It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday.}
What worked this week?
Proxies and cover identities!
At Rally (Rally!), we make up cover stories and use proxy missions.
So this week I was secretly working on a big writing project, but my cover story was that I am Yvette West, Fashion Editor by day and burlesque chorus girl by night, because Yvette, like me, has too many jobs.
On the surface, that’s the only thing we have in common, and yet — of course — it turned out that her challenges are my challenges, and her insights are my treasure.
I dressed like Yvette at Rally too, and yes, costumes are incredibly powerful, and going undercover was wild and fun and full of unexpected treasure.
Next time I might…
Remember that All Timing Is Right Timing and Not Everything Is About Timing.
Rushing is the opposite of trusting.
That doesn’t mean I always need to choose slowness. Sometimes I can pick up the pace: Ketzev 8!
It just means: rushing is at best not necessary and often counter-productive. There is time.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- This week is the last of the Alphabet Carousel Rallies. And the last of four and a half years of rallying. For the first time since 2005, I don’t know when I’m teaching next. This feels very disorienting. I am going to miss this. A breath for letting go to give the new thing space to come in.
- Cards on the table. Asking. A breath for trusting that honesty is always the right answer. It really is the right answer. Even when the monsters are whispering about how This Is A Terrible Mistake.
- Fall Is In The Air. The other day Agent Anna had a fall, and then I had a fall. The literal kind where you end up with scrapes and bruises, though I think these falls may also be an extreme form of tripping. A breath for presence, and for releasing the need to learn through pain.
- Running smack into some old patterns, fear, worry and doubt, in new contexts. Noticing all the ways this is not helpful. A breath for paying attention to what I need.
- Clearing out, in a big way. It’s important and more than a little scary. A breath for trusting that all this making room is exactly what is needed for the new beautiful things to land.
- I really want my future-confidence vis a vis dance (“I am going to be so amazing at this!”) to start showing up in my current dancing. A breath for trusting the process.
- [Silent retreat]. A breath for deep trust, in all things.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- Feeling peaceful and happy in my pleasure bubble. Peaceful and sweet. A breath for the pleasure bubble.
- So many things contributed to the pleasure bubble this week. Waltz magic to live music. Gazelle state. Many sweet hours of yoga on the floor. Hiding in the vault. Wild sexy spirals at Rally. Old Turkish Lady yoga. Dancing on Wednesday night and suddenly having good dances with everyone instead of just a few people. Also this week I had the best dance lesson of my entire life, no exaggeration, it was nothing less than transcendent. A breath for this body that I live in, and for treasuring my body with things that are good for me.
- That was a pretty incredible smoothie. A breath for the full-body thrill of taste, texture, temperature, sensation, shared pleasure and delight.
- Along with all the sadness, there is also joy: I’m not [verb]-ing any Rallies, or anything at all for the next several months! A breath for spaciousness, freedom, possibility, the spark of newness, the longing for new adventures.
- A leisurely breakfast with my beloved Max, followed by a long peaceful walk interspersed with wisdom and giggling. I love her so much. A breath for love, and for my wish of daily life being like the Vicarage, which came true for a whole day!
- In the spirit of “and then something even better happens”, I am sailing in new waters where there is Sweetness and Sovereignty and Honesty and Steaminess and Presence and Intention and Magic, all the good things. Not to mention the hidden superpowers of cards on the table. Wow. A breath of thank you for the right companion for a wild adventure.
- Rally Z (Rally! Rally!) has been mind-blowingly full of treasure. It might be my favorite Rally. I’ve said that a lot, but this really is the perfect way to end this voyage. A breath for This Is So Right.
- Thankfulness. Overflowing with thank-you. Haha, I accidentally wrote overglowing, which might even be more accurate. So let’s just say it: I am feeling pretty damn blissful right now. This is a new feeling. I like it. And I am being really clear about the yes of yes and the no of no, and it feels so good. I am enjoying my writing projects instead of fighting with them. Incoming me is a badass. Marisa is back in town! My body fell with luck and wisdom, and I didn’t get hurt, just a couple scrapes. A shot of ginger-lemon-echinacea-cayenne that felt like a whole-body healing. So many lovely surprises. So many things are beautiful. Nothing is wrong. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. A full happy breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
More work on the Sip Hint Learn books. Operation 33 Keys is even better than I’d imagined. Clues about 2015: taking lots of notes. Wham Boom.
Revisiting some wise important words of truth from past-me.
