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 / last chance for 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. ❤️

Entice me

An investigation

Last week we talked about Insearching, as a playful way to refer to the work of internal research.

I have been using this theme as a door into various explorations.

Right now it is taking me into some deeper wondering around what it means, or might mean, to be the apprentice to our own nervous systems, studying what supports us.

I have been insearching (searching within, researching within, disappearing and re-emerging in the within) these past days on many topics…

The apprentice

Some lines of questioning are more directly related to this idea of apprenticing myself to my nervous-system, and being in this state of apprenticeship:

What supports steady, calm, focused being and maybe even well-being, for me, right now?

What throws me off my own trail? What rattles me? How do I come back from this state of rattled?

It is my job as an apprentice to find pleasure or a pull in the questions themselves. Noticing is why I’m here.

Noticing is why I’m here

In other words, I am not doing this work to stand in judgment about what I find and be frustrated with myself.

I’m noticing just to glean whatever information I can, in the hopes that it will be useful in this work of self-tending…

Seasonality, orienting in time

Some of my themes of internal research are seasonal.

That is, they are specific to this time of year when (here, in the northern hemisphere, in southwestern New Mexico where I reside) the trees are more bare by the day, and sometimes my friend the sun forgets to visit…

This is the time of year when I begin to feel the Big Dread of winter approaching…

Warning: edge! edge! edge! You are here (and here is a precipice)

Yes, that’s what it is. The overwhelming WINTER IS COMING of it all.

Something between fear and an aching certainty. I do not wish to tumble into the pits of despair, and also this is a time when it is certainly very easy to find myself suddenly in them.

What can I do about this other than planting a bunch of signs that say YOU ARE HERE and HERE BE PITS?

A known entity

Some of you know that I am not a big fan of American Thanksgiving or Christmas, understatement, I am the grinchiest grinch about holidays.

And some of you know that I live in a metal box and my current heating situation leaves much to be desired.

Which is to say that I heat with space heaters but don’t run them at night.

Quite often it gets cold enough that I need to turn off electricity to the well pump so the water doesn’t freeze in the pipes, and then I just spend the next day hauling water while the pipes slowly come back up to temperature by mid-afternoon, and then do it again. Cowboy life.

The point being

The point being, my winter dread is a) not even slightly unfounded, b) absolutely a known entity, and c) I know exactly when it will show up, and d) it still somehow takes me by surprise every time, the intensity of feeling.

This to me is the interesting part. The known knowns are known, and also they take me by surprise.

What can I learn from this? What else is like this? What is the work of lovingly preparing myself and my space? What is the work of lovingly trying to improve my situation?

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast, but sometimes slow is slow

When is it time for action and when is it time for wait and see?

Thinking about back in February, when my uncle called me and I was in tears from just being so cold, and he researched a mini split option for me…and how now it is nearly December, and I have talked to contractors but no one will get back to me with useful details about what size it would be or when it could be installed, or what exactly is the electrical prep work that needs to be done…

Maybe there is a better option.

Maybe the best option is any progress in a storm.

Maybe the best option is wait it out and something better is on the way.

Spark tending

It’s hard to tell. I know that if I lose my spark, it will be harder. I know that staying warm supports my spark.

I also know that projects can’t be rushed, and certainly not in New Mexico which operates on its own (sometimes semi-glacial) timing.

I know that in the past I have ignored red flags, for example someone treating me in not the most respectful way, in the interest of Just Get It Done, and that has always been a mistake.

A lantern inside

I was taking yoga class online with the kind of person who likes winter, despite the fact that she lives in Portland, Oregon, a place whose winter season I would describe with words like BLEAK and GREY-TONED and AGONIZINGLY LONG, and something about how the wet chill seeps into your bones…

It was fun and refreshing to listen to her chirp excitedly about how she experiences winter as a cozy creative space, she called it “a lantern inside”, which is so poetic and charming.

She said something about how we have to be inward to return to the seed, to get close to our creative spark and nourish it, and that the season is what invites this inwardness.

Cultivating inwardness: gathering in

I do like inward, and spark, and a pot of tea, and replenishing, and saying no to things, and time for Do Less To Get More.

So maybe winter can be a container or a catalyst for some kind of insearching process.

A little experiment or devotion of [And Three Months Later], specifically a devotion to gathering around the lantern inside. To being the lantern inside.

A three month experiment

What if I take the next three months to learn about Lantern Mode, and rededicate myself to nourishing my creative spark?

Maybe this will push me to solve for heat, or maybe this will push me to reclaim hibernation time, or maybe something else entirely will happen, who knows, that is the beauty of the three month container for an experiment.

Anything could happen. This is a little intimidating and also thrilling.

Entice me

It is not a secret that love Samin Nosrat with a deep abiding love, and sometimes I listen to her Home Cooking podcast while I am washing dishes, mainly to hear her laugh.

On a recent episode called Our Stuffing Ourselves (amazing, perfect title, no notes), she said something about how an invitation to Thanksgiving should include a reason for why she would go. And then she added, laughing: ENTICE ME.

