Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
At the very least, useful noticings about my relationship with wanting. It all counts.
♡
What do I want?
My wish this week has to do with time, and it has to do with writing.
I don’t know that much more about it yet, so maybe the wish has to do with secrecy and shelter, or uncovering and exploring. We’re just going to have to find out.
What do I want?
What do I want?
I want something that is absolutely impossible, according to the well-meaning monster hordes. Namely, time for the many things I want to give time to.
They give a big emphatic NO to this wish. A wall to shut it down. If I poke and press a little at the wall, they whisper that I am delusional.
I know what their mission is. To keep me from getting hurt, feeling disappointed, giving up.
If I try to do the impossible, I will fail at the impossible, and then I won’t try other things that I need to try. So they want me to give up before I take on this thing that I will fail at.
They want to keep me from pain. I can support that mission.
So let’s find a way to think about this, with the understanding that we are not going to do things that cause me pain, alright?
What do I want?
To take a bath.
What do I want?
Hahaha, now I know exactly what I want. Because I took a bath, and that’s where the answer showed up.
What I want is to follow the instinctive pull of desire, like I just did with taking a bath. What Alon calls taking the Next Indicated Step.
And the other thing I want is a new relationship with the Secret Window.
The Secret Window is my new name for the two hour slot of 11:30-13:30.
This is the time period I have been thinking of as more like a swamp of doom, but actually it is a secret window.
During these mystery hours, I cannot seem to get any work done, no matter how hard I try. So I either try to force it (which, surprise, does not work), or I give myself permission to not-work and then just end up doing little internet-ey things and feeling generally dissatisfied.
I want to use this Secret Window for my own purposees.
What if I use this Secret Window.
What if I use this Secret Window to do things that really, truly appeal to me? All the things I wish I had time for and never get to, because I’m supposed to be working…
What if this secret window is a wrinkle in time? What if it is “wrinkling time” through a tesseract?!
Huh, that is actually kind of like fractal flowers…
What if I consciously choose to use this secret window for missions and ops that are deeply pleasurable…
And what if (hypothesis!) doing this actually improved the quality of my work that happens later?
Things that could happen during Secret Window Time.
I could…
- Learn and practice some new ASL signs
- Watch west coast swing videos and take notes
- Take a bath and learn useful things, like I did just now
- Have a miniature version of Putterday
- Skip all the stones and write what I want to write
- Take a nap
- Go for a walk
- Do yoga nidra
- Sit in the closet and spend time learning about the parts of me I don’t let out
- Have a conversation with Incoming Me
- Play at Transformers (this is a new practice I’m doing, more about that soon)
- Any of the above, in any combination
What are the qualities of my Secret Window Time wish?
The qualities of:
Playfulness. Spaciousness. Desire. Delight. Grounding. Exploration. Joy. Humming.
How am I going to play with this?
Well, calling it Secret Window Time already feels much more expansive and lighthearted.
It makes me think of the bat cave.
I would like to have an image that goes with this, and of course it will be a tesseract. I kind of wish I had something like a Secret Window Time cape.
But some kind of costume for sure, possibly a necklace.
Because everything is a costume.
Anything else?
This is perfect for a spy. A spy would absolutely have Secret Window Time. Operation Tesseract! There will be secret agent code.
And flowers. Flowers and dancing. These are the two things that make everything better (for me), so if it isn’t fun, there aren’t enough flowers or dancing, clearly.
What else do I want?
Seeds planted without explanation, a mix of secret agent code and silent retreat dreams. Things I’m working on, or might be, someday…
- The 4th Closet: mini-announcement.
- Up the Bork
- Everything is getting easier.
- Miracles everywhere.
- Regular dancing gigs at the ballroom, which is also the Spiegelsaal.
- This doesn’t require my input!
- Ha, it’s so perfect that it turned out like this.
- Past me is a GENIUS.
- I have what I need, and I appreciate it.
- There is money for this.
- I can see why this moment is good.
- Trust and steadiness.
- Hawaii.
- Happy BeeNBeeNBee.
