Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
Each week I write these Visions of Possibility and Anticipation to practice asking for what I want. And to get clarity on what that really is, even when asking feels conflicted.
I always get useful information about my relationship with various aspects of the ask. Join in if you like!
Thing 1: Nine days with love.
Here’s what I want:
I’m leaving for the Vicarage very soon. Very!
There are nine whole days and then I leave.
Hello, nine days.
(The Vicarage = two whole weeks of glorrrrious silent retreat, which means both that I will be on silent retreat and also I am silent-retreating about what this is).
Nine days is not a lot of days. And there are a lot of things that want to happen inside of those days.
I would like some kind of map. Mainly I would like to feel delightfully calm about everything. Calm and present, not calm-and-drifting. Calm and right here with all of it.
And then I want a sense of what needs to fit where, what can be dropped, what doesn’t really need to be done, like that.
The qualities inside of the want:
Shelter. Freedom. Permission. Peacefulness. Ease. Play. Readiness. Willingness. Resilience. Curiosity. Light-heartedness. Focus. Pleasure.
And the superpower of committing to the flow, however it happens to be flowing.
Ways this might work:
I can use the it’s-almost-magic Deguiltified Chicken Board at the Floop to list all the things.
I can talk to the time monsters who are saying that THERE IS NO TIME and also doom-doom-doom ALL THE THINGS.
And I can use metaphor mouse to rename the things that need doing, and also I can turn them into secret agent spy ops.
I’m playing with…
The part about love.
If these nine days are a present for me (let’s say that I’m temporarily choosing to pretend that they are), then ….?
If the Vicarage itself is a place of love that past-me set up for incoming-me out of love, and I am going there to reconnect to myself, with love….
Then how does knowing that change the form of these nine days?
Does that not turn these nine days into a new kind of container, built out of love to contain more love? And how does that interact with the usual patterns of pressure and worry and “gotta get shit done” and “oh no all the things”? This is what I’m thinking about right now.
Thing 2: And Nine Forms, with play.
Here’s what I want:
There are nine things that I want to have written before I leave.
Actually, there are more. But nine that come in kind of a set.
This has to do with shapes and blueprints, doesn’t it.
What are nine shapes?
Circle, triangle, oval, rectangle, star, diamond, octagon, pentagon, crescent. Okay!
If there are nine shapes, and also blueprints for the shapes, maybe this won’t be as time-consuming as I am worried it might be.
The qualities inside of the want:
Ease. Simplicity. Release. Comfort. Peace of mind. Sweetness. Form. Flow. Play. Experimentation. Invention. Skipping.
The superpowers of All The Shapes Are Friends, and also the superpower of graceful transitions.
Ways this might work:
I can process this at the Floop! And I can ask Incoming Me to remind me why everything will be better if these are done. Or maybe it will turn out that it doesn’t matter and I don’t have to do them…
But the main thing is that I’m finding out what is important about this, why it’s calling to me.
I’m playing with…
What if this can be easier than I think? What if I only need two blueprints for all the shapes? Interesting…
Thing 3: And Nine Pages, with laughter.
Here’s what I want:
The big thing that needs to be done before I leave has nine pages.
It wants my love and attention, but mainly it wants me to enjoy myself while I’m doing it.
So I need to figure out the WHEN, but mainly I need to figure out how it can be joyful. Because that is how it wants to be born.
The qualities inside of the want:
Silliness. Delight. Pleasure. Temptation. Play. Presence. Noticing. Breath. Sweetness. Warmth. Buoyancy. Grounding. Humming. Glowing.
And the superpower of sparking all the sparks.
Ways this might work:
I can think of other joyful things. Like flowers! And secret flowers.
Like dancing and leaping. Like swinging on the swings with Svevo. Like [not-wine].
I can start from the feeling, and let it change the nine pages.
I’m playing with…
Letting there be help. Playdate help, writing date help, partnering.
People who might help with joyful and with writing, possibly both: Marisa, Nick, Briana, Eddie, Kyle, Garret, the shellbacks from the last Crossing, Richard, Dana, Hope.
Noticings about the things I want this week…
The qualities seem extra-important this week. The love and the play, the form and the freedom.
Bonus wishes, please!
Some of these are secret agent code and some of them are things I’m silent retreat-ing on. Some are qualities that will help. And some are almost pre-wishes: tiny seeds for future processing.
