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 / last chance for 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 from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.

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. ❤️

The art of a better container

Talking to myself (just talking

I was talking to my car on the way to dropping it off car at a new-to-me mechanic.

“You love spa day,” I reminded my car. “This is kind of like spa day except instead of getting washed and cleaned, someone new is going to give you a loving checkup and make everything right. This place comes highly recommended by my friend The Arborist, who has driven you on three different occasions, and you liked that, remember?”

Mainly I was reassuring myself. Star Car is even-keeled by nature and takes everything in stride, even a collision with an elk on a dark night by a ravine.

“Be good, babe!” I said after I handed the key to a stranger.

Cool and dark and in the right place

Then I meandered for nearly an hour and found my way to a chapel where I sat in the quiet stillness of space, of that particular space, and sobbed for a very long time.

As one does in a chapel.

It was cool and dark in the chapel. I sat in the front pew and waited for the crying jag to pass, which it did, eventually.

I thought about the word SPACE, and how, in Hebrew, one of the names for god is hamakom, which is The Place or The Space, maybe even The Location.

Which always makes me smile: I am always in the right place. I am always right here. And also I can move.

Always in the right place or space

Yes, I am always in the right place. I am always right here. And also I can move.

Sometimes sobbing it out is being in the right place or space. Sometimes you are in the right place or space to be able to sob it all out.

Sometimes the thing I need most in the moment is to acknowledge that what I need most is to be somewhere else. And then, if I am lucky, I can act on that information.

What if it’s a trap!

I personally have a known tendency to think everything is a trap and then I want to run away!

Sometimes that is also a form of [yes, leaving the wrong place gets me to the right place], because I am always in the right place.

And sometimes this tendency to always be seeking an escape plan or perceiving that I need one is something I need to soften, or at least run a little reality check.

I am wary, always seeking sanctuary and other forms of protection spells…

Protection spells

May The Place have mercy on me is a form of please protect me (hamakom yerachem alay).

Asking for sanctuary from within a sanctuary space.

A sanctuary space meaning (possibly) the literal chapel I found myself in for that storm of sobbing.

A sanctuary space meaning (possibly) my beautiful heart.

A sanctuary space meaning (possibly) god, if that’s a word you use, or source, if that’s a word you use, or universe, if that’s a word you use, or this sense of place, of internal belonging, if that’s useful, who knows…

Temple space

From the David Whyte poem The house of belonging…

This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.


There is no house
like the house of belonging.
— David Whyte

Belonging, in space

Space like the temple of my adult aloneless.

Space like the places of belonging to myself.

Belonging like being a part of. Belonging like being in the longing, in the craving-missing-desiring of this internal sense of comfort and being held.

Belonging, in space.

Be Longing: in space.

This is the place. This must be the place. In the Talking Heads song sense of she lifted up her wings, this must be the place. What a blessing.

Paradoxically

I went looking for a place called paradox, and, paradoxically, could not find it.

It could not be found, at least by me.

But then, also paradoxically, or perhaps extremely appropriately, I ended up at a place called Heretic.

Which might be the exact right place (superpower of I am always in the right place) for a jewish person who just sobbed their lungs out in a technically non-denominational but christian-coded chapel.

No crosses in sight but you could really feel how much someone had wanted them to be there, if that makes sense.

Anyway

Anyway, I sobbed in the chapel, and asked The Place for mercy, for compassion, for Loving Clarity, for wise counsel, for comfort, for presence and grace, for support in trusting that I am in the right place or that I can head to a new place and that will be right too…

And then I went to be a heretic at Heretic, because I couldn’t find the place called paradox.

On the way I met a surprise amphitheater. I love an amphitheater.

