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Here be monsters.
This week every single idea I’ve had for a wish that I might process here has been immediately shut down by monsters.
To the point that I couldn’t even tell that it was monsters, and thought that maybe I just didn’t want anything…
Me: What do I want?
Answer: I don’t know!
Me: Really?
Answer: I don’t know!
Me: That’s a little suspicious…
Answer: No it isn’t!
Me: Really. We have done this for THREE HUNDRED AND FIVE WEEKS IN A ROW, and suddenly at week three hundred and six, we have mysteriously lost the ability to make wishes? Or is something else at play?
Monsters: Fine, make a wish, and we will tell you why it’s stupid.
And that’s how it went.
It turned out, of course, that I have dozens of wishes, but I was just scared to name them because of all the criticism. Sometimes you have to protect a tiny sweet thing, and I was protecting mine by pretending it didn’t exist.
So I started testing this, with less scary things. I’d name a wish about something I might theoretically want, like, maybe eventually, some day, possibly…and the monsters had already written a doctoral thesis on why it’s stupid, selfish, and won’t work anyway.
Their ability to shut things down is always pretty impressive (after all, that’s how self-protective mechanisms work), but their game is so speedy right now. You kind of have to admire it.
It’s a game to them, and they are really good at it.
So I had the thought: Huh. If this is a fun game for them, destroying wishes, let’s find a way to let them play the game so they can be happy.
And a way for me to have my own parallel game of generating and playing with wishes, and then we all win.
That way I can know what they object to, and if I need proxies or less scary wishes or better ways to protect the wishes.
Of course underneath all of this is the real game: getting quiet and still, listening to my secret truth, finding out what I really want and how better to take care of myself.
This requires a bouncy castle. Let’s make one.
A bouncy castle for secret wishes that is also a ball pit.
Two of them. One for the monsters and one for me. And each of the brightly colored balls are wishes, and when the monsters see a ball they can jump on it and say all the negative things they think about it, and then at least I will know what my wishes are (and why they scare me, because of monster objections), and I can visit my own bouncy castle and play with my wish-balls there, sans monsters.
It’s duplicate bouncy castles! Duplicate bouncy castles full of wishing balls!
Hilariously, while I was thinking that, someone on Twitter said “it’s raining balls over here”. Yeah? Well I’m WISHING balls.
And since all of my wish-balls are really secretly about being a better bell, these wishing balls can also be wishing bells. Hey, it’s the month of Reverberation.
This week.
Instead of exploring a wish, I’ll just name a bunch of the colorful wishing balls.
Some may not make much sense yet, maybe not even to me, and that’s okay.
Some of these wishes are tiny, sweet, baby wishes with adorable little toes, and they need safety, sweetness and adoration.
Some of these wishes come with a request for suggestions if you have any.
Then over the course of this week, I will trust that my monsters are happily firing off objections in the ball pit, gleefully destroying everything in sight.
And I will play peacefully with my bell-wishes and ball-wishes, letting them be colorful, buoyant, extravagant.
And if monsters need to be monster-ey today, they get one sentence. Wise-me can chime in too, please.
WISHBALLS: GO!
AIR.
Back to keeping the phone in airplane mode, or, as I call it: AIRplane mode.
AIR = Access Internal Resonance, something which is considerably easier for me to do when I’m not plugged in.
Monsters: That’s not your real wish, your real wish is to not run out of data and be constrained by money, you are lying to yourself to preserve morale, just like Then!
Wisest Me: Let’s play what’s true and what’s also true: It’s true Havi cares about conserving data right now. It’s also true that she thrives on the spaciousness and quiet of being a peaceful bell, that’s a big part of Shmita and something she would genuinely like to experiment with.
A delicious no-dairy cheese recipe.
Since deciding that I’m done with plastic, I’ve been living in the kitchen.
Well, I live on the road in a tiny camper, so the kitchen is the same as the rest of my space, but I’ve been figuring out how to make everything we currently buy which comes with plastic.
I love cheese more than anything in the world, but unless I learn how to make it or acquire a giant wheel of it somewhere, it’s either goodbye cheese or substitutes.
