very personal ads

I write a Very Personal Ad (or a vision of possibility & anticipation) each week to practice wanting, listening, getting clear on my desires

the point isn’t getting my wish (though cool things have emerged from wishing), it’s learning about my relationship with wanting, accessing the qualities

wanting can be hard, it is easy to feel conflicted about it, and the reasons for that make this a surprisingly subversive practice…

this is the 365th consecutive week of wishing, come play!

{preface}

I wrote these wishes a few days ago and didn’t publish
maybe because there are so many other, different words brewing in me
which on the surface might seem
to be in conflict with these wishes here
(they aren’t, but the explaining might take a while)
so I just want to say this:

there is pain in the world and justifiable anger
we need to glow strong and be in our glowing strength
in the face of all the things that are not right, and say

This Is Not Right

oh, just for example, the murder of Alton Sterling
or the fact that we are somehow all just accepting as normal
that a dangerous unpredictable angry self-important racist
could seriously be the republican candidate for president of the united states?

the things that are not right are not right

and this is not in conflict with the practice of
Nothing Is Wrong
which is about meeting internal and external worlds
with wisdom, presence and grounded grace in our full power

while wishing can shift focus inward
we don’t hide from reality: gathering strength to glow strength
we can use our internal trust in Nothing Is Wrong
to stand in powerful protest to what is not right

okay let’s release these beautiful wishes into the world

trust, listen (repeat, repeat, repeat)

the great mystery of this week
can be quite easily summed up:
lately I been trying to logic things when they aren’t in fact
logic-based things but rather trust-your-yes things

as bryan says
(about the body)
(but true for everything)
you don’t make the decisions here
there are no decisions to make here
just get quiet enough to hear and respect
the decisions that have already been made

you listen-and-reveal the decisions
you receive them
that is the only way decisions work
the body has its yes and its no

distortions

and yet our whole culture is like,
oh let’s make a prose and cons list here
(ha that was Pros and Cons but Prose and Cons is better, thanks autocorrect!)
let’s get tactical and strategic and analyze
until we know What Is The Right Decision To Decide
because we’re the deciders

no one ever told us about the option of
feeling what has already been decided
what if the internal compass is already pointing towards true yes
or at the very least all the useful beacons of no are
doing their work of clear shining
elegantly redirecting us
towards the new yes

my back hurts

my back never hurts but it hurts now and
it hurts now because I didn’t listen-and-receive my yes
I forced a decision instead of letting
my decision show itself to me

twenty four hours ago my back felt better than it ever has in my life
all of me felt that way, actually
I gave myself Birthday Do-Overs for my terrible birthday
(do-overs forever!)
in the form of an absolutely luscious day of lusciousness
alive with all the superpowers of the salve of healing through lusciousness
by way of a two hour massage delivered by Darcy
who is probably an angel or at least was in the moment I needed one
and I understood something about a superpower I want

glow

there are people I admire greatly
who possess superpowers I desire to experience for myself
as I imagine they experience it, as intrinsic, a given,
something they own, unquestioningly theirs,
we all have these
more than we think or know
but it is easier to see the powers we are on the verge of integrating
because they glow like signs

though we think these are still far in the distance
because, again, they glow like signs
and there is an optical illusion of distance
we couldn’t see them though unless they were in our blueprints too
waiting to be activated

all plans are illusory / wild peacefulness

Svevo, my uncle, is the most
at-ease-in-the-world person I have ever met
all gentleness and sparkle
befriending everyone he meets and laughing conspiratorially at life
(or really, with life)
and he has two secrets that are not secrets at all
one is that he genuinely does not care what anyone thinks about him
and the other is that he has forgotten how to worry

it’s not that he doesn’t have things to worry about
because he does, he just doesn’t worry about them
he doesn’t even worry about death
the thing that, as far as I’m concerned, most of us worry about all the time
I mean, I do, both consciously and unconsciously
the worry that fuels all the other worries
both existential and mundane

a good spot

he already has his gravesite
on a sweet quiet hill in eugene with beautiful trees
he goes and naps there, on his grave, on lazy afternoons
so that it will feel like home,
to practice
for when that will be his full time gig

“this is nice”, he says, “I’m thinking of moving here actually, it’s a good spot”

that is where I would like to be buried too, with him, when my time comes for that long nap, I may not have made peace with the idea that one day I will not be here but may I rest in the company of the calmest person I know

how does this work

I have spent a lot of years studying him
trying to figure out the mechanics
of his miraculous-to-me state of Not Worrying
because there isn’t really anyone who models this

we live in a world of fear and fear-that-begets-fear
(for example, have you ever watched the news or looked at twitter or
god forbid stumbled into the comments section anywhere but here)
and I don’t know about you but I was definitely raised by
Worriers Who Worry About All The Worries, and
it doesn’t make sense not to worry
I mean, logically it does, it’s just like Svevo says,
the ROI on worry is traditionally very low,
but emotionally, I mean, how does that work

and so slowly over the years I have adopted a Svevo attitude on most things
namely that in situations that look like Everything Has Gone Horribly Wrong
very often Nothing Is Wrong
and we are deciding it is wrong through our reactions,
tensing and tightening, which leads to more reactiveness
which leads to more things being wrong or perceived as wrong
and we miss out on the lightness and the treasure
or even just the experience to be present
with our very legitimate grief over What Is

