There’s this thing in the world of self-help (self-helpishness? self-helpery?) where I kind of live — people are always talking about containers. About creating containers for things to happen in.
I love the concept. Love it! I don’t love the word.
So. My plan. To examine where I get stuck, expand on the concept, uncover some of the good stuff hidden in the possibilities. To rewrite the vocabulary.
And possibly share some of the bizarre things I wrote while rallying at the last Rally (Rally!) a few weeks ago.
What people are talking about when they talk about “containers”.
The concept is basically this:
Having safe, clearly-defined spaces make it easier to create. Like when you’re at a workshop. Or if you have a morning writing ritual.
Once you’re inside a space like this, there is this gorgeous interplay between freedom on the one hand, and safety on the other.
Between sovereignty and containment. Between endless possibility and complete sanctuary. And these are not opposites.
Each feeds the other. The more containment, the more freedom to explore.
The more safety you have, the easier it is to mess around, take risks, play with being king or queen of your world.
And the easier it then becomes to experience and process all the vulnerability and flailing and falling apart that happens when you’re in a period of deep creativity.
When you have strong, clear, healthy, flexible boundaries for an experience, the most amazing things can happen within that …. that thing that needs a word.
A “field of safety”?
Anyway. This is generally referred to as a “container”. I get it. I just don’t connect.
Hiro sometimes calls it a playpen (ooh, playing!) — still not my right word. So what is the right word for me?
Unsurprisingly, I got Metaphor Mouse to help me sort out my positive and less-than-positive associations with this, and to build something new.
The elements of container that I liked were: safety, stability, support, portable, makes space, exists to help me.
The less-appealing associations — again, just for me — were: bland, boring, box, plastic-ey, opaque, too snug. And while playpen has my favorite word — play! — right in the name, I also found “constrained” and “powerless” hiding in my personal definition.
So my ideal non-container thing that would hold this function had to include: spaciousness, freedom, power, fun, open sky, adventure, silliness, coziness and sanctuary.
For me, this is my pirate ship. For you, your non-container of a container might be something else.
Containers do something else too: they shelter you while you go through a big change.
There is no shortage of turning points in life. They’re happening all the time. It’s a flow and a continuum and all of that.
And, at the same time, if we’re lucky, there are certain distinct and special periods in our lives when we do a thing or go through a process. We transition.
We enter the cocoon and emerge from it changed. We walk the length. We climb the mountain. We venture into the tunnel at one end, and come out the other side another person.
Not a different person. Just the next version of you. You with more of your you-ness. A more present and full you than before.
This is why we say yes to certain experiences that will be this change for us. This is also why these things terrify us. This is why we need safety and sanctuary and blanket forts to facilitate these periods of moving through.
One of the reasons I like having a ship instead of a container is that ship holds the quality of [+ voyage].
You embark. And when you return, it is a different version of you who returns. More comfortable in your you-ness. The you who has known sky and sea and time and other places.
Spaces of safety exist on a variety of levels.
Jen’s amazing Writer’s Retreat in Taos where I taught the past two summers is a safe space in several senses.
In a very literal, physical sense — the setting, which is very contained and cozy and sweet.
Also in the sense of having a designated time and space to work through a series of processes, and come through the other side
Also in the sense of emotional space: you have the structure of the retreat to hold your project, and you have the culture of the retreat to support you emotionally (Jen, like me, builds cultures where you don’t ever have to deal with unsolicited advice).
Jen puts a lot of time into establishing and bringing awareness to these containers, these fields of safety … what I might call the world of the ship.
They are powerful because they are temporary. They move you through the passages. They hold you when you’re scared. They make it possible to discover the next piece without falling apart.
And these temporary structures support you for much longer than their actual life span.
That’s part of why they exist. To come into form and to be taken apart.
Just like the patterns that we build and deconstruct in the Dance of Shiva.
We build forms and take them apart. We build shelters and structures and take them apart. How to do this is one of the things I’ll be teaching in Asheville this November.
