the point isn’t getting my wish (though cool things have emerged from wishing), it’s learning about my relationship with wanting, accessing the qualities…
wanting can be hard, it is easy to feel conflicted about it, and the reasons for that make this a surprisingly subversive practice…
this is the 328th consecutive week of wishing, come play!
exits
I have quit all the disharmonious places
all of them
no more going to the grocery store I don’t like
who cares if it’s closer
I deleted my facebook account
it was time
and even when a specific activity or experience is yes
if it takes place inside a not-yes building
or I have to walk past a not-yes parking lot to get there
then it’s a no
I am done with the disharmonious places because of
what happens to me while I’m in them
and how long it takes me to return to clear bell state
the energy price is too high
so now I treat certain places as I would
a dangerous allergy
choosing [keeping a safe distance now] over [arduous-recovery-later]
if I know the ingredients of an environment are not supportive of me
and my internal resonant bell state,
if I know the recovery time will be long and painful
or that the experience will likely
disconnect me from my superpowers
then it’s an easy NO
it didn’t used to be easy
funny
I mean, I recently made a wish about
delicious space
and not long before that
a wish about less
and — haha — yep you guessed it
now I can’t go most places
because they aren’t delicious:
they don’t facilitate deliciousness
they inhibit my ability to be delicious in space
interesting that it doesn’t actually feel limiting though
I have so much more peacefulness
so much more space
inside of me
compendium
next to my bed is Nigella Lawson’s marvelously-titled cookbook
How To Eat
I doubt her dishes will make it to my kitchen
the book might as well be called
Meat, Gluten and Sugar: A Compendium of Dishes Not For A Havi
it’s in the bedroom though, nowhere near the kitchen, and I’m
not reading it for the recipes
but for the lusciousness:
tantalizing words, intermingling
so delicious
“in cooking, as in writing, you must
please yourself to please others”
she says
where someone (a cautious editor, one imagines)
replaced “sex” with “writing”
I would also substitute dance into this perfect sentence
both as a word and as a quality ingredient
you must, you must, you must…
Nigella says you must use
“the most malevolently dark chocolate you can find”
is that not the most deliciously evocative turn of phrase
I am having a moment right now,
because there is so much to savor in that
tasting room
if I were not on the verge of letting go of my
(metaphorical) chocolate shop,
I would devote the entire space to only
malevolently dark chocolates
and I would invite each visitor to taste
the word — malevolent — on the tongue
alongside the rich-sweet-bitter-sweet flavors of
our offering
we would need a designated couch: crimson, with silk cushions,
to accommodate all the swooning
but I digress, deliciously, again
Nigella has plenty to say about ingredients
but I am almost more fascinated when she turns to
metaphysical ingredients, for example:
“strangely, it can take enormous confidence
to trust your own palate, follow your own instincts”
or when she lightly references the ways in which The Game Is Rigged:
“cooking can be relaxing (although it’s interesting that it is men rather than women who tend more often to cite its therapeutic properties) but not if you’re already exhausted”
a list of ingredients for writing about ingredients
I recalled this morning that I’d jotted some rather extensive notes
a while back on the subject of today’s wish,
so I looked for them, and found a document titled
{Writing About Ingredients}
here’s the entirety of its contents:
pomegranates
meaning
herbs
peanut butter
underthings
grief
pie-making
presence
thanks, past-me, for the intriguing poem
I’m not sure I remember what these clues mean
but I will do my best
and I love you, and love that you thought
this would be all the instruction I could possibly need
pomegranates
I lived in tel aviv for nearly
a third of my life
and this means many things
but right now it means this is why I can’t drink pomegranate juice here
there you zig-zag your way briskly through the shuk
not on a friday and not late afternoon though
because bombs and terror while not predictable
(that’s what makes them terrifying)
do tend to follow patterns
so you choose outside the patterns
when you can
in the fall you’ll find a taciturn old syrian man
sitting with an overflowing basket of pomegranates
a giant knife, a board, a small metal juicer
and another basket, overturned, to serve as a low table
sweetness
you dig in your pocket for the right combination of coins
and get a surly grunt in response
slice slice slice slice
and then you have a cup of
rich pure liquid
made of jewels and sweetness
it is invigorating and intoxicating
and you savor every magical drop
as it meets tongue and then bloodstream
feeling vibrant autumnal powers course through you
in the states, pomegranate juice
comes in bottles and tastes stagnant and
vaguely plastic, even when it comes in glass
not the same
meaning
the word ingredient comes from latin – ingredi –
to enter
so ingredients are about intention
conscious entry
enter as you wish to be in it
exit as you wish to continue
what you put into it alters what you get out of it
