What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
Friday Chicken #292: under the surface
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
REMINDER…
It ends Sunday night! Operation SUSTENANCE. Password: fredastaire
What worked?
Congruencing
The thing that nearly always happens after Rally…
No matter what my mysterious Rally project turns out to be, it invariably reveals all sorts of areas of my life that are not congruent with how I want to be living.
And then during the weeks after Rally, stuff has to move around. It actually starts moving itself around. Insistently!
Organizing and reordering happens. There are reconfigurations. Of small things like sock drawers, and larger things like my relationship with time, or with people.
Sometimes a fit of congruencing — making the necessary shifts, changes and adjustments — is invigorating, and sometimes I fight it.
This week I was able to just recognize it for what it is: ah, yes, I’m congruencing. Like scratching an itch. I let it feel good. Yes, everything is moving and being moved. Yes, this is hugely important.
Next time I might…
Look at the almanac.
The Alamanac is for notes about how I tend to react to different parts of the year.
It tells me how I like to celebrate the various Holy Days Of Havi Bell, which days I need to hide, when I am most likely to fall apart.
This week I was down about everything. Everything.
Until it hit me: this is my annual week before birthday slump. I can experience it as an Existential Fit Of Hating Everything, or I can experience it as Useful Intel Thanks To Heightened Awareness About What I Want And What Isn’t Working.
Turns out I have lots of notes about this, as well as about how to take care of myself while I’m in it. Almanac! And maybe a pop-up reminder on my phone?
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- This week was straight-up miserable, both for me and pretty much everyone I know. Blame mercury in retrograde, blame whatever you want. A breath for waiting this out.
- OHMYGOD. My neighbors decided Wednesday was a good day for two chainsaws and a wood chipper. The noise was unbearable. I am wildly HSP and can’t handle loud noises. I couldn’t leave the house because of my sprained ankle, and my housemate was out running errands in the car, so there was no escaping. I basically just curled up in a ball under a pile of blankets and cried all day, and then when it was over I cried some more because it was still loud and jangly inside of me. A breath for the pain of this.
- Working impossible hours trying to get everything ready for the Floop launch. Dry Dock is always rough — and busy, and this year I cut it in half to give everyone an extra two weeks on the Floop. The software upgrade is a nightmare, but only one of many. Too much to do, too many decisions to make, everything breaking. Richard was up until 2am tearing his hair out. The usual. A breath for patience.
- The ballroom and the Fluent Self and the Floop and Rally and writing. It is too many jobs for one person. A breath for solutions.
- Got some financial news that is on the one hand terrible, and on the other hand, the least terrible financial news of the past [period of everything sucks, aka the last two years]. We high-fived. We high-fived about terrible news. Because it was better than it has been. So depressing. A breath for sustenance.
- Thanks to the virus from hell and then my sprained ankle, I have been completely sedentary for TWENTY FOUR of the past thirty days. Movement is my sanity. And I have missed all the dance workshops I have been looking forward to all winter. If I can’t dance soon, I might explode. A breath for every aspect of this.
- There is more of me now, in the sense that I am visibly larger than I was thirty days ago (see above), and I cannot fit into any of my clothes, and I have a wedding to go to tomorrow night, and each of these things is disproportionately frustrating for me right now. A breath for this too.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- A long talk with TJ about a mission dear to my heart. A breath for confluence and for sparks of ideas.
- Against all odds (and despite everything going ridiculously wrong), the Floop is ready. The new design is beautiful, the new boards delight me, everything feels right, and I am proud of what we built. A breath for about to embark!!!
- The spy who loves me kept me company during the hard, reminded me to go have a yoga and Love The Ground, brought sweetness to the scary. A breath for comfort, for being adored, and for Loving The Ground.
- I am enormously happy about the 25,000 words I wrote for Operation Say Everything Twice. Those of you in last year’s Year of Emptying & Replenishing, and in this year’s incoming Year of Emerging & Receiving, will get to read it soon! A breath for the beautiful thing that is process.
- The shellbacks (the graduates from my 2012 Crossing the Line retreat). So much love and appreciation. A breath for companions in deep internal voyaging.
- I’m doing the best I can. A breath for trusting, deeply, that nothing is wrong, even as I walk through some hard places.
