A quick note about vocabulary

Obviously, we all have different associations with words.

I used the word spells here, and I get that some people reading might have an aversion to spells. They might prefer to think about Safety & Sanctuary wishes, someone else might be okay with the idea of a prayer or an intention for Safety & Sanctuary. An invocation maybe…

Rewrite as you see fit of course, as always, and with everything. Make it work for you.

For me, spells is a playful word that connotes possibility, and I also absolutely get that it might not have the same reverberation for someone else. Totally fine.

Safety & Sanctuary Spells / Spells for scary times

A story about a gate

While I was away for three months, on Operation Circumspice which turned into the Michigan Marathon of Mercilessness & Mercy, and culminated in the received wisdom of Not What But How, I worried quite a bit about how my tiny home by the forest was doing without me.

Every few weeks when a friend from town took a long country drive and went by my place, I felt relieved when they checked in on things and reported that everything looked good.

No broken bottles in the driveway tossed from cars, no invasion of skunks, no signs of disturbance.

But one day I got a text from someone I don’t trust, saying that my gate was knocked down, off its hinges.

It all hinges on speed

I arranged for a local handyperson to come by that weekend, and they got the gate to function as a gate again, though they didn’t wish to hazard a guess about what might have knocked down a locked gate, a sturdy metal farm gate no less.

Now that I’m back, I was able to get a second opinion and am having the gate more thoroughly attended to, putting on new hinges for starters…

The consensus now is that it wasn’t an animal or a force of nature; whoever did this was a person and they used a truck to do it, probably the kind with a bumper protector on the front.

My driveway is a little tricky to turn into, and the topography demands slowness, which means they had to navigate a long driveway slowly, then speed up fast when they got close to have enough power to knock it down.

Unease

It is difficult to imagine a scenario by which this could have been an accident, or user error, or alcohol-related or all the ways I want to make up a story that could explain away how this happened.

Reality seems to be that someone wanted to knock my gate down, did it with some level of aggression, and succeeded. Maybe they didn’t know whose gate it was, and maybe they did.

I have been feeling uneasy about this.

But/and/also…

But/and/also…

I suspect I am also feeling uneasy about maybe twenty other things that are not this, at least, and the gate unease is serving as a nexus for all my other unease to land and to amplify itself, if that makes sense.

In other words, there was already ambient angst, ambient unease, and the distressing gate situation is magnetized in the right way that all the other unease can stick to it.

Stirring the stew of upset feelings

When I wake up at 3am feeling anxious about a noise or a dream, I find myself stirring this stew of unease about the gate.

I notice that feel very upset in addition to feeling anxious, and when I investigate feeling upset, I find that I also feel angry.

Some people feel anger first and then there is anxiety or grief or other feelings hiding out underneath it. Other people, and I am in this group, often feel anxiety first, and then upon further investigation find that the anger is the layer beneath it…

The messenger with one message

Something I have taken with me, taken very much to heart and mind, from Karla McLaren’s book on emotions, is that anger is a messenger, and the message is always the same message:

A boundary has been crossed, and a boundary needs to be restored.

A boundary has been crossed, and a boundary needs to be restored.

Making space for the messenger and the form of the message

Thank you, messenger, for the message, I say in the early dark hours when I am having anxiety and unease about the gate that turns out to be anger, but really it is about everything in my life and in this world we are living in, and not just about the gate.

Though also yes, I feel angry that someone knocked down my gate. More angry than I’d realized.

My anger is a helpful message; it is also useful if not particularly enjoyable to observe just how much resistance I have to the work or practice of restoring the boundaries.

What else do we know about boundaries?

I was talking this over with my friend Cate when we went on our monthly hike, something I missed terribly while I was away. I missed Cate, and I missed our walks at high elevation amidst the grasses, the juniper trees and the magical light.

Cate said something very reasonable and relatable about a fear of over-doing boundaries, like what if we just keep walling ourselves off until nothing is left…

And I think sometimes we can confuse a boundary with a wall, when a wall is only one very specific type of boundary. Provisional boundaries exist. So semi-permeable boundaries, like the way that cells that know how to take in nourishment and filter out what is not helpful.

A boundary can take many possible shapes and forms

A boundary can take many shapes and forms, and right now I am thinking about boundaries as filters, something that allows you to welcome in support and decline what is not supportive…

So I am dropping this idea — that boundaries do not necessarily need to be walls, into the cauldron of solutions, as a sort of conceptual bay leaf, just in case that thought is helpful for anyone else.

If it feels like too much to think about right now, or is bringing up too much stuff, we can let it go.

Into the cauldron of It Solves Itself

When I notice that I am non-stop worrying about the worry-inducing things, or the seemingly unsolvable mysteries, or I think I don’t yet know how to restore the boundary, or I do know but I am feeling anxious about putting it into practice…

In all of these scenarios, I imagine a large, round three-footed cauldron over a fire. Solid, cast-iron, formidable, taking up space. There is a vitality to the relationship between cauldron and fire.

