Entry

This is a post about Mobilizing, a word that is charged up for me right now. This includes the internal process of readying ourselves, to the extent that we can, for whatever is needed.

What is needed?

Oh, speaking truth, taking the steps as they are indicated, unhesitatingly standing up for what is right in these troubled times. Not to mention taking care of ourselves so we can do this work.

This is from my journal

In other words: a window into one possible form for process and internal exploration. I received all kinds of good and unanticipated intel from this, and hope you will too.

From my journal…

I am in a remote location at a safe house.

There are a dozen deer outside the window, peering in, seems like a good omen.

The word reverberating through my space is Stronghold.

The place where you regroup, the place where you go to regroup.

This itself, the place and the act of going there, is a form of recovery.

Recovery

Recovery is a word that goes deep and has at least two meanings:

+ healing
+ finding once again something you thought was lost

It wasn’t lost for good, it is returned, recovered.

New in this moment and also rich in the sweetness of what is familiar.

This time-and-space of Stronghold, for me, is an exercise in reconvening and reconfiguring, chrysalis time.

I am recovering because this is how I prepare, and what I am preparing to do is MOBILIZE.

And I am here to learn more about what this all means, both the preparing and the mobilizing. We need to recover the missing ones, we need to recover ourselves.

How can my new understanding of stronghold facilitate new forms of mobility?

Mobilize to rise

These are hard and scary times out in the world: our powers are needed, our recovery is needed, our strength and courage and stance are needed, let us figure out what needs to happen so that we can mobilize and act.

Let us prepare (a form of conscious entry) so we can be more present and engaged in both internal space and out in the world.

This is the op. Operation Further Reductions x Gain In Powers.

What does this mean to me? Let’s find out.

What does Reductions mean to me?

The magic of Less

Intentional + Strategic + Tactical + Efficient

A sauce: all flavors are intensified by the process of reducing down to essence

And it is about Know Your Inventory, aka if I know what I have and if I only have things I cherish, then I have a personal relationship with all my belongings, and they aren’t “belongings” anymore…

And it is about Clear The Path To Clear The Path, removing distractions in all forms so that I can see what is, and feel the action that is coming.

What is Know Your Inventory?

Of course it is about Intentionality and Luscious Minimalism and True Yes, sure, all those things, and also in some strange sense that I can’t quite put into words yet, this is about remembering that my belongings and I are a family or a gathering, a team, colleagues in magic-making.

The objects I choose to have around me are in relationship with me. We are each other’s familiars, we are wand and kettle, broom and cat.

Or, here is another image as it flashes across my mind: the familiar path through the forest behind my uncle’s house where he walks (slowly, and backwards) each morning and each evening, and how he knows every tree.

Maybe my belongings can be like tree friends.

And maybe they are not belongings at all and really we belong to each other, or at least right now we do. What is special and right and true, what belongs in my circle of tree friends? What do I cherish?

What is welcome in this imagined domain of forest space?

Mmmm. Forest bathing is also a form of recovery, and now I am thinking about that luscious and completely involuntary long exhale that announces itself when I find myself walking among the trees, and then we twinkle at each other in acknowledgment:

I see you, tree-friend. I see you, fellow being, fellow channel of love-source.

Yes! This is the feeling I mean! What it would feel like to perceive and treat everything I “own” as talisman, tool, ally, comrade, friend.

What would it feel like to be more aware of my allies in mobilizing, whether people-friends (hi) or tree-friends?

What relationships and connections need to be cleared out or asked to grow?

Powers

Oh! Can I feel the powers that come when I remember that, just like trees, we have the ability to tap into a shared powerful underground network of roots and resources.

Taproot powers.

Drawing power from the earth and returning power to the earth.

What are the Powers that come from (Further) Reducing?

So many, but off the top of my head:

+Clarity +Discernment +Grace +Vision +Grounded Knowing +Loving What Is Mine

+Perspective +Possibility +Powers Multiplied +Integrity +Freedom +Movement +Flow

+Prowess +Gravitas +Adventure +Fierceness +Shoring Up Boundaries and Foundation

What does Further mean (or what might it mean)

Further is more, raise the intensity with steadiness, or gather in and keep things on low flame, also with steadiness, as a way to pace yourself because the experience is intense enough as it is.