and even meaning has a double-meaning:
meaning as in definition, but also substance, significance, intention
herbs are magic
I wander the spice shop, in awe of scent and flavor
the spice shop is a sanctuary for a wild sensualist
speaking of words that have two meanings:
{sanctuary = shelter + reverence}
a sprinkle of something
transforms the entire experience
this alchemy (whether we are speaking of spices or intentions)
is true in all things, food is just the beginning
peanut butter
all in all I spent nearly six months this year on the road, in a truck and tiny camper,
where I realized I don’t want to throw things away anymore
and recycling is problematic, unappealing, distressing
(I recommend the book Plastic Free by Beth Terry for more on that)
(and for hopefulness and compassion)
(speaking of excellent ingredients)
I have passionate feelings about peanut butter
but couldn’t bear to take part in this cycle of endless jars,
this world where disposing is just the way of things
it turns out a surprising number of grocery stores
have a machine that grinds peanuts into peanut butter
things about this:
- freshly ground peanut butter is life-changing: it tastes nothing like factory peanut butter, it doesn’t even seem like the same category of food
- it’s always the exact right mix of crunchy and smooth, as if peanuts already know how to achieve the desired consistency
- I consume less but my entire body enjoys each moment, it’s a full body peanut butter experience of presence and delight!
- if you use it as an ingredient, whatever you make is exponentially more delicious
- it’s not actually that much more expensive (and often on sale at my supermarket), and it’s not that hard to remember to bring the jar
mainly though
I feel appreciative and praise-filled about this gorgeous miracle
what a remarkable thing it is, a jar, and how astonishing
that we take them for granted when,
even a hundred years ago, this object would have been a treasure
no one would have dreamed of discarding
underthings
I may have a slight lingerie addiction
and also I care — a lot —
about garments which are ethically and sustainably produced
and about the ingredients
that go into anything that gets to touch my beautiful downstairs bodyparts
after all
the ingredients, as it were, of my beautiful downstairs bodyparts themselves
are highly sensitive mucous membranes
so I don’t want to dress them in fabrics treated
with toxic chemicals
which is most underthings
and most clothing in general
this is (or can be) hard and complicated
because organic cotton is expensive
and generally not sexy
cotton and the production of cotton is an ingredient
how workers are treated is an ingredient
how a garment is manufactured is an ingredient
knowing about these components is an ingredient
as is the magic beans of time and energy for researching how things are made
also, if the company chooses to show only stick-shaped girls, white, tall, the usual,
that is an ingredient too
I fail to see how something is “ethically and sustainably” made
when the system still supports the unethical unsustainable bullshit of
“this is the way bodies should look”
instead of diverse, body-positive depictions of how bodies are
so many ingredients to this
how I vote with the money/resources available to me
loving and caring for my body
sexiness is a very, very important ingredient, for me
I have no answers here yet
just a wish for something better
grief
the ingredients of grieving:
process / time / permission / presence
acknowledgment / legitimacy / love
loss / sweetness / remembering / everything ends
and still, even as it ends, we are here
and all is well even when we can’t remember this
another ingredient is being a marble
sliding around between the
points of grief
(contrary to popular belief, they are not stages and there is no order)
for example right now I am
back and forth between bargaining and denial
a swaying grief-pendulum
pie-making
I read an article about the art of pies,
the in-flight magazine pie-making expert
was somewhat reluctant to give tips though because, as she said,
technique is all well and good,
but if it’s not made with love, it’s not good pie
it’s the love that makes the pie
related to this (love, not pie)
Nigella says:
“there seems to me to be something
robustly affirmative about taking trouble to feed YOURSELF —
enjoying life on purpose
rather than by default”
presence is my favorite ingredient
that’s what I want in life
to just be inside of each moment, each interaction
bringing more of myself
a clear bell
presence is delicious
so simple and yet so full
so very alive
what do I know about my wish this week
it’s another double-meaning wish
it’s about ingredients that are high-quality
and also about using ingredients as qualities, and qualities as ingredients
my wish is to glow qualities and use them
as ingredients for life
just like with peanut-butter
I want the most pure fresh alive unadulterated unprocessed flavor-rich version:
TRUST * RELEASE * LOVE * RECEIVE
ANCHOR * CROWN * GLOW * BOLDLY
now
dark blue robe, laura’s scarf as a bedspread, the phrase “sliver of moon”,
two compasses hanging on the wall in my bedroom
(gifts from megan and from anna),
hand on my heart, breathing, taking up space with love, through love,
these are the ingredients
superpower of yes to my yes, no to my no.
