The week that was and wasn’t and is
I am still yes to reflecting on my week, and also receiving a resounding no to sitting down to write about it in any known form, so: collecting notes, themes & thoughts from my week, some in the form of memoir titles…
Wishes, goals, goal-wishes & Desired superpowers
Pare Down & Get Agile.
Stay Glowing, Stay Wild.
More Clarity please (something about how this relates to being Well Oxygenated)
Strength to Strength:
Nailed April goal of 14,000 morning sun salutations (in under the wire! not always in the morning!), and now ONWARD & UPWARD, with a goal-wish that is so outrageous that I am not going to speak it yet, because it is the very definition of a Tiny Sweet Thing that needs some extra protection.
Best parts of the week:
+ Getting second shot
+ Turns out no longer constantly anticipating an agonizing death at every moment and every turn is having a huge impact on my sleep, I am sleeping eight hours uninterrupted, dream life.
+ Have been making some just absolutely inspired deliciously poor life choices, I think I have to recommend it.
+ Dessert in an enchanted garden with the person I have missed smiling at, see above.
+ Delicious things are delicious, a joyful, laughter-filled wandering through favorite outdoor places of magic, a pilgrimage to a new-to-me hidden labyrinth, fantastic vegan chocolate stracciatella ice cream from Monsoon.
+ Made sahlav (vanilla orchid rose-water coconut, cinnamon & pistachio pudding, fulfilling a deep wild nostalgia.
+ Suddenly everyone is writing me love poetry? NOT MAD ABOUT IT AT ALL. Hello hot poet spring, do your hot poetic thing. (That was not meant to be a line of poetry, but I’m leaving it as is.)
+ Everything is fluid & in flux right now, so just gonna flowwwwwww!
Hard/challenging/painful elements of the week:
+ Boundary challenges, so many of them
+ What do I want
+ Ahahahaha so many options (too many?) vs perception of running out of time
+ How do I protect my wants when my tendency is to be “flexible”, which invariably turns into people-pleasing
+ How to maintain morning practice in a place where mornings are defined by interruptions
+ Yeah that was a gun, okay, we are fine, shaking it off, onward (but are we fine, or are we just so used to saying “okay we are fine, let’s shake it off” that we think this is the same as being fine)
+ I Am Trash For Danger & Regrets: A Memoir
+ All I Can Do Is Sleep It Off: A Memoir
+ The many many mysteries
+ Being an enchantress is a lot of work, actually???
+ Everything is fluid & in flux right now, so just gotta flow, ugh
+ sigh & lolsob at how familiar this is, what would it be like to be able to hunker down into some safety
Some wisdom from the labyrinth that I transcribed
The labyrinth said…
Listen and know:
To live a life of sorcery and to be in love with life are THE SAME
What does this mean?
More ritual,
more precision and high regard,
choose your settings wisely,
be in places that nourish,
get rid of everything that doesn’t befit an enchantress
take your magic making and your settings very seriously
What would I like from this coming week?
Slow down, breathe more fully and intentionally, do less to get more, a joyful return to prioritizing Delicious Food, Beautifully Plated, more attention to setting & settings, epsom salts, be deliberate and formidable, reduce distractions, give everything more time, be with what is.
Appreciation
Thank you so much to people who sent me surprise Appreciation Money this week via Barrington’s Discretionary, it is always welcome and received with love, and if I can land in a place, which is the wish-goal of wish-goals, I can share more writing here, that’s my preferred way to fill time; writing and hopeful thoughts.
Play with me in the comments! I LOVE COMPANY!
Reminder that you can always use a made-up name in the comments whether in service of safety or playfulness.
We are all going through what we are going through. So we make this a sanctuary by not care-taking or problem—solving for other people, we can leave each other warmth or hearts of love or pebbles of witnessing.
🚨 WE HAVE EMOJI WORKING NOW!!! 🚨
How are we holding up? Anything hard and/or good in your week that you want to name here, any wishes or superpowers or anything else that wants to be named? Sometimes naming helps. Naming & breathing.
And if that’s not your thing, you can say hi or call in something you’d like more of for the coming week.
Love you,
Havi
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<3
I had an Impossible Wish that seemed barely barely imperceptibly barely possible, and the answer to the wish seems to be No.
And I had/have a truly Impossible Wish that now seems like it might be Yes.
My new living room furniture came and it already looks At Home. It fits unexpectedly beautifully with the old things, the new things, the gifted things, and the things that probably shouldn’t go together do.
We are waiting for communications from someone and not getting it.
Obi tore a hamstring, and I found out that in addition to breaking my ankle two months ago, I also sprained it and my foot, which is why it’s taking unexpectedly long to heal.
I took care of some Admin tasks that I’ve been putting off. As usual, Work Begets Work so now I have some more Admin tasks to take care of.