- Last night I walked TEN WHOLE BLOCKS, which is SEVEN MORE BLOCKS than I could the day before. I am healing. I am getting there. A breath for this.
- Two sweet letters from my mother, postcards from Agent Prairie Blue and my favorite uncle and my father. My red flannel hot water bottle from Germany is, still, the most magical thing. I have the most amazing friends. Also: Patsy Cline! A breath for everything that is good, everything worth appreciating, so much.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
My op this week was to let go of the three ops-in-progress and back-burner them, and then start over with Operation Say Everything Twice. Not only did I start over, I am almost done! WHAM! BOOM!
Next week? Probably a ton of Editing (whoops I mean, Decorating) Everything Twice, and also to skip more stones regarding Operation Houston It Is The Vicar.
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
The powers of Nesting and of Releasing Through Words.
Superpowers I want.
The powers of Remembering That Shit Is Not About Me, of Saying Thank You Twice, and easy letting go.
Salve. The Salve of Readying Under The Surface.
This is the salve for Winter, also known as the salve of rest, the salve I need to remember when I have a sprained ankle, or when it is cold and dark out, as it is here.
Instead of trying to describe it, I will give you this poem by N.P. Van Wyk Louw. Thank you, The Living Chicken (Agent!) for pointing me here, and thank you, Eleanor for reminding me how much I need to remember this.
The earth now lies through nights drenched
in the still dark benediction of the rain
and dusky houses and branches stand out bleak
each day in mist, in white, and in the rustling wet.
All, all is rich and restful, with heavy
and secret and rich growth finding its way
through warm soil to every leaf and shoot
and binding everything – near, far – mysteriously
with moisture, fruitfulness, and great desire
– till one clear afternoon suddenly we see
the glistening grass, the tenderly rising grain
and know that life is served by rest.
How could I ever have thought of summer
as richer than this season’s mystery?– N.P. Van Wyk Louw (South Africa, 1906-1970)
If salve does not appeal, you can have this in tea form, as a bath, cocktail, whatever works for you. Not only is there enough salve, there are also enough ways to receive it.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band plays zydeco hip hop fusion. The band comes via Kathleen, it is called It Will Think Up A Z, and actually it is just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
You guys! THIS WEEKEND is your last chance to get cool stuff from our sail/sale, because it ends this Sunday.
We only have a few calendars left….and the Floop (my private online community of agents, entering its 6th new year) begins this weekend. So we are closing out Operation Sustenance, this is the last chance to get stuff this year.
To get cool stuff and/or read about the cool stuff: https://fluentself.com//sustenance
PASSWORD: fredastaire
You can join any of the ops through Sunday night when we shut it down.
If this is the time, much rejoicing! And if not, I trust that we will play together some other time, and I am invoking the superpower of All Timing Is Right Timing.
Come play if you like…
Join me in the comments. Some of us share hard and good, some of us say hi, or maybe we’re on silent retreat. My ritual doesn’t have to be your ritual. Whatever works for you. Almost three hundred weeks of this and there still isn’t a right way.
Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We don’t give advice.
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever you like, it’s no big deal. And I am blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers. I love that you are here too.
Let’s end this story about Who Is A Writer.
I was reading a piece and the writer mentioned she’d stopped writing during [hard life thing], and how she needs to start again, because that’s what writers do in order to be writers, she said.
Many words bubbling up in response. They must wait. And at the same time, this cannot wait:
The states of in-between, those times in which we are engaged in not-writing, let us not use these as monster-evidence in support of a fear-driven theory that we are not actually writers. Of course we are.
Writers who do not happen to be writing, well, that is a very writer-ey sort of thing to go through, and it doesn’t change who we are. We are still writers, still and always.
Beware the dangerous myth, that is what I want to say…
Beware of “That’s how you know you’re a writer, because you write.”
It exists everywhere, it is beloved by monsters, and — like so many things that are not true — it is partially true.
That is one way to know that you are a writer: writing. If it works for you and it helps you have a more harmonious relationship with your craft, it’s a blessing, enjoy.
There are also other options.
Other ways to know you are a writer…
If you find yourself avoiding writing, even though you care about it tremendously.