october (on the fluent self calendar) is BE BOLD MORE, with the superpower of yes to my yes, no to my no
and this superpower is what activated the wish-seeds of delicious space and supportive environments so that I could say goodbye to the disharmonious places and choose better ingredients for my life
so it’s kind of a big deal
maybe even more than I realized when I wished
last week’s wishes
I wished a wish called shiva…
about sitting and also about destroying
grieving what needs to be grieved
with comfort and companionship
and I received what I needed
invitation: come play with me…
you are invited to share many !!!!!! about what is here,
or share anything sparked for you while reading
deposit wishes, gwishes, superpowers, qualities, ingredients, intel, possibly in code
safe space for creative exploration asks us to let go of care-taking and advice-giving
wishes are never late because whenever you wish is the right time for wishing
here’s how we meet each other’s wishes: oh, wow what beautiful wishes
♡
Follow
!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 <3 <3 <3
I am thinking about
all the ways
I have cut back on things
in my life
the expectations I have dropped
and the various games I now decline
to participate in
and where those choices have come from
a place of fear
and I feel that I have reduced
and restricted
my life, and made it smaller
and where there has been
Fearless, Intentional Choosing
which brings such a sense of
Freedom, and Relief
and Delicious Space
and how I want to make sure
I am more mindful
about the places I am bringing in
Fear
as an ingredient
and whether I think I will
enjoy the flavour
of Fearful Choosing
and concentrate
instead
on Glow
and Entry
and Intention
and Crown
and Choice
Yes to my Yes
No to my No
May it be so
Amen
It’s been a week full of anger
and we know anger is the way my monsters
protect me from the devastating sadness
that comes with
There Is Nothing I Can Do
which is the most difficult thing to accept
my heart wishes for Comfort
for a space to grieve and heal
a mothering space
a Mother Spaceship
and I wish to be that space for myself
my home to be that Spaceship
to allow myself to suffer
to breath in the concept that
Everything Changes
which feels alternative
terrifying
and full of hope.
May this be a time of healing,
May I be gentle to myself
For once
And wait for the discoveries
That this moment will bring
this is a message for me, and i know it is a message for me because it whispered its secret meaning to me and then i cried:
“in cooking, as in [singing], you must
please yourself to please others”
so now i’m going to the library
immediately
to get this book.
Herbs!!!!!!! Spices!!!! What a delicious code
Today I need
FRESH LEMON
FOREST FLOOR
BASIL, the holy kind
CHIVE
POME-GRANITE
PUMPKIN PIE
LENTIL SOUP, my mom’s
THE SWEETEST KISS
Also leaving many pebbles and flower-petals
<3 for "the holy kind" and this wonderful list
Fresh ground peanut butter! <3 <3 <3 so good!
Pact is another place that has organic cotton undies and other clothes: http://www.wearpact.com/women/bottoms.html
Its models are no better about body shape diversity though.
thank you! <3 and yes, it's so funny the way companies are -- "we care about things that are not-artificial in this one particular way, but we welcome artifice when it comes to presenting what people look like”, except without the self-awareness that this is what they’re doing.
Now I need to imagine a “spice shop”. I’ve known for years that I yearn to train my sense of smell (like a perfumier), but focusing on plant and animal smells. Sadly, there don’t seem to be classes for that, only for food & perfume smells.
I, too, have been eliminating Things That Are Not Delicious, and like you, my life feels more spacious rather than restricted.
Yesterday, I welcomed Profound Loneliness (my lifelong companion) into my life, properly. No more running from Fear of Loneliness. No more numbing myself on social media so I don’t notice. Why pretend anymore? What am I so afraid of?
