Friday chicken

Reflecting on both the hard and the good in the week that was…

Hello, Friday: we are here.

{a breath for being here when we get here}

Thank you, week!

This is the 386th week in a row we are chickening here together….

or “checking in”, if you prefer to enunciate.

What worked this week?

Landing time.

I knew the return from operation ruby jewel would be a tough/interesting transition, and wisely didn’t schedule much of anything, outside of one meeting and one dance lesson.

Kept the focus to staying inward, in all senses, on the couch by the fire with candles, doing as little as possible. I mean, within the confines of Life Stuff and How Is There Always More Work and Oh Right The Game Is Rigged, but to the extent that I could do less and not-respond, that’s what I did, and it helped.

The Fluent Self calendar.

Each time I got tangled up in my stuff this week (and this happened a lot), I’d pause by the calendar on wall and breathe, taking in the reminder to TREASURE MORE, brushing my fingertip across the superpower of Receptive To Incoming Good Surprises.

And then things were better.

I can already feel the wild magic of the incoming Year of Doors, and have been sitting with next year’s calendar touching the pages and listening to the different doors and admiring the beautiful portals waiting for me.

Next time I might…

Not push.

Easier said than done, and yet maybe if I keep saying it, the wisdom of this will sink in when I’m ready to receive it.

Upcoming biopic if it were based on this week…

The Hibernating Wanderer Who Wants To Be A Wandering Hibernator.

If you feel drawn to comment on aspects of my week, I will take love, hearts, breaths, pebbles — I do not need advice or cheering up, though presence and sweetness are always welcome

8 breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.

  1. Oh it is dark and cold with freezing rain and bitter wind, and this is not for me. I do not want to winter here. I want out. A breath for warmth and comfort that is also a seed for a new way to do this season.
  2. I miss the sea and I miss dancing and I miss being actively on a mission. Of course I am still investigating the mysteries and intel revealed on operation Ruby Jewel, but I miss that feeling of being immersed in a project. A breath for me.
  3. Agreed to something I shouldn’t have agreed to, because I did not fully understand what was involved, and wound up in a WUSIT situation (WUSIT = What Unsovereign Shit Is This). A breath for wearing my crown, for clarity and untangling.
  4. THE VOID. As Rumi says, “This being human is a guest house / Every morning a new arrival / A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor / Welcome and entertain them all!” My guest this week was the void, and there is nothing to do with the void but sit with it and make two cups of tea, one for it and one for you, and wait and listen and Not Push. I didn’t want the void. I wanted pleasure and dance and anticipation and giddiness and other things that were not the void. But the void was the guest, and I had to wait it out and welcome what was. A breath for slowly getting better at remembering: I am not the void, I am having an interaction with the void, and the void will give me what I need when I don’t try to shut it out.
  5. I have a conundrum and do not know how to solve it. Nearly all the things I thought were yes for me are actually no, but the new yeses have not yet arrived, so it requires enormous trust to say no to things that sort-of fit, without knowing what will be. A breath for trusting.
  6. A long-time ritual ended this week, and it was the right time, and everything ends, and I am okay, and also I am wondering what things will be like on the other side, and what my new ritual will be and if I will be able to sustain it without going to the usual place for it. A breath for safe passage.
  7. Questions about home and place and what/where is the right one for me to be. A breath for perfect simple solutions revealing themselves in right timing.
  8. Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. Trust-more love-more release-more receive-more. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week.

8 breaths for the good, reassuring, delight-filled.