Or you allow yourself to do other things, intentionally following the rabbit holes, trusting the process that is growing your writing under the surface.
You tell stories in your head, describing moments and elements, playing with process.
Or you delight in words, their lusciousness, their aliveness.
Maybe you like playing with forms, when they are presented to you. (Or you don’t like them, and feel strongly about that, and have to go journal about it!). What are forms? Like stone skipping, one of my favorites. Or this beautiful thing where you write what you notice: my toes lifting up in a little dance.
If you feel conflicted about writing.
For sure you are a writer if you feel conflicted about it. Double-for-sure (extra points!) if you pretend that you are not a writer and/or won’t admit to it…
So many ways to know. Doubt is a clue that you care, not a sign that you don’t get to be what you already are.
Writing, like so much of life, often needs time to emerge.
From a writer I know:
Truth of life. Things can take time to emerge, and we don’t always know how long (or how miraculously quickly, in some cases) that will be.
So we think we’re procrastinating when actually what is happening is percolating.
We think we are late or behind or not good enough or avoiding, when actually we are emerging. The thing that is coming is emerging.
I wrote that.
And even if — for some unknowable reason — I never write another word again, I will not stop being a writer. I cannot, because I wrote that, and it is truth.
We forget about truth.
We forget about truth, and this is dangerous. We hurt ourselves with un-truth.
We set up traps for ourselves: “I’m not a real X, because I’m not doing Y.” Or: “I’ll never be able to Y until I pass all these external standards.”
No. You are a writer if you grapple with these questions. You are a writer if you doubt. You are a writer if you care, even if sometimes you care so much that your tangled relationship with not-writing keeps you in bed crying. You are a writer if you yearn for something and don’t have the words to describe it yet.
There are many ways to know you are a writer, and doubting it is something writers go through, so let’s drop this pain-heavy rule that you must be writing now in order to claim that lost part of you.
That isn’t how it works, it isn’t helpful, and it isn’t the loving spark of truth. Sometimes writing lives in the spaces in between the words. Sometimes the process of not-writing is how you get quiet enough to return to it. Blame about the not-writing make this harder.
Let’s not perpetuate that. Let’s not tell these stories anymore. Let’s not pretend that ASS IN CHAIR is the only answer.
Let’s end it here and now. With love.
With love.
I have a heart full of love for everyone in these states of in-between which I have inhabited so many times and will continue to inhabit, because, as far as I’m concerned, they are part of the creative process.
In my experience, permission and legitimacy help whatever is growing beneath the ground reach the surface.
You are a writer. You are. Whether you are writing or between writing, or intentionally choosing some not-writing which will ready the ground for whatever words are coming next.
I am glowing sweetness (I wrote “sweetnessing”, which should be a word, maybe like a warm witnessing?) for everyone visiting these states of in-between. Seeding endless trust for your process, your writing and whatever is in the not-writing, may it reveal itself to be treasure.
Commenting, and footnotes.
I treasure this incredibly rare thing that we have here that is safe online space to play:
We take care of ourselves and we take responsibility for our Stuff when it comes up. We remember that people vary. We do not tell each other what to do or how to feel. We are kind. We are on permanent vacation from advice-giving and care-taking.
I am receptive to hearts, sparks sparked for you, words you want to share on the topic of compassion for our not-writing selves in our periods of not-writing, or about claiming the writer identity with love.
And if writing is not your [thing you have a possibly-passionate, possibly-troubled relationship with], substitute painting, lindy hop, embroidery, Appalachian clogging or whatever might fit for you….
Love, as always, to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers, and everyone who reads.
Wish #242: Release Disperse Release Disperse
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
At the very least, useful noticings about my relationship with wanting. It all counts.
♡
What do I want?
So I was sick in bed for over two weeks and then I hurt my ankle, and basically I’ve been in bed for almost a month, and I am GOING OUT OF MY MIND. Well, in my more grace-filled moments, I am registering this clear invitation to rest. Other moments I think if I can’t dance soon I will be lost forever.
(Also, and this does not help, I have the post-Rally blues, and I have them bad. Though remembering that this is sometimes a thing is helping.)