Here’s something interesting.
At the Rally, we did Shiva Nata and asked questions to help come into a better relationship with the projects we were projectizing. My own project for the Rally was to plan the schedule, content and HAT* for my Week of Biggification**.
* HAT = Havi Announces a Thing page
** The word you’re looking for is pickles
Anyway, questions and answers. To my surprise, I ended up writing about these containers-that-aren’t containers. It was neat. The first questions:
“What do I need?”
In what context? Wait, in any context?
Better structures. Structures to help me make sure I get time for the things that support me. For transitioning in and out.
Structures that are composed of transition and ritual, so that everything is accompanied by ritual.
Structures that make life more like being on Rally (Rally!).
Actually, “life imitates rally” is totally better than “life imitating retreat”, but I still want to have play and rest in equal parts.
To have transitions between Ship mode and Port mode. Between pedaling and cruising. Between construction and deconstruction. To not have to rebuild each time.
Think poles and platforms. Like the tribe taking their poles with them but leaving the platforms to return to. Temporary structures.
“What do I know?”
How to build structures and these … “container”-like things. How to establish cultures of love and sanctuary and no-shoe-throwing.
Oh! OH! Sukkot!
These spaces are like sukkot!
And what is a sukkah if not a ritualized blanket fort? It is.
A container of the same mysterious kind. An intentional and temporary structure that exists to support you.
It’s a portable, temporary canopy of piece that holds a certain form for you for a specific period of time while you go through a process of metamorphosis.
Yes.
“What’s next?”
Finding shelter. Claiming sanctuary. Asking questions.
Labyrinthing. Mapping. Acquiring more costumes.
Oh! We will have a Pomegranate Rally and let our projects sleep under the stars!
And at the Week of Biggification (pickles), we’ll teach about how to build shelters, how to move from one transition to the next, how to carry this wisdom with you so that it lives in your cells and your bones and your brain.
Talk about these themes on the blog. So your people know it’s possible to move from shelter to shelter. To know the freedom and spaciousness that comes from safety and containment. Draw a map. And then another one.
And comment zen for today.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We let people have their stuff and their own experience. Without advice (unless someone specifically asks for it).
What I’d love today: more thoughts on these container-like things and what you might like to call them and different ways we can use them.
I have a bunch of other (semi-related and not-even-slightly-related) things that I wrote during the Rally. Maybe some of them will show up tomorrow. In the meantime, internet kisses to all.
And, as Mariko says, Happy New Year to those of the apples and honey persuasion.
Follow
Really my heart is beating so fast not sure I can write coherently. How valuable all this is- and thank you for giving me a TOTALLY new association with Sukkah. Sababa!
My container? A cabin in the woods. Of my particular architectural design- of course. Many rooms, open rooms, rooms with floor to ceiling windows, running water to walk to. Rooms only for me and rooms with people.
The wood floors have a particular smooth feel. (not unlike a japanese courtyard. Speaking of which there are tatami rooms as well.) This is important as I can feel myself walking from space to space depending on what I need.
So there is safety here and there is flexibility and LIGHT and privacy and friends when needed.
Thanks for giving me a chance to revisit this. So helpful.
Oh my. I love the image of the sukkah! I’m picturing the Playground filled with a small collection of little blanket forts, for some reason. Like a dozen little nomadic tents have set up temporary camp on the ship while it rallies out to sea, perhaps. Little safe sukkot on the safety of the ship. Ooh I like this very much.
Isn’t it funny how easy it is to think of those blanket forts we made at Rally as just a little fun something to try, and yet how ridiculously, sneakily powerful they truly were?
.-= Jesse´s last post … An Interrupted Interview =-.
Oh! I want a Pomegranate Rally! Perhaps I will have one on my own…or perhaps the Thing I am doing for Fall Equinox is quite the Pomegranate Rally on it’s own. Or perhaps it’s the Thing for Samhain that is the Pomegranate one…anyway. I now want to curl up in a blanket fort with a big bowl of pomegranate seeds, Patti Smith, the Song of Songs, and my laptop. And write big, sexy, love letters to Fall and the Stuff that I go through in Fall. And my projects that are coming closer into existence. Mmm. Thank you, for these thoughts, Havi.
