A breath for these tough times

Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.

Announcement on Emergency Calming Down Techniques

I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.

Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques, and it helps.

I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤

An encounter with a warrior

an uneasy beginning

I took myself solo hiking in the woods, with a bit of trepidation.

There is always a sense at the beginning of one of these hikes that I am possibly-probably doing something catastrophically stupid, and I can’t tell if that’s just common sense speaking, or fear, or both.

But there is also something about embarking into that very stupidity. Being unfindable, remote, in the vastness.

saturation as medicine

The woods held comfort, serenity, breathtaking treescapes, magic (the good kind), and an abundance of wildflowers, deeper breathing, and healing in the form of contrast…

Contrast: the striking purple against the vivid and vibrant greenery, a richness of saturated color…

contrast, also a form of medicine

I remembered the words of a wise person I once knew. Sometimes when rest and healing are unavailable, it’s easier to seek contrast instead.

You can drop the seeking for something restorative and instead let the contrast itself be the restoration.

You let the contrast be what it is: inviting, invigorating, revealing, something other than what you have been immersing in up until now. We can let that be enough, if we decide it is enough, if we recognize that it is enough.

The rest and recovery can come later, just start from contrast.

complete

The only warrior there was me, methodically navigating the winding circle of a path, first one direction and then the other, to feel complete.

That’s what seemed most compelling in the moment, completing a circle in both directions.

What comes from there? I don’t know.

come out come out wherever you are

I am craving a fight and I cannot have one, because the other warrior won’t come out to fight.

This is not a fight for the sake of fighting. It is a fight that is about repair.

I want to express my pain and my big feelings, and I want to fight it out, and I cannot, and so I find myself parrying with a wall, with the sky, with the nothing. This is frustrating.

And also, here we are.

back to contrast

But while my wish to fight remains unfulfilled, my forest walk felt complete, and that too was a lovely experience of contrast.

To be able to say and feel and know: This feels complete. I am complete with this experience.

I went to the forest for the reasons that took me to the forest, and I left rejuvenated and restored, reassured, re-centered.

pivot

Someone sent me astrology notes from Chani, who counseled: “Trust the art of a well-timed pivot.”

I had to sit with that one for a good while. Which is to say, I had to walk it out, in circles.

”Trust the art of a well-timed pivot.”

That might be my next stone to skip or journaling question.

the stone of what is known and not yet known!

What do I already know about the pivot?

What do I know about a well-timed pivot?

What do I know about trusting the art? Let’s find out. Or what do I know about trusting the timing?

What does the well-timed pivot want me to know?

What a delight to explore a clue this way. I love to pull on a thread and see where it takes me.

what do I know about a seizing up in response to a perception of being shattered

I told you last time about how a beloved friend went no contact with me, offering a non-explanation that seemed at best partially true, and disappearing in such a way that there was no one to talk it over with, and about how my back went out in response…

As if my back wanted to say: Yes babe, I felt it too.

I feel it too

As if my back wanted to say:

Yes, I was right there with you, on the bridge.

The ground beneath our feet disappeared and I had to collapse right along with you, everything crumbles earthward in an earthquake, there was a structural flaw, didn’t you know?

It’s always the structural flaw. The weak spot is the place to look. What does it need? What does it know?

Is this also related to how the poison is the cure, and the answer is the dosage. Is this also related to how the wound is the work.

the bridge (metaphorical)

That beloved person who disappeared abruptly from my life in March made me a vow last summer, that they would never let me out of their life again.

I told them that it is scary and vulnerable, but also powerful and meaningful, for me to actively choose to trust this promise, which had already been broken once before.

descent

I told them that if I am to trust the promise, it is as if they are asking me to stand on a bridge and fully believe that they will not burn the bridge, when my body still holds the memory of how they burned our bridge before.

My friend said that of course they would not burn the bridge again, because now they know better, and that would spend the rest of their life trying to do repair for that past-burning, and they would treasure this bridge and my trust always.