This post about doing things in grand fashion. I can’t believe I forgot about this when it is so vitally important.
Good thing Yvette remembered! Experimenting with this changed everything for me this week.
Superpowers…
Powers I had this week…
Trusting the process. Trusting the timing. Well-costumed. Zanzibar!
Superpowers I want.
I always forget how powerful it is to invent/name superpowers until I’m at Rally where we name them and get them. So I want the superpower of I Always Remember To Invoke Extra Superpowers!
The superpower of Theatrical Spectaculars! The superpower of I get a parade! The superpower of everything…in style! The superpower of Self-Ripening Wisdom. The superpower of Everything Is Happening in a Grand Fashion because that’s how I do things, baby, like a fairground stripper!
Yeah! All of those. And while I’m at it, let’s have some of these too:
I Boldly Glow. Ablaze With Fearless Intentional Choice-Making. I Have Everything I Need. Wildly Confident, Outrageously Beautiful, Wonderfully Tranquil. I Do Not Dim My Spark For Anyone.
The Salve of I Do Not Dim My Spark.
This salve dissolves any temptation to apologize for being who you are, as you are.
When I rub it into my skin, everything that does not enhance my ability to experience my light becomes obvious and unnecessary.
This salve does not only brighten your spark, it also shines light on all of the invisible glue holding together the walls of Things That Are Not True.
For example, you can put on this salve and suddenly see that no, there is no need to lose weight to wear the thing you want to wear, and also the entire concept of “weight” and “losing” it is just bullshit cultural craziness that has nothing to do with truth.
And once you can see that, all the invisible glue, all the rules, assumptions and expectations that we agree to, all those things that keep us from glowing our glow…well, they just start to seem irrelevant.
Of course you aren’t going to dim your spark for these vague internal and external rules that aren’t actually based in anything. Of course the way to unraveling those rules and their false power is by agreeing to glow more.
This salve reminds me of the woman on the plane who said I ain’t a slave to nobody or nothing.
She was right. This is the salve for that. I do not dim my spark for anyone or anything.
Clean and clear knowing. Ablaze with intention. Not angry about this, not resentful, not filled with shame about all the spark-dimming I have done in my life up until now. No. Just knowing truth: here is my spark and I am done with the dimming patterns.
If salve does not appeal, you can have this in tea form, as a bath, cocktail, whatever works for you. Not only is there enough salve, there are also enough ways to receive it.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band comes via Agent E, and it’s called Distracted By Juice. It’s an indie garage band that does plaintive-yet-loud covers of Harry Connick Jr songs. And you know what’s interesting? It’s just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
While I was in my deep panic last week, I used what works best for me: the Emergency Calm Down Right Away techniques.
So I want to seed a reminder that this is a thing, and it helps, a lot. Not just with calming down in the moment but with building the kind of habits that allow you to change your relationship with whatever is scary or uncomfortable.
I hardly ever recommend these because the page is already many years old and needs rewriting. However, copywriting aside, this is still one of the best things I have ever made, by a lot. I have two boxes in my office full of the sweetest thank you notes from people, and so many of them are for this.
Come play if you like…
Join me in the comments. Some of us share hard and good, some of us say hi, or maybe we’re on silent retreat. My ritual doesn’t have to be your ritual. Whatever works for you. Almost three hundred weeks of this and there still isn’t a right way.
Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We don’t give advice.
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever you like, it’s no big deal. And I am blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers. I love that you are here too.
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Mmmmmm friday!
The hard:
Of traveling
Of wanting to pay right prices but what when everything is flexible and they keep rising?
Of wanting to move as i usually do and feeling restrictions with people starting at me and talking to me. A breathe for the hard of pressure.
The good:
More mastering the art of negotiation! A breathe for getting the hang of it.
Finding a true hippie rastafarian hangout.
New friends in rooftop restaurants.
Connection and talks and one step closer to fall and incoming me.
A breathe for remembering to let go of the outcome : this is what i have to give. Either it works or it doesnt and Its no longer up to me. Oh! The spaciousness.
Mmmm yes the spaciousness! <3
Happy Friday!
Hard: It is not my job to make this person happy. He knows it, I know it, and yet, sometimes we both forget.
Good: An excellent new work opportunity is falling easily into place. I’m building my client base and feeling happy about it.
I love this salve! I applied some this morning, and it’s having a wonderful effect on all of today’s adventures. Thank you!