Hello Havi,
This subject of containers shelter and safety has definitely struck a chord for me.
I confused myself this past weekend, when I broke my own rule about having others nearby when I paint (I paint on weekends). I usually paint alone in my little painting room.
We had a friend over helping us out with a home improvement project, he is also an artist and was doing his thing – installing tile in the next room. I just loved having another artist in the house, doing their thing too – like a tiny artist’s community.
So for the first time in years, I got a clue about what my ideal sheltering container for painting would look like, it needs more community!
Thank you as always for your blog. Sometimes I’m not smart enough to understand it! but I do keep reading…
Hmmm. I like the sukkah image. Although since I’ve never actually SEEN a sukkah, I might go for a blanket fort myself. Or maybe an RV. It’s like all the comforts of home, but you can take it with you. And it has a teeny-tiny bathroom, which for some reason I’ve always found charming. Very much like a ship, but on land.
.-= Amber´s last post … Hand Sanitizer – Friend or Foe =-.
Havi, I love this. My shelters can be as spacious as the sky and as cozy as a cocoon, but they all have these elements:
Boundaries and borders; safety; the ability to hold me; the ability to grow and change with me; thresholds; entryways and exits; guardians; friends and allies; language and culture that are rich, flexible, evocative and vibrant; qualities that I need to help me grow my next self; mechanisms for creation and dissolution.
Sometimes, my shelter is a quilt, wrapped snugly around me. Other times, it’s my home, the landscape in which I live, or an inner house I create just for a particular process of healing and transformation.
These spaces are sometimes wombs that they nourish and gestate an emerging self. Sometimes they are pathways that shape and reshape themselves through the act of walking them. Sometimes they are worlds. All of them are intimately acquainted with geography.
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … This business of chakras… =-.
Gasp! That is what a Sukkah is! Exactly!
This post is exactly what I need today. Beautiful. I’m trembling a bit. Thank you.
Some of the container images that work for me:
–An artist’s studio, where I can have complete creative freedom to arrange the space in my own way, and play as long as I like.
–A cottage by the sea. I have one, in my imagination. An older, possibly wiser, definitely more grounded and confident version of myself lives there. I visit her sometimes.
–A bed, large and soft, with exquisitely comfortable bedclothes, and a bedside table, and a lap desk, and a tea tray, and plenty of peace and quiet.
–An RV, a home on wheels, in which I can travel, exploring new places while savoring creature comforts.
–And yes, also a pirate ship. That works, too; that works beautifully.
And oh, I have to tell you, I am thinking about what you’ve written today, and thinking about my PhD program, and the tangle of thoughts and feelings I have about it. A container to support me as I go through a big change — a cocoon to shelter me during metamorphosis — yes. Thank you.
.-= Kathleen Avins´s last post … Feeling the good kind of tired… =-.
Oh! I was thinking about my Star Trek metaphor (my empire is actually The Enterprise and it’s “ongoing mission to explore…”) but then I read Hiro’s comment and forgot all about that!
Because sweaters! I actually have (physical, not metaphorical) handknit sweaters for all sorts of things. The red flumpy one is for snuggling/reading, the blue assymetrical one is for writing, the blue cabley one is for being capable. It’s a container in so many ways: it’s containing me, my physical me; it’s containing the event/thing, when I’ done with the thing I can take it off and be done with it; it’s containing the meaning and the safety and the comfort I need for that moment.
*bing!*
.-= Tara´s last post … Good Shtuff- Sparkles Unicorns Edition =-.
The image of the sukkah for me brought to mind its cousin, the bhajan kutir. I’ve seen many of them dotting holy rivers in India: grass-roofed huts with mud or dung-covered walls. They’re extremely clean and spartan, and you get a sense of peace just looking at them.
