Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
♡
Current.
I am in love with the word current, it fills my heart with joy over multiple-meanings, and every time I see my list of Current Ops, I smile so hard.
Current is now: PRESENCE, right here.
Current is electric: POWER, transmitted.
Current is water: FLOW, movement.
So current ops are the projects and dreams and gwishes (goal-wishes!) that are alive, dynamic, moving, being transmitted, in process right now.*
Portland.
I am in Portland right now. It is really good that I am in Portland right now, and I need to remember this because my monsters were very vocally against coming here, and now I am so glad I didn’t listen to them.
The original plan for this week had me near Escalante, Utah. My lover is canyoneering there, spending about nine hours a day doing things that I would not find particularly fun, and I was going to use that time for writing.
Except first the air conditioning stopped working, and then it was kind of working but only when you give it constant attention.
So that didn’t feel like a good plan. Writing for me is a full-immersion activity, not something I can do while one ear listens for specific sounds that may or may not indicate impending doom.
And what really didn’t feel good was knowing that if (when) it stopped working, I’d be roasting in 115 degree heat inside the tiny camper.
Actually, who cares about any of that.
I’m doing it again.
Giving reasons for my not-yes, trying to justify instinct when instinct just is.
Sometimes I forget that it is enough that something is not my yes. That’s all I need to know.
IT IS ENOUGH THAT SOMETHING IS NOT MY YES.
Is that not the point of Operation True Yes and the past three months living on the road? To learn more about what is my yes and what is not my yes. And now I know.
Being in Escalante wasn’t my yes, and I don’t need reasons, I just need to hear my yes. My yes was to get out and my body said get out, and so I left.
Monsters.
I went home to my sweet, peaceful house with its cool cross-breezes and flowers from the garden, and my monsters said, UGH YOU ARE A BIG BABY AND YOU ARE GIVING UP ON ADVENTURE AND YOU ARE BAD AT ADVENTURING AND THIS IS STUPID AND YOU DON’T DESERVE SABBATICAL TIME BECAUSE YOU SCREW EVERYTHING UP AND NOW YOU ARE RUNNING BACK HOME BECAUSE YOU CAN’T HANDLE IT YOU ARE THE WORST.
But they were wrong.
In fact, this might be the best move I’ve ever made.
My body certainly thought so. Once out of the heat and the fear and the stress, my chronic pain actually went on vacation. For the first time in six weeks, my body feels pretty good. I’ve been sleeping well. I feel relieved and peaceful. This was a good call.
Superpower of trusting my yes: ACTIVATE. Superpower of knowing that I chose right: ACTIVATE. Superpower of following my instinct: ACTIVATE. Superpower of I can’t screw this up: ACTIVATE.
Current.
Sometimes it’s hard to follow the thread of my yes, to remember what I love, what I was excited about, why I was excited about it.
Pain makes it worse, as does fear.
Sometimes I need to remember the superpowers. The May superpower of I Take Care of Myself First. The June superpower of I Am Stronger Than I Think. The July superpower of This Is A Badass Way To Live.
And I need to remember that the real mission is taking exquisite care of myself, all the time.
Sometimes the best thing I can do for the mission is take a nap, have a good cry, trust that these are not keeping me from the mission, these are supporting the mission.
Hey, sometimes they might even be the mission.
I am allowed to forget that a hundred times a day, and I am allowed to keep remembering, to stay current, to remember the current.
Ops.
Everything is better with a container.
The monsters helpfully tried to point out that going to Portland was a terrible idea because sixteen days without my lover is no fun, and hiding at home isn’t an adventure, and WHAT IS THE POINT.
Except sixteen days is a container. Sixteen days is a good amount of time for a secret operation. Secret ops!
Sixteen days is a framework in which things can happen, change, heal, be released. Sixteen days is a good way to practice meeting an Incoming me or an aspect of myself that has been ignored or forgotten. Sixteen days of being.
What do I know about this particular op.
It has to do with LESS DOING and MORE BEING.
We could also call this more Tha and less Ha.