People I care about are suffering loss and pain and I suffer because of that.
May 4 is an important anniversary. It’s also Star Wars Day: May the 4th be with you.
I GOT MY SECOND SHOT!!!! MWAHAHAHAHA, I’M INVINCIBLE.
HARD:
-second shot decided that my stomach did not need food in it, actually.
-unexpected amounts of walking.
-my cholesterol is too high, which is a mystery of the highest order, as I neither consume a great deal of cholesterol nor have issues with my weight. I am pretty sedentary, though, so adding more movement into my life.
-movement is hilariously hard for me to add.
-my arms doing their thing.
-happy thing is no longer happy. Just kinda in cruise control.
-the sick cats? Still sick.
-what is Spark, even.
-how did I not realize my life’s goals and purpose before I was 35, when I still had health and a body that could handle it?
-Experts now think COVID is here to stay. (Excuse me while I cry myself to sleep.)
-I’m so tired. I can’t remember when I wasn’t tired. It’s been MONTHS.
-My friend might have cancer.
-Stupid fights for stupid reasons.
-The world is genuinely still kinda terrifying. I just… SO BADLY… want to relax.
GOOD:
-New Pokemon Snap is my happy place.
-And actually, it reminded me that I like photography and haven’t touched a camera in years, so I’m doing that now.
-And because I’m doing it in my backyard (we have wrens! and mockingbirds!), my husband has decided I must have more things TO photograph, so we’re making the backyard into a tiny sustainable living / natural habitat environment for all the little outdoor guys we can.
-Did I mention I got my shot? ‘Cause I totally did.
-At the Gila River Arena, which was REALLY amazing inside, holy crap.
-Both times I got the shot, I was impressed at the scope and professionalism of the operation. This was truly a sight to behold. Humanity at its best.
WHAT IS WORKING:
-Morning yoga.
-Super cup of green tea in the morning.
-This new gardening thing.
-Morning tarot.
the hard:
1) friends/family who are wildly inconsistent, but when they come back around, they’re delightful and it’s addictive, so trying to figure out how to manage the rollercoaster. how do you get used to someone in your life and the emptiness when they habitually disappear?
2) people not only doing shitty things that hurt other friends, but pretending they are doing so out of some sense of morality or some kind of high ground.
3) undiagnosed medical issues, and a doctor that wants to just randomly throw things and them to see what sticks
4) some misunderstandings and hard feelings with a friend who i want to do some work for me, ugh, i hate how that happens
the good:
1) enthusiastic non-ghosting friends who are a delight to be around
2) the tiny bit of time i’m managing to take for me
3) asking for help
I have been Looking to the Future my entire life, a practice that began in my miserable childhood, but has continued throughout my happy & sustaining marriage. Yesterday I realized … the Future seems rather terrifying, such that I’m actively attempting to not-notice-it every time it comes to my attention. Which means, I think, it’s time to change my orientation to Now. Only Now. Just Now.
I have feelings about this radical shift, but I can’t identify them. (Itself, unsettling.) Chasing labels for new emotions seems misguided, so I am sitting with my discomfort instead.
Spouse is the only human being who cares if I’m alive or dead. Every time that’s arisen in conversation lately, tho, I remark on it, am angry & sad, he says nothing, and realistically, what could he do? Or say? He already loves me. I think I’ve finally *bored* *myself* with the burden of being Broadly Unlikable/Can’t Make New Friends. It’s devolved into an annoying fact that maybe I can ignore, and get on with immersing myself in Now.
May. Turning a corner. Rain after a long cold dry month. Coming out of depression and enjoying things. Food. Writing the frivolous project. Dark chocolate with raspberries. Collage. Clearing the floor of my study such that I can lie down on it.
Gradual reemergence of my planning brain. Thinking about how to set things up for when I go back into depression.
Considering sofa beds.
“Turns out no longer constantly anticipating an agonizing death at every moment and every turn is having a huge impact on my sleep, I am sleeping eight hours uninterrupted, dream life.” SAAAAMMME
🔥🙏💉
Really been feeling the message of “own your own power” come through lately, I don’t entirely know what it means, just contemplating it.
Oh my. Lots of impossible desires that the usual mantra of “try to want it a little less” is not doing much for.
Are these desires really impossible, or do I want less pain from the hoping for them? Not sure. Looking at tiny steps for pockets for these desires to live in at the same time I’m building a fence around the desire so that I don’t stare at it all the time.
The metaphor is just as confusing as the wanting.
Got a reprieve on a deadline, and now I need to solve the problem of the kerning and the ink before the NEW deadline… I was sort of enjoying not making the deadline, but now I’m working towards it again.