Then they set it on fire, and I fell into the water below, arms wide, mouth agape, slow-motion descent, marveling at the flames.

two ways of looking at this, at least

One way of looking at this, and this is a monster-thought I have to contend with is: “Wow, what a dumb bitch” (meaning me).

Another way is, “Wow, Havi Bell, you are a bold adventurer with an untamed heart, and boy do you ever trust fully.”

Another way might be, “What could be a better sport than standing in the center of a precarious bridge?”

Another way might be, “Hey, beautiful thrill-seeker, let’s find you safer places to play…”

the bridge (real, beloved, precious to me)

I went to see my beloved the bridge, the real bridge.

The very bridge that I shared with this person who did not deserve to even know about the bridge, another regret on a long list of regrets.

I told the bridge: This person shattered me, I am shattered. I don’t know what to do.

The bridge said, not unkindly, but also without sweetening the message: This person behaved entirely predictably.

entirely predictably

The bridge told me: This person behaved entirely predictably. They repeated their most familiar move.

The only surprising element here is your surprise. Go be with that. Examine your surprise.

Let yourself be surprised at your surprise.

fool me once

As the well-worn saying goes…

“Fool me once, and you are a colossal asshole. Fool me twice with the exact same con as the first time, and I am the most foolable person who has ever lived, and I have to walk through the world with that knowledge, and I am not enjoying the accompanying sensations, and this too should be unsurprising.”

That’s not exactly the shape of the saying, but you get the gist.

Scorpions sting. Pyromaniacs burn things. Hurt people lash out. Try something new and different. Invite a new cast of characters onto this stage.

a trusting nature

I am a trusting person who loves a beautiful promise, sincerely and warmly offered, and then am bewildered, not to learn that the person can’t deliver, that’s something that happens in life, but that they won’t acknowledge the breaking of the promise.

If it takes two to tango, then my part in this dance is that I really do give my trust fully.

I trust hard. What could trusting like when it has a different quality to it, and when I bring a different kind of attentiveness to the experience?

go train, go and train, go jump a boxcar, go be a training

I said to the bridge: I was wrong to trust.

The bridge took a beat and then said: That might not be the wholeness of truth here, let’s not say that. It is very beautiful that you have so much trust in you, and maybe now it is time to strengthen some other qualities to go along with it, to temper it or to bolster it.

I asked what I do now, and the bridge told me: Go train.

(It is very funny to me that train means so many things.)

choo-choo

I am a train. I am a training. I am on a train. I am holding the train of a gown, training and trailing. On the trail of what I am training for.

I am training hard and training harder. I am a slow motion montage.

Training to be a panther. Training a panther to be me. Agility training. Warrior training.

Listen to that long whistle. It’s really something, isn’t it. Whoo, that’s a lot of clarity.

experimentation is the training

I am training and I am the train and I am the warrior and my jumps are precise.

Precise and light. Light like a cat-burglar. Powerful like a panther.

Go train and then train harder and then maybe train softer.

Experimentation is the training.

When you train, you exhale audibly. Try it. Whispering: Choo-choo!

And then, at the bottom of the exhale, ah yes, that is the moment to pounce. That is when I pounce.

the drop of water (imaginary)

In yoga class, Sadie kept us in warrior pose for an ungodly amount of time.

Imagine, she said, a drop of water at the top of your shoulder. Place your arms in such a way that there is a minute almost imperceptible slope and yet it does slope.

Imagine. Until you can feel the slow, deliberate, inexorable downward path of your perfect water droplet, gliding down either arm, all the way to the tip of your middle finger.

Place yourself in such a way as to facilitate the slow, steady progression of a droplet.

what an image

What an image.

I am a rock and a water droplet, bones and fluidity, earth and sea, and also the movement, the slow progression, the midnight train.

An image in the image of in the image of.

Light refracting within a droplet.

encounter / an encounter / multiple encounters

What am I encountering?

Someone offered me a card, and when I flipped it over, the card revealed itself to be the warrior archetype.

I placed it in front of my mat so that I could look at it while experiencing an imaginary droplet journeying down each arm as I embody a warrior self.

encounter with

An encounter with the warrior?