This is the cauldron of It Solves Itself, and I put all of my wishes and all of my worries into the cauldron of It Solves Itself. With love, and with patience, and knowing that the most vital ingredient is time.

It is not my job to be the problem-solver, that is for the cauldron

My job is to notice what wants to go into the cauldron of solving, not to solve it all myself.

It is not my job to solve every single problem, and certainly not at 3am when I am too tired to come up with good ideas or generate solutions anyway, or even to differentiate between what is solvable by me and what isn’t.

My piece in this is to notice the fear-worry-anger, the fragility and vulnerability, the wish for elegant simple solutions, the wish for restored boundaries, the not-knowing, all of it.

And to deposit these into the cauldron. To let the cauldron do the work while I sleep on it, and beyond.

Safety and Sanctuary, into the cauldron…

When I can’t sleep because I am upset about the gate, which is also me worrying about the very-soon upcoming November United States presidential election, cycling through anxiety about how fucking much is on the line in this election…

Or, when I can’t sleep because I am upset about the gate, which is to say that I am feeling upset and furious that Netanyahu is still in power in Israel, which is also broader geopolitical angst, which is also existential worry, and is also the very human distress at the ongoing progression of horrific developments, and so on…

All of these scenarios have the same need, the same wish. Safety and Sanctuary.

Into the cauldron

Safety and Sanctuary.

For me, for the literal physical entry point to the place where I live.

Safety and Sanctuary for everyone who is in harm’s way whether from an election or a terrible government or the horrors and abominations of a cruel war, the ongoing atrocities…

Safety and Sanctuary for all of it, safety and sanctuary for each of us, and for everyone we love. This wish is going into the cauldron, may solutions emerge swiftly and speedily, may the solutions bring an easing to the unease…

X breaths, backwards breaths

When I can’t sleep, I count a certain number of breaths backwards of into the cauldron of it solves itself…

For example: 50, It is solving itself, 49, Into the cauldron of it solves itself, 48, I agree to let this solve itself…

Letting things percolate in the cauldron of It Solves Itself is also related to taking breaths of Ten Percent More Relaxed.

Sometimes I do both at the same time.

Oh right, I forgot about the option of a little bit more relaxed

Sometimes just the act of depositing my worries into the cauldron of It Solves Itself can remind me that being Ten Percent More Relaxed is even an option that’s available to me.

Or two percent. We can start wherever feels possible. We can just give it a try. What would that feel like, to be a small amount more relaxed?

I can feel my shoulders soften a little. I can let my jaw release a little, and then let it release again. Maybe a good yawn. Yes, that feels good. Settling into a position that’s a little more comfortable.

Yes, let’s do a clearing out

How much of this worry-anxiety-tension that I’m experiencing is really and truly mine, as opposed to bits of ambient worry floating around in the air, that I may have picked up from the internet or just from existing?

If let’s say that 2% of my anxiety belongs to me, then this other 98% of accumulated external anxiety can be given to the mountains to transform into potential energy…

How much of this worry-tension-anxiety is from now, and isn’t old anxiety from then that I have been lugging around with me out of habit?

Any anxiety that is not from right now can also go whooshing out of my body-mind to be transformed by the cosmos, not my job.

I am releasing this excess worry and asking for Safety & Sanctuary, for myself, for my home, for the people I love, for everyone in harm’s way, this beautiful wish can go into the cauldron of It Solves Itself…

Into the cauldron: Safety & Sanctuary, ceasefire now, miracles, miracles, miracles

I have people I love with family in Iran, in Lebanon, in Gaza — safety and sanctuary for the people I love and the people they love; safety and sanctuary for everyone in harm’s way.

Obviously I worry tremendously about my friends and family in Israel protesting the nightmare of a government and trying to maintain some semblance of sanity in between air raid sirens, our hearts with the hostages and their families, and at the same time I also experience this same tremendous worry and terror for everyone in Gaza.

Like everyone I know, I am broken by the images, the heartbreaking horrors and agonizing devastation of this cruel war, the appalling war crimes, all of it.

Safety and Sanctuary for everyone, ceasefire now, miracles, miracles, miracles, this is the prayer that is going into the cauldron, up into the sky, deep into the mountains, wherever it needs to go.

Everything connecting

When I am thinking about how upset I am about the Israeli government, I am also thinking about what it means more generally when the government of your country is run by zealots and narcissists, which could be coming to a theater near me.

That is to say, I am worried about the upcoming U.S. election, and all the potential avenues for chaos, regardless of outcome, but I am also worried about the outcome…

And so on. Some of this is from then, aka reverberations of January 6, and some of this is from a further-back then, aka ancestral.

I am noticing all of it, and breathing compassion for myself, and letting it all go into the cauldron of solutions.

Into the cauldron it goes

Safety from hurricanes, safety from cruel laws, safety from bombings, safety from unjust systems, safety from the kind of people who think a gate (or any form of a boundary) is an invitation to try to knock it down.

