Content note!

Aka a loving reminder to read this with a steady force field…

an apple

My uncle sent me off to motorcycle school,
tucking a shiny red apple into the top of
my motorcycle boot,
I found it when I woke up
and felt loved and cherished and supported

instead

It is so good that my life is now populated by
the kind of people who don’t say any of
the things my monsters say
for example
he could have said
[THIS IS SO DANGEROUS] or
[WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS ARE YOU SURE ARE YOU SURE] or
[BUT WAIT WHAT ABOUT YOUR SPECIAL/DIVERGENT BRAIN]
and instead he said [apple]

translations

I translated the apple to mean
I love you and want your life to be full of joy!
as well as related things like
hey you’re going off to school!
and: nourishment and sweetness for you!

I quit motorcycle school after the first twelve minutes of the second day

The first day was excruciating for my special brain in a very particular way*,
but day two was when it all fell apart

I have HSP superpowers and sensory processing superpowers
and possibly also some Michael Scofield superpowers**
and I take in oh a hundred times more
information and input from the world than most people,
and can get very overwhelmed very quickly
especially when I need to do physical things

(and I vehemently reject the word “disorder”)
(because I am not disordered)
(there is nothing wrong with me)

but these do make motorcycle school a challenge

(more whispered parenthetical asides)

(What if the thing that is actually disordered
is not us but our culture and its
total lack of understanding or curiosity
vis a vis the magical unicorn spectrum!)

(What if we could all find more appreciation for neurodivergence,
and build a new culture that celebrates it!)

(What if I am in fact a wild witchy wonder with superpowers, how magnificent!)

out

So of course, as the monsters keep reminding me,
as pretty much anyone could have predicted,
not only can I not handle an eight hour day of sensory input
(and people and their energy and being observed),
but of course the actual motorcycle riding part of the training was
too overwhelming and fast-paced for a Havi, I was slowing everything down,
the instructors were impatient with how slow I was
even basic shit like figuring out how to turn the bike on,
I could not keep up

And I noticed I was disassociating
which seems like probably not the best for operating a vehicle
so I left

wise me in the wings

I knew, even in the moment of leaving,
somewhere deep in my body-mind,
that this was a good choice for a Havi,
because Wise Me is full of compassion and truth, she knows
that exiting the training is truly the embodiment of
my life goal of extreme self-treasuring,
and anyway the point of this mission was not to achieve anything but to
[be brave and show up and try and learn how I need to learn],
and hey now I can set up my own training at my own pace,
and re-take the course later
when I feel ready
but

but

But the Loud Monstrance of self-recrimination was too noisy,
and I could not access Wise Me,
even as I could feel her love,
the monsters were too many, and everything they had to say
seemed extremely reasonable in the moment,
do you want to hear what they said?

[here is some of what the monsters said!]

ugh you are so bad at life AND
you just wasted hundreds of dollars AND
you set back feminism by two hundred years by being the woman who quits without even trying AND
the faraway cowboy was so excited for you and now he won’t love you AND
ugh the shame of having told people you were getting your endorsement AND
now everyone thinks you’re scared of riding when really you just hate being slow,
why do we process so slowly and lose our grounding so fast,
yes, you are bad at life in a basic way that is just insurmountable
and you will never get to learn exciting new things because it costs
so much more time and money just to be you and to
make any learning experience accessible
so what’s the point

Consider the Joy Factor

A favorite yoga person named Brie often says
about the pose we are in, when considering variations of it or
if we want to do it at all…

Consider The Joy Factor

my joy for motorcycles and for new skills is high
but my joy factor in
that particular training was in the negative thousands,
so if the yoga of life is, as I believe it to be,
practicing kindness, awareness, non-violence and self-cherishing
through [remember to breathe] and [consider the joy factor],
well, yeah, let’s consider the joy factor here
and maybe I can stop judging myself for having made/received
a Safety First choice based on that

to the labyrinth

I exited the training and didn’t know what to do
to get back inside of my body
but then I remembered the Book of How A Havi Works
and the useful guideline of
{BREAKFAST MAKES THINGS BETTER!}
so I did that, which helped a lot, and then to the labyrinth
which I walked three times,
asking it to show me what to do with all this
shame-regret and self-recrimination
and of course it said many wise things
as labyrinths do

here is what the labyrinth told me

Round one: YOUR MAGNIFICENCE HAS THE POWER TO CHANGE THE WORLD, so do not discount it, and also please remember that treasuring your pace is self-treasuring

