Hmm. I do not remember when this was. Twelve years ago? That seems about right.
Summer.
On the beach. Maybe 6pm, going on 7. Warm, sun-drenched. But not heat in the way that afternoon is heat. Sitting in the sand. Watching the water.
The best water, because this is the Mediterranean. And this was the time for it.
Mmm. I lived in Tel Aviv for a third of my life, but this was the point when we we were absolutely in the throes of our mad love affair with each other, me and Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv in me.
It’s the balconies. The clean Bauhaus lines and then those secret hidden winks when you look up. It slays me. You look up and suddenly you feel it: something sweetly magical in the air.
Anyway. A long slow late afternoon of beach. Beach and horizon.
And then I followed a street.
Okay. I didn’t just follow a street. I took the street that I normally took pains to avoid because it was the street where I got my heart broken years before when I was in university.
Followed it to a staircase to a porch to a bar. Sat outside. Had a beer.
Ah there is that elusive slippery thing about memory again.
I just remembered — just now! — this was not my first time. I’d been there once before. Late April. Probably when Michael was going through his divorce. He would drag me and Uzi on these long walks that ended in unlikely places. Was that then?
No idea about the shoes.
Anyway. There I was.
Outside. Oren was working and Alona was there too — Oh wow. Look! Alona!, except I didn’t know that yet because we didn’t know each other and this was before everything. No, not the Oren I ended up marrying. A different one.
It’s funny. I didn’t know at the time that this was a significant day or a significant moment. I didn’t know that until right now, actually. But I can still tell you exactly what I was wearing.
Except the shoes. No idea about the shoes.
But I remember black bikini underneath a rainbow-stripey halter top. I remember worn faded jeans. I remember sunglasses pushed on top of a careless pile of sand-encrusted hair.
I remember the beer I had. I remember the music playing.
Home.
So this was the place that ended up being home for me for the next however many years. Lots of them.
To the point that people actually sent me mail there. That’s not weird at all.
I ended up working behind the bar. The first time it was just for six weeks when I lost a different bar job. The second time I put in an entire year. I was there anyway. Why not.
It was the place of every New Year’s Eve. It’s where I had all the dreams.
And it’s where I became friends with oh, pretty much much all of my friends.
Alon. Benjy. Inbal. Oh! Sweet Alona! Marsha. Gilad.
People I still am in connection with. Ehud. Orna.
People I am not at all in connection with. Hi, Dori. I hope you are doing good things.
It’s where I became friends with my friend who is dead. And where we spent hours and hours and months and years talking about everything that can be talked about. Which is why I can’t go back.
It’s where everything happened. Where everything started.
It’s where I wrote and worked and practiced and cried and laughed and sometimes even slept.
It’s where I met The Kid. Though that took a little work.
Thank you Benjy for that strategically placed call at Mishmish. I still owe you one. And by the way, The Kid is in his 30s now. We have to stop calling him that.
It’s where I read all the best books.
It’s where I learned German.
Let’s follow the trail of stones, okay?
Well, a trail of stones. One possible likely trail.
Because of that day of beach, I found a place that redefined home and family.
Because of this home, I met The Kid.
Because of the three years that followed that, I moved to Berlin.
Well, I was already committed to the move. But I don’t know that I would have actually done it. Except I talked The Kid out of Amsterdam and he chose Berlin instead. And I was jealous. My dream! MY dream! So then I had to.
Because of Berlin, I got deathly ill and that changed everything.
Because of the illness, I learned how to heal.
Because of this new understanding of how internal-process and undoing of patterns works, we are HERE RIGHT NOW — I mean, oh god so much has happened over the years since then and look what we are doing and the ways we are changing everything, here, together, and is this not the most marvelous moment, hello! — on this hidden portal of love, disguised as a website, together.
And then! Did you know? We have this website because, seven years ago this month, The Kid made it for me. August 2005. That’s when it came into being.
He was applying to graphic design programs at art schools in Berlin and needed to build a website for his portfolio. He knew me better than anyone and so he built something that was pure Havi essence. This was born. We are here.
Beach.
Yesterday I went to the beach. 
Cannon Beach. The Pacific Ocean. Hello, ocean. Hello, rock. Hello, quiet quiet waves.
Seven hours of beach.
For my regularly scheduled Clandestine Executive Board Meeting. It’s a thing. An internal thing.
I did shiva nata on the beach, with magical words and glowing sun salutations.
I did slooooooow yoga, until I was coated in sand, each long exhalation rippling through sand, being sand.
And the sand talked to me. It told me marvelous and unexpected things about plenty and delight and release and enough.
And then I wrote. I followed the trails of stones. Not letting the stones be a narrative of all the ways that I have been hurt. Not using stones as evidence of wrong or right. Just letting the stones show me where they have taken me.
Letting the stones show me.
Letting the stones show me how all the beautiful things from now have come from a trail of then.
And how all the beautiful things that are coming in as I write this (and those that are still to come) are born from trails and stones of now.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that I have to be grateful for the painful hard heart-breaking crumbling of now. That is a distortion. It just means that hey, guess what, there are trails and I can pay attention to the infinite ways they can open up.
Hello, stones. Hello, trails. Hello, being covered in sand. Hello, beginnings.
This is what Havi feels like after yoga and shiva nata on the beach. Empty and full. Sweetly peaceful. Tired and releasing. Coming back to herself.
Thank you, beach. And stones. And bridges, large and small. And seven full years of this home online. But mostly patterns and shiva nata, and being able to see again.