- Finish up Operation Watchcap.
- Copper pot.
- Hooks and hooks.
- Stone time (yes, the kind of stone that is a stone and also the kind of stone that is a person and also the kind of stone that is for skipping)
- Chulnikim: rename the op.
- Goodnight, tabs!
- The decobwebbing of the Playground.
- New checkbook.
- TAJHMA.
- Yes to ordering the business cards.
- More with feet.
- The Tree of Life part III?
- Packing list! Rename this. See the steamer trunk.
- Call on Barrington!
I’m playing with…
Trust. Making things simple. Conducting. The superpower of What If Nothing Is Wrong?
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
Operations HUMMING and DIPPING are both going great, and they’re both ongoing.
There was much delighting: and I think I’m getting a lot better at this. Feeling good about the progress. It is easier for me to remember to delight now. I still feel conflicted about (pleasure) as a word/concept, but delight has landed.
And I wanted to play with conducting three times a day, and that was a good number. We now have lots of evidence about how just three times helps a lot. And how even two times helps a lot. Actually, even once helps a lot. And once you get past the first one, the next ones are easier.
Then I wanted a secret name for Secret Sundays, and for now I’m calling them Undays!
Other things I planted that also happened: Toozday! Operation G.O.O.D.W.I.L.L, business card designs, moving things around, the one about feet, the Geniza and the 36 tiny adventurers on their way out. As always, I’m happy I asked.
Also I just got a secret text that says CHEESE EMERGENCY AVERTED, and this is also good news.
Playing. Shelter for the comments.
What’s welcome: Your own wishes, gwishes, visions and personal ads, small or large. Updates on past ones if you like. Things sparked for your own process.
I’m receptive to warm wishes for the things I’m working on and playing with.
We ask for what we need, and we give each other space and spaciousness for the process.
This is a place of safety for creative play and exploration, with a very non-dogmatic approach. We don’t tell each other how to ask for things and we don’t give unsolicited advice. We play.
That’s it. Let’s throw a bunch of things in the pot!
As always, amnesty applies. Leave a wish here any time you want.
xox
Follow
Gwishes for this week:
Wisdom and strength for me to defend a dragon-hoard of savings so that I can join the Floop next year.
Strength and forbearance for my car, that it might continue to drive around despite its fragile and superannuated mechanisms (especially the transmission!)
A flexible circle of safety and patience to hold me and my best-beloved close during a time of challenges in our relationship.
Havi, much love to your Vicaraging and your nines!
This week I’m playing with listing qualities and how I’m supporting them.
Creativity
* Time for painting
* Time for piano and dulcimer and singing
* Time with Creative Dreams
Health
* One smoothie a day, two smoothies some days!
* More stretching
* More resting
* Continuing with the new sleep inducing routines
Abundance (abundance in, and sorting abundance related stuff)
* Two more people for the Saturday class
* One more milestone in the ritual of Tax Time achieved
* One more session of making a present for the me of tax time 2014
Clarity
* Untangle the website mess a little more
* Rewrite the about page on HT
* Process more on spending time outside
Here’s what I want:
To find a metaphor for a project. A metaphor that brings joy and fun, but also some pomp and circumstance, cuz this is important.
Building a hot air balloon. There’s my metaphor.
The test flight of the hot air balloon needs to be soon, early February probably, and there is still a lot of work to be done on it. I still have to figure out colors for some of the stripes and find the right cloth to make them out of. I need to tinker with the engine (or whatever makes the hot air).
So I need to get my hot air balloon built in the next couple weeks, but I want to build it with ease and joy and flow. I want to give my hot air balloon as much space as it needs, while gracefully accepting what can’t be completed by that date. But mostly I want to find a way to give it as much space as it needs within the confines of the date.
The qualities inside of the want:
Love. Caring. Growth. Ease. Flow. Inspiration. Creativity. Joy. Wiggling-happiness.
Ways this could work:
Taking walks. Staying off the internet. Coloring. Entering and exiting. Remembering the qualities.
Past Gwishes & stuff: I needed more conscious Exiting the Day and that happened. So now there is actual Scientific Evidence. I kept breathing and humming and did my Morning Practice every day.
Snowflakes. That’s working. More humming please.