I’ve made some nut cheeses, and they’re…fine, but nothing like cheese. The recipes say OHMYGOD THIS IS SO DELICIOUS AND ADDICTIVE AND YOU WILL THINK IT IS CHEESE BUT LIKE IT EVEN IT MORE, and apparently vegans are as reliable about things tasting like cheese as I am about things tasting like dessert.
Which is to say, not at all. The opposite of reliable. Maybe even kind of delusional.
I quit sugar a little over fifteen years ago. So I don’t actually remember what really sweet things taste like. I make myself frozen seed treats with seeds, dates, raisins, nuts and cocoa powder. In my mind they taste like Reese’s peanut butter cups, only better.
I told my housemate he should taste these sweet treats, and he said, yeah, I wouldn’t call them sweet, they taste like nuts and fruit, and I was like, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THIS IS THE MOST DECADENT DESSERT OF ALL TIME.
I want truly great recipes for alternative cheeses of different flavors and textures, that come with the seal of approval from people who still know from cheese. Orgasmic levels of cheese-like approximation. Or at the very least, cheese-like levels.
Anyone reading is welcome and invited to direct me to their favorite recipes, as long as a genuine cheese-eating person can swear that this really is a worthy substitute.
Monsters: You are a selfish, horrible person who needs to shut up, there are starving children working in sweatshops and all you care about is cheese taste, get over yourself.
Wisest-me: This is a marvelous wish that will change how you live, and I can’t wait to find out where this goes.
Access Secret Learning.
This is my secret code for American Sign Language, and I would like to spend more time playing with signs.
Monsters: Yeah whatever, like this is ever going to happen, don’t make wishes out loud if you’re not going to follow through, dumbass.
Wisest-me: All timing is right timing, and seed-planting is the best way to start, so keep your eyes open for all the ways you are accessing secret learning, not just the way you think it has to be.
Buying food at farms and in bulk.
This is how I want to acquire food now.
Monsters: Right, this is totally going to work while living on the road, don’t you realize it’s going to be expensive and impossible.
Wisest-me: What a beautiful wish. I bet that farm you’ve been eyeing is going to have amazing olive oil, and I know how much you enjoyed making your own chili powder this week from the bulk dried peppers you bought at the co-op! What vibrancy in taste and color. What glorious Aliveness!
Be a bell in Fresno.
[Secret silent retreat wish that has to do with a dance convention.]
Monsters: It’s going to be a disaster to end all disasters, you’ll probably never dance again.
Wisest-me: Yep, this is a terrific wish. Let’s make some magic.
Pole dancing.
Not even a proxy.
Monsters: Hahaha, with your abs?
Wisest-me: I love it when you make wishes that have to do with gazelle state and Lusciousness, your two favorite things. And adventure. What a beautiful wish.
Cod liver oil.
How do you disguise it so it does not taste disgusting? I am open to all suggestions or recipes that do not involve sugar/honey/sweeteners.
Monsters: You’re embarrassing.
Wisest-me: I bet there is a marvelous solution waiting for you.
A recipe for corn tortillas that does not involve using plastic.
In fact, I think I want an entire cookbook based on zero waste principles.
I mean, come on. People have made corn tortillas forever. How come I can’t find a single recipe that doesn’t involve plastic wrap or cutting a piece of a plastic bag or wax paper.
What did people do a hundred years ago? Why isn’t there a recipe for that? This is driving me crazy.
Open to suggestions, recommendations and favorite recipes, thank you!
Monsters: All you care about is food and making food, you’re turning into some horribly boring, homesteading, apron-wearing zealot, and no one is ever going to read your blog again.
Wisest-me: It is going to be awesome making tortillas! And there really is a need for this zero-plastic cookbook, and you don’t have to be the one to write it!
More Putterday please!
Devoting more time to just puttering.
Monsters: Just shut up already and do some damn work for a change.
Wisest-me: Mmmmm what a delicious wish!
Now.
There is a gorgeous shot glass full of freshly ground chili powder in front of me. There is flour all over my pants. I overcooked the rice dish, but made a delicious garlicky lemon tahini sauce that tastes like home to me. I’m wearing my mother’s necklace and if she were still alive, I’d tell her about the chili powder and she would be so excited.
