So right now it’s Rally (Rally!).
This is Rally #13.
Which is rather an astonishing number of Rallies to have rallied, if you think about it. Didn’t we just come up with the idea?!
And we — that is to say, me, fourteen other people and Selma the duck — are all here at the Playground and we are rallying the Rally together. Rally!
Except, of course, that I’m also [verb]-ing the Rally at the same time, because I am the captain of this crazy ship. The captain and the adventure-channeler and the one who knows the lyrics of the secret songs and also the keeper of the PLUM.
It’s complicated. But it’s also very simple.
This is a post about under the surface.
Last night.
Last night was Erev Rally.
That is to say: Rally Eve.
Rally always begins the night before. On a Monday.
Erev Rally is when we embark. We set off.
If you are not familiar with the concept of Erev, I would love it if you’d read this gorgeous, perfect poem that goes straight into my heart and resets something every time. All of it.
We sail forth on our grand adventure, without yet knowing what it is or where we are going.
We embark and we orient ourselves within this process of embarking. We wave at the shore. We make separations. We learn about spaciousness and buffers.
It is silly and lighthearted. It is full of the power of beginning.
Last night.
Every once in a while during this process of Erev, as we go through the rituals and practices of Embarkation-Orientation, we stop and look at what we’re doing.
I like to sometimes throw in a bit of hey let’s analyze what we’re doing while we’re doing it, for an extra kick of meta.
Like: why are we searching for Clews? What is the hidden purpose of Schmurphling? Or Away, Rio!, for that matter.
Because, as you might imagine, there is a point to everything I do.
Actually, there are many points to everything I do. You can always assume method to madness. There is always a clear and loving intention.
So sometimes we talk about that. (And, no big surprise, there’s a point to that too.)
You know what I love?
People’s ideas, theories and answers about why we’re doing what we’re doing are always different.
Not only that, but this: in any given group, people can easily come up with 30 or 40 creative and varying reasons for what my sneaky, nefarious purposes might be.
And each group will come up with different types of reasons than the last group. It’s fascinating.
No one is ever wrong. There isn’t really a wrong. It’s just an ever-growing collection of possible and likely reasons.
And the reason behind the reasons is always this:
Anything I do or say at Rally is intended to transmit something about the (sparkly, mysterious and marvelous) culture of being on Rally and being at the Playground.
It’s a code. It’s a shorthand. It’s a transmission system.
So, for example, Rally culture and Playground culture share a lot of qualities:
Play. Inspiration. Creativity. Spaciousness. Safety. Comfort. Wonder.
Delight. Sovereignty. Permission. Amnesty. Sanctuary. Freedom.
Exploration. Discovery. Light-heartedness. Focus. Grounding. Sustainability. Adaptability. Flow.
Chaos. Form. Joy. Presence. Receptivity. Glee. Quiet. Replenishing. Warmth. Color. Possibility.
But it’s better for Rally if we do things that somehow demonstrate what that feels like than it is for me to lecture about culture.
The things I do while [verb]-ing Rally are designed to emit culture. To help the culture get louder.
And once you know that, you can look for the qualities hiding in plain sight in each experience.
So let’s apply that here.
Obviously hanging out on the blog is different than being at Rally.
For one thing, there’s no Refueling Station. No hammocks (other than imaginary and/or metaphorical ones). No visible fairy doors. No Costumery. Our costumes here are imaginary.
And no pretzel sticks. It’s also much harder to acquire a butt-monster.
But the culture is still very similar. In some ways, Rally is an extension of this blog.
So.
If you assume that everything I say or do here online also has a purpose…
And if you already know that this purpose is to make it possible for you to have an energy-experience or even a tangible experience of this culture…
Then let’s talk about how I do that. It’s a meta-party of meta!
What I’d like today. And comment zen for the blanket fort!
Any examples you can come up with of things that I do or say on the blog or elsewhere on this site.
And how they give you a sense of the qualities which live here.
(Whatever you happen to think of is totally fine by me. And the archives are at your disposal, if you need them.)
If you don’t feel like joining in out loud, no worries. You can always call Silent Retreaaaaaat! Or just whisper it.
- You can also tell Rally stories, if you’ve been on Rally.
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Or make a Gwish about someday. That works too.
As always, we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process.
We make room for everyone else to have their stuff, and we make this a safe space by taking responsibility for our own stuff and by not giving advice.
postscripts!
- One day I’d really love to do a Meta-meta Rally, where all we do is analyze Rally and examine rallying while we rally. That would be so awesome.
- If you’re longing to escape/rewrite American Thanksgiving, there are 2 spots left for the extra-long Great Ducking Out Rally.
- Also: 5 spots left for the January Rally, I believe.