- I am fearless and confident, and I do the brave things and give myself sparklepoints, and it is not even a big deal that I did the brave things but I still get sparklepoints, yay.
This week’s ops?
I might work on D is for Dance. There’s still Operation G Presto and the Book of Salves (not a fake band, though it sounds like it).
I will have to see how I feel at Rally (Rally!)
I’m playing with…
Asking questions. Being patient.
Requests and announcements!
This year’s 26 Rallies are almost completely full, with just eight Rallies have openings, though they won’t for long. Take a look at the new page…
I would also like support for our magical Red Rose Ballroom — likes on Facebook is great, as is spreading the word to anyone you know who might want to have an event, program, party, anything at all in Portland…
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka Operation Delete 8…
I wanted to delete things, and I did.
There is still much more to delete, but it was a useful experiment that I hope to continue.
Sometimes deleting was liberating and sometimes it was full of stuff. Sometimes instead of deleting, I found I needed to consolidate things into museums (The Museum Of The Thing I Used To Teach) and put them aside for later, and that was okay.
And past-me was a genius, and I was able to see that. So I’m glad I asked.
Thank you, writing. Thank you, me who asked.
Keep me company?
You are welcome to drop in with wishes, gwishes, visions, personal ads. Small or large, and in any form you like. There is no right way to do this. Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is anything sparked for you.
Commenting culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We ask for what we need. We are on permanent vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play.
Let’s throw some things in the pot! And, as always, amnesty applies. Leave a wish here any time you want.
xox
Follow
Hupdates and revisions on wishes…
+ finding the rhythm of my home: it is there but I am too drained to catch the flow when the opportunity presents itself. Operations Bed Helps and Living Foods and Strengthening Elixers all will help fit me for the Rhythm Of Life project. Continuing with Operation Bedtime Babies will also help.
+ general ease and contentment is fine as long as kids aren’t around. Then it gets hard.
+ decontaminated love energy was not really fountaining last week, but maybe this week it can do that? Attention and focus here will help.
+ Operation Off You Go Then (aka: following creative impulses) works when I have energy. Otherwise the river pulls me too strongly.
+ superpowers of patience and kindness with children was pretty patchy. Energy will help. Look up childcare options and rebates will also help. Aackk, monsters. Hi. I know this is tricky. Let’s take a peek okay?
<3 *fairy dust* <3
My birthday was Saturday (yesterday). The period between my birthday and January 1 is a time of reflection, completion, and preparation. Part of the preparation is thinking about what I want the next year to be like.
These are some visions and wishes for the year to come:
Health, physical and mental and emotional, for me and MIOs. (That is my Most Important Others.)
Brokennesses are healed.
The willingness to do the things that will move me in the direction of my dreams and desires.
I am surrounded with beauty.
I am surrounded with amazing people.
I am surrounded with love.
I rise to the (inevitable) challenges with courage and grace, and meet them with surprising ease.
I am learning things and doing things that I want to learn and do.
Visions and wishes for the week:
Congruence: that the visions and wishes for each week support my visions and wishes for the year.
Movement: of objects to new locations, of my body, and movement on projects and operations.
WWW,WW,WWWH!
Operation Yams: my contribution to the extended family’s Thanksgiving celebration.
LOTTO success (where LOTTO stands for my List Of Things To dO).
Setting up Operation Game
Doing my part to make things happen
Report on Last Week:
Last Week Me is a genius! She asked for More and Less, and that happened, and it was great.
Happy birthday, Vicki! <3
Yay for your Birthday, VickiB!
Ah, Havi, you somehow manage to articulate and give shape to what I need, as you so often do. Secret Window sounds like a wonderful way to re-vision my own particular Swamp of Doom.
This week’s VPA is to actually finish The Thing and to let it go, releasing it into the wild. I also want to continue with Nurturing the Platypus, but not letting it have full run of the apartment. I want to Move, and to remember Nothing is Actually Wrong.
Last week I had hoped to finish The Thing and progress was made. I played with the Platypus and found new ways to sustain it. All in the spirit of experimentation.