What would it feel like to give this to the cauldron of solutions instead of being the 3am stirrer-of-anxiety-stew?

A breath for remembering that this is even an option.

A breath for being a human in this world of scary situations, keeping on keeping on.

Is this enough?

Of course not, in the same way that voting is not enough. Into the cauldron is not the endgame, nor is it the answer.

And, at 3am when you can’t sleep because of the too-many-worries-to-name, it is absolutely enough. It is enough for that moment, because all we can do at 3am is meet the moment.

Tending to ourselves in the tender moments, this is the work of life. It’s good for us and it’s good for the collective.

To whenever that may be, amen (peace, compromise, amen)

The scary things aren’t going to get less scary, until they do, whenever that may be.

We can acknowledge how scary they are, cultivate fortitude, glow sweetness towards ourselves, and keep wishing for a better word, and yes, all that is an accompaniment to whatever actions we choose to take out in the world.

This is one of the many ways we can support the collective, and it is definitely not everything.

There’s work to be done; we are going to do our best to stay grounded and clear so that we can take part in it in whatever way we can. A breath and a candle for this too.

Peace, Compromise, Amen

I keep wishing for peace (peace, peace, peace), and when I do this, two things come to mind.

One is an English professor I studied with in the mid—90s reading The Wasteland, reading to us but really doing a reading for us, channeling T.S. Eliot and something deeper:

Shantih Shantih Shantih. Peace Peace Peace.

Asserting it. Invoking it. Naming it three times.

But I also think about the wise words of Etgar Keret, who knows and reminds us that peace prayers can be wishful thinking or political lies, and that compromise and now are the real prayers.

I am also thinking about how he told Terry Gross that when we say “bring them back NOW” about the hostages, the now is like an amen, both in the sense that it is a heartfelt plea, and in the sense that it feels hopeless to ask (god, the government, anyone) for help in this terrible situation.

Belief and not belief

I believe in the power of naming, invoking, asserting, or at least in the ability of these practices to calm us, ground us, inspire us, reassure us, keep us holding on.

Not sure what else they do, but also not sure the what else is the important part, if that makes sense.

I am more focused on the 3am moments, and placing what I can into the cauldron, as a practice, but yes, maybe also as a prayer.

May it help. Amen/Peace/Compromise/Amen.

Back to the gate

So far one part got solved – an electronic gate that needs a code to open, but unfortunately someone delivering a package found a workaround and was able to pull the gate open enough to walk through, so now I need a workaround to counter their workaround.

There is one possible option that would do the trick and keep everyone out but is expensive, another option that involves putting up a sign saying something to the effect of “electronic gate, please don’t pull”.

Or there is the option of simply not ordering anything to be delivered, something I only do maybe twice a month anyway, and simply giving the cauldron some time to offer up a better solution than either of the first two options…

What comes first, let’s find out

Maybe once I am feeling less prickly about this crossed boundary, a creative solution will emerge.

Or maybe I need to just protect the boundary, for my own sense of safety, and feeling less prickly can come later.

Noticing, adding compassion, noticing some more

I am noticing that I am having a very strong physical and emotional reaction to the idea of someone opening my gate when I don’t want them to open my gate.

Then I apply Acknowledgment & Legitimacy to this noticing; add compassion and stir.

Acknowledgment & Legitimacy, in practice:

Of course it is logical, reasonable, so very understandable, that I’m having a strong reaction to a boundary being crossed after three months of dealing with non-stop boundary issues in what my therapist friends refer to as the ancestral home, the place I remember from childhood, a time of the opposite of sanctuary.

Of course it makes sense that I am upset about the gate when I have neighbors with flags that say TAKE AMERICA BACK.

Of course the gate is a stand-in for any number of fears, and, even if it was just about the gate, it’s also okay that I am upset about the gate.

What a human reaction to someone crossing a boundary, what a human reaction to a loss of privacy, what a human reaction to perceived threat, whether intentional or not.

It is okay that I am feeling what I am feeling

It is okay that I am feeling what I am feeling, I am letting both the emotions and the narratives move through me and find their way out of my body.

Safety and sanctuary for me, for the situation, for whatever the situation is bringing up or the ways it might be reminding me of experiences in my past…

A human being in a human moment, a breath and an imaginary candle for comfort, safety, ease, release.

A breath and an imaginary candle lit for everyone. Safety and sanctuary all around. Regrounding. A peace vigil of the heart. I want better for everyone. A breath for that too.

(Now Amen Peace Compromise Yes)

What would you like to give to the cauldron of It Solves Itself

Maybe the question itself is something that can be given to the cauldron.

Maybe some of what we put in to the cauldron doesn’t have words yet.

Safety and sanctuary for the process and practice, for being brave enough to trust and try.

Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company

You are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped or anything on your mind, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…

I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.

Or if there’s anything you’d like to toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.

Whatever comes to mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…

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