I want hopefulness, I want a return of energy, I want a way to interact with the pain-fear, I want to stay connected to myself.
What do I want?
Ah. Okay. I can’t do any of the usual things that keep me in my happy-hum state — dancing! bouncing! walking! moving! sun salutations! — and I need to find new ways to Release and Disperse.
Because it turns out that [Release and Disperse] is vital to my mental, emotional, energetic and physical well-beings. All the wells and all the states of being. I need releasing and dispersing.
So I either need to find new ways to have Release and Disperse, or I need something else and I don’t know what that is yet.
What do I want?
I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about Ayurveda here. In Ayurveda there are three ways-that-people-can be.
These are like states of being or constitutions or tendencies. And, because People Vary, we hang out in all kinds of combinations of these states. There’s earth, fire and air — (Earth, Wind and Fire? I just got that.) — and then all the ways these interact.
Normal for me is basically a 50/50 split between pitta and vata. Half fire and half air. I have no earth to speak of, it is ridiculous. I enjoy the good parts of winds and fire: Sparks! Passion! Play! Creativity! Ideas!
This earth thing though, I do not have it figured out yet. So I surround myself with earth people because ahhhh it is so comforting. They’re super grounded, they always want to give me hugs, they cook for me, they are happy when I come around. It’s lovely.
The thing with earth people though (haha, that sounds like I am a visitor from another planet, I do kind of feel that way at times) is that they do not understand my deep physical need — yes, I NEED this — to release and disperse excess energy.
They’re like, “Extra energy, what’s that? That sounds so nice! And why can’t you just save it for later?”
Me: “WHAT. No. There is no saving this energy. This needs to exit my space right now. I need to RELEASE AND DISPERSE or I will explode. I need to bounce and frolic and be a gazelle. I need to punch things and leap and bound and make sounds and let it all out. I need to burn it off, I need to let off steam. I need to dance or I will die.”
And then they hug me and make me soup, which is very nice, and they do not understand what I am talking about.
What do I want?
(I want to feel understood.)
And?
I need to find new ways to release and disperse, and I do not know what they are yet.
This is where all the people with lots of kapha (earth element) say things like, “Oh, you could channel that energy into knitting.” No, I cannot. This isn’t the kind of energy that is for channeling. This is for dispersing and releasing. And knitting would make me even crazier. I don’t know how to explain it better than that, so you have to trust me.
I do not want suggestions. I just want to find my own way into something that works for me.
What do I want?
Hahaha, two weeks ago my wish was all about letting go.
So now I am in a state where I am ready to let go in the usual (and unusual) ways, and I need new ways. So. All Timing Is Right Timing. Again.
This is the next level of the video game. Time to learn a new skill.
Not knitting though. For me, I mean. The skill of new ways to release and disperse, disperse and release.
What do I want?
This is a bit of a tangent. I am noticing some LFP (Ludicrous Fear Popcorn) that all my knitting readers, which make up like, 99% of my readership apparently, are going to realize that I don’t knit and will instantly abandon my blog forever.
I love you, knitters of the world!
And I love you, small-scared Havi who generates Ludicrous Fear Popcorn so that slightly-wiser-Havi can remember that all fear is legitimate, and also that all fear has a component of slightly-to-very ludicrous.
I could spend my whole life noticing and learning about my fears. This is, in fact, what I do with my life. It is such a big part of self-fluency. I am a professional translator of LFP.
So really you might say that [Release and Disperse], for me, is about doing the things that quiet me down enough so that I can have an easier time practicing self-fluency.
And if the usual ways aren’t available to me, I still can notice my LFPs and learn about them..
What do I want?
What do I want?
I want my ankle to heal and I want to run away to the Vicarage. Yes, I want that.
What do I want?
Comfort. To know that I am held.
What do I want?
To remember that this feeling is a natural and normal reaction for me to be experiencing, and that it is okay. Unpleasant, sure, and also: okay.
It makes sense that someone who moves for hours a day feels lost and confused when she cannot move.
It makes sense that someone who processes emotional stuff through the physical needs other ways to process. And yes, I have other ways to process. It’s just that having the physical helps me use the other ones too, and now I don’t have the physical, and it is hard for me.
Where/how do I want to start playing with this?
