So I had a bunch of stuff to put here for you guys today.

But then we did the most there-are-no-adequate-adjectives-for-this-level-of-insanity outrageously intense and impossibly impossible Shiva Nata practice at Rally yesterday.

And it erased my brain and replaced everything in it. With better stuff.

Possibly permanently?

Which would be fine actually, because everything in there right now is seriously wonderful.

I feel like this really happy and wise version of me, who finds everything to be funny (instead of annoying), and who is secretly releasing sparkly particles of peace, joy and silliness into the world. Very very quietly.

And I’m not even really into stuff like peace and joy. So it’s a little weird.

It’s like a hum.

A big Hello-I’m-in-love sort of hum.

Anyway.

All that to say: I have no idea what we were going to talk about today.

Also I’m not sure if anything I could say will make sense because epiphanies are stupid when you tell them to people.

How insane was this class? I will tell you.

Usually…

Usually when class is heading towards the end, I ask where people are on the Scale of Flail.™

(With zero being “What? I’m not lost and confused at all!” and 100 being helpless stuttering followed by falling on the floor in a heap.)

That’s to make sure they’re all at least in the high 80s.

This time we just all collapsed in neuron-melting puddles on the floor.

Not really trademarked. That was a joke, yes?

And usually…

Usually after flailing the flail, I walk us through some happy stretching and get everyone back into their force fields and ready for stone skipping. So we’re all still in a deep state of scramble but able to do some writing.

This time I warned everyone not to operate any heavy machinery.

Also! Usually…

Usually at the evening Chicken, a few people will mention the unbelievably amazing epiphanies they had all day, thanks to the rallying and the shivanauttery.

This time, people still talked about the flood of epiphanies, but they also described feeling like happy drunks all day.

“It was as if everything was pretty and sparkly, and I was smiling at buses!”

We wrote and colored and played and hid in blanket forts, just like always. But the joy levels were very high. And the insights were very astounding.

I can’t describe what we did but of course I’m going to try anyway.

It involved using words, numbers, multiplication and addition. And legs. Mixing horizontals and verticals. And flip-its.

With your body. All at the same time.

Like this.

Okay, if position #2 is a ship and #6 is ease, and six times two is twelve, we have twelve ships filled with ease. Which flip into 4 x 8 = 32? yes, thirty two rose possibilities. Twelve plus thirty two means we have forty four ship-easy rosy-possibilities! Mirror reflection!

Or this:

If 3 is water and 7 is fluffy, that makes 21 water-fluffers, which — if we flip it — gives us 5 possoms playing soccer, for a total of 26 water-fluffing possom-sockers!

One possom.
Sailing on two ships.
On three bodies of water.
While drinking Four Roses.
With a partridge. In a pear tree.

Exactly?

We were laughing so hard that our sides hurt.

We were doing math and poetry and left brain and right brain, all while moving both hands and both feet independently of each other. Fast.

I laughed until I cried.

And I cried until I couldn’t see anything anymore through sheets of tears.

I forgot how to operate the ipod I’ve been using for the past four years.

I remembered parts of forgotten things.

I merged with numbers and dissolved into a sea of words.

Do you see what I’m saying? Probably not. But ohmygod.

So yeah.

That’s why there’s no post today. Just me feeling unbelievably joyful and radiating like a small, happy sun. And yes, I get that this is an incredibly odd thing to say.

But I do have an announcement! Thanks in large part to the shivanautical chaos yesterday which resulted in me getting about two months of work done in one afternoon.

So here is the announcing.

Part 1.

The September Rally (Rally!) is completely sold out.

Part 2.

There will be a special and extra-long Rally in November, over Thanksgiving for people who want to escape Thanksgiving.

It will be like last year’s Great Ducking Out. But longer!

I’ll get you guys a link in the next couple days.

Part 3.

We have dates! For all of the 2012 Rallies.

That still sounds like The Future to me. But it’s coming, apparently, and the dates are official.

Here they are:

• Jan 23-26
• Feb 20-23
• March 19-22
• April 23-26
• May 21-24
• June 18-21
• July 23-26
• August 13-16
• Sept 10-13
• Oct 15-18
• Nov 19-23 (the 3rd year of The Great Ducking Out)

Part 4 — the especially important part!

If you’re thinking about coming to a Rally (Rally!) next year, you might want to sign up and save a place at one of these now.

Because as we get the ship ready for the coming year, part of that will mean the necessary raising of Rally prices. And we’ll also be moving to an application system.

So this is a good time to pay the old price and skip the application. Whee! Yes.

I can’t promise that we won’t do insane shivanauttery because we might (though maybe not THAT insane), but I can say that whatever happens will be important, useful, wonderful and will live in you forever.

Okay! Yes!

I have to go because everything inside is being rewritten and I have so much to write down and some safe rooms to play in, and then I’m going to dance it up but it won’t be dancing at all.

Comment blanket-fort zen for today:

Not sure. I think I would like some Hiro-sighs.

Whenever you tell her something special or meaningful to you, Hiro puts her hand on her heart and does this super-cute sweet little mmmm-ing Hiro-sigh.

I would like some Hiro-sighs for my current state of bliss-confusion (blissfusion?) and for having planned a year of Rally, and for its rally goodness.

And thank you a million times for the helpful input you’ve been giving me on words, I have been reading everything and boggling over how clever and sweet you all are. Kisses.

Postscripting to say that the official sign-up for Rally (Rally!) page doesn’t have the new dates yet but they exist. If you sign up, just leave a note in the check-out bit for the First Mate about which month you want.