- The list of dates for the 2012 Rallies: on the Rally page. Rally! Prices go up in January, so sign up early.
- If you need a Stowawayship Scholarship-ship, go here.
That’s all.
Love, as always, to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.
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The first thing that comes to mind is this. When I found this site, my overwhelming first impression could be summarized as: “wha… what? huh?” Sure, you can go read Havi’s “About me” page. But reading about her, if you don’t know her at all, still makes you go, “wha…? huh? Duck? Pastafarianism? Chicken?”
I think Chris Guillebeau said something similar to what I’m about to describe (which made me feel really validated). At first, you’re really confused about what this site is about, and then something pulls you back in. You’re mysteriously drawn and so you visit again. and again. and again. and then you go “ahhhhh.” Before you know it, you’re HERE and being here changes everything you’ve thought about everything. Within a week, you’ve bought half the stuff in the “shop”. Within two months, you’ve signed up to rally. (Well.. that might just be me.)
Then I realized. This is totally intentional. Havi’s ‘about’ page is confusing and kooky on purpose. If you’re the kind of person who needs to be spoon-fed a neat elevator pitch, if you don’t enjoy dancing in that space of ambiguity and possibility and playful wonder, if you look around here and go “what? i don’t get it” and leave and don’t feel the mysterious tug to come back, you’re probably not Havi’s people. Because everything here defies an elevator pitch.
It’s an amazing filter that not everybody has the confidence or clarity to put in place.
I would totally be interested in a meta-rally, especially if we talked about the process of transmitting culture and communicating through actions (I notice how repetition feeds into this, like checking force fields so often it turns into a reflex).
I’ve been reading about the Situationist International, and the idea of “constructing situations” that communicate a political or artistic point. It’s interesting to see how this idea pops up in different places.
Also, what about capoing for the missing Rally verb? At soccer games the capo is the person who leads the chants and helps set the tone for the rest of the supporters: this is how we sing, this is when we raise our scarves, this is how we show the team we still support them even though they’re down 3-0. Etc.
I’m not sure if this counts or not or even makes sense, but the actual being on the website promotes the culture too.
What I mean by that was, I started consolidating my feeds into my google reader and I absolutely hated reading this blog in the reader, but when I came back to reading it here with the picture of the procrastination dissolve-o-matic, your picture with Selma, the shiva nata stuff, and of course all the wonderful comments I love it and in fact cannot get enough of it.
That is one really long sentence. Maybe that translates to, I like pictures? or maybe the pictures and color scheme are the blog equivalent to the costumes and the fairy doors? (I have not actually been to rally yet.)
And of course the comment zen/blanket fort that helps communicate what we want. The repetition of “What I want” in the VPA’s in the comment blanket fort request, helps communicate how important it is to ask for what we want and just acknowledge what we want.
I agree with Simone. I found this blog a few weeks ago through some other blog in my reader that linked to it, and thought, “huh?” And then it happened again… and again… and I figured I’d add you it my feed even though I didn’t understand half of what what written. And suddenly I’m starting to feel like I magically learned to speak a foreign language because it all makes sense. Except when it doesn’t. Which is even better. I’m pretty tired of making sense. It hasn’t gotten me anywhere good. And I want to remember how to play. Which is why I’m gwishing to attend a rally in 2012.
And now I must go back to my silent retreat.
I’m fresh out of eloquence but, hrm, let me see.
Accidentally stumbled on this site after a Google search, for what, don’t know. I think I was doing some sort of, “I need some goddamn help over here,” freakout thing and then your homepage came up. All I remember is that I immediately backspaced to Google, but not before catching a sentence. “Screw it. Lemme see what this lady is saying. Wait, is that a duck?”
Then I read ALL THE THINGS. And I started realizing all the ways that I’m actually OKAY. That this stuff is my Tiny Sweet Thing and that I should always be kind. And now I have a Playground Mug that I stare at on a regular basis as a way to settle my ass down until I can actually get to a Rally, God willing, in 2012.
So, um, yeah. Not so eloquent. Hi-five, yo.
I love that gorgeous, perfect poem so much. Makes me want to hang out in the land of anticipation forever and ever.
“Now is not then” is the first thing that comes to mind.
I have NO idea how I found you. But when I read “On PTSD”, you grabbed my attention. Totally. I learned a very similar process 15 years ago, found it hugely helpful, and then had it disparaged by someone powerful and important (at that point in my life). And while I did walk away from that person as a result, I never picked the practice back up, until I read your post, and was blown away. And empowered. And began the practice again. YAY!