I now invoke the superpower of Resting Whenever I Want. <3
Oh, thank you for this salve which I am applying liberally, in the visible places, the secret places, the internal places and the invisible places. ALL THE PLACES.
Ugh, you guys. This week was awful (for me.) Useful, I suspect, but awful.
Let’s start with the hard:
– The amazing healing thing that is the only thing on the level of Rally (other than Rally itself) in its usefulness-for-Rhiannon seemed to not be helpful or even happening at all. In retrospect, I think that was how it was working this time, and it’s very clear that *something* happened, but it was several days of unbelievable pain to get there.
– Then I got back at three in the morning to discover that the baby couldn’t sleep without me and furthermore had a cold and so I was up every hour with her all night. And when I tried to take a nap the next day, I got woken up three different times for what I judge to be stupid reasons. And the next night she didn’t sleep either.
– Of course I also got the cold. Hard.
– Bear time. Complete with epic PMS and even more epic cramps.
– So now the baby throws things at us, all day long. It’s just a carousel of having things thrown at you and/or trying to listen to a giant meltdown about how she wants various articles of clothing on or off and she can do it herself but it’s frustrating for her.
(She’s a beautiful being doing what she can to deal with being sick and having a stressed out mom and making big scary changes in herself like starting to talk. Very normal toddler behavior. Just also driving me a little nuts right now.)
– I’m really wanting the energy of Beltaine (which I didn’t get this year), and it’s not Beltaine. It’s Mabon. Just because it also felt like Mabon back in May does not mean I get September Beltaine. But I’m very sad and frustrated about it, and not dealing with it very productively. (Which is extra frustrating, because I bet if I could accept reality a little, I could still get the essence of what I want. But instead I’m throwing a fit.)
– Money schtuff. Not unexpected, not unplanned-for – not even very threatening. Still hard, because money schtuff always is.
The Good:
– Hey, I survived! It’s useful to have survived this week well.
– Compost. It’s damn exciting. And 110 degrees and filled with bugs and other life! Which might normally gross me out a bit, but that was before I was digging in a yard with such poor soil that there weren’t even worms. Now I’m like: bring on the bugs! Let’s have life here!
– It started raining, meaning I get to start my fall plantings! Fava beans, native wild flowers for butterflies, and clover!
– Seriously, I can be deliriously tired and sick and crampy and in deep doubt and pain, but I am always helped by gardening.
– Acquired about half of my indoor seed-starting equipment (for free!), though I won’t need it until February or so. I get to look at it every day and plan and dream.
– Almost almost almost done with the hugelkultur.
– I really do adore the girl, even in her current screaming and throwing books at me phase, and I love how interested in words she is right now. I am also interested in words, and I’m glad our interests coincide! She made a pun about how she calls her dad and ducks the same thing (she pronounces both pato and papa as pat) and it was so funny and sweet.
– Fingers crossed, I get to go out on a date tonight!
– Ordered a bunch of native plants I get to pick up in October.
Cluck cluck!
The good:
– I wanted things to do, and things to do materialised
– I wanted things to write, and things to write materialised
– another step towards another new opportunity
– lunches with fun people from the last place
– being able to hear the silence
– a tub of herbs
– I walked! Sixteen miles!
– The Way is nothing like the Camino really is, but makes me cry anyway.
The hard:
– not wanting to share, because of other people’s expectations and disappointments
– horrible itchy bite on the back of my leg
– sixteen miles! I would have stopped at fourteen if there’d been a jumping-off point, but there wasn’t.
– fatigue and procrastination
Clues:
– Labyrinths. Labyrinths everywhere, even before I started reading the book about them.
And this (quoted in the labyrinth book): “There are times when you need to focus, to fast, to retreat, and others when you need to play. The seeker has to know, like a doctor, what remedy is most effective for every nuance of illness. Imagine that in the pharmacy [of bliss] there are five hundred different vials, one is marked ‘Aretha Franklin’, another marked ‘meditation’, another ‘talking long-distance with one’s best friend’… At any moment, the practiced seeker will know exactly which vial to mix with which. You become the inner inventor of your own joy.”
Tomorrow, I sort everything out. Everything. And anything I don’t get round to sorting out, will turn out not to matter.
“You become the inner inventor of your own joy.”
I love this so much! Extreme sovereignty!
It is Saturday and we are here. With the heat on.
The Blergh:
Operation: Operation coming up. Getting ducks in a row. There are a lot of ducks.