I peeked inside a vacant one once, but it’s not like you can just go trapsing inside somebody’s kutir. They are, after all, sukkahs for yogis, though somewhat more permanent, I think.
I have a kutir-like space in my home, which I won’t describe because it’s so deeply personal. However, it would be good if I spent more time there.
Thank you, Havi, for the inspiration.
.-= Rupa´s last post … Extreme Vegetables =-.
I love containers! I didn’t even know they existed. I’ve been using the do-everything-all-at-once, all of the time, technique… somehow, not working! 😉
So, what I need, is containers. Or… sukkah! Same-same.
I really like how rituals create containers for us. It’s hard for me to stay in rituals and knowing all of the ways they serve me helps me be grounded in them.
Looking at a ritual’s value, and how they give me the space to create value, be valued, makes me really like the ritual.
Which, makes me actually DO it.
I would like a writing ritual… I’m thinking it would be good for it to be daily. Maybe, morning.
And, maybe, oh just maybe, I’ll become a consistent blogger (because it will be double duty!). YAY!
But, it’s okay if I don’t. 🙂
.-= Laurie´s last post … Lessons from a bug =-.
Happy new year !
Am having a tough time with this. Not the idea, love the concept too. But have just found out we need to move ASAP (really can’t afford where we’re staying) so now the container I’ve been sort of taking for granted is now NOT a container, it’s a launch pad and I don’t know where we’re landing. And I’ve got all this stuff that I’ve got going on that I could REALLY use a container for, and transition is no place to containerize.
I need a portable container. I know containers aren’t literal nor necessarily physical, but I am a grounded girl. But I feel like I’ve got more stuff than container right now. Could really use a metaphor if anyone’s got one handy.
Thanks for letting me vent. 😉
.-= Cathy´s last post … It’s DONE =-.
Beautiful. I think that’s what I’ve missed for so long: A cozy containment center. For so long, I’ve focused my efforts on a how to get from place to place (my brave but still nameless magical boat)that I haven’t given any consideration to making a safe haven for me to do my sinister work in. It’s a place that I can allow myself to have my sad times because I’m learning that it’s okay for those to happen every once in a while, because the creativity will eventually come again.
I’m pretty sure it’s a small hut on the beach. It’s filled with incense and cushy pillows, with mirrors on one wall so I can dance, make art, write, and play. It will also be filled with chocolate and offer immediate access to Pad Thai. Yeah. That’s a good start.
.-= Kaleena´s last post … Maps =-.
I got to the end of your post and just really missed climbing trees. Tree fort sounds cool but isn’t quite right. One of the things I always loved about climbing trees was the camouflage of being up ridiculously high, difficult for anyone to see, yet with views of sky and roofs. I used to take snacks up with me, but the space isn’t really conducive to work.
The pirate ship is cool because it travels which appeals to me a lot. Seasickness associations kind of rule out water-based craft for me though. Interesting that you chose something which can accommodate other people. Did you have that in mind when you chose it? Not sure what stage your business was in at the time.
.-= claire´s last post … The History of Japanese Photography =-.
The first thing that came into my mind after you said sukkah was chuppah. Because once you create something in there, there’s a kind of mystical union. Yes?
For me right now the word is nest.
Apples and honey, honey.
.-= Mahala Mazerov´s last post … How To Do Loving Kindness Meditation =-.
I like that sanctuaries can all be sukkot now. And, of course, you can see the stars from the kosher ones 🙂
Oh, yay… l’shanah tovah, darling.
.-= Shannon´s last post … The Mercury Retrograde Muck audio =-.
And what is a sukkah if not a ritualized blanket fort? It is
Love it. L’shana tova!
.-= Mechaieh´s last post … We aint yet pillars of salt =-.
I don’t know much about Judaism and find all the references this week fascinating and lovely.