Turns out, Profound Loneliness is… kind of shy and quiet and… good company.
mmm that is so beautiful, a companion for loneliness in the form of getting to know it. <3
Once upon a time, peanut butter was my proxy. I was traveling someplace new with my family, beginning a new adventure, and I wanted to bring peanut butter. Some of them were afraid that we would be too hungry; they wanted the sugar rush of marshmallows and the convenience of processed foods. I knew, though, that the peanut butter was the right thing for me to bring. And I was right. So here I am, taking a moment to be grateful for the tenacity of Past Me, the beauty and usefulness of all that I have learned, and the awesome power of peanut butter.
!!!!!!!!!
At the moment, I am frustrated and sad about
* feeling like I could not spare time for a nightlight-crafting class
* a dental mishap
* breaking a bracelet made by an aunt
* not hearing from F and H
* the Cubs
But I am delighted/amused/pleased by
* my carrot-chomping dog
* my shepherding of several projects to their finish lines
* feeling able to throw out worn shoes without megadoses of angst
* free stickers and tea
Plus coming home to work led to making time to cook, so now I have a bowl of eggs and tomatoes and rice fried in the last of the lobster butter I made earlier this month.
What I want:
* to remain relatively safe and infection-free
* for progress on project C to continue apace
* a good climb
* to sort out the tires on both bike and car without much more hassle or expense
What I could try:
* more slowing down and stretching. That’s what (brain) cramps are warning me to do, right?
* caring for less. [Double sparklepoints for that there double play.]
* to go to bed now and work in the morning?
Warm wishes to all y’all.
caring for less = genius!!!!!
<3
What beautiful wishes, everyone!
I just got out of a period of intense busyness with a project that ate up my entire life (and is been doing so for the past 3-4 years). I wished for centeredness, and I had it together pretty well. I took my own advice to heart.
I didn’t celebrate my 30th birthday because it didn’t feel like a “yes” experience.
Now I’m feeling a bit foggy and lost. I’ve lost touch with my own projects.
What I wish for is clarity and commitment to something that I’m “in” fully, not half-heartedly or because I feel an obligation.
I wish for a practice that is enjoyable in itself and fills my creative well.
I saw your “Rest leads to Clarity” post on Instagram and it was a big clue for me.
I’m wishing for things to be clear NOW, but what I really need is a courting period with my dream.
Not jumping in straight from one project to the next.
I suppose what I need is to allow myself to experience boredom and see what new desires emerge from that.
So, rest some more.
Walk in the woods every single day when it’s not pouring rain.
Sit on the couch with all the screens off.
Be fully present and experiencing my beingness for what it is, not as a function of doing.
That’s good to know.
Thank you, me who allows myself to wish out loud.
Thank you for clues <3 <3 <3
"a courting period with my dream"
"beingness not as a function of doing"
_o_ <3
I want for all this pain to turn out to be WORTH IT, ideally because is it part of a path to MUCH deeper Joy, and preferably sooner, rather than later.
Heya. So mote it be.
Good wishes to all.
-o-
so much love for this!
A pair of compasses!
Thinking about the compass
and how you have to stand still
for the needle to stop swinging
so you can find north.
I am reading this post
with a tiny glass of ginger wine
green glass (brought home for me from Prague; gold rim; flowers cut into the green band)
green ginger wine.
Life is delicious. Thank you Havi
for pointing it out.
mmm that green glass sounds incredible, and just the right home for ginger wine <3
Ahhhh (happy sigh), what beautiful wishes.
Clues!
* the clothing of the vestibule: yes! yes! this is a thing. This was a seed I did not know I needed.
* pomegranates: oh my yes. I do not know the souk but I know the souk. The souk is my proxy for the thing related to pomegranates that I am working on: ripening. That special color of red-purple-pink is here, too. What can grow in a desert prairie is here. Most especially the unexpected is here.