Shared some novel writing with my mom and of course she said “oh, you wrote about our family. me me me.” No. No I did not. The first rule of novel writing: don’t share novel writing with your family.
The Nice:
Read 4 pages of novel at writing group with great feedback. And got to bask in the writing of others. It has, after 2 visits, become my favorite place.
Lists and schedules and helpful things.
Most of the ducks are lining up and ready for duty.
Getting rid of 2 large pieces of furniture that were from an ex that I hadn’t remembered were from him. Goodbye dresser and mirror. Hello new dresser and mirror.
Finding the perfect right table for $15 instead of $300.
Operation: Operation is moving a lot of tasks from important but not urgent, to import and better do them now before you can’t lift heavy things for a few weeks.
Hurray for heavy-hearted old furniture out and happy new *my* furniture in!
BT,DT, love the t-shirt! <3
Hullo-ullo-ullo! Bon samedi, y’all!
Superpowers to waltz with: The power of getting to the point. The power of not saying too much. All in grrrrrrrand fashion.
What worked this week? Going to yoga. Going to the pool.
Hard:
* scheduling mishegoss
* sadness and awkwardness re death of a former friend
* plant diseases
Good:
* new swimsuits
* a current client impresssive AND nice!
* new zinnia in a new color in full bloom
**humming under my breath to Distracted By Juice**
Warm wishes to all y’all!
Hi, Chickeneers!
The Good – The start of the year bringing Inventive Ideas! Extreme Experiments! Maybe I can set the fan on the forced-air heater to exhaust during the day so the heat is sucked out of the house. Well, it doesn’t exhaust the hot air, but it seems to be working. Using The Dude’s exercise pad living in the closet and a decorative pillow for a conducting session. The space is constricted and the situation Not Ideal, but it was An Experiment.
All that is mine is returned to me – sketch I left behind at Rally, flyer for future events popped out of the Black Hole, a donation check cashed.
A tungsten wedding ring for me that matches the one I bought for The Dude two years ago. His has a blue inset, mine’s green. We like the symbolism of strength and indestructability of tungsten. (We just celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary.)
Playing with the metaphors in CruX, and what they are revealing about The Quest. I crack myself up.
Art play including the preliminary sketch for the Jedi holiday card. And getting a jump on the Big D for 2014.
The Itsa Notso Bad – The new Doorkeeper needs to confirm that the keys work – then I’m done, done, done. “The Hamstermobile” episode continues for a week or so.
The Hard – Hugging a grieving person.
Final clucks – I have closed that door. I am choosing or creating the new Openings. I am much better at being than I thought I was.
“…rushing is at best not necessary and often counter-productive. There is time.”
Yes, that.
“The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.” On a Pennsylvania Dutch table trivet of my mom’s. Every time I see it, I’m reminded to remember ~ and also “Aahhh! That’s better!”
All the best emoji zipping out of and back into the sparkling light architecture, all the time. Any words I can think of just don’t cut it at this moment for me to express this. <3
Hello chickens! Clucking.
what worked this week: watching myself fall completely off Best Practices. so now i can get back on them. my ‘coma cocktail’!
the suck:
-so much to do at work
-so not able to stay fcused at work.
-husband being in a lot of pain, which means he is cranky, critical and mean. a breath for that
-eletronic woes
-car worry
-denial about stuff. i can see msyelf choosing it, it really sucks.
-the dry bread of integrity and rectitude. chewing on it
-not journaling, writing or painting at all this week or so
-Bolivia is a hard fucking town
the sparkle:
-i played hookey on tuesday. i consider that day ‘put on your oxygen mask first before assisting others’ a breath for excellent well tending
-so much finding! found aaron’s wedding ring–lots for 3 years now.
my daughter found i ring i lost, i found a box i lost
-making time to rest, sit in the sun, nap, play. the time has to be MADE, since so mcuh is alwasy there to corwd it out.
-Mabon!! many invites including friends coming ehre for doings! so happy
-omg so beautiful outside, plus the wonderful cricket chorus
-i really have so much to be grateful for
There was a lot of good stuff in the week, it’s hard to find because of the physical not-so-good stuff I experienced.
Brain is tired. I’m not able to concentrate, and I’m bored because reading and studying and learning and so on aren’t happening. An activity hooked into old memories and then a phone call hooked into some others and I am missing some things and also remembering why they are no longer part of my life. Forcefield doesn’t work very well when brain is tired.