Physical containers for me:
-baths
-my garden
-study where I work but I’ve just realised I think of it more as a workshop even though the tools are computer and paper only (ok and all sorts of lovely pens).
Play containers:
-Hot-air balloon also has voyage and movement plus wind through my hair, seeing everything look small down below and it is quiet up there. It is decorated and colourful and you stand in a basket!
-Trees – Play maybe because I’m thinking more trees than I have around me now
vessel
For those of you thinking of RVs, do you know about the tiny house thing? http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/blog/ I want one so bad.
I’m also thinking of tents. I’ve done some hiking, with a one-person tent on my back. Something about travelling light, and every step putting more distance between me and the bad stuff of the past.
I wasn’t concerned so much with how I would come out on the other end. More with getting the hell away from who I was. But in the end, it’s the same thing really.
Happy new year. <3
.-= Willie Hewes´s last post … The Mechanics of Monster Whispering =-.
Brava!
This reminds me so much of my argument regarding Wiccan circles: I maintain that we don’t “make sacred space” because all space is always sacred – we shift our body-mind space into alignment with what is already in existence, and we recognise, mark out, and honour the physical and spiritual boundaries we have agreed upon as necessary for us to recognise that we’re ready for the act of worship/work to take place.
It’s the same in Quaker Meeting for Worship: I maintain that we don’t wait for God’s presence – we (ideally) shift into conscious corporate awareness of the connection we already have with the ever-present Divine (however you conceive of it), and we open ourselves as potential messengers to the group.
(Oh, and Quakers totally do ritual – lots of them think they have done away with ritual, though the early Quakers talked about doing away with rituals that stood between the worshipers and Christ, however you conceive of Christ; they have really pared it down to an immensely simple, elegant and powerful ritual)
Aaaanyway, names for spaces that spring to mind:
* Circle
* Henge
* Nematon
* Grove
* Clearing
* Cauldron
* Alembic
* Temple
* Cloister
You know, I think I like Temple best of all. A Temple can be small, large, formal or casual, austere or luxurious, fortified or open; and Temples were always places of worship and devotion, administration, creation (of physical goods and ideas), libraries and education, healing and legal work, all united as services to the Divine. Everything as a devotional act.
Also, I love the phrase, “My body is a Temple”. I am learning to embody this, which is taking a lot of time and compassion, though it is paying off with every small step/shuffle I make.
I LOVE this paragraph:
“Not a different person. Just the next version of you. You with more of your you-ness. A more present and full you than before.”
this is so clear and wonderful.
And Happy New Year!
Andy
.-= Andy Dolph´s last post … Sailing on the Schooner Fame =-.
Thank you for this post! Very useful metaphor.
And I’m surprised no one has said this yet:
Ritualized Blanket Fort: it’s just one guy!
The “container” metaphor doesn’t really work for me at all – rather than thinking of different places in which to perform different functions, I always think about portable tools so as to be able to perform a given function anywhere. So for me it’s all about the tools, the accouterments, the clothing, and so forth. Both metaphorically and actually I live with the idea of always being ready for the next move, whenever or wherever that may be, and of being ready to carry on with my life wherever I happen to be. I relate to the idea of the tinker, the gypsy, the knight errant, the cowboy.
.-= Jason Burnett´s last post … Historical DIY classic- The Little House on the Prairie books =-.
I like Temple – but that also has associations with limitation of what you can do, and propriety, and things like that…
I also like Studio, because to me that means messy and playful and creative and fun – but that also only works in some situations…
And for more secret, personal, love letter-y, type times I love the image of a nomadic tent, with all of its silken cushions and tapestries and a central fire pit and yumminess…
*happy sigh*
.-= Tina´s last post … In the works =-.
Karen, I LOVE your thinking! My spirituality is informed by both Paganism and Quakerism too. Do you have a blog or Twitter or something where I can read more about you?
@Havi –
Is it possible for my email address to be passed on to Calix privately? It would be appreciated 🙂
Hey @Karen, you can email me at fillingcalix@gmail.com. Blessings!