April.

I left Utah for California the morning of April 1st,
driving from St George to Los Angeles,
thank you, month of Serendipity.

Though of course when past-me named this month,
she did not know it would coincide perfectly with
a two week unplanned road trip,
but hey, she still knew just what I need to be able to do this;
a sense of adventure combined with the reminder that the unexpected and unanticipated
can also feel playful and even auspicious,
the unknown is just the as-yet-undiscovered….

(and this new thing need not be as uncomfortable as I fear)
(no, it is just new)
(to me)
(I can not know what is next)
(and still be okay)
(I am okay)

These are the questions.

• What do I know about Serendipity?
• What is the purpose of Operation TFB? [TFB = Total Fucking Badass]
• What is, has been, or can be Beautifully Simple and Beautifully Supported?
• What about some Good Surprises?
• And: what needs to burn?

What do I know about Serendipity?

To be able to experience the unexpected/unanticipated
as a form of adventure and play,
this is FREEDOM,
and I like this perspective when I remember it….

Operation TFB.

I have been a wanderer for three hundred and fifty days now,
the time has come to make my way slowly back up the coast,
(where I will still be wandering, but in a new location),
because I will be learning what it means to be a Total Fucking Badass,
how to live and embody this in entirely new forms.

What were you doing in Utah, my friend wants to know,
and I don’t really have much of an answer but it includes:
+ motorcycle trips
+ shooting guns in the desert
+ punching things
+ pole dancing
+ writing
+ getting in fights with racists
+ setting things on fire

My friend points out that maybe I don’t need a secret op to consider myself a TFB,
because I might already be one….

With lightness.

This honestly had not even occurred to me,
but now I am thinking that
Operation Total Fucking Badass might be for
feeling what I already know, feeling who I already am,
embodying all this with even more fierceness
but also with greater lightness,
and without needing to qualify, defend, explain,
without need anyone else to understand.

I want to admire my own fire,
admire my own light,
cherish myself in each moment, each shape, each spark,
find myself magnificent,
even when tired and cranky and unsure,
I am an instrument of love and my superpower is
healing myself through remembering,
with lightness.

Beautifully.

Beautifully Simple has been my guiding principle for this trip,
is it beautifully simple? If not, let’s skip it.

Beautifully Supported was the superpower last April (month of Roots)
and Beautiful Surprises is the superpower of this April (month of Serendipity)

What is simple, surprising, supported and supportive?
What can be not only this way but beautifully this way?

Plans vs Not-Plans.

When I first embarked, I was way too caught up in logistics,
until Incoming Me said
hey listen up YOU DO NOT NEED A PLAN, plans are bullshit,
just follow the Next Indicated Step and see what feels yes after that.

This helped me exit logistics-mind, though yeah, it also
immediately became apparent that
while I may not need a plan per se,
I do need Really Clear Boundaries and good guiding principles,
it is up to me to be more aware of what I require to be functional,
and take steps to make sure those needs are met before everything falls apart.

And I need to prioritize [Rest & Replenish] above all else
because otherwise I will be too much of a mess
to feel what is yes or next, to understand
when I am being redirected to something new.

Realizations from the month of Serendipity.

Once I stopped fighting all the many things that were no,
and began to place my own state of quiet above all else,
road trip life became one ridiculously serendipitous experience after another.

Choosing a good breakfast over writing about Serendipity led me to a sweet cafe
where I sat outside and met another Portlander-in-exile,
we solved all the problems over a truly spectacular meal,
she told me about living in a sailboat, and a tiny room
above a bar in South Dakota,
we talked about tango and quilting and bunny therapy
(a thing that should exist if it doesn’t already)
and suddenly I felt re-inspired about my adventurous life on the road,
no longer sad and wistful and uprooted.

The sun came out and warmed us, I removed a layer and then another,
hanging my sweatshirt over the chair, she saw its labyrinth print and
clapped her hands and we shared
our GREAT EXCITEMENT AND JOY ABOUT LABYRINTHS
— there are people who feel wild intense passion about labyrinths
and then there is everyone else, and I wish to meet more people in the first category please —
and this moment of joy with a stranger sent me off on a Labyrinth Pilgrimage up the coast,
visiting three labyrinths in one day…

Labyrinths.

The labyrinths told me about Freedom and Liberation,
Liberation and Deliberation,
Refining and Redefining.

