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.
Wish #240: Canceled by weather
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
At the very least, useful noticings about my relationship with wanting. It all counts.
♡
What do I want?
This is Day 13 of Bed Rest, and I want to be well.
I also want to find a way to enjoy Operation Bed Rest, which probably needs a new name. I want to think of it like retreating to the Vicarage.
What do I want?
Related to this: right now everything in Portal Land is canceled due to weather, and I want to find out what is useful about Canceled By Weather.
Before I got sick, I invited Agent Anna to go dancing this weekend, and then she couldn’t go because she was sick too.
And then we got a billion feet of snow, and the dance was canceled by weather.
Agent Anna: That works for me, as I have also been canceled by weather.
What is good about things being canceled by weather? What other things are canceled by weather, in less obvious ways?
What do I want?
Once upon a time I wanted to write fiction, and I spent so many years circling around that dream out of habit that I didn’t even notice it wasn’t actually what I wanted anymore.
My dream was canceled by weather and I wasn’t paying attention.
Once I poured all of my love into a bookshop and what I got instead was a chocolate shop. My original plan was canceled by weather.
One day you notice you’ve been trudging through the snow for miles, carrying a suitcase with someone else’s stuff in it. You don’t need the suitcase. You don’t even need to be out in the woods. You can definitely put it down.
The thing you originally thought was the plan has been canceled by weather. Go home. Sit in bed. Eat soup.
What do I want?
To let go.
To let it go.
To let things go.
To let the things that are already gone go.
To let go of my need to cling to things that are clearly gone. They’ll either come back or something better will come. I am not helping things by holding on.
If something has been canceled by weather — or postponed by weather, time to let it go.
What do I want?
Ease and sweetness in letting go.
What do I want?
A TV ending.
During this ridiculous, frustrating, interesting sojourn into the Land Of Being In Bed All The Time, I have watched a hundred billion television episodes on Hulu, using these as clue-searching missions.
And there is this cool thing about American television, or at least the shows I’ve been watching: STUFF WORKS OUT.
They’re going to close the bar down but then someone died and left their money to a friend, and now they can save their bar, yay. The photographer is lying, but then they saved the photographer’s life, and everything is fine now, yay.
I want that.
I want perfect simple solutions.
What do I want?
To remember that Now Is Not Then.
When I was in university, I went through a year of chronic fatigue.
It was a combination of [Unsolvable Mystery], depression, anemia, freaking out about my future, more mystery. But I couldn’t move. Even going downstairs to pick up the mail would wipe me out for the day.
Right now my body is worn out and exhausted from fighting off this virus, and I am experiencing fear that this is going to be like then. Even though that was nearly twenty years ago, and everything is different. Fear.
Fear that my energy will not return.
Fear that I won’t find my way out.
So I need to remember that now is not then. And that me-now doesn’t have to carry all the fear of me-then.
I don’t have to carry anyone’s fear but my own.
What do I want?
I wrote this last week:
To do less.
And to have that make space for more. As in: write more, dance more, sleep more, think more, release more, glow more, hum more, find more clues.
So, in other words, I want everything that doesn’t support this mission to be canceled by weather.
Or maybe it’s already all been canceled by weather, and all I need to do is open my eyes.
Open my eyes, put down the suitcases.
What do I want?
If my life is canceled by weather, then all I have to do is take care of myself. Write, dance, and take care of myself.
What do I want?
To find the good.
To smile at the broken pots and say, thank you for breaking.
Where/how do I want to start playing with this?
Well, I will be at Rally next week, and I can practice Deep Cover.
And I can use this time for writing.
Anything else coming up?
I really need to trust myself here.
I’m noticing how much I am second-guessing myself, ever since following the path to the bookstore lead to the chocolate shop.
What are the qualities of my wish?
Trust. Steadiness. Peacefulness. Calm. Breathing. Patience. Plenty. Radiance.
What would help me move forward on this? How am I going to play?
This is right. This is right. This is right.
Find the useful.
Turn inward. Put everything down.
Clues?
“How much are you living to prove yourself? There is nothing to prove.”
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?
I write when I want to write. I sleep when I want to sleep. I let things be canceled by weather.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka Double Agent…
My wish had to do with going into Deep Cover and sneaking back in to my lost sabbatical.
This wish went deep. I uncovered a lot of pain and a lot of surprises. And I no longer feel conflicted about being a double agent: I’m ready to go in.
Thank you, writing. Thank you, me who asked.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I’m going to need help meeting our budget this year (it’s a Blodgett!) so that I can keep doing this work.