Went to see a new doctor; very good appointment, very reassured. Got a list of things to take care of. New, concrete goal for exercise: 10,000 steps per day or 150 minutes a week. Went for an hour walk while talking to my sister.
My state government continues to make poor choices, but my vaccine is fully active, and that is very comforting. doing small visits with a few (fully vaccinated) people, which is wonderful and terrifying by turns.
Wishes for the week: calmness and peace around the things I want. smooth movement on a few things. focused attention to projects of worth.
Here in this moment, I am freshly showered, and scented with lemon and coconut and vanilla.
I just put my clothes in the washing machine. My detergent is Free and Gentle, and my temperature setting is Cool. My wish for this week is to be the person my laundry thinks I am.
My comment was removed? I came back to check if there were comments on it, since my email spam filter is aggressive, and it’s not here? The ones before mine are.
LoVe to everyone here and all the Wishers. I had a HUGE big Life-Wish come true last week and have been finding that a) Wish-Manifesting is Exhilerating, joyful and Floaty! and b) Wish-Manifesting can involve quite hard work and rather tiring!
@Mog, I see your May 3rd comment!
Quickly jumping in to show appreciation for this post.
Clues: Starseeds, violets, river goddesses, beautiful cows. “takes money to make money” “forgive and forget”
Hards:
-procrastination and resistance
-wtf is up with my computer
-poly insecurity, the neuroses of wanting attention
-lack of clarity re: next steps
-stall
-timing clusterfux
Yummies:
-performing again! gigs are lining up
-the vaxx appt on saturday!
-which means we can go to florida to see the fams and I can go to DC next month for training
-more Ocha training !!!
-making art!
-my lovely man
-my kids are good
-it’s spring! like truly spring and i feel every bit of the new possibilities
-awesome women friends, including some very cool ones!
yay: almost finished with Jill Bolte Taylor’s latest book “Whole Brain Living (the anatomy of choice)”. identifying myself as a feeling person who thinks instead of a thinking person who feels has yielded interesting intel.
yay: Her previous book “My Stroke of Insight” I loved because it helped me be able to imagine how life/sensory input might be for my autistic son.
boo: Trying to remember that it takes 90 seconds to flush out anxiety/adrenalin when I notice I can’t breathe and I’m falling down the rabbit-hole populated by monsters.
yay: mostly noticing the rabbit-hole as I fall into it and being able to breathe my way out rather than noticing the hole only after I’ve already hit bottom and even taking a breath seems like too much effort.
The Hard
~ my country’s government has banned all flights from India; like many, I was gutted when Trump did his racist China ban, but that was *Trump* yet now my own (allegedly democratically elected government) has done the same racist thing (and look out, the well-heeled super minister will likely sue me for defamation, like he has a refugee *devastation*) – to dear India and your diaspora, although woefully inadequate, may you know that many of us stand with you
~ this week I felt like I lost some of my magic, and it feels soul-destroying
~ not ‘falling out’ with two beloved family members per se, but feeling excruciating pain of Not Quite Rightness and seemingly unable to repair the (unacknowledged/only perceived on my side?) rupture
~ soul-crushingly deep sensitivity combined with isolation (both chosen and forced) coalescing to create dangerous trip-wires
The Magic
~ a beautiful wise old man who continues to Witness me and indeed seeks to understand more
~ the beauty of doing the same for others and feeling like the traumas in my past, whilst never EVER ‘worth it,’ at least gifts me insight and presence to be with others’ traumas
~ a significant birthday which provides hope and meaning
~ getting well after being horrifically (not Covid) sick and feeling dancey and joyful and ‘Oh, I’m back again!’
Wishes
~ to balance healthily and appropriately the need to be wise grounded adultchild-focused mama, AND to be Magic the Individual with needs, flaws AND magic
~ to maintain my beautifully high self-respect in the above balance
~ to maybe even garner the respect of one precious daughter who was so viciously undermined (even though I can feel the internalisation of an individualist culture that says we shouldn’t need that—yet also we are interdependent creatures and tis okay for me to want that *breath*)
~ to somehow incorporate all the above wishes into something succinct to wish globally for our inequitable world (ha, and the clarity to even see what that is!)
Thankyou Havi, Richard and all that read and contribute energy to this precious place *gratitude*
The world, the world. (((o)))
There’s something that I’m meant to be doing and I can’t for the life of me remember what it is.
My planning brain is fading in and out and I don’t much enjoy this ultra hard level of the game.
Amazing rainbow over the east yesterday evening.
Tulips, wallflowers, apple blossom.
Maybe vaccination this week?
Continued progress towards cat acquisition (looking like early August now)
Reconnecting
Ideas!
I went to look at some art; haven’t done that for a long time.
Still investigating the TRELLIS.
<3 <3 <3
“deliciously poor life choices”
I think I have my weekend all planned now!
thank you