There are so many themes that resonate. Recently, the “Throwing Shoes” metaphor. And “The Fountain”. Really, there is so much, and I am deeply grateful. Oh, “Skipping Stones” and “Into the Pot”. I could go on.
When I come to Rally, I expect to spend most of my time smiling in amazement.
it’s about the dance.
the way that your movement (whether physical or emotional or mental or spiritual because you know there’s all sorts of dance) in the dance is deliberate.
but spontaneous.
but intentional.
and likely to surprise you with yourself.
It seems to me like everything here is set to gently, tenderly remind people that no matter what, it *is* a dance. There is meaning behind all of it. And that we can choose those meanings if we watch without judgement and start to perceive instead.
Besides? Dance can be patterns and unpatterns and repatterns, but can look like chaos and unhinging, but at its depths all the moves are always somehow chosen.
I found you when the monsters were taking over my life – the word I found you under was “procrastination”. I don’t procrastinate now…much…and when I do a) I know that I am doing it straight away b) I know what to do, straight away. Hurray!
I’ve just read the Non-violent Communication book, so I’m seeing the principles of that throughout.
Observing without judgement; eg.
– now is not then
– see the thing that is happening, and name it
– notice five things
– things I saw today
Finding the feelings, and separating them from the [whatever] within which those feelings arose.
– There’s a story somewhere that you tell about being travel fatigued and getting hit by a shoe that normally wouldn’t have even shown up on your radar. The emotions that came up around the shoe-throwing were situational to YOU, THEN, not inherent in the FACT that the shoe was thrown. In fact, was a shoe even thrown?
Acknowledgement of needs: that they exist, and that they are legitimate. Because we’re all on a mission from God, and so are our needs!!! There is no conflict here guys, c’mon, let’s find a way to work together hmmmm??
– phone call spy cards
– costumes
– safe rooms
– dozens of other techniques that address the needs rather than fight them because they’re getting in the way.
Also, the alignment exercise as a technique to extend this acknowledgement to others.
Loving action.
– letting the feelings and needs be there, as an act of non-violence to the self.
– accompanied by the dozens of ideas and techniques you offer to help you get through the period of time the feelings ARE there which can be really painful and sucky and breath-choking and hard.
– and dozens of other ideas and techniques to help you get on with aforementioned mission from God. Because, really, that’s what’s going to change the world.
And while we change the world, and fuck it up sometimes, let’s make it fun along the way, hey? SHMOPPPPET!!!
We can but HAVE A GO!! We mess up? Well, so what – information for next time. It’s a journey, etc.
Maybe that’s why this blog resonated with me, cos my yoga teacher is all about play too which was a Complete Revelation given that one of my Fundamental Beliefs About The Universe is/(was!) If You Make A Mistake Then Terrible Things Will Happen, and that even extended to having to do trikonasana ‘right’, experiencing postures from the perspective of an external observer and JUDGE. Anyway, she got me into the ‘find your inner genius, experience, observe, be curious, play with it a bit’ mindset and my whole world changed.
And then to take that same perspective like you do here and become a detective/scientist on the internal stuff… well, no wonder I loved it.
I’m such a square, nerd, bookworm, throat-chakra-junkie I take notes on this meta stuff already. The NVC book clarified a lot of it. Next up, reading the Sutras of Patanjali or something…… hahaha! yeah, that’d only be a lifetime’s work I guess. (hmmmm – observing without judgement the pattern of “you have to be READY” which of course I never am according to that monster/nerd-superpower, and thinking maybe I could play with the Conditions of Enoughness stuff. play play play)
xxx
*We can but HAVE A GO!! We mess up? Well, so what – information for next time. It’s a journey, etc. *
I really got into living this concept after my (same) teacher and I were talking about grief for the Mistakes That Cannot Be Undone and she said “yeah…. it’s a lot easier when you believe in reincarnation”.
Which A) made me laugh, and B) changed my life.
At any rate, it’s a nice idea/concept/metaphor to work with to get to the sweet spot of living in a bearable lightness/heaviness of being.
Mmmmmm.
Just reading this has put me in the place that I come here to be, which I think of as “Boulder.” “Boulder” is not the same as Boulder, because the town I grew up in truly is part of the mythical past now. So “Boulder” is sort of personal and peculiar and part memory, part imagination.
But the quality that “Boulder” and old Boulder share, and that I find here, and is the reason I come, is a non-dominant sense of time. Where I live now, in New England, time feels very cold and implacable and unquestioned in its complete authority. Everyone bows before it. No question.
“Boulder” time is warm, pliable, porous, a little sparkly. There’s an effervescent quality to it, almost. It’s something to float deliciously in. I always always always have that delicious warm place-in-which-to-float feeling here.
What imparts that feeling especially is the care and attention you pay to language, and the gentle examination of it.
