not married to doing it the exact same way every single time. I will do it the same way until the new way suggests itself, or until the old way runs its course.

Ritual as neurodivergent excellence.

What else am I looking forward to

Soup season.

Delicious hot beverages in a favorite mug.

Turtlenecks and beanies. Warm cozy everything in general.

I have a new scarf, it was a gift, I am excited to wear it constantly.

Something about the power of small doses of decadence

A few years ago, I briefly overcame my aversion to one-use kitchen appliances and got a fancy milk frother. I tend to forget that it exists in the summer, but when the cool weather arrives, and I take it out for the first Decadent Hot Beverage, that’s a lovely moment.

The other day I remembered that I have chicory and burdock root, so I made a decaffeinated Decadent Hot Beverage with these, some cinnamon and vanilla, a chai syrup I’d made for baking, and frothed up some oat milk to make it fancy. I might be a cowboy doing my chores, but my beverage game is top of the line.

And yes, it helped more than I thought it would. Something about festive, something about making something beautiful and extra-extra, just for me.

What else do we want to play with, in the category of Small Joys?

You can brainstorm your own list of things to try, things to look forward to, anything that might help.

It might even help more than you think it will, and even if it doesn’t help as much as you want it to (very normal, very relatable!), non-zero mood shifting is still helpful.

It all counts, and maybe it is also a form of fractal magic, which is to say that these seemingly small shifts are doing more work under the surface, and seeding good things for the future…

Some small sweet joys – any small sweet joy port in a storm, right?

I am lighting a candle for any and all small joys we can come up with, anything that supports you.

Postscript the first

Today was going to be a different topic, something I wrote the other day for us, and then the theme just felt a little heavy even though it was more about what to do about all the heavy stuff, so let’s seed as many small sweet joys as we can for now, and bring some hopeful energy into these chaotic and scary times for each other.

It couldn’t hurt, and maybe it will help.

Another candle for maybe it will help. A candle for possibility and expansiveness, for these ongoing practices in tending to the hope-sparks.

Postscript the second

Yes there will be a bonus essay this week, so if you need a reason to make a favorite beverage, there it is…

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, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…

I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-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 or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…

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.

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 the Discretionary fund this week (see below) gets 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 please 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!

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.

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

A request!

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.

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