Playing and responding.
Things that are welcome: you can leave pebbles or heart sighs. You can say thank you to stones or notice things about stones of your own, following your own trails. You can share things that were sparked for you. Or take a silent retreat — it’s way more empowering/fun than it sounds.
Things that are not welcome: the usual! No advice, analysis or attempts to try to make things better. That’s part of how we make space for people to experience what they’re experiencing in the way that they’re experiencing it.
And of course if you would like to yay with me about seven whole years of this magical online space or about how magical it is to do shiva nata on the beach, that is welcome too.
Love, as always, to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers, and everyone who reads. Happy August. We are passage-ing.
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First of all – Yay for 7 years, and beaches and stones. I was following trails of stones of my own today, maybe that’s one of August’s gifts. I’ll leave a piece of smooth, palest green, sea glass collected from a Scottish beach long ago.
heart sighs! and pebbles: o o o o o o
And also, YEA for 7years of this wonderful portal to sparkle-joy and sexy-genius-ness. Discovering Shiva Nata has been the most significant thing of the past few years and has given me so many gifts and joys and new skills and superpowers. Thank you!
I felt a little bit of beach-yoga peace just reading that. I almost smelled the ocean. 🙂
Oh so many yays 🙂
A couple of weeks ago I discovered that level 1 verticals are perfect for doing while floating in the ocean!
Thank you for all that you have taught me so far with your blog and your writing and your Havi-ness!
Yay! & heart sighs! Thank you for these posts, thank you for posting this picture of yourself, thank you for sharing your luminosity with me all these years.
Today is a similarly big day for me with lots of amazing stemming from a city whose very name captivated me when I was younger . . . and now all these strands of healing can be traced back to that very place.
I am feeling thankful and honored to be part of this.
That is all.
Yea for 7 years and yea for welcoming lurkers. I’m leaving a sparkley piece of grey granite from my childhood beaches in Aberdeen
Pebbles and stones. I’ve always collected them. From all parts of the world, and from so many beaches, they hold many of my own stories and memories.
Heart sighs for pebbles and stones and beaches and oceans, for Shiva Nata and yoga, and for seven years of The Magical Fluent Self.
Leaving a jade green pebble from Bali here as a gift.
Ahhhhhhhh.
Thank you for this. I was just daydreaming about Cannon Beach yesterday. I’ve never been there, nor to Portland, but was imagining what it might be like to live in one of those places, and to travel to the other by public transit.
Probably the thing that I miss the most about living in New Jersey is the ability to say, “I think I’ll go to the beach today,” and drive there in under an hour. I used to always go there on my birthday. I would ask the ocean questions, and it would give me answers. Not coy little subtle answers, either, but huge, vast, all-encompassing, instant answers. Almost too fast for human language. Well, of course; it’s ocean language. I would have thought that ocean language would be slow and gradual, like the tides, and maybe sometimes it is, but this was the instantaneous communication of the waves, flowing into me, carrying me.
Oh, and I have done Shiva Nata on the beach, at Assateague. Sublime.
I’m planning to have some beach time of my own before summer’s end, probably early next month, if not before. I will do this!
Yay, and thank you.
*sitting with my own memories of Tel Aviv, and missing beaches and people*
Love you, Havi. 🙂
Gorgeousness!
I’m at the beach today on my birthday & this is lovely & resonant for me. Thank you.
I love this sand you describe, it makes me take the biggest most relaxing sigh. Waving fondly to the seven years and to all the beaches and the paths…
Thank you for the story — it was a reminder I needed.
All the love to you and the beach!
Wow — yes.. heart sighs… and gratitude…
something struck me. your incredible sweetness…seeing your sweet face and the green on your shirt and the presence in your eyes…
thank you Havi…
you have changed so much in my life and i couldn’t be more grateful for this space… this portal… this presence!
xxxx!
jessica
August 1 ! August 1 is the birthday of the Fluent Self home. (now I know and yay happy)
Congratulations, Fluent Self home and congratulations, Havi !
All the gratitude and admiration for the bravery and the deepness of this space to you.
I really feel this is changing the world. Not sure how to put into words completely. It’s like this: because these ideas exist, there is a touch*stone*. It compares to non-violent communication, too.
Because I know about the concepts (non-violent communicating, making space, giving space, stepping through doors with stones in rituals that shift and are self-created and always adapting) I am different. Because I am different, I communicate different, I radiate different, I shift energies in slow and simple ways and things are different.
And there is so much source here; so much space to sit and refuel by a well. Everyone is source and well, but it is so helpful to have the option of coming to a home/well/fluent space and fill up on help and tools and spaciousness and radiance.
Thank you, with a heart-sigh.
Thank you for sharing your luminous, glowing spirit-your sharing has shifted and reconfigured the way I view my place in the world-thank you words are not enough.
beautiful gratitude
Mmmmm, yes. And wow. Haven’t thought about Tel Aviv in ages, and now I’ve been back there. Thank you for that.
Also, I just can’t say/hear/think it enough: BEACH! YES! BEACH!
YAY! for this website and all the wonderful gifts it has given me and all of us! Yay! Thank you! Wow! Hugs! Heart-sighs. EXCLAMATION POINTS!
a long, loving heart sigh for the gentle magic of the beach! And for this website.
Hmmmm heart sighs for beaches, and things that come in sevens, and Shiva Nata, and and The Fluent Self, and belonging to onesself and to others.
Thank you, Havi.