Sometimes we meet intensity with intensity, sometimes we meet intensity with the loving acknowledgment that this is all a lot and we need to go take a nap. There is room for both of these in {Further}.

One is not right. One is sometimes right for certain circumstances and the other is right for other circumstances, and figuring out when we yin and when we yang, well, this is part of the experiment of being alive.

What else about Further?

Further beckons.

Further says please continue.

Further says every step counts and every rest counts.

Further says know yourself and how you best travel.

What do I know about Further Reductions

Further Reductions is about immersing so much deeper in the practice of True Yes: both getting clear on what is currently yes, and removing everything not supportive of yes.

Further Reductions is honing my ability to discern what is a yes versus what is a clue towards a yes.

I can appreciate clues and follow them, but I also don’t need to keep clues — OR PEOPLE — in my life as placeholders for yeses.

Instead I can make room for incoming yeses through acknowledging the clues and then moving them out of my space as needed.

What do I know about Gaining? What is Gaining?

The addition that comes after the subtraction.

Strengthening. Nourishing. Imbibing. A Coming Together. The result of training powerfully and intentionally.

Receiving and meeting what is next on the path.

What do I know about Gaining Powers?

When I gain power, it isn’t necessarily that I have new powers (though sometimes I do), it’s more that I trust myself and my instincts in ways I could not before.

I am more grounded, more stable, I feel the ground. It is the opposite of what happens when I disassociate and disappear.

There is such a thing as Grounded Floating, this is one of the new powers I am in the process of gaining as I reduce-reduce-reduce what is in my headspace.

Part of what I am gaining is an enhanced ability to feel, sense and notice my relationship with the ground.

I am learning to feel at home with my own fierce power, my witchy knowing, my tender heart.

What kinds of things am I thinking about Reducing?

Reduction can take many forms. For me, right now, thinking about reducing in terms of:

+ Pare Down (do I need this and love this, do I know where it lives and how to find it?)
+ Delete (phone numbers of ghosts, texts from then, photos etc taking up emotional or energy bandwidth)
+ Shred (piles of papers from then, some projects are more like wishes or clues, what is their new home)
+ Remove Distractions
+ Goodbye to people who are not welcome in my life or in my heart or in my head

What is my purpose in Reducing?

+ Clear Headspace*
+ Clear Visual Space
+ Know My Inventory

* yes I want to check social media to know when and where the riots are, and what urgent situations require our attention to mobilize and act, and I can’t function when this devastating input is constant throughout the day, reducing input includes making designated time-space to ready myself to receive the input

What do I want from Reducing / what will assist me in Reducing?

+ Time that is blank (shavasana, meditation, bath)
+ A view that does me good (forest, water, horizon)

The Reduction Incantations, again

(I wrote this back in April when this secret op was still brewing for me in idea form, and rereading it now reminded me that April me was so very wise and I love her forever.)

REDUCTION in releasing: let go of ballast to soar
REDUCTION like a sauce: you have less but you get more (taste! intensity! delight!)
REDUCTION of down to basics
REDUCTION as INDUCTION
REDUCTION for RE-GROUNDING
REDUCTION is release to receive
REDUCTION through exhaling to let it all clear out
REDUCTION like reduce distractions aka Clear The Path To Clear The Path
REDUCTION like a fire sale or a moving sale
REDUCTION is Luscious Minimalism, Less to Yes, Pleasure In Freedom

What else is important here?

This op holds so much but especially letting go of what is old and not-yes, while becoming — and feeling, perceiving that I already am — exponentially more powerful, more formidable, balanced, grounded, more at home in my body, myself and the world, ready to stand strong for what I believe in.

I am here to enter into chrysalis with Incoming Me who embodies FEROCITY and STEALTH PANTHER GRACE, who is wild, self-sufficient, finds pleasure in challenge, knows when and how to rest.

Further Reductions means know what I have, know what I need, feel what I desire, and easily differentiate between a fuck-yes vs a clue towards a future yes.

