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 / get your copy of 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. ❤️

A Goose Day Tale

The unfolding stories of Goose Day

Before we get started, let me clarify that no geese were harmed — nor even involved — in the making of Goose Day stories, the goose is a MacGuffin.

My friend sent me a care package, blessings on friends and packages and care.

And, thanks to the miracles of modern package tracking, I received information that the package was in my mailbox, so I detoured from walking circles in my pasture and set off for the mailbox, except the package was not in fact in my mailbox at all, which was empty.

The first mystery!

More mysteries

We discovered that I’d given her the wrong address (very mysterious and unlike me).

But I had a number to look for, so I started walking.

I live on a very country road that is mostly forest and not particularly walkable, but I wandered a while and eventually ascertained that the other address did not seem to exist.

Then I happened upon a shack of sorts with a bunch of signs about how government and taxes are bad, and an old-timer came out and looked at me suspiciously and asked if he could help.

I made friends with him and with his dog (Miss Sugar), and he had never heard of the mystery address. He thought the whole thing was a wild goose chase, and so I trekked back to my pasture, pondering the mysteries.

Easy come easy go

My package was missing, and I was sad about that.

I thought about the phrase Easy Come Easy Go, and is that a comfort or a threat.

This thing I was missing I hadn’t (until quite recently) even known existed to miss it.

Things come and then they are gone, or they don’t come at all but you get a message that they have already arrived and then you feel feelings about them being in your life or not being in your life.

Lo que

I find it very funny that in Spanish, a language that is so often more compact than English, it takes much longer to say this: Lo que fácil viene, fácil se va.

That which easily comes, easily goes.

In Hebrew, a similarly compact and to-the-point language, you also have to do a long-winded workaround, and say: What comes with ease, with ease also goes.

In German it reduces elegantly to four words again. Wie gewonnen, so zerronnen. As it is won, so it melts away.

And in Arabic it’s back to what comes with ease leaves with ease, though someone told me that there is a saying about what the winds brought, the winds disperse, which is very poetic.

Not a straight line at all

Anyway, I walked in circles and thought about ease, and being easy with things, and about how sometimes you can say something in a way that is compact, and sometimes you have to say it in a way that is circuitous.

The shortest path may be a straight line but is that the best path? It depends.

There is something to letting things come and go as they will. Something about flexibility, adaptability and ease, something about surrender.

But/and/also: of course at the same time I was still sad about my package, and still confounded by the mystery.

Wild wild (goose)

I talked to Arash about my mystery, and he said, “I love a wild goose chase, but only if the goose gets caught.”

I didn’t think this was a case where there would be any kind of ending, only a story.

The only goose I could catch, in theory, had to be something related to the gap between my Big Feelings about suddenly inexplicably having this intense desire for the missing package, versus the reality that the package had disappeared.

I didn’t even know what to chase exactly.

It solves itself

The next day I went to the post office early and confirmed that their information also said the package was in my mailbox, and I got there right as Juan was packing up the mail truck, so I got to talk to him too.

It turns out that it didn’t matter that I gave my friend the wrong address, because he just delivers by names, and if my name was on it then it should be in my box, and if it’s not there, then it’s a mystery. Back to the mysteries.

But later in the day, he came over to my place with the package, and it turns out he had accidentally taken it to the forest service. Easy come, easy go, easy return. It all worked out!

The forest service hadn’t had any interest in my box, but they’d kept it.

Miracles abound

Miracles abound. What a delight.

Even better, now I know that anything sent to my general area with my name will eventually arrive to me, which is kind of amazing, and also sweet and reassuring.

It reminds me of my favorite mail-related story ever, which is when Yaron received a letter that was only addressed to his first name, the name of the town and the name of the country, and it still got to him.

Happy Goose Day!

Happy Goose Day! This is what Arash said when I told him the package had been returned to me.

He suggested April 16 as a new holiday (Goose Day) when we celebrate Finding The Goose, and all other forms of stuff just working out, aka It Solves Itself.

Which in some ways is kind of the the opposite of easy come easy go.