Parameters: doing three things a day tops, and at least one of them is a BEING thing like having a nap or a bath or staring into space.
And of course, giving this op to someone else, because a secret identity is a very fun (and useful) way to play.
Marlena Wild is my secret identity for this one. She is fun, and she is really good at Not Caring, which is a thing I need to learn.
Marlena likes:
- Bright colors.
- Standing tall.
- Strappy sandals.
- Cotton headbands.
- Feet on the ground.
- Alchemy in the kitchen (and in the lab, and in the bedroom).
- Orgasms, of course.
- Slow deep breaths.
- Adjusting her invisible crown.
- Treating REST like an extreme sport that she’s both fanatical about and very good at.
- Living downstairs. Loving downstairs.
- Clearing out the bowl.
Being.
I went to see Danielle (Dr. Cornelius) for treatment because she is amazing, and she gave me the homework of “more being than doing”.
More being than doing.
A school of being.
During the session, I had so many memories surface from growing up and being in school.
School was not really a healthy setting for a highly sensitive person. I needed so much recovery time, so much emptying and releasing, and that just didn’t exist, even as a concept.
I remembered, and remembered myself, and made a safe house for me-from-then, and let the entire concept of SCHOOL get tossed into a bonfire.
And then a new school showed up. A school of BEING.
BEE-ing.
It was made from honeycomb and it was also a school of BEE-ing.
This made me laugh.
And it made me think of what Barbara Sher says about honeybees: No one criticizes a honeybee for spending more time or less time on a particular flower. We trust that the honeybee knows what it’s doing. But we torture ourselves with the idea that we “gave up” on projects before they were “completed”. We have to trust our bee-selves and remember that we stayed for as long as there was nectar for us.
So bee-ing is another form of being. Trusting that however much effort I put into something (or decide not to put into something) is enough.
I invoke all the superpowers of honeybees, including trusting that the second I feel done with a flower, I am done with that flower, and I do not need to justify that to anyone.
What is my wish?
I want to let myself be excited about the things I am currently (current!) excited about, and give myself permission to not visit flowers that don’t spark joy for me.
I want to be conscious and playful in how I approach projects.
I want to do less, and then do even less than that, and trust that this is enough.
I want to wear hot pink shorts when I feel like it, and hide when I feel like it, and wait for the current to tell me what is next.
Invitation.
You are invited to make up secret identities! You are invited to name ops, which you are then welcome to ignore and not follow if another flower pulls you instead!
And you are are still welcome to make suggestions on ebooks that you might want me to write, which I might not write, because I am a honeybee.
Now.
My ears are ringing from being out in the world. I feel disoriented and fatigued.
I am practicing the thing that always helps: ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND LEGITIMACY.
This makes sense, even if I don’t know why or how. This is a normal way for a person-who-is-me to react to being in a city again, to loud and unexpected noises, to change, to stress. It is safe to have reactions. It is safe to take care of myself. It is safe to breathe and notice, and to challenge the monster-stories.
Just because the world isn’t built to support highly sensitive people doesn’t mean something is wrong with me for having strong reactions to life.
Me: Hey, slightly-wiser me, what do you have for me?
She: Look at these beautiful things that are emerging from Shmita.
Me: But what if I’m just bad at being an adult.
She: You are enough, my love.
Clues?
Bee is the name of a very special person I know, and Honey is the name of a very special person I sometimes am.
The superpower of I am stronger than I think.
We are in June: RELEASE MORE, with the superpower of I am stronger than I think.
This week’s wish is about all of these. Letting go, being a bell, taking care of myself, living in truth.
I will take all the reminders I can get.
Things I find helpful for intentions and wishes…
Adventure. Rest. Horizons. Security. Passion. Sweetness. Clarity. Presence.
Ongoing wishes.
Everything is easier than I thought, and look, miracles everywhere. Ha, this doesn’t require my input! My business is thriving happily without me. I think like a dancer. It’s so perfect it turned out like this. Past me is a GENIUS. I have what I need, and appreciate it. I am fearless and confident. I state my preferences clearly, calmly and easily, no big deal. I am ready to come into my superpowers and receive.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week aka MOHO…
That was a wonderful wish that took me to all kinds of places. For one thing, it got me here, into an op that is about being (and BEE-ing) rather than doing.