Things that are like releasing and dispersing: emptying and replenishing. Baths are good. Maybe I can go to the soaking pool and move my body a little in the water. Maybe. I don’t really feel like being out in the world though, not yet…
What else?
I can: Joyfully Delete Things. DELETED! SOLVED!
For example, I can clear out Dropbox, which is the kind of thing that usually is completely unappealing to me and by all logic should be extra-unappealing in current mood. However, it seems like the exacxt right thing to, I don’t know, make things move, shake stuff up, kick things around, let energy start circulating again.
Also I really, really, really want to paint the dining room. Well, not so much to do it as to have it done. Still. It is this kind of pale, dead, very light green and it is stupid and it needs to change. It needs to be that buttery-cream color that Richard has. Yes. Okay, this is good, getting intel about what is incongruent, this helps.
And I can do lots of congruencing in the house. Small shifts. Just one something. Or my favorite practice of ten things gone. Like that.
Anything else coming up?
More deleting! More deleting! Possibly with sound effects.
And also, remembering what wise-me said yesterday during old Turkish lady yoga (even as I was having trouble finding ways to be with my body that did not put pressure on my ankle)…
Go Back To The Things You Love. This Is The Answer. Go way back. To swingsets and being tucked into bed, to hiding in piles of blankets and reading detective stories, to a low wooden balance beam, to music that moves you, to the mysterious smells of spring. Return to this and you will know what to do.
What are the qualities of my wish?
Presence. Trust. Pleasure. Play. Breathing. Patience. Wellness. Reverberation.
Clues?
This amazing video of Sweet Child Of Mine.
What else do I want?
Seeds planted without explanation, a mix of secret agent code and silent retreat dreams. Things I’m working on, or might be, someday…
- Everything is easier than I thought, and look, miracles everywhere.
- I go out dancing at the ballroom.
- This doesn’t require my input!
- Ha, it’s so perfect that it turned out like this. Past me is a GENIUS
- I have what I need, and I appreciate it. There are resources to do this.
- Trust and steadiness. I can see why this moment is good.
- Hawaii.
- I am fearless and confident. I do the brave things and it is not even a big deal, and I still get sparklepoints, yay.
This week’s ops?
More progress on Saying Everything Twice (Saying Everything Twice!), and Boarding the New Ship.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka releasing layers…
My wish had to do with releasing layers, which in retrospect, may have unearthed some things that are now requiring all this Releasing and Dispersing.
So that is good. That means this current experience of Must Release And Disperse But How is related to the work I did before. Which means that not only is it true that Nothing Is Wrong (as always), but this is a part of an important process. It is something I am going through to get to the next piece.
Alright. Maybe this is part of the transition from the Year of Emptying & Replenishing into the upcoming Year of Emerging & Receiving. Part of the path, not keeping me from the path. Good to remember. I will play with trusting and remembering that Nothing Is Wrong.
Thank you, writing. Thank you, me who asked.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
FIVE DAYS LEFT to join some part of Operation Sustenance (password: fredastaire) and, if you like, to be in my Year of Emerging & Receiving where you get to read all my journals, among other things.
And whether this is something you can be a part of right now or not, I love you just as much either way. I would appreciate any help in spreading the word about this blog and the work play we do with self-fluency. Let’s have even more lovely people playing here this year.
Keep me company?
Consider this an open invitation to deposit wishes, gwishes, personal ads. In any size/form you like, there’s no right way. Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is anything sparked for you.
Commenting culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We are on permanent vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play.
Let’s throw things in the pot! And: Amnesty. Leave a wish any time you want.
xox
Friday Chicken #291: writing on my heart
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
One more week to get treasure and help me give away more treasure). Details here. Password: fredastaire
What worked?
Writing qualities.
One of the things we do a lot of at Rally (Rally!) is writing qualities.
I write them in the air, in my space, on my face and on my body. I write them with my finger. I write them with my breath.
I let them settle around me.
We make compasses of qualities and sit inside of them.
We put words on walls.
This week I was dealing with two different sets of mobsters/monsters about writing. With our old friend You’re Not A REAL Writer coming at me from one side, and Why Are You Not Writing from another.