Round two: Hey listen, how you are as a human is okay, and your okayness is in no way changed by this experience, and guess what, you are allowed to want what you want (in love, in motorcycles, and in all things)

Round three was a doozy, as it always is, and it said this:

THERE IS A STEADINESS THAT IS YOURS
it is your inheritance as a human, it belongs to you,
but to claim it you must HONOR YOUR BOUNDARIES
(so much more than you do now),
and set clear expectations of what you need,
as early as possible
(and much earlier than you think)

architecture

My friend said to me,
I’m glad there is so much good architecture in your unconscious,
and she said this in response to a dream I had about spare rooms,
but I’m pretty sure she meant this in other ways as well

I too am glad for all this good architecture
in my unconscious
and for the rhythms that live inside me
in my pulse, heartbeat, breath, all of it,
and for the immense good fortune of having found such wise friends

speaking of wise friends

I honestly don’t know how I would have made it through that day, when I left the training in tears, and the faraway cowboy was nowhere to be found, for days, and I could not find Wise Me either, and it was so painful…

So I feel especially thankful not only for my good internal architecture, but for my wise and loving friends who texted their support when I felt so lost and alone, let’s breathe in their wisdom and love again!

WISDOM from my wise friends

Agent Emdee: UNDILUTED LOVE. And headspace protection from BS of all forms (community college classroom, cultural crap, the noise of everything). Welcome to the club of “I tried that and quit after fifteen minutes”, it’s a big club and I know you’ll like all the people in it. And the biggest trophy for listening to your body’s wisdom, it said no, and that is that. You will later learn why. And even though right now it might feel like it’s about motorcycles, it’s not. Your body gave you a major, solid piece of no information and you followed it, and I admire that.

Lucky Lola: Agent, you are so brave and badass fierce for recognizing your NO in that moment and acting on it. Building new pathways for action requires time and clues. Riding a motorcycle requires balance, which you have in such abundance. It is normal to give yourself time to integrate a new balance between you and machine. So much love!

Lady K of Jewels: I’m glad you’re so psychic so you can feel all the love and amazed at your ability to have your own back and not get swept into expectations. It’s revolutionary. Good on you for taking your own side enough to act on your realization. Also, you could never set feminism back. Asserting that there are multiple ways of showing up in the world and in learning situations is the MOST feminist action you could take.

Sailor L: You did an amazing thing! You got out of a place that wasn’t right. Leaving and not putting up with that culture is next level feminism, it’s so important to be able to say, nope, this doesn’t work with my boundaries, bye.

B of Bliss: Most people don’t even try to do things that rattle them, so we don’t see them crash and burn (you like bad puns, right?) which makes it even more spectacular when we do. And you are really smart and good at lots of things, which makes it harder (for the monsters) when you happen to struggle with something.

Agent Sloan: Ohyesyesyes leaving was clearly a good move. And also motorcycles will still be there, so all is well.

Star Ally: You challenge yourself with really hard new things! And once you figure things out you are so good at them, so there must be something really great about how you learn, even if initially frustrating in how it differs.

What is my real wish around motorcycles?

To feel wild and alive and powerful and free,
what beautiful wishes!

Report from the water

Past-me was so smart and set up float tank time for both before and after
the training (before for calm, after for ease of integration)

And since water talks to me,
because I am witchy and sensitive and I brain differently,
and, possibly more importantly, I listen differently,
I can tell you what the water told me….

I came to the water with a Wish and a clear Intention

To learn in my body-mind how to be more of a badass,
and to believe-and-remember:

I am such a badass
Motorcycles are intuitive and fun for me
MY GLOW POWER IS EXCEPTIONAL!
I AM AT HOME IN MY POWER!
My boundaries are stellar

(I trust my wise instincts completely)
(I am able to see how I did the right thing)
(I am treasure and now I know how to better treasure myself)

Wisdom received from the water, round one

Crown is not something you earn,
it is something you remember and adjust.

Your boundaries are sacred.
You don’t earn these either, it just is.

This is something you get better at over time,
acting like nothing is ever as valuable as your boundaries.

Badass is innate, not a thing you get a license for.
You just remember that you are X, it’s not about training for X.
Or, you train in X through remembering that you are X.