Wishes:
* wild delighting in (a) {em}bod(y)ies[ment]
* a reckoning (yes? no?) with the library of salts
* the avocado
* what does the souk know?
oh wow what beautiful wishes, here is to RIPENING
are you kidding me
havi taking a dip in nigella’s word-play?
my brain just exploded
for literally 13 years Nigella has been my secret guardian angel/illustrious internal icon of sovereign sexy pleasure-seeking and pleasure-taking
“How to Eat” I probably read from cover to cover five hundred and seventy times. you start reading a sentence anywhere from that book, i’ll probably be able to finish it
and everyone’s always like “nigella? oh the buxom british lady who cooks on TV”
and I’m like “NO FUCK THE COOKING, FUCK THE TV, FUCK HER BOOBS, READ HER BOOKS, her velvety heaviness of adjectives, her voluptuous turns of phrases, metaphors and similes that are pure poetry-in-pleasure, the actual cooking instructions are kind of a second thought (marvelous though they may be)”
they make you want to make tea just to watch an amber bead of honey fall unctuously from a spoon, at a luxurious andante
they make you want to drop a steak into a hot pan, just to fill your ear with the music of thump and sizzle
(no one ever “got” this, at least among my friends. everyone was just like “yeah nigella the TV chef,” which drove me absolutely mad)
I love how she takes cooking back from
“chefs”
“experts”
“People Who Care Greatly About “Health””
trend-setters and the trend-conscious
and asks:
what is pleasurable
what would I do and eat
if my comfort and pleasure are of utmost importance and
if every bite of every meal must
— a requirement —
be exquisitely joy-making.
you know nigella never intended to pursue a career that has anything to do with food. she majored in literature and wanted to become a novelist
(duh)
and it’s obvious
anyway
I am really excited about this
and you
<3 <3
ohmygod I had to cut a THOUSAND words out of this post because it was just me quoting Nigella and being like, “SHE’S A SUBVERSIVE POET OF PLEASURE, WHY ARE WE NOT DEVOTING OUR LIVES TO STUDYING THE HIDDEN WISDOM IN HER BOOKS THAT ARE PURPORTEDLY ABOUT COOKERY BUT REALLY ABOUT JOYFUL ALIVENESS”, yes yes yes yes yes yes yes to this and to your excitement, here is to Pleasure-Seeking and Pleasure-Taking and Pleasure-Everything! <3
““SHE’S A SUBVERSIVE POET OF PLEASURE, WHY ARE WE NOT DEVOTING OUR LIVES TO STUDYING THE HIDDEN WISDOM IN HER BOOKS THAT ARE PURPORTEDLY ABOUT COOKERY BUT REALLY ABOUT JOYFUL ALIVENESS””
you took the words that have been hanging out in my brain for the past 13 years, which I have been able to co-bask-in with exactly 0 people
I have moved apartments and continents seemingly a gazillion times in the past 13 years and married and divorced and shed all my material things including books an equal number of times, I think. I left the US for Munich 2 months ago with exactly one suitcase, mostly clothes and two books
How to Eat was one of the two. and also likely my oldest possession, since I got it in high school. It is tattered and stained by sauces and scribbled in with late night thoughts and mid-afternoon musings, who even knows
now that I find myself in Europe and unable to Netflix many of my former stand-bys in terms of Comfort TV, I have taken to watching marathons of entire episodes of her show, which have aired years ago, when needing comfort
and every minute I’m like “WAIT WHAT DID SHE JUST SAY I NEED TO WRITE IT DOWN, the way she described the melted chocolate cascading into the batter, the way she lyricized upon the sacredness of solitary eating, that wasn’t in the book”
I cannot describe my joy in sharing this with you.
(also of note: NL also has had a life full of really intense endings. there is a very particular way she talks about history and family and the past — it’s like, giving reverence and homage in an incredible personal way, but utterly divorced from a kind of sugarcoated hazy narrative of how things were supposed to have been; I wonder if you can pick that out from the book because it reminds me of you also)
(p.p.s. her books after that are still delightful and you get more of the magic NL language but none as richly and un-self-consciously word-y as the first; they increasingly have more shiny pictures in them; one can easily picture publishers sitting her down in a meeting and going “but Nigella darling one can no longer sell dictionary-dense cookbooks with NOT EVEN A SINGLE PICTURE, do you understand what we mean”)
what is the other book in your suitcase?! YOUR PUBLIC MUST KNOW.
I have been wondering if I want to watch one of her shows or if it is better to just read. one of my favorite things about How To Eat is the zero pictures, and also that there are no pictures of her, as if who she is or what she looks like does not need to take away from the glorious immersion into food and how to be with it and see oneself as worthy of pleasuring at all times, and also choosing ease and simplicity and not-fussiness in all things
!!!!!
All of this resonates with me so much! Thanks, Havi!