Gain In Powers means learning to feel at home with my strength, get ten times more formidable, powerfully grounded and embodied to march out into the world with a solid force field and stand up for what is right.

Why am I here?

I am here to make space for the new, get clear, release stale energy, and practice What We Do Not Feed Will Not Grow.

I am here to learn about what I cherish, to act on that, and I am here to cherish myself while I learn.

Come, courageous heart. We are here.

Full trust.

I have full trust that whatever brought you here is good, worthy and important, the meanings, discoveries and adventures in your own secret ops don’t necessarily have to overlap with mine.

Everything we investigate will be for the benefit of all, I feel this and know it in my heart.

Other big words, powers and clues I am calling in through Further Reductions

ALCHEMICAL
EMBRYONIC
DESIRE
STAY CURIOUS / STAY FORMIDABLE
ELIMINATE TO ILLUMINATE and ILLUMINATE TO ELIMINATE
GO FORTH AND WRITE FROM YOUR POWER

A chorus of angels

There is also something here about recognizing that trying and attempting are infinitely more valuable than I give them credit for.

I want to meet each perceived failure or moment of stuck by conjuring a glorious cascading of sparklepoints and imaginary glitter confetti because yes, paralysis is an understandable response to terror and also good for us for trying things at all.

A chorus of angels shouting encouragement every time I try whatever it is I’m trying:

“FUCK YEAH GOOD EFFORT GOOD HEART WE FUCKING LOVE YOU AND YOU ARE PERFECTION EMBODIED RIGHT NOW YOU BEAUTIFUL FUCKING SOUL IN A GLORIOUS HUMAN SHAPE WHO TRIES THINGS!!! HAVI BELL BROOKS, YOU ARE ABLAZE WITH LIFE! LOOK AT YOUR WILD HEART, TRYING THINGS AND LEARNING FROM TRYING!!”

Solstice.

It is solstice and we are ready to MOBILIZE. 

We will prepare a reduction.

We will taste tastes and smell smells.

We will move our bodies in a way that helps us feel the ground.

We will come up with a plan for when and where we show up, and stand for the things that need standing for.

(I think or at least hope we all know what needs standing for, but here is an excellent example of praxis and demonstration: the Fifty Licks ice cream truck showed up at the protest of ICE offices in Portland to give away ice cream to protestors, and just so happened to park directly at the exit blocking any ICE employees from being able to drive home. This to me is inspiration in this rough week.)

Brave things are being asked of us, friends.

Brave things are being asked of us. Courage and integrity and a devotion to what is right, this and more is and will be asked of us, and this is true in the United States where I currently am and which is in a frightening state of criss, and it is true everywhere.

I am taking this transition time of solstice and the next month of chrysalis time to ask what needs to be (further) reduced, in all aspects of our lives.

What needs to be reduced and what powers need be gained, what is to be eliminated in order to illuminate?

What do I make space for? What am I clearing out that will help me act with clarity?

This is about integrity, congruence, harmony, presence, grace, aka the good stuff of life that is not necessarily easy.

What will support us in mobilizing while staying grounded, clear, discerning and devoted to life?

I will take this question and all these big feelings to my notebook, to my tree friends, to the labyrinth, to the protests, into sun salutations at sunrise, into scribbling before bed, into calling on all the allies in the world to help comfort and rescue/recover the missing and imprisoned children and refugees we can’t and won’t stop thinking about.

Let us prepare a reduction, breathe our way into steadiness and next steps, trust our powers (the ones we have, the ones we are gaining in as we name them), and act.

Invitation for this post!

You are welcome as always to share !!!! in the comments or anything sparked for you, or process what needs processing, maybe through skipping stones for solstice.

We remember that People Vary, we meet ourselves and each other with kindness, we don’t give advice. This is space for process, and process is unique, and more importantly, internal. We can always use a proxy or cover story if we need one.

Lots of heart-glow over here for you and everyone who reads, thank you for being here with me. There will be a June (Month of Desire!) post coming soon as well. Come hang out with me here when you can because it helps me write when I remember that people are reading!