It is about outcome. But also I think we can celebrate both outcome and ease of letting go of outcomes. Maybe both play an equally important part.

But also

Yes, I think that part of searching for the goose involves steadily maintaining that Easy Come Easy Go mentality of okay, maybe we find it maybe we don’t.

Maybe it’s coming and maybe it’s going, we’ll just have to wait and see. It’s wild and it’s a chase, anything could happen.

That’s the hard part, right? The not-knowing, the searching. How do you maintain lightness around that? I am not sure yet.

Another Goose Day Tale

This did not happen on Goose Day, or at least not that I remember, but I was telling a friend this story recently, and he was like, oh that is a GOOSE DAY STORY.

A story to tell and retell and celebrate in Goose Day season.

This was close to twenty five years ago. I was fired from my job as a very low-level website moderator for a Tel Aviv tech company that was going under, at the end of the dot com bubble, and I did not know what I was going to do next, and so I started walking.

A corner

There was a little corner kiosk and I stopped to buy something.

The guy working behind the counter said, I know you from somewhere.

A couple of months earlier, my friend Rachel had taken me as her plus-one to her cousin’s wedding, and this guy had been the excellent bartender at that wedding. It took a while but we figured out where we knew each other from.

He said, my shift ends in ten minutes, wanna go grab a beer?

Or something even better

We ended up a place down the street that had a large varieties of beer on tap, and I proceeded to get in a huge argument with the proprietor about beer and beer-making.

I was pretty sure I was going to be asked to leave but instead, Omri, the owner of the place, conceded that I know more about beer than anyone else he knew, and said, Okay fine, why don’t you come work here?

And so I started the next day and stayed for two years. A very Goose Day situation. Can’t tell you what happened to my accidental-date.

Easy come easy go easy return, or something even better. Lost a job, gained a job. It all worked out.

Surprise spaciousness, surprise ease

This past week has contained a lot of surprise spaciousness. It’s not that everything is solving itself elegantly, but many things have. There has been enough time. I have been unhurried.

My gate got fixed. The part for my car arrived. I was able to sidestep an awkward situation without much effort.

Everything else is going back into the wishing pot, the witching cauldron. May it resolve itself simply and easily, with some good Goose Day style miracles.

Something about mojo

More about this another time but a lot of my wishes lately have been about the return of the mojo / groove back, and it turns out that all the things I do in service of this wish are just all the things I do anyway for sanity:

• getting outdoors (double bonus outdoor points)
• being in beautiful nature
• listening to myself breathe / being the compassionate observer
• languages
• baking
• a long slow luscious yoga hour, or other forms of bobcat time
• try new things
• moisturize
• early to bed
• find something to laugh about

None of these things is the answer, but they are all contributing factors to self-treasuring and generally feeling okay, either of which is a huge win.

What am I taking with me from this experience?

This is a question I ask a lot, or journal on, or take to the pasture.

What I am taking from Goose Day is:

Have some faith. It will work out one way or another, and probably not the way I think it will. Stay calm and steady, keep asking for simple elegant solutions, without assuming I know what those solutions should look like.

Walk it out. Make friends with dogs. Ask more questions. Tell people what you’re looking for. Keep wishing the wishes, keep detaching from outcome and agenda, staying attuned to the qualities of the wishes.

Peace within

Peace within. A sense of humor.

Creativity. Playfulness. Wonder. Delight. Receptivity to some good surprises.

These are all good Goose Day superpowers.

Here’s to more things solving themselves elegantly, or at least in a way that makes for a good story.

Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company

Leave a pebble (o) to say you were here, so I know I’m not doing this alone.

Also it feels good to pick up a pebble and place it somewhere, I have noticed.

You are invited to share any Goose Day style stories of your own if you like, or name any wishes that are in process.

And of course you are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped, clues received, 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 explore further or 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…

Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!

If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.

This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.

I am emailing copies of the Emergency Calming Techniques package!

Anyone who gives to the Discretionary this week (more info below) will get my Emergency Calming Techniques package by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!

I have some ideas for the next ebook too but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.

A request!

If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously.

I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.

And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️