Or do I mean the encounter with a warrior?

What or whom does a warrior encounter in these warrior encounters? Other than their own reflection in candlelight…

Talk to me about true companionship, with myself, with the practice, with the process, with breath, with the sea, with the wise and creative people who read my words here and who are in community with me…

endless permutations

Endless permutations to encountering and to companionship.

Just like how there are endless ways to be in a warrior pose or how there are endless ways back into my body when I get disconnected from myself. This is the training, right? Yes.

We tried one thing and it backfired and we will live, we will keep choosing towards aliveness.

outcomes

I did a lot of journaling on the outcome I want for a not-a-battle that is, I think, about love and truth and integrity.

Since none of the possible desired outcomes are within reach or at all related to anything I might say or do, I had to relinquish the idea of outcome itself.

What is there when nothing is known about outcome and you can’t let yourself want outcome, and any imaginable outcome is disappointing? What is the fight?

I asked the bridge about this too.

bridge wisdom

Here is what bridge told me:

You can’t work on anything but your part, so keep working on your part.

what does working on my part look like

Per the bridge: Getting clear and more clear. Staying grounded in love which means treasuring yourself. Want so much better for yourself. Do not agree to less.

Keep cutting ties, keep letting go.

Hex well and thoroughly. There is no better hex than wishing someone clarity to see themselves as they are in this moment. Let the clarity spells whoosh upwards, buoyant like a thousand imaginary helium balloons. Release attachment.

Be a strong and powerful solo act, gaining in powers.

investigate the vulnerabilities

Per the bridge, again:

Figure out what makes you so vulnerable to this exact lie (is it the story? is it the care? is it the adoration? is it the hope? is it thinking you won’t have to go through all of life without companionship?), and get un-vulnerable to it.

Or, alternately, get more vulnerable.

get in there

As in, get more vulnerable, with yourself.

Get in there. Into the crevasse, if you like a good 30 Rock reference.

Instead of trying to get out, go deeper, see what’s down there.

What am I afraid of or what am I craving or what is it that I need so badly that turns me into someone who just lets other people burn a bridge from beneath my feet.

Why was I on the bridge to begin with? What was I trying to prove? That I will trust forever, ignoring every possible clue that my trust is unwarranted?

No plan, no move, just pure surprise. Let’s try something different.

cooling, breath

It was a million degrees with a million percent humidity, I don’t remember the numbers exactly, but we were all dripping sweat before we even began moving.

The teacher suggested a cooling breath, where you curl your tongue inward, if your tongue is so genetically-inclined, to make a little hotdog-bun shape in your mouth.

You inhale through this shape and the air is cooling, then exhale slowly through nose or mouth.

You can extend this breath, make it breath even longer, if you exhale through pursed lips as if through a straw.

in my mind

The straw is red, in my mind.

This breath reminds me of strawberry lemonade or hibiscus iced tea.

Sipping slowly and cooling off.

not just for hot weather

The teacher said this breath is good for anger.

And if you and the person you are doing battle with agree to do this breath together, it looks and feels so silly that you will both have to put down your weapons and laugh.

I thought about this some more, and what it would be like to be cool as a cucumber, no battle in sight.

Just wildflowers and a winding path.

something else to laugh over

Kris introduced me to an astonishing poem by Marie Howe, called Government.

I laughed at the deliciously relatable irony of getting into a fight in the aisles of “The Health and Harmony Food Store”, absolutely something I would do, no question.

And gasped at the final heart-wrenching question: “How can I disarm when my enemy seems so intent?”

what is indicated

Laughter, breath, pausing, waiting, listening.

Knowing when it is time to act and time to wait, and if I don’t know then listen more and deeper.

Finding the humor. Reinforcing the boundaries. Tending to the hurting places. Releasing everything related to outcome, but also naming the wishes, just to know where your yeses reside.

Walk the circular path. Ask questions and delight in an unexpected answer. Investigate a pivot. So many doors into connecting with yourself and with sweetness.

Let’s start there and begin again. That’s the training, right?

May it be so, or something even better

Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.

I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.

Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.