Take a look at Operation Sustenance (password: fredastaire) to see everything offered for 2014. And please spread the word about this site and the work play we do with self-fluency. Let’s have more people playing. I want to meet the Blodgett, and I really want to distribute treasure!
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 #289: with a country flair
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
I was sick in bed this week (yes, TEN DAYS) and had zero energy to talk about the HAT so please to visit my HAT for 2014! Password: fredastaire
What worked?
Trusting the process.
Sometimes this looked more like “trusting the %#$@ ___________ process”.
But trusting it, even when I didn’t like it.
I waited it out, and I didn’t like waiting. I paid attention, and noticed things and felt the currents, and let stuff happen under the surface, and took tiny steps, and rested, and trusted and waited some more.
The compass.
Massive panic attacks this week, and then the compass helped every time.
North is above my head and north is Vitality. South is below my feet and south is Replenishing. Ease is to my left and east is Calm. West is to my right and west is Glowing.
Next time I might…
Use the diffuser.
I have this magic potion for illness, and I completely forgot about it.
Diffuser!
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- TEN DAYS IN BED. Not able to do any of the things I love, because they all involve not coughing up a rib. Progress slower than anything I’ve been through. A breath for having to be patient.
- Doctors. Yes, I know this is mysterious, and no, it is not helpful to say, “huh that’s mysterious”. A breath for wanting a light at the end of the tunnel.
- Many challenges with letting go of W when there are so many reasons to W. A breath for getting used to this.
- Being sick is not just painful, it’s lonely. And most of things I do to stay calm, centered and happy involve using my body, which was not an option. A breath for sad me.
- This week I just wanted to be taken care of, and that brought up all kinds of stuff from Then. A breath for processing and releasing.
- There is all this cool dance stuff happening in Portland, and it is all happening in the stupid suburbs and not at my gorgeous ballroom. People! My ballroom! It is stunning and it is in the city and easy to get to by car and bus. A breath for feeling frustrated, wanting to be acknowledged, the usual Stuff.
- Same again: I know what I want, not sure how to get there. A breath for pathways.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- Marionberry smoothies, made with the Denisifier, an odd kitchen tool that was a gift from Denise. A breath for things that are sweet and soothing.
- Last night I was able to experience a full fifteen minute period of no coughing. I wasn’t drinking tea. I wasn’t distracting myself with a movie. I was just sitting there, not-coughing. It felt amazing. After ten straight days of well, coughing, and resting in bed, this was the most beautiful thing. A breath for a respite, and for being able to appreciate the absence of something.
- I closed all the tabs on my computer. This does not happen very often. A breath for emptying and eliminating.
- Everything is canceled this weekend (dance workshops, roller derby, all of it) because of the weather, and this is actually perfect because I have no energy to do all the fun things, and now I can do them later when I am better. A breath for perspective and a thank-you heart.
- Presents! Out of the blue. A giant thank you to two different blog readers for sending me gifts this week. Thank you, Susan, for the necklace of qualities. Thank you, Phil, for the book. Thank you, universe for right timing. A breath for feeling held.
- Ready to write again. A breath for movement.
- Joyful play at the Floop. A breath for people I can play with.
- While it is easy to see what isn’t working, life has given me so many magic beans, and I am deeply grateful for the magic beans. Also big appreciation to the spy who loves me, for endless sweetness. And to Agents White and Mueller who put on all their clothes and trudged through the snow storm to bring back beer and pizza last night. And to my body, for finally being able to handle food that is not in soup or smoothie form. A breath for being filled to the brim with appreciation.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
My op this week was stay in bed, eat lots of soup. And I killed it. Also I learned many useful things about Deep Cover.
My op for next week is to make some steps on Operation Sassafras, and to go into Deep Cover.
WHAM! BOOM!
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
The power of eliminating small symbolic things to make room for what I want. Which is perfect, because last week I asked for the superpower of release, and that is pretty much what this is.
Superpowers I want.
The power of focus.
Salve.
The salve of Wellness.
This salve is not so much about being well (though also) as it is about being a Well. Or accessing your wells.
It is about Solace, Sustenance, Plenty, Rejuvenation, being filled.
As soon as you apply it, you remember that you are well, that you are a Well, that you have access to wells.
You begin to pay attention to your wells. Well-nourished. Well-hydrated. Well-snuggled. Whatever wells are important to you. You begin to return to the wells, and in doing so, you return to a state of well.
This salve is deeply healing, and a little bit goes a long way…
If you are not a salve person (today or in general), you can have this in tea form, pill form, as a bath, 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 is from Agent W:
Eye Dribble
Apparently, Agent is not familiar with crying: Why do you eye dribble on me?
Reasonable question.