And also when you talk about time. When you talked about the bus ride time versus the walking time, I was right there. Time! Lots of it! Luscious. (Also, Portland reminds me so much of Boulder.)
As always, thank you for everything here. I need the spots of non-dominant time, and really look forward to them.
Ha, well in the midst of this very Rally the word that came up for me is ‘unravel’.
Maybe that’s just my personal word for this rally, but it strikes me that it might be a clew to the Meta picyure as well.
Unravel as in – coming apart ( beliefs, assumptions, structures)
And once you’ve unravelled your project, your life, the meaning of the universe, you still have the thread right there to weave into something totally different. Something you choose.
Rally!
One of the things that I love the most about this blog is the way you model enquiry and self-acceptance and everything-acceptance, and meeting everything with curiosity and love. Every time you run into something from your own stuff and post about what that was like and where you went with it, that shines (for me) through the story. If that was the only kind of post you ever did on the blog, I’d still read it – it never gets old.
Another favourite thing of mine is when you show how solutions can be invented by creating something that didn’t exist before – a word or a ritual or a space, or deploying an item for a new purpose. Inventing things! One of my favourite activities in the world! Yay!
And I enjoy (as Simone said above though not in the same words) the way you do “the velvet rope”, always looking for things to be more true to you and more true to the culture you’re creating.
Those three things are what comes to mind now.
Oh, how compelling is that “erev” poem … and yes, be sure to read it to the end. Thank you!
Have just devoured another book (!!!!!) about what we can learn from severely traumatized children and I had to tell you that the approaches that you advocate here Havi for dealing with all our ‘stuff’ is in total alignment with the evidence and new wisdom emerging from best-practice care for trauma.
Safety first!!!!! Challenge is only conducive to learning under safe conditions.
Emergency calming when needed (because agitation flavored ‘stuff’ is a stress response to a trigger that we learned meant danger, and sometimes that learning sticks with us even when the actual danger is not there, and again, learning from and negotiating our way around any situation requires a level of arousal that is conducive. Panic, anxiety, vigilance, nerviness etc not being among the learning-and-rational-decision-making-conducive arousal states.
Negotiators and safe rooms and when needed (which replicate dissociative coping mechanisms for the ‘traumatised’ part of our self that need to not be retraumatised.
Acknowledgement that past experiences may inform needs that still need to be addressed, but without belief that if only we can uncover the ‘rosetta stone’ of our childhood story we will be cured. NO DIGGING UP THE PAST JUST FOR THE SAKE OF IT!!!
Shiva Nata as a brilliant way to break down the dominant connections between ‘stuff’ and it’s triggers and build new responses. It’s RESPECTFUL of the inherent contribution of neurobiology and neuroanatomy in our responses. Too much therapy/coaching/self-help/personal-development leaves you feeling useless because of what seems like a failure of willpower.
Anyway, the book was awful (case studies!) and wonderful (learnings! and human capacity and nobility of spirit!) and affirmed that your clear and loving intentionally created culture and approaches are fully endorsed by best-practice treatments for the most severely traumatized people, which gives me great hope for the rest of us.
God you are so clever!!!!!! Mwah!!
And more, of course!! Community and connections (yay! blog!!) being high among them. Also borekas and repression as required. And compassion for ourselves, our crap is not out to get us it is crying out for help, same as traumatized children act out or self medicate or skip school the last thing we should do is PUNISH first, listen later…. And and and… This place is so onto it!
Claire is so right on. Everything on this blog aligns with the most progressive treatment & research on trauma & PTSD. There are many in the mental health profession who are not up to speed on these issues.
PS I am am so sorry, but I made a type, and the web-link above is NOT me.
Aaaaaand: ACT – Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Just started my research but I’m alreay convinced of the synergy and alignment. Yes.
I love putting together puzzles!!!
Some of the many wonderful things at Rally #13 (hi, Rallions!):
— The 2-D Monster Collective chart on the wall, with the sticky notes we added showing the silly, not-true-after-all statements of our fuzzball monsters. Getting to work for a while with the monsters off somewhere in the Collective Playground.
— The “Ass on Cushion! Now!” idea about the “wrong” way to approach meditation, or yoga, or really anything.
— Realizing that costumes can be used anytime and anywhere. And that we already do use them, but it’s more fun to do it consciously.
— Identifying things in the Playground that speak to your project, and discovering what they are telling you; and finding that this works anywhere.
Aaaaand: everything that Brene Brown talks about with Wholehearted living aligns with the Fluent Self meta. <3
There's a revolution brewing… Of love. Om shanti y'all!!!!
Another world is not just possible, she is already on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathe….
~Arundhati Roy