Paradoxically, or not, here are the themes

Here are the themes from this morning’s yoga class:

1. Say No More
2. Reclaim Your Joy
3. (which I translate as say no more in order to reclaim your joy)
4. (and reclaim your joy through saying no, more)
5. (and while we are at it, why not Say No More in the scene of [say: NO MORE!], as in no more of this nonsense, I am done, moving on, I have moved on
6. Let Your Heart Lead
7. Remembering that your heart is also in your back, not just your front, so leading doesn’t necessarily happen in the direction you think it might, just center in heart, feel into where it wants to lead you, all meanings
8. and then we did a bunch of shoulder flossing which I needed much more than I thought I did

ABCs

A few weeks ago I introduced a friend to a very favorite taco place, and if you know me at all, then you know this is something dear to my heart.

They ordered the ABCs of tacos (adovada, birria, carnitas) and I made a joke about how the ABCs of tacos work well with the ABCs of travel, always asking what is A Better Container.

A better container can be a lot of things, the right vessel, the right tool for the job, the right place to stay, the right tote bag, the right state of mind.

For example, a fun way to travel is ROAD TRIP NO RULES!

Dessert for pre-breakfast! Maple syrup on everything!

Or whatever feels whimsical and fun in the moment. This can be playful. The entire experience of being in pursuit of a better container can be very light-hearted if you let it.

Something about trust

I went and visited my favorite bridge, the one that tells me things that shake up my life, and it said:

TRUST YOUR OWN PACE
(TRUST YOUR OWN PACE MORE)

This reverberated through my bones.

I have a long drive home to New Mexico, and a lot of new information to assimilate, and I have been focused on the most efficient way to get there fast but not burnt out.

What if I trusted my own pace more????

What if fast and efficient aren’t even the right qualities? What if I am always, paradoxically or not, in the right place, or at least adjacent to the right place, or able to tune in to my own heart and figure out where I am drawn to be next?

Something about reverberation

Two things hit me so very hard in yoga class, which is to say they reverberated right through my bones, like the bridge wisdom.

One was that David Whyte poem about ”this is the temple of my adult aloneness, and I belong to that aloneness…”

This is not my first encounter with that poem but this was the time that it reverberated right through me…

I could feel my heart blossoming towards this poem, or the poem being an explosion of blossoms in my heart space.

This must be the place.

Something about a clue that is many clues

And the second reverberation came when the teacher said:

“Be a lookout / be on the watch for any places of tension that are unnecessary”

And I laughed delightedly because probably they all are? Unnecessary that is…

But also because what came up in that moment was all the many sources of tension in my life and not in the pose which is probably what the teacher actually meant by that.

This must be the place!

This must be the place!

This must be the place. Where the tension is.

But also where my heart can lead, and in any direction, if I listen.

Isn’t that beautiful.

What if I can be the lookout. What if I am the sanctuary space? What if my own heart is or could be the place I am running to when I need to run away?

In other words, what if I am ready to run towards…

Yes, what a beautiful direction. Let us pursue towards, and find a better container, and then another one.

This must be the case (this must be the place)

A better container like a sanctuary space. A better container like a heart container.

This makes me think of an old friend I am no longer friends with, a bodywork person, who would never use the word rib cage because they objected to the idea of a cage around the heart. So they always made a point of referring to the rib case.

As in: my heart has this lovely case, in the same way that a guitar has a case.

My heart is sheltered by the case, just in case

My heart is sheltered by the case.

Just in case, my heart is in this case.

I am on the case! Of the mysteries of my heart. And so on.

Encased. Held. But not trapped. This is not a trap. This is a place to get quiet and listen, to hang out.

Sanctuary for me and for my sweet heart and for all the trauma of [being alive and experiencing things], yes, this must be the case.

What is needed / what is next

I am going to keep journaling on all these themes, and I hope you will join me.

Or maybe any of these ideas/words/concepts/notions will be a reverberation spark for you, and you might want to follow that rabbit hole to wherever it ends up taking you, I hope somewhere delightful.

In fact, I hope it delights you so much that you also perceive you have the superpower of always in the right place or moving yourself to an even-more right place, a better container.

May it be so, or something even better.

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.