  1. Having a knowledgeable person take a look at my complicated overwhelming project and declare it to be “delightfully doable” in her eyes, that was very reassuring. A breath for beautiful perspective.
  2. Still in awe of all the treasure from operation Ruby Jewel, and everything I learned. A breath for wonder, and for being a grand adventuress.
  3. Dance epiphany! Something all my teachers have been trying to explain to me for a year finally landed this morning in my body and I got it. A breath of DELIGHT.
  4. The three things I was most worried about before my trip now do not worry me even slightly, so I am holding this in my heart and trusting that the current worries will go through the same process. A breath for remembering this.
  5. Through a combination of miracles and extreme determination, managed to pull off a wildly unlikely caper and hit a hilarious goal I didn’t think could be reached before [arbitrary external deadline], and won an equally arbitary prize. And all of this was FUN, and I learned that I find it enormously invigorating to pull this off . A breath for nailing it, and for all this good intel about what motivates me.
  6. Woke up with an understanding that there is a less complicated way of doing the thing I want and not doing the things I don’t want. This is good. A breath for the superpower of With The Greatest Of Ease.
  7. Treasure in my life in the form of steamed milk, the right bus, warm spicy food, friends who know what to say, piles of blankets, knowing all timing is right timing. A hand-on-heart breath of wonder for the good in my life.
  8. Thankfulness. Everything is okay and so much is good. Nothing is wrong, even when I want to believe it is. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. Thank you for this grand adventure. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.

Sparklepoints, superpowers, salve, fake band of the week!

Current ops and forward movement!

I took some steps on Operation Shed Shed Shed this week and learned that only part of it is what I want, so now taking some time to regroup. Operation Ruby Jewel led me to the 999 Mission, which is the best thing I have ever come up with. Panther Time is helping. Chocolate is being Melted. Next steps in motion for the Fountaining op. Sweet Honey is on the back burner. Thank you, fractal flowers.

I now bestow upon myself a quintillion sparklepoints, like a Fairground Stripper, and you are welcome to do the same for you.

Or if you don’t do numbers (even fake ones), an endless cascading fountaining abundance of sparklepoints

Superpowers I had this week…

Last week I asked for Treasure Breath, and I have ben playing with this. I also had the marvelous superpowers — just in time, too! — of There Has To Be A Better Way, and Suddenly With The Greatest Of Ease, and I want more of those. Oh, and the power of checking things off the list, see the title of this week’s chicken.

Powers I want.

The power of Wildly Glamorous Even In Sweatpants and Striding Towards My Yes.

The Salve of Everything With The Greatest Of Ease.

These invisible salves are distributed here by way of internet magic. Help yourself! Take it in a bath, as tea, a cocktail, whatever works for you. Not only is there enough salve, there are also enough ways to receive it.

Of course the Greatest of Ease is also the Greatest of Es, so all the good E-words live inside of this salve:

Entry, Expansiveness, Emerging, Echoing, Embarking, Endeavors, Excitement, Effervescence…

When this salve touches my skin, it is easier for me to do things like treasure myself and trust in right timing and meet the moment that is instead of the moment I think should be.

This is a softening salve and a quieting salve, and it awakens an entirely different kind of trust than anything you’ve known before. This is the salve that allows you to welcome things, Rumi-style, and also to let them go.

When I do things With The Greatest Of Ease, I stop pushing and go take a Very Intentional Nap, very clear that doing this is seeding ease, and that I will wake up and know something I didn’t know before.

My favorite thing about this salve is the soft sigh that happens when I’m wearing it. One of the dance teachers I studied with on ruby jewel said about practicing chaine turns, “you don’t need so much energy, do it with a small exhale, as if you’re throwing a frisbee a very short distance”. This salve elicits that kind of lightness: oh right, I don’t need to work so hard, I can just to let this happen instead of trying to make it happen….

Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!

My brother and I make up bands, which are all just one guy. The Meme Beach House is the venue.

just-one-guy

This week’s band is:

Henchmen Abound

Their latest album is Commence The Montage, and actually this band is just one guy.

Photo taken just for us in Lubbock, TX by Jesse — thank you!

ANNOUNCEMENT!

The gorgeous and extremely magical 2016 calendars are ready — The Year Of Doors! — and I believe there are not too many left. You can find yours here. The password: sweetdoors

How was your week?

Come play in the comments. Share something from your week, take a breath, or just say hi! No rules, my format doesn’t have to be yours, we’ve been doing this every week for years now and there still isn’t a right way.

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.

Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.

Shabbat shalom.

It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — jump in whenever you like. Blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers too!

The Fluent Self