Wonderful weeks to all!
Yesterday, I discovered that 500 begonia seeds wouldn’t even cover the floor of a thimble.
My initial reaction to this was to feel foolish-gypped-disappointed-daunted, but I’m trying to see it differently: isn’t it marvelous that a pinch of begonia dust contains the possibility of so many flowers?
I could also remind my monsters that a single flower from a florist would cost more than I paid for the entire packet. Heck — a single glass of wine at a bar costs more!
I’m playing with: Optimism. Lightning and lightening. What would it be like to travel with less? What would it be like to anticipate good things instead of steeling myself for disappointment and detours?
I’m silent-retreating on the big Things, but a couple of gwishes…
* jacquard jeans that fit both my rear and my budget
* I didn’t want a pony when I was a little girl, and I don’t actually truly want one now, even though my inner twelve-year-old keeps hopping up hopefully when she hears about opportunities to buy a share of a racehorse or to take riding lessons. But this is not the year for that. Next year won’t be the year for that. So the ask isn’t for the pony, it’s for the patience and wit to live with the longing until it either evaporates or is answered.
Warm wishes to all y’all.
OOoh! A pinch of begonia dust!
Wow, Transformers! Secret Window Time should totally have Transformers. I bags Autobots! …That’s not what was meant was it?
Too bad. I could see Selma transforming into a giant yellow Japanese mecha robot duck of destruction and creation. With rockets. And lasers!
Perhaps she’s not normally that sort of duck.
But frikkin’ lasers!
…just sayin’.
Playing with patterns this week! I’m going to try a four-part morning ritual, something simple but grounding. The qualities I am seeking are peace, ease, confidence, grace — and, as always, love and creativity.
Advent is coming. My new job is starting soon. I will be moving (again!) in six months. I need to think about all this, but not quite yet. I have a week’s leave and I am going exploring.
I want –
– to ride this writing wave because it has just started working again and I want to hold on to its coat-tails and hang on for the ride (do waves have coat-tails? they do now!)
– my heart to be fixed by the time I get back.
– to be able to see a future in this new city I’m exploring this week
– new jeans
– this ridiculous two-trains-a-capital-city-and-a-bicycle caper to go smoothly and gracefully
Plans:
– I am an explorer
– travelling light
– it’s another secret writing retreat
– wear proper shoes this time
– and an awesome hat can’t hurt
I kept misreading that your monsters were giving you an Empathic No, and I thought, what a lovely idea! A gentle empathic No instead of the harsh closed-off no’s that I’ve been used to giving. I feel like this will help my sovereignty work…hmmmMMMmmm…
Gwishes:
A map. A window that opens and shuts. The meaning behind the meaning of elemental strength. Shedding all the layers.
Qualities:
Patience. Centeredness. Trust. Warmth. Sovereignty.
Superpower? The power of entrance. Entering everything with purpose, poise and focus. Also, dressing the part.
Mmmm, baths. Going Into the Water always yields answers for me. Just ALWAYS.
invoking Amnesty!
so for the past few months I’ve been on a very enlightening Caper about desire and passion, called Operation CupCake. It’s taken some time but there’s so much progress the last few weeks.
what worked: asking questions and showing up and being quiet. also, Journaling like mad.
Operation Natasha, likewise. Natasha is really starting to talk and express herself, and i’ve basically put her in charge of dressing for work, and really for being AtworkMe.
what worked: keeping with the Op, Journaling, making space for Natasha to show up and RECEIVING the advice. It’s been fun: as soon as my leather boots go on, she’s there. She is not intimidated by stockings or heels. she wants all those languishing projects at work DONE.
Projectizing the Lunation! Boy does is this is awesome! I use the Art of embarking as part of the esbat work at the New and Full. so much juice, deeper connection, better work. SO happy and affirmed in this.
And into the pot!
-what is up with white Flowers? a continuing mystery…
-interview other Me’s.
-i need to get on the floor with a notebook and Projectize that
-fractal flowers, continue doing that connecty thing
-creative playtime
-remembering more form the dream time