Well, possibly she would also send me an envelope stuffed full of newspaper clippings about people who accidentally overdosed on chili powder and died, or made their own powder from bad peppers and died, but she would be very interested in the process, and right now I am enjoying that superpower of Excited About Process, something my monsters will (I hope) learn to enjoy and to let me enjoy too.
Me: Hey, slightly-wiser me, what do you have for me?
She: You thought you didn’t have any wishes and look how many wishes you have.
Me: But what if my monsters are right and these are all terrible wishes?
She: If they were terrible wishes, you wouldn’t have so much invested in trying to shut them down. And anyway, what is a wish if not an experiment in permission to want?
Clues?
When I left the campsite two weeks ago, it was full of yellow flowers, but now it is full of yellow and purple flowers. A landscape can change quickly and in entirety and astound me with beauty.
The superpower of I take care of myself first.
The quality for May is REVERBERATE, and it comes with I take care of myself first.
Things that reverberate: bells, wishes, electric toothbrushes, ships and motorcycles, intention, presence, joyfulness, desire.
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 a new experiment…
Last week my wish was about dental floss but it was really about living in a way that is meaningful and important to me, and the permission to follow that wherever it takes me.
Haven’t solved the dental floss bit yet. I already use coconut oil for oil pulling, so I have added a couple minutes of swishing oil after I eat, and brushing teeth more, but right now floss still seems very necessary, so I am using what I have and waiting for the right solution to reveal itself. As for the bigger wish, I feel stronger and more hopeful about everything than I did a week ago.
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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I have made cheese — not substitute cheese, but actual cheese, a soft, creamy farmer-type cheese — using lots of milk, rennet, a live culture, and a cheesecloth sack, and my more culinarily adventurous partner has made several varieties, including a short-aged cheddar and a sort of brie-bleu cheese hybrid. It’s a little time-consuming but (to me) not really difficult, and rather a meditative process. You might enjoy exploring this! There are a number of helpful websites; one good starting point is fiascofarm.com; there is also a person named Fankhauser who seems to be a useful source of information for beginning cheesemakers.
My own monsters seem to be playing Goldilocks to my wishes this week: some are Too Big, others are Too Small. I’ll just whisper a couple quickly while they’re distracted by porridge: I would like to feel ease and comfort with the silver chariot (too small!) and I would like the month leading up to my birthday to be filled with joy and wonder and wisdom and brilliant epiphanies (too big!) Even so, may it be so. <3
Hoping that the bite adjustment fixes the toothache. If there is a next time I will call sooner.
Project [a] has hit a snag. I can remember that I don’t have de-snag it right away. I can even savor the fact that deferring [a] means deferring disruption, and enjoy the respite from that.
Into the pot:
* a peony hoop for my calla lily.
* smooth skating
Warm wishes to all y’all.
Clew: Rho Chi
Paneer cheese is really easy to make and doesn’t take much time.
All you need is fresh milk, lemon juice and a muslin cloth.
Come to think of it, said muslin cloth could possibly also work for tortilla making?
Havi, you can make paneer from milk and lemon juice… Not sure how you get milk not in plastic though… :0/
Have you read or used recipes from Artisan Vegan Cheese by Miyoko Schinner? They’re nut cheeses, yes, but it goes beyond the usual dairy-free cheese recipes by culturing and fermenting.
I haven’t tried making the hard cheeses yet (since they call for carrageenan and the Co-op doesn’t sell it and I haven’t gotten around to ordering it from the internet yet), but I did make cashew cream cheese. It’s the first time I’ve cultured anything and it made me feel so resourceful and independent and self-sufficient. And, of course, it tastes good! Not exactly like dairy cream cheese, but amazingly similar. It’s good on bagels, and I’ve put it in sushi.
This week I’m going to try Schinner’s recipe for yogurt.
Ring out the old, ring in the new, ring out the false, ring in the true…
Forgiveness.
I live in Fresno! Welcome and have a great time :). Glad you are missing the hellacious heat and worst of the bad air days.