Garden Plans. That was ambitious, also JUmping the Gun. Move this back til after I return from P’con. (There is already tree pruning to be done though)
I wanted prgress on the Black Madonna poroject and boy id that happen! I would be happier with some of the slides selected and the text actually written and revised. But the progress was good and solid and of the Most Important KInd. (New moves from Shiva Nata Level 2 seem to have fueled this)
Relaunching the Sloop. I’m dealing with my maritime chores well. It all happened with gentleness and hope and very lil panic. LOts of great stuff here.
I need more comnsistent and sustaining Entering & Exiting the Day, esp Entering FRiday, Sat or Sunday. I have Evidence! I have plans! One follows the other! I’ll play with: Ritual, play, the SuperPOwer of Knowing what I need.
VPA : Containing Puppy Time.
WIW: Puppy Time is wonderful fun and gives me lots of gifts. It has been a real comfort and resource. However, it is very time consuming, and pulls me away from the family. I’ve been overdoing it and PuppyTime is lacking balance and context. Like water, it will fill whatever container of time you put it in, meaning I have found msyelf in the Kennel for 4 hours or more on a week night or when I have Imprtant Work to Do. I need to bring this back into balance and set limits/boundaries/containment for it
WTCW: PuppyTime is part of Going to thr River. Rememebr the Visiting the River rules and follo them. Remember not to opverdo it. Set aside a “kennel worth of puppy time”: block out a few hours, sttck to it, remember how fast i get sucked in against my intention. Humming, breathing, remembering the piint of PuppyTime is not just to play with puppies. Set aside evenings for PuppyTime and designate NoDog Days
ICT: Breathing, humming, meditating, Conscious Entry. Remembering that PuppyTime has to be in balance in order to still be fun. Remember that wuth the Puppies, I really do have all the power.
This is the first time I’m planting something here, but it feels like time. So hello, everyone.
I would really like a resolution to a creative problem that has turned into an interpersonal and emotional problem.
I would like to maintain beautiful sovereignty and realize what stuff is mine, and better yet, what stuff isn’t mine.
I would like the person with whom I’m working to feel supported and cared for by me, and to recognize and take responsibility for his stuff–but I also know (and want to remember) how little control I have over things of that sort.
I really want it to work out in a way that means the beautiful creative project can go forward and feel good.
Yet I would also like to make sure that I myself continue to feel good, that my time is protected, and that everyone remembers that this creative project, though beloved, is not the central project in my life right now. It is beloved, it is important, but it is not ALL.
Since I’m new, I wouldn’t mind a hello back and I’m open to a warm wish back on this.
Hi Kariel! May it be so … sending love for your planting.
Hello Kariel, warm wishes for your plantings!
This week I would love to feel peaceful and not so intermittently anxious about rest
Ease regarding moving, movement, routine, rest
Peace around the now, feeling safe, connected, ok, replenished
Hope, vision, feeling buoyant and also grounded
Ease. Peace. Everything is actually ok.
Whoops also I would like sovereignty and staying in my own zone, not engaging patterns to do otherwise.
Warm wishes to Kariel and everyone else!
Hello, Kariel! Warm wishes to you.
Here’s what I want: [silent retreat] Operation CASCADES!
Qualities inside the want: Confidence. Autonomy. Strength. Courage. Artistry. Delight. Ease. Sweetness.
Ways this could work: I change things internally and externally, in the hard and in the soft — but playfully, carrying the qualities inside of me.
I’m playing with: A Slightly Future Me. She’s done this, she knows exactly how, and she’s happy to help me.
I want to bring qualities from my recent travels into the week (and weeks) to come.
From San Pedro, I want the qualities of involvement, learning, and openness. From the cruise, I want the qualities of flow, acceptance, and rest. From both, I want the qualities of clutter-free clarity and presence.
Qualities inside the qualities: connecting with myself, replenishment, delight.
Ways this could happen: Remembering. Taking things slow. Trusting. Practicing being present.
I’m playing with: the Me who traveled, and the Me who knows how.
Loving Havi’s Nine Days, Nine Forms, Nine Pages. I might play with something like that too. Also Corie’s approach, listing the qualities and how she’s going to support them.
Hello my favourite people from my favourite place on the internet!