ENTICE ME

I love this.

And she’s so right. An invitation should be enticing. If I’m going to leave my cozy, quiet, cheery, peaceful tiny home, give me a reason.

Give me a reason! (How can we apply this?)

If I’m going to hire someone to install a mini split, GIVE ME A REASON beyond just that I want heat, be the person who gives me actual information and responds to my questions please.

Recently someone wanted to date me, and their offer was basically “I like hanging out with you, I don’t have time for a relationship.” Okay!

To be clear, a relationship would also have been an easy no for me, but the casual and OPPOSITE OF ENTICING way they dropped this on me was very unappealing. ENTICE ME!!!!

Okay, how can we apply this? How can we apply this superpower of Make It Enticing, Make It Delicious, Make It Meaningful, or I’m not interested.

Relevant to everything

Pretty sure it’s relevant to everything…

Including winter.

Entice me, winter!

This week I wanted to go to various dance workshops but then I didn’t. Apparently they were not enticing enough. ENTICE ME, my one true love, dance.

And since enticements are a back and forth, how can I entice myself towards curiosity about a cozy lantern-filled winter? How can I entice myself back towards dance? How can I entice myself back towards Early To Bed?

Hello, Winter of Enticements

If my current project is to bring more intention and play into my relationship with this hard-for-me season…

What would make a winter here a Winter of Enticements?

What can I look forward to? What rituals of pleasure can I introduce?

I know what’s already working: spicy hot chocolate with oat milk, morning yoga, a good warm hat, slathering slices of butternut squash with homemade harissa oil and roasting them in the coldest part of the day…

What else? ENTICE ME! (I say this to myself, I say this to winter, I say this to the world!)

When nothing is enticing

What about when nothing is enticing?

This is a normal part of being alive, right? We lose the spark and it takes time to find it again, or to re-orient ourselves when we get lost in a twilight zone episode of nothing is good and everything is going wrong.

Not to mention that obviously the external circumstances right now are legitimately dire and scary, these are frightening and challenging times, and that’s the most diplomatic thing I will say about this moment.

For me, when nothing is enticing, that’s when I go on a clue-finding mission. That’s when I return to this playful approach of insearching, learning everything I can learn about this…

Talk to me about a season of enticements

And possibly my Winter of Enticements is about the research project of learning more about what is enticing for me, and how I can enhance these enticements…

I take solace in poetry, and this line from Barbara Crooker, in a poem called Sometimes I am startled out of myself, which I keep returning to: You do not have to be wise.

What does it mean to not have to be wise?

In the poem, or in how I am reading it, I can trust that I know how to seek shelter and comfort, I can let the season be what it is, be that grief or winter, and I can be brave.

And, possibly, this is about trusting a deeper wisdom within the season of turning inward, moving slowly and intentionally (maybe even sometimes the movement is invisible!), efforting less…

Searching for clues (can this also be a form of enticing myself)

Something I really love about zoom yoga as opposed to being in a physical class, is how I can keep paper and pen by my yoga rug and jot down clues as we go, and no one looks at me like I am a weirdo.

I am a weirdo, but in my own kitchen.

It feels good to me when I write down a clue, whether I return to this note or not. Something about the process of “I want to remember this” and then doing something about that wish feels good to me.

Here are some recent clues from my post-it notes…

So many clues!

• how can you create boundaries that protect your peace
• if a decision is being rushed, it’s not a decision (listen first, receive the information that is already there)
• you can always just navigate back to center (how???? maybe by choosing? further experimentation needed!)
• ”what are the available partnerships that support your peace and what are the partnerships that disrupt it”
• “casting a circumferential net of compassion around yourself is vital” (mmmmm!)
• “getting long not for the sake of posture but as a way of testing out our ability to take up right space”

A little flirtation

Here is my favorite clue, from a favorite teacher, Kris:

“These postures tug at us and sometimes flirt with us, we want to flirt back!”

Yes, yes, I agree! To flirt back is enticing, and yes, what if a stretch or a balancing pose can be enticing as well.

What if gaining in strength can be a source of enticement for me this winter? Or possibly, no goals are needed, only a commitment to play and showing up, time to flirt with myself and flirt with being alive.

An enticement into further enticements. Hello, Vitality, you’re looking amazing today, tell me your secrets.

And so a new experiment is born…

Insearching led me to Enticement.

Maybe what I want next is to channel an Incoming Self who delights in enticements, who finds it a fun challenge to turn Winter Of Dread into Winter of Enticements…

What are the aspects of me that I am already in touch with who would find this an enjoyable enterprise? Where do I already excel at Enticement?

This is what I intend to explore next, and I hope you will join me. Or if Enticement does not speak to you, maybe your own internal research will lead you to something compelling to experiment with.

I can’t wait to hear about it (tell me everything, or something, in the comments, if you like), and let’s keep playing.

May it be so, or something even better

Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.

I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.

Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.