Door of Light

What do I know (so far) about the month of light?

Light like glowing.

Light like carrying everything more lightly.

Light like lightheartedness.

Light like hope.

Light like sparks.

A new experiment.

I have been wishing wishes about gathering and community. Light and lightness together.

And I have been wishing wishes about simplicity and sustainability. A lightening of loads.

After 436 weeks of a weekly ritual of checking in, and 385 weeks of wishing wishes, and one of the most stressful and exhausting months of my life, I need to try something new.

That’s why I’m designing this post to be a play-space for the month of Light (December).

A gathering of-and-in lightness.

This way, we can gather here all month with everything we are wishing for and working on.

And we can keep checking in with what is going on in our lives.

We can name superpowers and invent salves!

We can say what we want to work on and play with. We can share.

I may of course post other things to the blog, but right now I want to find out what it’s like to have a gathering space for the month.

We play, we wish, we chicken.

Let’s see what that looks like.

I honestly don’t know if anyone will even remember to come here without the weekly reminder, but hey, that’s how experiments work, and in nearly twelve years of doing this, I’ve tried all kinds of things. Some were fun and some were less fun, and we will keep what is fun.

In the meantime, we play, we wish, we chicken…..

What’s been working? What do I want to play with….

Metaphors work for me.

I have stopped trying to troubleshoot all the problems and am instead focused on obsessively interviewing The Cake Maker so that I can learn all I can about her magical cakes as well as her perspective on the bakery business.

This is a proxy of course, and The Cake Maker is a version of Wise Me, but it turns out that cake making is actually a surprisingly apt metaphor for writing, and my cake-making baker self is a total badass who has been giving me some pretty sound advice.

For example, she told me that she takes as much time to have experiences that infuse her baking style with [wonder and delight] as she puts time into baking itself.

And she told me that it’s ridiculous to grind wheels over the problem of not enough people buying cake when actually you’re the one who keeps giving out unlimited free doughnuts. Especially if the thing you actually care about most is sharing the experience of delicious and wildly transformative cake.

Fair enough. I’m listening.

Breathing for the hard, challenging and mysterious.

  • Dark days. It’s a challenging world out there, and we need to be strong and fierce in our resistance. And, as Agent Emdee and I were discussing, it’s not like we didn’t already have enough to do (and enough reasons to cry in bed) without fighting fascism and strategizing for protecting the environment and so on. A breath for light.
  • I’m in Nevada this week and Trump signs are everywhere, and all I can think is that I am surrounded by people who think sexually assaulting women is fine, deporting people is fine, xenophobia and wall-building is fine, xenophobia is fine, demolishing the EPA is fine, torture is fine. Oh, and they’re all armed. It’s awesome. Breathing.
  • Even as we celebrate the order to cease work on the Dakota Access pipeline, I am feeling very wary about what is coming. Breathing justice, power, prayer, fierceness.
  • I have never worked so hard in my entire life (and I say this as a known workaholic), nor have I ever had so many non-paying projects. Yes, ridiculous, and I need to rest, because my body is not happy with me right now. Breathing for change and clear-eyed knowing.
  • It is time for action, and this is important and also it is a lot of work. Breathing presence, intensity, wild witchy fury.
  • And! I slammed my finger in a door and it is an unpalatable shade of purple. And I might be moving to Nevada. Or I might be on the road for the next six months. And either way, I need a car. And I have too much to do. Breathing receptivity to good solutions.
  • Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. May peacefulness prevail. Trust-more love-more release-more receive-more. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week.

Breathing for the good, reassuring, and magical!