I sat and drew qualities all around me until I felt better. The word crown above my head. Trust on my forehead. Permission at my left. Readiness in front of me. Ease at my right. Safety behind me. Receptivity on my palms. Grounding on the soles of my feet. Glowing on my belly. Sweetness on my heart.
And then I laughed, because LOOK, I AM WRITING. Writing qualities is not just a door into writing, it is being present with words. It is its own form of writing. I don’t know, it resolved something for me. Writing qualities, as its own intrinsically valuable, unique form of creative play. It worked for me, and I want more of that.
Asking for help in the form of secret code!
I was feeling super stuck around a project I was working on. I set my timer for 22 minutes and then kept running away to the internet to be a distracted mouse.
So I went to the Frolicsome Bar (that’s my secret code name for our Facebook page), and I got everyone to help me:
“22 minutes on the slightly-scary thing. I have tea. I have a floppy hat. We can do this, right? YES. Please respond with code words that I will translate to mean encouraging things!”
Everyone came up with the most wonderful words! It was the best.
I felt invigorated by the rush of playfulness, and went to do my 22 minutes with much more zest for life than I’d had previously.
When I finished, the timer hadn’t gone off and I thought maybe I had forgotten to set it (this happens more often than not).
But it was still counting…I had finished at exactly 21 minutes and 39 seconds….
I felt like Bond Girl. And I felt joyful, because companionship helps. This is one of the reasons I Floop.
Next time I might…
Ask for help sooner.
In lots of different forms.
Because when I ask, good things happen. And sometimes I get soup.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Finally not sick anymore, which means: dancing! Except then I twisted my ankle, so it was back to bed rest. I get it, bed is important. And this is annoying. A breath for waiting for what I want.
- A big misunderstanding very late at night. A breath for the pain of perceiving that I am misunderstood.
- Navigating new territory with the spy who loves/loved/loves me. A breath for presence and tears.
- I still have too many jobs. The ballroom and the Fluent Self and Rally and writing. Also I miss the Floop like crazy. And getting the new one ready involves an insane amount of decision-making. A breath for finding the new configurations that work for me.
- The ride share thing. It has to do with being able to move, and it has to do with community, and both of these are sticking points for me right now. Mainly it has to do with taking care of myself, and recognizing that this is my job, even when it is a lot of work. A breath for compassion as I think through (feel through?) this process.
- Gahhhh, I am having the biggest tantrum about not being able to use my body for the things it wants to do. Actually my mind is going crazier than my body, but the entirety of body-mind needs movement and I am not getting it. A breath for deep longing.
- Doubts, guilt, self-recrimination, old patterns. A breath for undoing.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- The spy who loves me and I decided to take an entire weekend just to treasure each other. To put all of our Stuff aside and the unmade decisions and the hurt so that we could be present with love and adoration. I did not think this would work, and yet it was absolutely delicious. I don’t think I have ever been so able to be in a moment before, outside of yoga/meditation. A breath for experiencing something indescribable.
- Back to dance! At least until the ankle thing. A breath for pure pleasure and delight.
- Waltz Brunch. WALTZ BRUNCH!!!!! This is my new favorite thing in the entire world. A breath for an entire world of happiness that I did not even know about.
- Stone skipping! I wrote and wrote. A breath for jewels, slowly revealing themselves.
- Incoming me explained in no uncertain terms that this ankle business is a very good thing. She also reminded me about the first time that spraining my ankle (same one) turned out to be a gift. Jon, if you are reading, I assume you are laughing about this, and at me. A breath for seeing the funny part.
- I’m in the zone with the latest YEARbook. I had to stop working on three at once and just tune into the one that wants to be now. A breath for flow, what a delightful thing when it comes to visit. And thank you, Rally (Rally!) for facilitating that.
- I had the opportunity to do the usual thing, and I chose something else. A breath for freedom.
- I have the most wonderful people in the world to play with. They just show up. Thank you, Lira, Elizabeth, Marisa and Anna for magic. Thank you, TJ, for sharing/asking/caring/knowing. Thank you, Richard for soup and kindness. Thank you, M. LeBlanc for [] and everything that goes inside of brackets. Thank you, everyone who hangs out here, for being in this with me. A breath for appreciation, wonder, presence and hope.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
My op this week was Deep Cover. It ended up being about Saying Everything Twice, which gave me more intel than I’d planned for on Deep Cover, so that worked out well.