The labryinths themselves are about liberation,
because they make you let go of story,
and they cannot be hurried,
our culture may value the shortest distance between two points
(walk that straight straight line)
but labyrinths are about serendipity, meandering and process,
you have to move away to move towards.

The labyrinth told me that I miss out on Magnificence
through hurrying and trying to do too much,
what about Do Less and Choose Ease,
what about fewer projects and less everything, and then you will see
how magnificent you are and what is possible in the world and your world.

You are a jewel, this is what the labyrinth said,
and you need a better setting,
you are a jewel and you glow,
your spine is made of jewels,
your pelvis a crown of jewels,
so give yourself light and quiet and water and love,
give yourself a new setting for optimal glow.

Magnificence.

The labyrinths brought me to Operation Magnificence which immediately turned into
Operation Enhanced Magnificence Awareness,
because of course I am already magnificent beyond measure,
I just forget, and walking a labyrinth is a good way to remember:

Everything holds magnificence if I pause to notice, the stones and the trees and
even the noise of the city that is no for me,
how magnificent it all is.

I pushed a door whose sign said pull, I was so tired,
how magnificent that I went with the feel of the door over the sign,
I exchanged waves and secret smiles with a toddler, sharing {Magnificence!}
in the form of Aliveness and Delight.

I felt achingly sad about the faraway cowboy and being forgotten, but Wild Me,
Wild Me of Boundaries and Fiery and Better Settings,
she said, oh honey YOU are magnificent,
cultivate your own magnificence and act like you are GLOW POWER CENTRAL
because you are
and let go of all forms of unappreciated,
go be a jewel
go-be-now.

Water.

The labyrinths told me that I need to be in the water, and
yoga told me that I am a BODY OF WATER.

If I am a body of water, and many things are waves
— sound, breath, emotion —
then of course my internal waters rage when I am
trying to write in the company of eardrum-blasting leaf blowers and hedge trimmers.

If I am a body of water, I can take better care of myself with
boundaries, baths, salt, the practice of RGW (Replenishing Glass of Water!),
and of course being more conscious about what I put in my waters.

I want to tend to my waves, my beautiful cursive calligraphy waves and spirals,
waves of heart love, waves of shape and movement in my body and in dance,
the winding and unwinding of the labyrinth, the roundness of sound,
suspended in hammocks, soaking in hot pools,
breathing love
back in the water.

Back to the water.

Back to the water where I return to my own waves, my own frequency.

The salt-heavy water of the float tank told me how I need to cherish myself,
and in order to do this,
to be-and-become the secret agent of Self-Cherishing,
I need to spend way more time in my body instead of merely with my body…

Lusciousness asks me for time, ritual, intention, presence, effort…

The practice of Oh How Beautiful, Yes This Is Beautiful,
the superpower of seeing beauty and magnificence in the day to day of
this hard world, seeing it in my surroundings
even when I am not in gloriously beautiful Utah wilderness,
perceiving it in me with all my stories, pain, trauma,
this must be cultivated, over time,
thousands of times each day, remembering,
and then remembering again.

What would my yes be right now in this moment if I were already
a queen of self-treasuring?

Boundaries.

Bodies of water have boundaries, and
boundaries are the answer to all of my TFB (Total Fucking Badass) mysteries,
as well as all the mysteries surrounding Living In Serendipity.

Being a panther and a jewel and a ray of light,
these are all about beautifully glowing boundaries,
so clear and so alive,
these are my edges,
this is my space..

Being aware of my space and claiming it for me,
this is a new way of taking charge of boundaries,
this is the kind of epiphany that sounds so obvious when you say it,
but it is reverberating inside me in entirely new ways,
I can INHABIT this body and navigate space,
and this is a badass way to be,
in fact, just my passion about this is a badass way to be,
no matter what happens with any of my experiments.

Wild me has swagger, she’s powerful and also unconcerned,
she walks the world like PART THE SEAS FOR MY MAGNIFICENCE,
and she is also kind and warm and loving and all the things
I have been afraid of losing if I become fierce and fearless about
being the unapologetic guardian of my space and headspace.

Serendipitous Everything.

I tried to write this piece last night but my desire to do the
writing part of writing was zero,
and, as you know, I believe that trusting the not-writing is maybe even the
most important part of writing,
so I took myself to dinner instead
and unexpectedly made a new friend,
and she and I are going to shoot guns and have adventures,
and float in water, like a peaceful Thelma and Louise?

Boundaries, again.