All Plans Are Illusory

this is a favorite Svevo-ism that I use all the time
if I remember this then it doesn’t bother me when they go differently
than (haha) planned
because the very nature of plans is that they don’t

so I make illusory plans to do illusory things
knowing that they may or may not happen
and trusting that whatever happens instead
will be okay
and the moment of “oh no it seems not okay” will play out
as moments do
and all will be well
as it already was
because everything is and was and will be well
it only stops being well when I want the plans to be
what I thought they should be
except their only job is to be illusory
and my only job is to let them

lusciousness

a wise person I love/loved/love fully understands the superpower of
healing through lusciousness
and lives by this, all the time,
and I want to too

and I don’t, yet,
as you can tell from the fact that it took me
four months to schedule do-overs for my disastrous birthday weekend
or from my aching back
which is a direct result of my choice to just sleep on a friend’s floor last night
after my flight was delayed by two hours and I missed my bus

adrianna the italian heiress was having none of this
she delivered an epic 3am smackdown
where she told me that if I’m going to learn about
healing through lusciousness and
plenty of time and
deep wild peacefulness
then I need to treat our body, our space and our time with
much more respect and honor
that I need to respect our queenliness
and that there is no point in living by
Do Less and Choose Ease
if we don’t do it with great love for this body-home that we inhabit

labyrinth

on sunday I walked the labyrinth at grace cathedral
(not the one in san francisco, a different one)
asking for three clues and a healing
related to my themes of Crown On
and Solved By Being A Bell
I walked it three times until everything was tingly

the first clue turned out to be a sign on the wall:
GO CAMPING
the second was my sudden realization that the
labyrinth itself was shaped like a crown
and the third clue came at the center
in the form of the understanding that my crown already is on
— it’s on all the time —
I just act like it isn’t, I act like I am waiting for permission
to treat myself with grace
to expect others to treat me with grace

my new job is head up and shoulders down

and to remember that I am
powerful now
not in the process of becoming
my power is mine right now

and then I exited and there was a bell
so I rang the bell
as a bell
echoing and reverberating

gallery

that night I dreamed I was walking through a gallery of portraits
all of me, at different stages in my life
and in all of them my head was down, my eyes downcast
until the end when
suddenly I got to see myself looking directly towards me
unapologetic
eyes clear
proud and determined and deliberate
in my bell-presence

what do I want

to treat myself like a queen
and to integrate these powers that
I perceive other people have but of course they are mine if I want them
like my crown they are already on
I only have to remember them

and I want hot stone massage
(which I just had and completely erased my back pain)
(and I want more of that)
(and more of that and more of that)
and scalp massage
and beautiful glowing boundaries
and to luxuriate in taking time
for myself
and to trust in plenty
and take more naps
and meet my gaze (and all of me) with enormous love
and yes, witchy grace

what do I know about my wish?

my monsters sometimes say that my Shmita year was
a waste of time because all it did was
unravel everything in my life
without replacing it
but actually I can see the beautiful threads
and how everything in this glowing wish
is a direct result of that time I took for myself
to learn how to treasure myself
and I am filled with deep gratitude for past me who was brave
and future me who showed me what was indicated
and me-right-now who is done with things like sleeping on the floor
and forgetting her crown
and who is ready to remember truth
and let decisions announce themselves
meeting them with clear-eyed presence

may it be so!

now

I have lost three water bottles in as many weeks
but I have the telescoping metal cup that I carry with me
to not use disposable cups
and because a lot of dance venues don’t allow water bottles
and maybe that can be enough for now
maybe just an empty cup is a temporary experiment in
trust in plenty
or maybe it is time for a new bottle
I will let that information be revealed to me instead of
trying to solve this or anything else right now

the superpower of hearing the melody

months-July-VPA-2016

June was WONDER with the superpower of the next indicated step is revealed, and now we are in HARMONY, with the superpower of hearing the melody

and I think this wish is really about that even though I didn’t realize it was

thank you, past-me, for being such a good namer and calling this into being

last week’s wishes

last-week-me wished a wish called more door to harmony

about quitting my job and finding harmoniousness, and I learned about these things all week, and am following all the best clues

thank you, me who wished

invitation: come play with me…

you are invited to share many !!!!!! about what is here,
or share appreciation or anything sparked for you while reading, including any stories you wish to let go of, any adventures you wish to welcome

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

wishes are never late because whenever you wish is the right time for wishing

here’s how we meet each other’s wishes: oh, wow what beautiful wishes

The Fluent Self