Other things I finished: Jazzed with a J, Dusting Off Old Pages Of Spirals (unplanned op), It’s a new Seasoning, This wish is muddy, Operation Brunch, secret drop with the Czech, Operation Close Eyes I
My op for next week is dress like someone else and keep writing.
WHAM! BOOM!
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
The power of asking for help.
Superpowers I want.
The power of asking for help and not feeling bad about it.
Salve. The salve of sustenance.
This salve is about being sustained and it is a reminder of all the things that sustain.
It is deeper than nourishment, it is steady like being held, it has a rise and fall…like breath, or a waltz.
It goes with you. This salve dissolves old habit-patterns of the mind and releases memories. It fills your space with the sense of enough, plenty, safety, and a certainty about the okay-ness of the uncertainty. It is not a bird and not a tree, but it has some of the superpowers of both.
It is good for lips and for ankles, for remembering truth.
If salve does not appeal, you can have this in tea form, as a bath, cocktail, whatever works for you. Not only is there enough salve, there are also enough ways to receive it.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band comes by way of Wendy: It’s a new wave band called Promoted To Hexagons, and actually it is just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
You guys!
We only have EIGHTEEN calendars left and then we are going to be done with Operation Keys. Actually we will be done with all of the ops, even though we have not yet met our Blodgett, because the new Floop embarks somewhere between the 28th of this month and the 1st of March (since there is no Day of Leap this year, we will leap in between February and March).
Anyway, that means there are eight days left to join the mission. Come get your TREASURE and help us distribute more treasure:
Here is the link for Operation Sustenance, which has the three options for getting good stuff. –> Password: fredastaire
I would also like help bringing more people to the site, so if you have a favorite post, please share this week. Let’s invite more lovely people to play with us.
Speaking of lovely people, a Euro Rally! I am not involved in this project other than wishing it so much love, I know the people doing this and they are marvelous. If you are in/near Europe, go Rally with them please!
Come play if you like…
Join me in the comments. Some of us share hard and good, some of us say hi, or maybe we’re on silent retreat. My ritual doesn’t have to be your ritual. Whatever works for you. Almost three hundred weeks of this and there still isn’t a right way.
Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We don’t give advice.
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever you like, it’s no big deal. And I am blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers. I love that you are here too.
Coming through with a tray.
A few months ago, at Rally (Rally!), Agent Em Dee shared with me a very Rally-esque mini-epiphany she’d had while conducting.
It had to do with a tray, that is the part I remember most clearly, and it went something like this:
“I suddenly realized that while I hate making choices (stress! decisions! what if I choose wrong?), I like them in the form of ‘have a choice!’. Like: Here, have a cookie. And then you can take a cookie or not take a cookie, or choose which cookie you like, from the tray.
So I need to stop looking at my to-do list and thinking, oh crap which thing should I do first. It’s more like a waiter coming by with a tray. There is an assortment of things being offered to me — have a something! — and all I have to do see which one I feel like reaching for now.”
What do I want on my tray?
I have noticed that I often try to put ALL POSSIBLE SNACK-FOODS IN EXISTENCE on the tray.
Until it is too heavy to carry, and then I get overwhelmed and cry.
I also am aware of my tendency to vastly overestimate my capacity for doing, while grossly underestimating the amount of time it takes me to devote myself to the experience of tasting something and enjoying it.
[Or if the tray has magazines, it takes me longer to read one than I think it will…]
I like having possibilities.
I also have monster-expectations that I should be able to do all the things, as well as simultaneous monster-fears that I won’t be able to do any of them.
That’s why setting up the tray is so helpful.
It brings the focus back to the real question:
What do I want to work on or play with right now?
And it presses pause on the old pattern of Overwhelmed By All The Things.
The piece about choice.
[Monsters: “Ugh, illusion of choice! And also, these things HAVE TO BE DONE, you don’t have a choice about them. So they are not at all like cookies. AND you are wasting your time with this tray-organizing bullshit when actually you should be DOING ALL THE THINGS THAT HAVE TO BE DONE and YOU ARE BEHIND and if you don’t do them there will be DOOM.”]