Anyway, this band plays Norwegian death metal with a country flair. And it is, of course, just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
You guys!
Help us meet our Blodgett! You get TREASURE, and then we distribute more treasure:
Here is the link for Operation Sustenance, which holds everything I will be offering in 2014. –> Password: fredastaire
And I would love help bringing more people to the site, so if you have a favorite post, please share this week. Let’s grow the base so we can do what we need to do this year, and so there are more lovely people to play with.
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.
Wish #239: Double Agent
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’ve been sick for a week, and it’s been a real call to action. Or a real call to inaction, actually. And the inaction (rest) is the action.
I need more ways to take care of myself.
So. Who is the me who takes exquisite care of herself?
And how subversive is it to take exquisite care of ourselves. It really is.
It doesn’t come easily to me. This mission requires presence, curiosity, commitment, attentiveness, love.
And: Agency.
What do I want?
Let’s assume there is this version of me, an incoming me, who knows how to do this.
She’s the agent.
What else do I know about her?
What other qualities does she have?
Can I wear her costume and her qualities as an aspiration until I become her and we are reunited?
What do I want?
Limbo City Moons.
That’s my secret agent code for Symbolic Motions. Anagrams make the best code.
Tiny steps that bring me closer to what I want.
This code is marvelously appropriate, because right now it feels like I’m in Limbo City, and I don’t like it.
Moon over Limbo City. Or maybe more like: mooning Limbo City.
What do I want?
I can imagine that the me who knows how to take care of herself holds all the qualities that I want.
All the things I’m working on can be contained in this one identity.
What do we know about her?
She loves to dance. She writes. She likes being at home. She makes marionberry smoothies. She naps, unapologetically, all the time. She takes baths. She makes things happen, but very, very quietly.
What do I want?
What if I go into Deep Cover as her!
Or, alternately, I could take all the things I resent because they keep me from doing her things, and make that the cover.
So: two options.
I am current me, in deep cover as Incoming Me.
Or: I am Incoming Me, in deep cover as current me.
Interesting.
What do I want?
So I’m a double agent!
But in a good way.
I am playing two roles as a way to bring two personas together.
And it can be fun.
What do I want?
To play.
To play in community.
To play with people who delight in play.
What do I want?
To do less.
And to have that make space for more. As in: write more, dance more, sleep more, think more, release more, glow more, hum more, find more clues.
What do I want?
To think Deep Cover is the most fun, energizing, joyful thing I have ever done. To delight in the mission.
Where/how do I want to start playing with this?
Finding out how Deep Cover solves all the challenges.
And finding a costume.
Anything else coming up?
Double agenting is not about duplicity. It is about plenty, about multiples and multitudes. About options.
Since I am all the agents, and I am also the Agency (and the quality of Agency), I am never against myself.
This is about using my powers for good, and trying on aspects of me that I haven’t explored yet. It is about reuniting myself with forgotten or lost parts of what I hold.
What are the qualities of my wish?
Spaciousness. Steadiness. Peacefulness. Trust. AGENCY. Delight. Play. Glowing.
What would help me move forward on this? How am I going to play?
If I were going to live for a week as her, what changes would I make?
And: Drawing a crown and a heart on my palm. Crown. Heart.
Clues?
Margins. Ten percent. I can empty out one thing so it can become another, like a playground that turns into a dance studio.
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 getting easier, and oh look, miracles everywhere.
- Regular gigs at the (non-metaphorical) 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?
Naps and baths and flowers until I feel better. And then, once I feel better: naps and baths and flowers.
Because that is what Havi Who Chooses Sustenance does. She doesn’t just do these things to heal, or because they are doors to what she wants, she does them because they are pleasurable and part of vital aliveness.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka meeting this moment…
My wish had to do with pausing and creating safety, both of which are incredibly important. It gave me a lot of work to do, and it means my programs will be smaller this year, and that is okay. It is about eliminating to support illuminating.
I am trusting the process, both in this particular instance as well as the bigger process of life and aliveness. Making choices in support of what I want. It’s good. And it has brought me to this decision to go into Deep Cover, which is very exciting.
Thank you, writing. Thank you, me who asked. Thank you, everyone who said amazing things.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
It is my joy (very much joy) to whisper to you about Operation Sustenance (password: fredastaire). This contains everything I will be offering in 2014. Please spread the word so we can meet our Blodgett and distribute treasure!
Keep me company?