Oh wow, you guys! What beautiful wishes! May you all have lovely weeks brimming with fulfilled wishes & valuable insights about wanting!
This week, I wish for a job. I need a job that pays well enough to help me build my savings. It needs to leave me with enough time and energy for my art. It needs to be introvert-friendly. I need to be able to get to it on foot or via reliable public transit. It needs to sustain me without burning me out. May it be so!
I also wish to make more progress in settling into my new place. Specifically, I want to stock my kitchen & get settled into a good cooking routine.
I wish to spend some time reading about art, and some time painting/illustrating.
I wish for rest, and recovery from burnout. May it be so!
What beautiful wishes, Rachel!
I truly hope you’ll find the perfect job and have plenty of time and energy for your art. Fingers crossed!
I am forever and endlessly fascinated by what I find here. So will start with a large heaping helping of gratitude for Havi and all who congregate here <3
Also… Wishes!
SO interesting, this: "What did people do a hundred years ago?"
This keeps coming up for me lately, and in various ways. My wish is to further explore and play with (kindly and with lots of gentle-ness) what *did* people do a hundred (two hundred! more!) years ago.
How did we live then?
What bits of then feel hopeful and interesting for *now*? For *here*?
How can I reconnect with all things in a way that gives life meaning regardless of the job (or lack of); regardless of how business is going; regardless of the state of my most important relationships; regardless of how crazy I feel in the moment. How can I live my life in such a way that I feel connected with Life?
My wish is to play with those questions, and listen for the answers.
May it be so, and may your wishes fly free to bring back the most perfect resolutions for *you* (all!) <3
I will be on the lookout here because I too would like to know how to make codfish oil less disgusting, I have half a bottle to go through and can’t make myself.
I’m not opposed to eating sweet things, but mixing honey in codfish oil? Not really my idea of making things taste better.
Hmm.. What do I want?
This morning I had a strong desire to create for no purpose whatsoever. I’m tired of writing and drawing for my blog, courses, game, work, and whatnot.
I want to draw useless things that make me happy.
And I didn’t follow through today.
So my wish is for things just for fun. No agenda. No masterplan. No goals. No justification.
My monsters get all up in arms about it of course, so this is something to work on.
What beautiful wishes!
I cover my tortilla (and other) dough with a kitchen cloth while it rests, I haven’t needed to use plastic. If its calling for plastic to sit in the fridge for a bit, maybe that’s so it won’t dry out, so maybe try a glass bowl covered with a damp towel?
I have a date tomorrow. It is not with the Boy, who remains a friend, but with someone else. I’d like to be the best me that I can be on it.
And I’m gwishing for a good long weekend with a nice blend of effort and relaxation, alone time and time with people I love.
And there is a sort of performance for work tomorrow that I prepared for and would like to feel confident about, and I’d like to remember compassion, and centeredness.
For making tortillas without plastic (for pressing or rolling out), there’s one properly old-fashioned method I know, completely by hand. This is what dinnertime in El Salvador sounds like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxRZt-L507w
If I were going to try rolling them out without plastic to keep things from sticking, I’d be very curious to try using a banana leaf.
Dear Havi’s monsters who think she is turning into a homesteading zealot and no one will want to read her blog anymore: I have to say, loves, that you are *completely* wrong about this. I, for one, who grew up on Laura Ingalls Wilder books and had a ’70s mom who made a lot of her own everything, at least for awhile, find this stuff kind of interesting. And even though I’m not really interested in actually attempting the homesteading-type stuff myself, I still *love* reading about Havi’s adventures, which I find to be super-educational and poetic. And this kind of exchange I find to be extra helpful:
“Monsters: You’re embarrassing.
Wisest-me: I bet there is a marvelous solution waiting for you.”
This juxtaposition is *so* illuminating and epiphany-inducing for me!!! It means I can hear all the inputs and then I get to *choose* which one I want to align with. Magic.
My own wish for this week: courage and stamina to embrace all the changes, and permission to love them and be excited about my new life even in the midst of difficult lettings-go and much uncertainty.