One good thing: my floppy friends.
Another good thing: being able to stay in my house when my forcefield is weak.
Bk bk bk chicken!!
Hmmmmmmm. Week!
The mysteries….
* energy goes up and down like an elevator. I feel good! I feel good! I feel zingy! I feel flat, I feel down, I feel so fucking disappointed, I feel trapped by this stupid depressive sludge that keeps sucking the wind out of my sails……. And then people want me to do shit for them. Ugh.
* Little Lad isn’t getting the support he needs at school despite all the effort and energy he is recieving. So next year he will have a dual enrolment, one in his current (tiny) mainstream school and one at a specialist school. This is fine, I want him to have as much support as he needs, I want to invest the OT and speech therapy and tailored, expert care which the new school will be able to provide, and I believe this will allow him to rise to the stretch he gets out of his mainstream school. Still. It is a big thing to take in. That one’s child right now is not capable of what you would feel better about him being capable of, that you would feel safer if he were capable of. So, my I-cannot-die-because-who-will-take-care-of-him, the-world-is-not-safe-for-him, mortal sense of responsibility and aloneness is thrumming. How can I make myself redundant when he needs what he needs and this world is the stoopid way this world is?? What if I get cancer or hit by a bus?!?? DOOM!!!! Not just doom for me, doom for HIM! I have not done my job yet! BAD CLAIRE, BAD!! GET HIM SOME SAFETY NOW!!! fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck I’M TRYING!! Okay angels, please just let me not get killed until I can organise him some safety, okay?? Please?
* Not only am I not allowed to be struck down by a bus or mortal illness, I am not allowed to go off for forty days and nights in the desert and go through the schpiritual wringing out/renewal that I need to do. Until [future date] and even then not without a bucketload of pushback and undermining and attack-couched-as-protection to deal with (I sense/fear/predict). But I want to do that now!! And without the pushback! And in the meantime I am SO IN NEED of schpiritual wringing out/renewal and arrrghhh. The way this world is set up is so fucking STOOPID! Why can’t a person be supported to do what they need to do? Unto each according to their need is a legitimate ideal!! It should be like that!!!
* Iguana’s amidst Project L.
* You see? So much schpiritual sludge to wring out that even projects dear to my heart and good for my life are getting neglected because there is no room! My field is full! I cannot deal with all this sludge AND do the things that Project L is needing. Let alone what my kids are needing. LET ALONE what IIIIIII am needing.
* This sucks. I do not like being this full of sludge. I am irritable and itchy and resentful and depressed and angry. It’s like pms but for two months now. This is booolsheet. Ugh.
*siiiiigh* *waaaaah* *sigh*
The pleasures….
* My current training module in the arts of patience, empowered surrender, trust, sovereignty, unconditionality and receptivity. I am seeing my stuff and it is okay, and growing my field and that is good.
* One of my module trainers is OMG SO ATTRACTIVE. I kind of love him but issues and actually the issues are *part* of the training and also the attractiveness makes up for the issues by a long way, so it’s a pretty good deal overall.
* Small doses of what I want, small doses of things that make my energy go up, that put wind in my sails, that renew me. So, I know the direction to head towards, I’m right about the direction I want to take.
* I’m in the part of the slow-mo training montage where I start to achieve things I couldn’t achieve before. Mmmmmm, pleasing!
* There are people in the world who get what I’m on about, who can show me what I’m on about, who confirm that everything is okay, that the sludge is just in need of wringing out and then renewal will happen, this is all part of the creative cycle, I just need to set things up so I can go off into the desert and then all will be well. It says nothing about me that this is what I need, but it IS what I need and all these things are okay.
* New definitions of X that remove the imperitive to achieve Y because actually that’s just not how I experience X. MYYY sort of X sometimes includes Y but sometimes not, sometimes it’s *just* X, and when I can let go of chasing Y and stressing about not doing Y then I can just enjoy X for itself and WOW X IS SO MUCH RICHER THAN I EVER NOTICED BEFORE X IS AWESOME. Thank you, new, RELEVANT definitions.
* I know what I want. The means are coming. Everything is going to be okay.
Cluck. <3
Hard: anxiety, grief, losing, being OK with being where I am, physical problems both coming from mental problems and contributing to mental problems.
I need to work to remember that All Timing Is Right Timing, too.
Good: taking time for me. Rosh Hashana is almost here. I can celebrate the new year without worrying about what to do next.