Also my lover and I looked at motorhomes and got some ideas for a tiny house, and then went back to the earthship plan, and are generally excited about [building] and [small] and [sustainable].
And moho can also stand for More Honesty, which is what happens when I listen to my body and trust my yes.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I believe the Playground mugs are all sold but you can still acquire a pack of stone skipping cards just send a note and we’ll set it up. Ask Richard for cost/shipping.
Keep me company! Or just say hi!
This is an open invitation to deposit wishes, gwishes, personal ads, superpowers, qualities, whatever you’d like, there’s no right way! Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is sharing anything sparked for you.
Comment culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We are on vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play and throw things in the pot! With amnesty. Leave a wish any time you want.
Here’s how we meet each other’s wishes: Oh, wow. What beautiful wishes.
xox
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Ah, wishes!
I put a bunch of Mountain Holidays on my calendar. i want another this coming weekend but my monsters are scolding me about Money, Honey and another part of me wants to be around my friends. But my legs are itching to hike. I can decide at the last minute, I remember.
I keep seeing tiny glimmers of something, like a mirage, but then it dips below the horizon again. I will keep marching forward.
I would like my belly to calm down.
And I’d like my story (not a metaphor) to keep coming out of my hands.
And my ex is getting married a month from tomorrow and I would like to hold Me From Then quite close, because she was not what she wanted to be back then, even though she did the best she could with what she had, and I need to remind her that she can be sad again and that’s ok. And Me From Now can steer the boat through this time, while Me From Then makes herself some cocktails and imagines turning printed out texts from him into paper airplanes and sending them down the aisle. Or maybe lighting them on fire and sending them into the ocean.
More being. Yes. I’m pretty sure I want more being all the time, both in times of doing more and times of doing less. Thank you for the reminder, and for the encouragement.
Today, my name is Hecate, and I want to build a cottage at the crossroads of the redwoods and the ocean. Yes, this is a proxy, and it is a Very Important Proxy. * <3 *
>>The July superpower of This Is A Badass Way To Live.<<
Welcoming this. Hello, summer. You are plenty of water and plenty of sleep and plenty of flowers.
Warm wishes to all y'all.
Thank you for talking about the superpower of honeybees–that sparked some sparks that I needed.
Yay, Ops! I’m spending time this week with Operation Hello/Goodbye. This weekend, I’ll discover what Operation Turning turns out to be. And I’m wandering occasionally over to Operation Some Interesting Place (SIP?), which is kind of pocket garden of fractal flowers.
Happy summer, all!
SIP! SIP! Love this. Ohmygod. Yes to all the superpowers of that!
OoOoOoOo. Current. That’s super juicy for me right now.
I am having a big wish about my relationship with my body involving qualities of fleetness and ease and nurturance. I surrender to the current of this wish!
Also a current, into the current, and happening currently: a wish about life direction and a decision I’m finding very scary. I want my actions (now and always and especially in these directions I’m contemplating) to come from a fire in my heart. So: purpose and guidance and protection and allies. To start with. I want a lot around this one!
Into the current, with the current, coming current!
I think I’ve been Puck for a few years now, and first it was a secret identity and awesome, but now it is a public identity so maybe I need a new secret identity, an identity of Being and not Doing.
So maybe now I am Shalim, the Canaanite god of dusk, which is an in-between time, a time of going from Doing to Being, and it also sounds like Shalom which is peace, completeness, wellness, safety. When I am Shalim I am reconvening, recalibrating, coming back to basics and remembering that I am whole and OK exactly as I am.
And also wow, wow, wow, what beautiful wishes! This: “I want to let myself be excited about the things I am currently (current!) excited about, and give myself permission to not visit flowers that don’t spark joy for me.
I want to be conscious and playful in how I approach projects.” is such a big YES for me. I will revisit this again and again and again.
I feel sparks about Shalim. Yeah!
