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. ❤️

Deliciously Unhurried, Purposefully Striding

Entry, slow

It is Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, or it was when I was writing this the other day, and I am entering slowly. Slow entry.

Themes of releasing, themes of acknowledging and adding legitimacy, themes of sorrow (for me, this is a hard time of year for me), themes of entering as we wish to be in it.

I have been working with the idea of being Deliciously Unhurried in my approach.

And I am trying to combine this with Purposefully Striding.

Combining opposites that maybe aren’t opposites at all

So I am unhurried (deliciously) and also purposeful (and striding), and considering the interplay between these, as well as interplay, more generally.

What if there is no paradox, only interplay.

That too is a theme. Hello, new year.

Hello, new year

Hello, new year.

May things get better, swiftly and speedily, for everyone in harm’s way which is many people right now, and us, and for our loving hearts.

It is a hard time to be. Hard and heart-breaking.

And, also, here we are. A breath for entry, for courage, for whatever is needed, and in the right amount at the right time. May it be so.

Even slower than that

What does the superpowers of Deliciously Unhurried, Even Slower Than That look like?

This is related to my forever new years wish that I wish both at my new year, Rosh HaShana, on the calendar that I follow, and on the January new year when the numbers change on the other calendar.

I follow a calendar, calendars follow me, times move and things change.

Well, things change or they don’t, or a little of both. Here we are.

Intention, attention, attentiveness, spaciousness

My intention is to make (make?) more time for noticing.

Regardless of the correct verb, my focus is devoting more time to arriving, breathing, grounding, transitioning, moving as skillfully and purposefully as I can, if I can, between movements and activities.

And observing myself in my relationship with these moments and experiences.

Let make = build in, allow for, remember that this extra time is needed, especially for my ADHD self who wildly underestimates how long things actually take…

This asks me to pause (for sweetness! for admiration!)

This asks me to pause and admire how playful and inventive I can be in relation to time, how lost I can get in time, how my relationship with time itself wants more time…

Good job, babe, I say to myself, I am watching you navigating this world, boldly and cautiously at once, with your synesthesia brain that sees time and also can’t feel into how long anything takes.

Making space for myself, with sweetness, when I can. This is also a form of deliciously unhurried.

A breath for that practice, which is sometimes an option and sometimes can feel very far away. Both are okay.

Purposeful

What are the superpowers of Purposeful Striding and how do they relate to this new year?

I think sometimes when I let myself really soften into Deliciously Unhurried, I get scared by how subversive it is and remains to do less in a culture that always wants more.

Here we are, in our hustle-and-grind productivity world, where everyone I know is so burnt out they are barely coping, and even that seems like its own coping mechanism…

Maybe because it’s so reasonable to avoid as hard and fast as possible right now. Who wants to pause when pausing means we have to see how bad things are, in the world and in our world?

Challenging times, challenging and unnerving

Challenging and unnerving times for real.

And this feels like a very understated way of phrasing things to me.

Here we are, here we are, in the challenging times, here I am not wanting to pause and breathe, afraid that if I let myself stop I won’t be able to start again.

This is when it helps to drop a question into the waters

So I asked a question about what I can combine with Deliciously Unhurried to ease this fear that if I pause I will never find a rhythm again…

To ease this panicked sense that if I let myself pause and take in the gravity of the many horrors and scary moments, I will be frozen in fear, unable to act, unable to run…

A breath for these challenging times. A breath for this very understandable tendency or pull towards avoidance. I love you. I say this to myself and to anyone reading who might need to hear it.

Purposefully Striding

The image that came up in response to my question was walking across the dance floor to dance with a favorite dance partner.

”I love your purposeful striding,” The Arborist says. “I love how you know what you want and move right towards it.

Sometimes other people can see us better than we can perceive ourselves, especially if they love us a lot.

If I can stay Deliciously Unhurried and keep moving with purpose (and love) towards my yeses, maybe even with some grace and some integrity? Well, that has some oomph to me. That holds some hope for me.

If this is helpful and hopeful for you as well, please take some of this combo, and if not then this is an invitation to feel into your own blend of qualities that brings you something good.

Four poems

Here are the poems I am reading as part of my Slow Entry into the new year.

The Birthday Of The World (Give me weapons of minute destruction)

Thanks

The Cure For It All

Lie Down

I read The Birthday Of The World out loud at the river, to the river, to myself, and cried.

Much to digest

The Birthday Of The World, Thanks, The Cure For It All, Lie Down.

Four poems that come together into a new poem.

Much to digest, but in a good way.

I like imagining all four of these poets, or all four of these poems, hanging out, having a picnic and twinkling at each other.

Let us twinkle at poetry, let us read it by the waters, how’s that for a new year wish.

Into the waters

Long-time readers here where I have been uploading (what a word) my writing and thoughts since 2004, know that my favorite part of the Jewish new year, and my favorite ritual generally is tashlich.

Tashlich is when we take our regrets to the river or any body of moving water, and toss them into the flow of the stream, sometimes in the form of pebbles, sometimes in the form of bread crumbs.

As a resident of the southwest (in the United States), my personal minhag (tradition, custom) is to use the crushed up tortilla chip remains from the bottom of the bag…

Memories being remembered

Usually I wander the Gila wilderness until I find an appropriate creek, and this ritual, that is intended to be communal, is a solo act. Me and the sky, the trees, the water, the whistling of wind through canyon.

Last year the person who loved me drove me over an hour away to their favorite hidden spot on the Gila river, beneath a canopy of swaying branches. We balanced on river rocks and birds played in formations overhead.

It was sparkly and magical, the rare gift of a perfect day in memory, set in my mind as if preserved in amber.

“Let’s do this every year forever,” they suggested and I agreed to this, and then, six weeks later, they didn’t love me anymore, which was mysterious and confusing, and it was challenging to not think about this as I made my way to the river this year.

Now is not then

This year I am in Oregon, and I was able to go to the river with two dear friends, in community, among dozens of beautiful fellow throwers-of-crumbs and tossers-of-pebbles.

It was a comfort to know that I was among not only my people, but the politically progressive branch of my people, whose collective sorrow, with mine, includes our horror and fury and grief over the genocide and starvation in Gaza, and I could feel us raging-and-sorrow-ing together…

The small comforts are not nothing.

Releasing, receiving

At the river I cried about missing my mother, and I cried about being alone and not being alone, and I cried about the latest Etgar Keret short story that I am not going to link to because it is too shattering, but it is called The First Angel You See.

And mainly I cried about all the psychic damage of these times and not being able to do enough or anything for the people I care about.

The river took all of it with great love, to be passed along to source, and the energy was moving, and the shofar was blown, and wishes for better [everything] were flown like kites, and it was a beautiful day, to be added to the memory chest.

Entry, slow and steady

A breath for all of this.

Deliciously Unhurried. Deliberately Striding. The interplay between the two. Interplay, generally.

What would you like for this new year, whether you are following this calendar or another one? What are we inviting in and letting go of, and, more importantly perhaps, how are we entering?

What qualities do we wish to name or invite-invoke-conjure? This to me is a form of blessing, the way we can call on words to be a form of RESONANCE that shifts our internal state…

Resonance. Resonance. Resonance. I am here, alive.

I am here, alive, breathing, tasting hope on the tip of my tongue.

Resonance

Resonance.
Breath.
Steadiness.
Sweetness.


Love.
Tenderness.
Readiness (to fight, to hope, to be present).
Grace.

Deliberate and striding. Unhurried and delicious. What beautiful wishes.

May it be so

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.