You are TOUGH, FIERCE AND WILD already, it is your embodied nature.
All you have to do is remind yourself.

Wisdom from the water, round two

I made of love and actually
EVERYTHING IS MADE OF LOVE,
so my only job is to — TRUST LOVE MORE (YES) —
to feel love and treasure myself unconditionally,
writing on my body to tell it how exquisite it is,
and love my beautiful neurodivergent brain (I AM A WONDER)

Fires, again, and trusting love more

The cowboy of the clan of Lovemore eventually came back and tried to casually toss some
sweetness logs on a fire that was no longer there,
and I was like, buddy how do you not even realize you’re just
putting pieces of wood on the ground
where a circle of stones happens to be
that is not even how fires work
and maybe you were avoiding the sputtering embers but
the thing to remember with this fire
is not that it might burn your house down if you forget it
but that it might not be there to come back to,
and then I wanted to cry but I just felt nothing for a long time

I don’t want to feel [nothing]
I want to trust love more
I want a love that celebrates me
and I really want to stop caring about how other people love me
and be present with my heart,
awake to my own magnificence

What are my wishes?

If it is mine, it returns to me,
not attached to results,
I am here to treasure myself and my beautiful brain,
at home in my own fieriness,
and in my waters,
in my commotion and in my quiet

May it be Plentiful.

Guess what the superpower of the month of May is
as determined aka received by past me last September

{{{{{{BOUNDLESS JOY!}}}}}

The fact that I forgot-and-rediscovered this while writing
this post on the topic of Consider The Joy Factor
well, that is pretty great

Wait, an aside

Honestly you guys it feels surreal to be writing about Plenty (or about anything) while grieving what happened today in the House of Representatives when they voted to screw over the American people and deny us health coverage.

As you may be aware, things in the United States have taken a turn for the authoritarian, with fun new developments like a woman facing a year in prison for having briefly cough-laughed at the Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing, and now this “healthcare” bill that, if passed by the Senate, will deny coverage to millions of citizens based on absurd pre-existing conditions (for example, sexual assault will be a pre-existing condition, so no woman will ever report assault because then we can’t actually get medical treatment, and if you’ve ever been sexually assaulted aka if you are a woman and alive, you may be less inclined to share information which could help other women), and this new system will disproportionately harm native women, people of color, trans people, people with disabilities. Oh and hey, police are still killing black children, with zero consequences, while a known and admitted sex offender and his fascist buddies are in the oval office figuring out how speedily can they destroy the planet in a “get rich quick then kill everyone scheme”, so yeah, things are not great and I cry every time I call my representatives.

And, at the same time…

And, at the same time, now more than ever,
it is time to focus on what is plentiful
breath, tears, purposeful rage, love that comes from within me for me,
fierce self-treasuring
standing up for what I believe in, ready to fight
in May, the month of Plenty
so let’s breathe
and breathe and breathe some more,
and take care of ourselves so we can do what is needed

May the month of Plenty

May the month of Plenty be Plentiful
May, the month of Plenty, may it be plentiful,
and may (may!) I remember that the thing which is plentiful is joy,
joy is what plenty is about,
and let there be plenty of this as well,
this remembering which is everything

{ANNOUNCEMENT!}

I am in the process of putting together a page for crowdfunding purposes aka solving a current scary dilemma, which is not the most fun for me, but I am trying to remember that this is also a way for people who read to express thank-you-and-love for my work in the world, as well as a way for me to express thank-you-and-love in return, in the form of some if not all of the cool things that I’m currently working on — which you can read about in the last post!

Anyway, if you’re on the list, you’ll get a note, and I will try to post about it soon too.

THANK YOU.

Invitation: come play with me…

You are invited to share this post and to share many !!!!!! about what is here,

Or share appreciation or anything sparked for you while reading…

You can also share how things have been going, check in, or deposit wishes, gwishes, superpowers, qualities, ingredients, possibly in code.

Safe space for creative exploration asks us to let go of care-taking and advice-giving.

Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We lovingly refrain from giving advice.

And of course it’s always okay to comment under a made-up name, whether for play and delight, or in the interest of Safety First.

Wishes and checking-in are never late because whenever you wish is the right time for wishing.

We remember that people vary and my process doesn’t have to be yours, and this is a good thing.

Here’s how we meet each other: with great kindness and appreciation and awe, whispering (and sometimes shouting) oh, wow what beautiful wishes!

♡

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