Consider this an open invitation to deposit wishes, gwishes, visions, personal ads. Small or large. In any form you like, there’s no one 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 some things in the pot! And, as always, Amnesty. Leave a wish any time you want.
xox
Friday Chicken #288: I’m the lookout
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
I got hit with the meanest, craziest virus this week. So the short version of the chicken is: Everything is miserable, except for the fact that I announced the HAT (sparklepoints!) and you can now play with me in 2014. Password: fredastaire
What worked?
Flirting with the Commissioner, who turned out to be the Inside Man on the job.
Or, really, proxies is what worked, again.
I didn’t want to make any progress on a project. So I pretended it was about a spy mission:
The Grand Ball is tonight.
To infiltrate the ball I need an exquisite gown.
Once I have the gown, I know how to dance and I know how to be at a ball, and I know how to flirt with the commissioner. That is all I need to do. That, and be a lookout, for patterns.
And I have to change the code in the vault but that is not a problem because I don’t have to be the one to get in, the commissioner will take me there.
All I have to do now is make sure the Commissioner knows what time to arrive. He is our inside man. We are a team. We are working together. We love to dance, we love to flirt, we love to go to the vault and change the codes. I am crazy about this gown. We can do this.
Letting myself be sick.
I didn’t really have much of a choice, because this thing just knocked me off my feet.
What I mean is: recognizing that this is the right time for me to be in bed doing nothing.
It got so bad that I even tried Richard’s honey-lemon-ginger concoction. I haven’t had honey in fourteen years, and my body freaked out. Loud awkward honey burps. Lots of them. N said it sounded like Tom Waits gargling Pop Rocks.
But hey, whatever helps. And my throat wanted the honey, even though the rest of me most emphatically did not.
Next time I might…
Talk to Incoming Me.
I got so much good stuff once I asked for her help.
Actually, I hired her to be my consultant.
A wise thing a dance teacher said this week.
Chris: “Once you can do something, look for: all the different ways can I do this.”
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- So sick. So much pain. Most of this week was spent in bed coughing up goo and hurting. Did you ever see the movie The Young In Heart? Roland Young is pretending to be a colonel who was with the Bengal Lancers in the great war. Someone suggests that he probably suffered mustard gas attacks. He says, “I imagine I rather wheeeeeeeeeeze”. That was me this week, except so much worse. A breath for this.
- Huge misunderstanding on Saturday with the Spy Who Loves Me, so hard. A breath for connection, and losing it and finding it.
- Still playing with letting go of W. A breath for getting used to this.
- I forgot someone’s name this week. I thought someone named Bree was named Belinda. While the person in question (yes, Bree) did not find out about this, REMEMBERING THINGS is what I am best at. It is a blessing and a curse, and I remember everything. This threw me for such a loop, I had the biggest Ludicrous Fear Popcorn about What If All My Superpowers Disappear. A breath for forgetting truth, and also for forgetting Bree.
- Being ill meant having to miss all the intro sessions for four different dance courses that began this week. A breath for sadness.
- It is really hard to tell what my body needs when it is all, wah fog unclear ooof everything hurts can’t move. A breath for not knowing, and discomfort…
- I know what I want, not sure how to get there. A breath for pathways.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- Sleeping peacefully again. A breath for knowing that this is treasure.
- Love, adoration and sweetness. The spy who loves me is the spy who loves me. A breath for feeling relieved and happy.
- Being insanely sick means I got to stay in bed and do lots of nothing all week, which is exactly what I need. A breath for gifts that don’t look like gifts. And: This too shall pass.
- Everything that happened dance-wise before I got sick. An amazing workshop called Dips, Drops and Endings. A breath for seeing progress, this is wonderful.
- An ex of mine texted me, thinking I was someone else, and then was mortified. I was delighted to realize that I was perfectly okay. Yes, someone else gets called sweetheart now. Yes, those loving words were not for me. And this is fine. A breath for right timing.
- A very fun idea for the Ballroom that Alon and I had. A breath for possibility.
- Soup. And friends. Richard brought roasted red pepper soup from New Seasons and then I ate it all, and then he made a batch of something like it. Marisa brought soup. Nick send a soup emoticon, which weirdly helps. A breath for feeling safe and loved.
- We were able to announce the HAT!!!! All my hard work over the past four months came together, and we have the whole year planned out, with lots of amazing offerings and treasure. Password: fredastaire
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
My op this week was Operation Announce The Hat.
And I have an idea for my ballroom.
WHAM! BOOM!
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
The power of Trusting The Process.
Superpowers I want.
The power of release.
Salve.
The salve of Playfulness.
This salve is what helped me flirt with the commissioner when I got stuck on my big project (and what helped me realize that the commissioner and I are allies and equals).
As soon as you apply it, everything becomes lighter, more lighthearted. You are suddenly able to think in color, in metaphor, in costume. Instead of having “problems” that need to be “dealt with”, suddenly there are missions and wockawocks to explore, learn about and play with.