This holds so many joy sparks for me, and bee clews, which are always so perfectly on time.
An Op i started many months ago is landing. Operation 50/50–we embark tomorrow! The husband and i saved and planned and scheduled and things seemed daunting at times, but all of it has been leading to:
-my 50th birthdy and the Grateful dead’s 50 anniversary shows are happening at the same time.
-a special ceremony for a beloved Goddess is happening near by
-and so many pieces just fell into place. the whole things has been Magick!
And it also contains a Challenge–getting to this event requires me to do 2 things that scare the fuck outta me–drive in california, and navigate the BART on my own. it;s been years since i was 24 and indestructible, and this is a definete moment of panic in the proceedings.
So my Conscious Entry into this, I invoke all my Deadhead superpowers and then some: Being in the flow, I trust my Instincts, Be Kind, i have everything I need and enough to share. Also, my ability to pack everything i need. My bags are packed, the tickets, boarding passes, maps, etc etc all in hand.
Qualities: Safety First! PLay Curiosity Wonder Reunion Connection Family Pleasure Adventure Joy Nourishment
I have Provisioned myself quite well, we’re good to go.
Not forgetting, of course, currant ops. In other words: breakfast pastries 😀
YUM.
*heartsigh* wow. what beautiful wishes.
I wish for a new hairstyle, for some more dates with the river and for a puppy! (not a proxy, but kind of includes the – right now much more heavy and less fun – wish for a puppy-compatible life)
“everything is easier than I thought and look, miracles everywhere” – everytime I read these words, something in my chest softens and smiles. so, i also wish to remember that more often, and I wish for more softness and smiles and (to be more receptive to) ease and miracles
May it be so! <3
I am releasing like crazy this month; releasing wishes, too.
This week all I am going to wish is that I will (still?) like myself at the end of it all.
“Just because the world isn’t built to support highly sensitive people doesn’t mean something is wrong with me for having strong reactions to life.”
This. This is true for me too, and I forget, oh, pretty much all the time. Thanks for the reminder.
My gwish for today is to take good care of myself, get a decent night’s sleep, and set things up for tomorrow.
My gwish for tomorrow is to magically arrive at my interview without any transportation misadventures, calm and focused. I want to interview well, and get the job. I want things to settle into place so that I make enough money to pay my bills without working more than 40 hours per week. I want a job that doesn’t destroy my body. May it be so.
May it be so! <3
I love the steady feeling of grounding that washes over me when I read here (both posts and comments). Thank you all for your wonderful wishes.
Right now I am wishing for more time. I always wish for more time. I also wish to unpack that wish a bit, to get to the bottom of why I keep coming back here.
I also wish for space from family—both in the immediate sense and in the sense that I feel is coming next year. I am still in recovery mode from an 8-day family visit (it was the best ever, but still: close quarters, my extreme introversion and opposite opinions, you get the picture), and right on the heels of that visit I got a request (right after a passive-agressive you-never-call comment) from a different family member, who happens to be my favorite family member, to maybe-if-all-goes-well come visit next summer. Which would normally be fine, except for [silent retreat] which may well be happening next summer, or shortly thereafter, and I know I’m going to want a lot of space and privacy for that. So all I could do was give an open-ended yes to the “if,” withhold any detailed information, and hope I may not have to rescind the yes later. And then the request was immediately followed by noises about someday relocating here, with small army of Bolivians in tow, to be near us. Which sent me into a tailspin of monsters demanding to know how I dare be so selfish as to not have that be my true yes. How greedy it is to need as much space as I do. How terrible it is to not immediately jump up and shout YES (and thus drown the quiet but insistent no) to the prospect of my favorite family member, who loves together-time as much as I love solitude, someday living nearby. Oh, and monsters about the [silent retreat] thing, demanding to know what my plan is there, and why the hell I need a strategem anyway, when “nobody else” does.
Feeling so, so conflicted and lost here, with so many monsters, and no compass to follow. So most of all I wish for space to think, space to be, space to find which cardinal direction to follow. I suspect when I find the compass again, it will lead me inward.