Much love for everyone’s beautiful wishes. <3
What beautiful wishes everyone!<3
My wishes for this week are about simplisity, recovery and seeing possibilities. There has been a lot of busy lately, a lot of fun as well, but right now I yearn for not-running-around-and-planning-for-everything yet stilll finding solutions. And seeing possibilites.
On the subject of cod liver oil (i am one of those people who actually enjoy the taste, funny but true): here one can buy lemon flavoured fish oil (with real lemon in it, not just industrial junk) and that's usually how parents manage to get kids and themselves to drink the stuff. So perhaps that's a possibility:)
One other possibily is to use it as a cooking oil in small quantities, when making a stir fry or wok or something, we did that in school one time and the taste was not bad at alll. But yes, your food would still taste a bit like the cod liver oil (fun fact: during WWII when this place was occupied and there was a food shortage, people did use various kinds of fish oils as cooking oils. Actually they even made shoes out of fish as well, but that's a different story).
Put short: mix with strong flavoured foods you do enjoy, and see what happens:)
Such beautiful wishes!!
My wish is to get through the rest of this week gracefully, with comfort, and by remembering to take care of myself.
May it be so! <3
so beautiful to hear each of your expressions of your hearts and souls. thank you very much. so nourishing for me each time i read all of your words.
havi & all lovely soul travellers…i wanted to share that we just had a visit at a place called still waters sanctuary in la plata, missouri. it is also known as the possiblity alliance. they are full on homesteading and loving and living with candles for light, growing foods, eating only from their local region, taking time to sit in silence together and honor moments of quiet, making a lot of what they want and need. they go a lot on ghandi’s examples of living “renounce and enjoy”. it was a profound experience for me and my sweetest man. they don’t have a website but you can google still waters sanctuary or the possibility alliance and/or superheroes (meaning we all have a super hero…or i would say superheroine…in us alive and well and wanting to give love) and u oughtta be able to find some things. life altering for me. if y’all happen to be going by the missouri way..it is a very inspiring place. or was/is for me.
if any of you would like a copy of a zine they put out a couple years ago that shares so much more deeply what they are up to i would love to make copies and send one to you in the mail. my personal email (does it appear on here already?) is sashironan@gmail.com
deep peace to each of you.
My one wish is to love myself more and despise myself less. This is the hardest and most important thing.
You all have such lovely wishes, too! 🙂
What is the plastic/wax paper needed for in the tortilla making? I used to have a silicon reusable baking sheet thing that was floppy and flexible (and entirely flat) – if it’s something in the rolling process that needs the non-sticky things, would that work for you? I found that mine didn’t last forever but it did last 5 or 6 years – and if I had another one I’d store it flat not rolled to see if it lasted longer that way. (I think it would also have lasted longer if it didn’t go in the oven – which is unavoidable as a baking sheet but maybe possible as a tortilla gadget!). NB I don’t know what else there was in it other than silicone so might not meet your requirements anyway.
Good luck with the vegan cheese. As a cheese-missing vegan I can confirm that vegans are rubbish about what does & does not taste like cheese 🙂
Here’s how I do cod liver oil: I get one that’s lemon-flavored (but not sweetened). The lemon flavor is helpful for me, but not necessary.
I swig it from the bottle, straight to the back of my tongue, and swallow. Then I take a sip of something else: water, water with some apple cider vinegar in it, juice, kombucha. Or, in a pinch, I eat a bite of something strongly-flavored (I like sauerkraut).
This has become a sweet, grounding ritual for me over the years. Hope this or something else is the perfect solution for you!
I saw your cheese-request, and, will you even see this comment? but I have a friend who makes non-dairy cheeses, and I am a cheese-eater and I have tasted it, and they are good cheese substitutes! (with the right flavoring-blend, anyway.) She read a book that went into the super-cool interesting philosophy about what it is about cheese that we love as its cheesiness (for example, actual melting, if the use involves a situation where dairy cheese would melt), and it set about to duplicate that in non-dairy ways. The book was by Skye Michael Conroy, and you can read about some of my friend’s experiments here:
https://eatclosetohome.wordpress.com/2014/11/15/how-to-make-non-dairy-cheese-for-pizza/
That sounds great, thank you! <3