Basically this salve turns everything into Rally!
If you are not a salve person (today or in general), you can have this in tea form, pill form, as a bath, 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 is from Noelle:
Just One Something.
Hilariously, it is….tada….just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
You guys! I need help from you in two different ways.
The first is that if you are interested in helping us with the Sustenance mission — our not-so-secret secret mission this year where we meet our Blodgett and distribute treasure, yay!
The second is that I am going to need lots of help spreading the word about this. I am super sick and have no bandwidth for promoting it right now. Tell your friends and people you like about the work of self-fluency that we do here. Bring more people in to play.
Here is the link for Operation Sustenance, which holds everything I will be offering in 2014.
–> Password: fredastaire
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.
Hahahahaha!
A year ago I stopped speaking.
And so now I just laugh.
Hahahahaha!
Yes, well.
Some people take silence very seriously.
For me, one of the greatest surprises of living quietly is that my silence has made everything funny. It has infused life with hilarity.
Even things that didn’t used to be funny. Like misunderstandings. Or missing the bus. Or not knowing what to do in a social situation.
Silence has also made things very, very simple. Simple and funny.
So the sound of laughter will be my H word right now. Even though I have recently noticed that I often laugh silently now as well.
The sound of laughter is fitting, because last week was Rally (Rally!), and it was Rally H, and it was hilarious.
Let’s have some H words.
There’s hello, which is entry.
There are all the different kinds of healing. Self-fluency is healing. Sustainable healing.
There are havens, which are sometimes in hollows. Places to hide. Hiding and hidden.
Help, when you need it. To hold and be held.
Harmony: both song and harmonious interactions of all forms. Humor and hilarity, which are healing too.
Home, and the all the ways that things can be homes for other things. Also house, as both noun and verb. Hoppy house, my house, which my uncle Svevo always calls Happy house. Happy.
To host, to be hospitable, to welcome.
To hunt, in the sense of looking for clues. Or bounty.
Huzzah! A joyful sound that is useful when you have just found clues or bounty.
Feeling healthy. (Without bullshit societal rules about what that looks like.)
Hesitation, in dance, is a move that allows you to flow. It is a form of intentional pause.
Honesty, which can be both funny and kind. Honesty also knows about how not everything requires a response.
Honoring, a word that is related to kindness, legitimacy and acknowledging.
Heat, and passion and sexiness and all that goes along with that.
Heart and hope.
Heart. Hope.
Head, like wisdom. And also: we’ll head them off at the pass! Like in a Western.
Headspace (and headspace protectors, which is what I call headphones).
Hugs, which are important.
Hail, as in to call. And hail, as in to hail from. This will always make me think of Laurie, who hails from Atlanta and says so, with a giggle.
Heave ho, as in Give It The Old. Thank you, Max.
And also like in the sea shanties we sing at Rally: Heave ‘er up, me bully bully boys. Heave away, haul away.
Halo: lightness.
Happening: this moment, it is happening. Right now. And also a happening like a party.
Holiday! Like vacation. And the Madonna song.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Humming. And getting back to my happy hum.
Also honey, and all the superpowers of honey. Or: the superpowers that come with Being Honey.
Hot air balloons. Hullabaloo! Horcrux! Hexagonal, another word I like a lot.
H is handful, and being a handful, and taking a handful.
H is hands and the ability to handle.
Hustle, which is my favorite dance right now. Three count hustle. It is hot.
H is for the secret holiness of everything: holy holiness.
Hints and hinting: like clues. Clues that are hidden.
My name begins with H, and so this Rally is also be a healing for thousands of Havis, past and incoming.
Habits: establishing a new groove to follow.
I care about this practice so deeply, it is my passion and my like-an-obsession, and the reason I started this business, almost nine years ago.
And here is a hint (yes) about habits: they don’t need to be broken, just listened to with openness and sweetness.
You can rewrite a habit or create a new groove, and let the old one dissolve. No breaking is required. Breaking is a lot more work than replacing, and way more work than allowing-to-dissolve.
It is a week of H, that sound that isn’t always heard.
You have to listen for it. That’s what the quiet is for. So you can hear what no one else can hear, what is incoming, and also how it echoes:
Hello, hello, hello.
May it be so! And come play with me.
Thank you, letter H.
If you want to whisper words or sound effects that start with H, go for it.
If you want to share in any of the qualities and magical words I named here, you can.
They work like the salves in the Friday Chicken: just take some, there is always more.
Whispering loving spells that begin with H, for myself, and for anyone who wants…