Last week I was out with my friend K who is a BEAUTIFUL JEWEL,
and my model for the superpower of Perceiving Your Own Magnificence,
we were on a mission to do something peaceful and grounding,
and there we met a woman who wanted to dump her whole life story on us,
with all the weight of the stories inside of her stories, the energy in her energy,
and afterwards I felt exhausted and didn’t know why.

I talked it over with slightly future me who is already a Total Fucking Badass
and I want to share this transmission from her with you, in case it is useful:

Oh honey, I know it is not fun seeing all the ways that your boundaries are not working, and at the same time it really is useful intel. Now we don’t have to repeat this type of interaction.

Next time you will say WORK EMERGENCY GOTTA GO, next time you will remember that your sense of peacefulness is more important than being polite and letting someone eat your energy with their stories.

You will cut ties sooner. You will state your needs, eventually with grace and ease, but in the meantime you need to protect your energy. Put way less value on being perceived as “nice”, “friendly”, “accommodating”. You already do this with men on the street, and today we learned that you don’t yet know how to do this with [women who are being nice to you].

Guess what? Your headspace matters just as much as your physical space. Practice buffer phrases. Carry headphones. Do WHATEVER IT TAKES to exit an interaction that depletes you. You need to get your clarity and quiet back, to reclaim them IN THAT MOMENT.

Call it a family emergency — it is after all an actual emergency in your family of selves. The only thing that matters here is Safety First Boundaries First.

Love.

Me: I don’t want to work on any of my projects.
Wild Me: It’s scary, writing what you want to write, huh
Me: WHAT IF NO ONE LOVES ME EVER AGAIN
She: OR WHAT IF THEY LOVE YOU BETTER

Anything else I want to remember?

Replenishing is the first priority of a TFB,
because Well-Rested and Replenished is how you
a) access internal wisdom, and
b) remember to turn inward and access internal wisdom
instead of looking outward to external bullshit and the culture of (false) expertise,
thinking someone else or something else holds your answers.

My entire mission in life is self-treasuring, self-cherishing,
loving myself even more fiercely and wildly and intently and unconditionally,
being the channel of love, and LOVE JUST IS,
and a well-rested well-present me is how I connect to Source.

Back to love, again, again.

My body is an instrument of joy, and my work is to love
the ever-changing shape of my container
(my body, my body of water, my boundaries)
and the ever-changing shape of my life,
in all of its moments and changes and hurting,
and even when it is not delivering joy, I love it for being.

Serendipity is intimately connected to last month’s quality of Pleasure,
because Pleasure leads to PRESENCE and presence is how you notice
all the marvelous serendipities and the magnificence of it all.

And I can be patient with myself when this is hard because
we are exploring DEEP WILD SELF LOVE at entirely new levels,
while also living life on the road and sometimes, well,
sometimes I think my life is a mess but what does that even mean,
and if I stop judging it for being “messy”,
then oh wow, here we are.

Adding Serendipity to my compass.

A breath for each direction.

NORTH: Fierce Serendipity / Serendipitous Fierceness
NORTHEAST: Fearless and Serendipitous / The Serendipity that comes from Fearlessness
EAST: Powerful (awareness of) Serendipity / Serendipitous and Powerful
SOUTHEAST: Striking Serendipity / Serendipitous Striking
SOUTH: Grounded Serendipity / Serendipity is Grounding
SOUTHWEST: Wild Serendipity / Serendipitously Wild
WEST: Glowing Serendipity / Serendipity Glows
NORTHWEST: Delighting in Life’s Serendipities / Serendipitous Delighting In Life

What if I add Serendipity to everything,
what vast love and magnificence will I uncover,
what waves of wonder and mystery?

And there it is, my next step.

Invitation: come play with me…

You are invited to share this post and to share many !!!!!! about what is here,

Or share appreciation or anything sparked for you while reading…

You can also share how things have been going, check in, or deposit wishes, gwishes, superpowers, qualities, ingredients, possibly in code.

Safe space for creative exploration asks us to let go of care-taking and advice-giving.

Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We lovingly refrain from giving advice.

And of course it’s always okay to comment under a made-up name, whether for play and delight, or in the interest of Safety First.

Wishes and checking-in are never late because whenever you wish is the right time for wishing.

We remember that people vary and my process doesn’t have to be yours, and this is a good thing.

Here’s how we meet each other: with great kindness and appreciation and awe, whispering (and sometimes shouting) oh, wow what beautiful wishes!

♡

Follow