I am recently back from two weeks at the Vicarage, a place that is both real and imaginary, where I devoted myself to exploring the previously unknown-to-me territories of tranquility.

Since I hadn’t visited these places, I didn’t really have a sense of what this experience would be like — haha understatement! — and one of the many surprising things that happened was this:

Most of my time was spent thinking about — and writing about — boundaries.

Glowingly beautiful radiant boundaries.

About how boundaries are vital to tranquility. How boundaries allow for rest, and rest helps with Clear Seeing, and Clear Seeing shows me everything I need to know. I also learned that boundaries are one of the best ways I can treasure myself, which is the real mission.

Now I’m back, and everything is a different color than it was before. The first morning I woke up and scribbled this:

I am ready to treasure my space, inside and out.

Since then I have been steadily clearing things out of my life. This morning I woke up with a new op: it is called Operation Tomorrow-Me I Love You.

What I know so far about this Op.

It is related to what ex-mentor called Morning Begins At Night.

It has to do with making choices the night before that support me of the next morning. No, that’s not exactly right.

Tomorrow-Morning Me gets to make her own choices. She is new, and the moment of her choices is new, and she is a sovereign being with agency. I cannot know what her choices will be.

What I want is to make options available for her that will make it easier for her to make choices, and to be less rushed/discombobulated in the mornings.

This wasn’t relevant at the Vicarage, because at the Vicarage I have no schedule whatsoever. I slept for as long as I wanted. I did all the morning rituals my heart desired: yoga nidra and sun salutations, taking my sweet, sexy time with all of it.

Now I’m back, and my mornings involve dance class and getting to work. And right now Morning Me is flustered and forgets things: oh right, we’ll need socks. And possibly make-up for later. Things like that.

I would like to fill up on love each evening for Tomorrow-Me and set things up for her with sweetness. Fill her bag with the things she will need. Put out clothing that she might want to wear. Write her a love note. Whisper to her that whatever she chooses is perfect, and I support it unconditionally because she is my favorite person in the entire world.

How do I want to investigate or play with this op?

With no rules.

And with stones. I want to skip some stones, which is a form of journaling where you ask questions and let them ripple out into your consciousness, like stones skipping through water, following the ripples and writing whatever comes up.

First I conduct: resting on the floor, feeling the floor, breathing, filling up on qualities, until things get quiet in my head. Or until they don’t but I perceive that I am done.

15 minutes was the right amount, as it turned out. I am ready for the first stone:

“What do I need right now?”

The first thing that came up was PERMISSION.

Not sure what that means. Permission to devote myself to this op even though I have ninety billion (monsternumber) of things that are, according to the Time Gremlins, infinitely more important?

What kind of Permission?

Permission to believe. Believe what? Permission to believe caring for Incoming Me, and treasuring her, are actually the most important things I could be doing, and doing this will speed up the other missions.

This mission is about helping Incoming Me feel deeply cared for, to do things that help her to be at ease, so she can be really present, so she can be in Clear Seeing, like at the Vicarage.

Alright. Permission. What else do I need right now? Laughter. Bubbles. Things that bubble and bubble up. A lightness. An effervescence. You can’t take this mission too seriously because this mission, at its heart, is about play.

Taking care of Incoming You is not a chore. It’s not one more thing you have to do. It’s a game. It’s a flirtation. This should feel like slipping a note under your lover’s pillow so they discover it later with a delighted smile.

Bubble up with adoration for Tomorrow-You. Delight in your desire to fulfill her desires. Ready for the next stone? Yes.

“What do I know about rest?”

Hahahaha, what don’t I know. I didn’t know anything, but after these two weeks I know that it is transformative and invigorating.

I rested ridiculous amounts, I dealt with all the monster accusations that this is indulgent and decadent and frivolous. I dealt with the monster fears that it is not safe to rest, and that if I allow myself to rest, I will never want to stop. That I will sink into the deepest darkest depression and also that I will turn into a burrito.

We had long internal conversations about all of this, and I rested.

I rested and rested more. I slept twelve hours each night, sometimes more. I napped for three hours each afternoon, sometimes more.

It was like deep hibernation, and after about ten days, I started feeling vibrantly alive. Tinglingly, wondrously alive. As if ALIVENESS was rushing through my veins.

My desires were clear and obvious. Not just that, they were beautiful.

I felt excited, awake, ready for adventures. Big adventures! I discovered that I was no longer angry about the thing I had been angry about before I left. I discovered that I was no longer hurting about things that had previously hurt.

So. I’ve spent my entire life feeling ambivalent about rest, craving it but also dreading it, avoiding the purple pills. And now I am convinced that rest is the most brilliant door into everything I want.

Also I just realized that if I do things in the evening to set up the morning for Tomorrow-Me, I will also sleep better, knowing that I am held and cared for, that ease and adoration await me in the morning. I am my lover, in this sense. And rest is my lover. And giving myself rest is an act of love.

Okay, now the monsters are saying, SHUT UP you stupid hippie this is so embarrassing you can’t let anyone read this! So let’s give them a safe room and see what the next stone holds.

“What in my current environment supports me and what needs to change?”

Hm. In terms of setting up clothing for tomorrow-me, there isn’t really a place where I can put them. I don’t like having things pile up on the dresser.

I wonder if there is a place to put a hook, where I could hang some items. Or possibly put things into a special bag and then Tomorrow-Me can unpack the bag like a present, and choose what she likes.

Oh! There’s that little orange stand that is no longer needed at the chocolate shop. That might work. Possibly a combination of these.

What supports me? My conducting nook, the closet that I turned into a place to meditate or conduct. Except I don’t always remember to use it. So maybe I leave a post-it note for Tomorrow-me that says: Rendezvous! Meet me in the vault! And then she can leave the note on the bed so that the me of later that day can see it and remember.

We can have a note that we pass to each other, always passing it forward!

I like this. Anything else?

Lighten things. What does that mean? Carry less. Trust more.

Okay. Next stone?

“Is there a version of me who is really good at the thing I’m working on right now?”

I’m not even sure what that is. What am I working on? Treasuring myself?

Yes, and…

Treasuring my space. Staying deeply connected to Tomorrow Me. Taking exquisite care of myself. Being playful and light-hearted. Committing to presence. Trusting that rest and tranquility are useful in addition to being pleasurable. Giving myself endless permission to take pleasure in life, and endless legitimacy when I’m not having fun.

So, who is the me who knows how to do all of that? Incoming Me.

And what about just the part where I do something now to make things easier on tomorrow-me. Is there a version of me who knows about this?

Yes, in the orchards. I had to be at work at 4:45am, so everything was ready the night before. Or in the bars on the days when I finished one shift at 6am and had to return in the afternoon to open.

Or when I have a morning flight.

I know how to do this. It’s just a matter of switching how I think about this. Instead of thinking of it as something I do in special cases, it’s just something I do. It’s part of my routine.

Anything else?

I’m afraid I will forget. So I’ll put a note on my mirror: Tomorrow-Me, I love you! That will remind me. And if it doesn’t, I’ll skip some more stones and find out what I need.

Come play.

If you want to brainstorm sweet things you can do for Tomorrow-You or skip some stones or process in any other way, that is welcome.

You can also share appreciation for the practice, sparks sparked for you, seed some extra wishes, say hello, whisper magic words, whatever you like.

This stuff can be challenging. It’s about desire, and when we interact with desire there can be pain about all the times we didn’t have what we need, about the vulnerability of wanting.

So: we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process. We interact with our stuff and with each other with kindness, warmth, curiosity and patience, to the best of our abilities. We remember that People Vary. My way can be different from yours, and that’s okay.

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