  • Finished five massive projects! Breathing thankfulness.
  • I keep saying this and it’s still true: the disastrous political situation is asking us to get powerfully focused, to prioritize both what takes care of us and what we are passionate about. Important stuff. Breathing power.
  • Even though the monster chorus was singing their favorite song in my ear all week — “you’re going to be forty and your life is a mess and you live in a motorhome with no heat and you’re working at a cafe wearing pajamas because you did not plan laundry day well and you have fucked up everything, lalalala!” — I had help talking them down. Agents Ravenstar and Emdee came to the rescue, pointing out that actually I like adventures and being someone who pursues freedom, and this is just a creative experiment in small, sustainable, alternative living. I feel better. Breathing for friends. And remembering that Nothing Is Wrong.
  • Writing all day every day. Breathing thankfulness for an outlet.
  • I know what I want. I am very clear about this. A breath for the many things that are possible.
  • Thankfulness. Treasure in the form of love, sweetness, quiet, friends, warmth, all-day breakfast, big ideas, big stars, big adventure, companionship, perspective. A breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.

What are my wishes?

I want to live by the compass of Do Less and Choose Ease and Savor This Moment.

I want to bake more cakes — both real and metaphorical, and do this while channeling outrageous amounts of love, passion, dedication, integrity, playfulness and pleasure. I want to make joie de vivre cake!

And I want to get louder when that is what is necessary, and quieter when quiet is the answer.

May I have the discernment and clear-seeing needed to know (and trust the difference).

What else?

To be true to yes, to my yes of the moment, to current yes. Wild dedication to yes: 120% true to 120% yes.

To write/bake each day but not spend all day writing and editing, baking and cake-decorating, as has been the case the past months.

To live boldly. I typed love instead of live, so that too — may I love boldly!

To cultivate a more loving relationship with both effort and effortlessness.

To take care of my body that is my home, to invite in my panther self.

To feel myself as an embodiment of the superpower of Regal As Fuck, no matter what monsters have to say.

To color as many monsters from the monster coloring book as possible!

And to receive whatever decisions need to be received with great lightness and with hope.

What do I know about my wishes?

They feel very sweet to me.

It is funny that sweetness has become such a theme — for someone who does not consider herself to be sweet but once was the owner of a metaphorical chocolate shop, and recently returned to ice cream after a nearly seventeen year hiatus.

But sweet: this is how I feel towards myself right now. There is a tenderness towards these wishes, towards this desire for a new relationship with light and lightness.

I’m dealing better with the dark days this year — I mean, with the days ending earlier. Usually this throws me into despair. Somehow having an easier time with it now, maybe the stars help.

And I’m having a very difficult time with the dark political days, but I am channeling Fierce Determination and a spirit of forwards and towards.

Anything else about my wishes?

I am welcoming them.

The image of the door of light is so inviting to me right now.

We just finished the 2017 calendar of qualities and I am echoing and reverberating qualities, and all the superpowers of doors.

This is the fifth year we’ve designed a calendar, but the first time not doing a print version. Instead we made a stunning page with all the months, superpowers, images and qualities — it’s one of the bonuses for anyone who sponsor a month and join the secret star society by this weekend!

These are the qualities for 2017:

Prowess
Reflection
Pleasure
Serendipity
Plenty
Vitality
Restoration
Courage
Grace
Wishing
Meaning
Ease

Lightness, again.

I’ve been having such mixed feelings about not doing a print calendar this year — I can’t mail things when I’m living on the road and we never make enough money to justify the work it takes, but oh how I love their magic!

But right now I feel really good. Clear, steady joy for these gorgeous glowing qualities, as if the door of light itself is already inviting these in with more lightness, in all senses of lightness.

Also, this year’s calendar experiment feels like it is a lot more in line with my big wish of Choose Ease, and I am, generally speaking, not very good at choosing ease, and so this is useful.

Yes, I am (slowly) learning more and more about the relationship between lightness and light, about being okay with letting lightness in.

Plus I got to do the fun part of working on design, which I love, and feeling the incoming qualities, my favorite part.

Superpowers.

December’s superpower is Steadily Glowing Always, and January’s superpower is Serene Powerful Presence.

I want to combine these, so that one enhances the other, so that by the time we arrive in January, serene powerful presence is an old friend, and I am able to stride through that door with a giant smile on my face.

May it be so.

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…

Tell us how your week was! Or deposit wishes, gwishes, superpowers, qualities, ingredients, intel, 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!

The Fluent Self