Okay, so there is much monsterizing. And at the same time, I know that Perpetually Behind is a story I use to feel bad about myself, and that this is also a choice. I don’t need to put that story on the tray of options.
I also know that I feel better when I choose something out of desire rather than out of fear.
And I know that despite all my (and my monster’s) best intentions, I will not be able to do all the things. Only some of them.
So I might as well find ways to have less pain around the process of choosing.
These are some things I know about myself.
These might not be true for you, because People Vary.
I find it useful to have information about the size of tray I like, how many possibilities I like to choose from, things like that. I take notes on what works and what doesn’t work, and put them in the Book of Havi.
And maybe on some days the tray won’t work at all, and I’ll need an entirely new metaphor.
It’s a ongoing process of practicing and observing, running ongoing experiments with the internal scientists.
It’s gathering intel, which is part of self-fluency.
Alright let’s do this. Here’s my tray for today.
These are things I might do. I do not have to do them.
I am going to try to stay as connected as possible to the internal pull of my own desires.
Most of them are in secret agent code, so if you have no idea what I’m talking about, no worries.
Coded names for ops helps me feel playful and lighthearted in my approach to things that maybe have hidden layers in them.
These are just options, possibilities. And yes, some of them have [gah, monsters, scary deadlines!], and at the same time, preparing the tray is helping me be steady and present so that I can get a clean, clear read on what I want.
This is my tray of possibilities…
- Pipe Cleaner: “it’s in the bag, baby”
- The Magic Purple Pill Investigation: writing about this
- Make the drop with the Czech Agent down the hall.
- Operation Close Eyes I: the saving of the last threads and updating R that this is done
- Operation Close Eyes II: goodbye ritual
- Operation Close Eyes III: initial notes about wishes for the Operation Open Eyes, in the form of a secret missive to Agent Em Dee.
- The Eyes/Is Have It. Combo!
- Sparkler Reply
Do I want a clue?
Yes, please.
Okay. Finding a clue.
My tea bag says “be proud of who you are”. Who I am, at the moment at least, is a clue-finder. And someone who is placing beautiful things onto a beautiful tray. I don’t know that I am proud of those things, but why not. It is a start.
Clue: a book called HUG. Yes, that is good.
And the wall at Rally says ALL ABOARD. This is a clue, for me, right now, about making sure that I am bringing all aspects of me into this. I am making safe rooms for the sad, scared parts of me who get overwhelmed by doing.
Where do I want to start?
Well, the most vital thing, the one that absolutely absolutely has to be done today, is Operation Close Eyes I.
I also know that if I don’t make the drop with the Czech Agent, take care of the pipe cleaner and reply to a Sparkler, these things will be poking at me and make it hard to concentrate. Prickly Bits! Plus they do not involve Stuck, at least not that I know of, and they can all — in theory — be taken care of relatively quickly.
And the thing that I would do if nothing else mattered at all would be to investigate the Mystery of the Magic Purple Pills.
So here’s my inclination:
I will set a timer for 22 minutes and see how much I can get done on the three Prickly Bits.
Then I will conduct and give 22 minutes to Operation Close Eyes.
Then I will check in again and see if I have a better sense of what needs to happen from there.
What will help?
Doing things widdershins, and Change Your Place, Change Your Luck.
Pausing to stretch.
Ginger tea. [RGW!] aka Replenishing Glass of Water.
Music. And wearing a wig, of course.
If I get stuck, I will blow bubbles and look for clues in the pattern. Maybe I will ask the waiter to bring in a new tray. Maybe I will be a spy. Maybe I need some flowers.
Let’s do it.
Come play with me in the comments.
This is that incredibly rare thing (online at least) that is safe space to play, and usual commenting principles apply: We are here to play! We remember that people vary! We take care of ourselves. We do not tell anyone what to do or how to feel. We are on permanent vacation from advice-giving and care-taking.
Ways we could play today: You can put things on your tray! Or invent something that is not a tray. Or seed qualities and notice clues. Or play with this in other ways that are up to you. I will update in the comments as things progress….
Love, as always, to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers, and everyone who reads.