Last week I wanted to ‘wash my cares away’, and I was able to release, release, release pretty well pretty often. Here are some of the ways that work for me to wash my cares away:
– intentional showers (imagining all the emotional and energetic gunk running down the plughole)
– intentional dishes (same)
– sleep (watery dream world)
– company (being washed in love)
– watering my garden (here, now, this, is okay)
– crying. Tears wash sadness away. New sadness may rise up but then I can just cry some more. And it’s okay. Releasing, releasing, releasing. “Turn it over” as my sister would say.
And I wanted to stay with whatever I was doing, if I was relaxing then relax, if I was doing, then do. It has been interesting to observe when and how I ‘check out’ and numb. Still working with this one.
THIS WEEK.
I want a brazier – one of those outdoor, earthenware little fire holding, keep-you-warm-while-you-sit-outside-at-night-time things. Because I have moved to the country and YOU CAN SEE THE STARS HERE!!! And I believe that our species has spent two hundred thousand years gazing at the night sky and at a fire. And I read an article a while ago that ‘a study has found’ experiencing a sense of awe creates a sense of spaciousness of time; that what needs to happen will happen and there is plenty of time and everything is okay. And stargazing is awesome and fire meditation is calming and anything that we experienced consistently through our evolution we have adapted to benefit from. And I think that spending a regular hour out on my deck, surrounded by my garden, looking at the sky and gazing at a fire will be time very well spent. So, I am planting this gwish here: a brazier. For my deck. For the spaciousness and calm.
*fairy dust*
Thank you so much for the warm wishes! How lovely.
Wanting… an ease-filled solution to how to protect more of my time from clients… as backwards as that sounds, since I also want more time spent with clients… but the clients I want to work with in the ways I want to work with them.
Qualities… Ease. Harmony. Congruence. Clarity. Connection. Synergy.
This could work by… telling more people about what I do/want to do. Working with the oh-so-lovely VA I spoke to today. Thinking ahead and getting the things done for the challenging clients before they need them.
I will… remember to conduct. Take care of myself first because when I am taken care of, then everyone is. Follow my intuition.
—-
Other wantings:
-More time with S
-For my speech to magically resolve itself since slides are due Thursday… hah.
-No more emergencies with Operation Banquet.
-Time to spend thinking about things for Operation Im-press-ive.
-Re-reading the ebook or listening to the class on Time… clearly.
-Meh… time. time. time. That’s all I got right now. 🙂 Time for all the things that matter and for all the ones that don’t to just fade away.
Updates from last week:
I wanted a non-painful bra shopping experience, and yay, I had one! Found a store a block away from where I was meeting a friend in NYC and spent “too much” money on the first properly-fitting bra I’ve had in forever… well worth it. Even spending the money felt like a good thing. So yeah… that worked. Huzzah!
I also wanted rest & play. Which is funny because I haven’t felt so sleep deprived as this week in a while… I played, but I wasn’t remembering to ask the question, and probably played when I needed rest. Still paying attention to this. Also to my tendency to just say fuck it when I am overwhelmed and exhausted.
And lastly, I wanted to re-write some copy. And I wrote one thing, and not the rest of it. But I have ideas for the rest of it, including the epiphany that one of the pages just needs to be really simplified since it’s really more for people who already know me anyway. So that’s progress.
It’s Thursday, and yet I’m going to post a few visions, because…
…there’s this Thing: I want the week to strrrrrrrrrrrretch out enough to cushion (a key word from last week’s VPA) the things I’m asking it to hold: Work. A memorial service. A birthday gathering. A hike. Chores galore. Etc.
Qualities: Calm. Confidence. Perspective. Persistence.
Ways this might work:
* asking what is true
* asking what is probable
* keeping meals simple
* Permission from Past Me to discard things/notes related to projects I thought I would get to. forgiveness of Past Me for what feels like time and money squandered on things that didn’t pan out. Reassurance from Future Me that I won’t miss the things I am discarding — and that I will have the means to replace or access them if they become relevant to my life again.
I’m playing with: the asking. Re-rooting cactus cuttings. Not reading everything on my feeds.
Gwishes:
* to sell my Irish dancing shoes
* to find the right mask treatment for my skin
** to enjoy the process of finding the treatment
* to ignore bait and other unpleasant tuggings
* to obtain the right consistency (both literal — cheese tarts on deck — and a proxy…)
Warm wishes to all y’all!