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 #232: a new kind of winter
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
At the very least, useful noticings about my relationship with wanting. It all counts.
♡
[Note! I wrote this post yesterday, and then didn’t post it because I wanted to sleep on it, which turned out to be the right move.]
What do I want?
I’m not sure yet exactly. Let me just start with some points that are true for me right now, and see what I notice about how they might or might not relate to each other.
Point: I am in bed at 1pm on a Sunday.
Point: That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, that’s what Sundays are (supposedly) for, right? I mean, sleeping in and lazing in bed on a weekend for as long as you like, with no interruptions easily goes in the Top 200 Best Things About Not Living In Bolivia.
Point: The monsters and time gremlins are not buying this. They think being in bed past 8am at the latest is a sure sign of Impending Doom: Things Are Clearly Going Terribly Wrong, And Will Go EVEN MORE Terribly Wrong If I Act Like This Is Legitimate And Not An Emergency, Because It Obviously Is.
Point: It’s December. Everything is either cold, grey and annoying, or christmas-ey and annoying. To me. I know some people love either or both of those things.
Point: Three years ago I wrote a blog post called The Campaign To Bring Back Hibernation. I still feel pretty strongly about this, and have not acted on it at all.
Point: I did not set things up this year so that I could hibernate in December, and I have insane amounts of work waiting for me.
Point: I am having trouble motivating myself to do non-hibernating things. Partly this is recovering from rally. Partly this is just my deep desire to only do hibernating things. Partly this is reeling from the last two years of All The Barns Burning and All The Broken Pots. Partly this is just what needs to happen right now.
Point: I think I need to just let everything take ten times longer than I expect it will or think it should, and this is hard for me.
Point: For the past three years I have taken a morning aerobics class that I refer to as whatsit. Noun and verb. I am going to a whatsit. I just whatsited. And last week I stopped going because of [time/money/stuff]. It turns out that without whatsit I have no reason to ever get out of bed, ever. Apparently the only thing that gets me out of bed is that otherwise I miss the bus to whatsit, and without whatsit, I don’t have my dopamine fix. I am not sure how I got out of bed prior to being a whatsiteer, I don’t seem to have any intel about that.
What do I want?
I want to enjoy my sweet hibernation time in bed, without guilt or self-recrimination.
I want to trust, with deep certainty, that I still have the option of getting out of bed, should I desire to.
I want to remember that Now Is Not Then, and that this is not that horrible long summer when R died and all the bad things happened and I couldn’t get out of bed for very different reasons.
I want new morning rituals, and sources of support, so that I can feel invigorated about my day, whenever I choose to begin it.
And I want to go back to whatsit, and I want a plan.
What do I want?
[It turned out that what I wanted was to take a break from this, so I did many very impressive things, including:
- Getting out of bed(!)
- 20 minute workout(!)
- Laundry(!)
- Making an omelet(!)
- Coloring in the coloring book(!)
- Going for a walk to the ninja before it got dark(!)
This was all good. And, like I said, very impressive.]
What do I want?
To trust my instincts.
To set things up for me in ways that are supportive and kind.
You know how teachers get summers off? I want winters off.
I want my job during these months to be curling up in bed, taking care of myself, taking baths, watching movies, looking for clues. Like that.
I don’t know how that would work, and there are a million trillion monsters in that wish, and that is what I want, so that means I need to create safety for myself and for this sweet wish.
This is the very definition of a tiny, sweet thing, so I am not going to mention this to anyone who would criticize it or tell me why it’s never going to work. I can do that on my own, thank you very much.
What else do I know about what I want?
Even if I can’t get my wish, I can access qualities of my wish.
And I can definitely access the part of my wish that has to do with releasing guilt, because that is the work of my life and I am going to get better at this through practicing.
Where/how do I want to start?
Noticing elements of the pattern, with love. Noticing where I assume that Something Is Wrong, when in fact there is no current evidence to support that theory. Noticing how much fear I have that now is going to be like then, and how I can change now (or: change my experience of now, which is the same thing) by letting that fear be legitimate while still not taking it too seriously.
What are the qualities of my wish?
Peacefulness. Trust. Lightness. Comfort. Treasure. Experimentation. Sweet Ease. Flow.
And the superpowers of and What If All Timing Is Right Timing.
What would help me move forward on this? How am I going to play with this?
Conducting. Skipping stones. Secret spirals. Taking notes. Partnering with Agent Em Dee.
Remembering things that have been true for me in other Decembers, and adding this intel to the Almanac.
Anything else?
Tuna casserole. (This is a memory. A good one.)
My housemate will stretch with me in the morning in front of the fireplace if I remember to ask, so if I know that is going to happen, I will get up and join in.
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…
- The Salve of Salves.
- The Compass of Signs.
- May Peacefulness Prevail!
- Announcements.
- Everything is getting easier.
- Miracles everywhere.
- Regular dancing gigs at the ballroom, which is also the Spiegelsaal.
- 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 is money for this.
- Trust and steadiness. I can see why this moment is good.
- Hawaii.
- I am fearless and confident, and I do the brave things and give myself sparklepoints, and it is not even a big deal that I did the brave things but I still get sparklepoints, yay.
This week’s ops?
Operation Solstice. Operation More Options. Operation Tell The Story In Bits And Pieces. Mission Mad Hot.
I’m playing with…
DANCING. Breathing. Transitions. Permission.
As well as: Hello, habit, you are so interesting and I am learning many things about you and about me.
Attenzione! AGENTS.
I am deep in an undercover mission to get better at Gracefully Accepting Thanks. Or: Glowing Receptivity and Being Receptive to Glow.
This mission also resolves a question we get from people a lot, which is “I really, really want to thank you, except I’m not going to buy products and I can’t come to a Rally.” And it is also related to Operation Coming Out Of All The Closets, so I can share some experiences from Then where past-me thought her best survival strategy was not-sharing-how-hard-things-are.
If you would like to support my mission by sharing sweetness and appreciation for any aspect of my work, I would love that. You can do it with the magic of words, through the comments, or add something to Barrington’s Discretionary fund. (Explanation!)
And if the way you are glowing appreciation is quietly in your heart, I like that too. It all counts. ♡
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka Many happy returns…?
My wish had to do with the theme of returning, and that launched some very interesting internal investigations. I learned about many different kinds of silence, as well as some things I need to let go of in order to return to myself.
My wish was also about ritual, community and companionship for Solstice, and I was able to set that up, so now it’s happening! Yay. Very excited. It filled quickly, though I think we could probably make room for one more person.
The smartest thing I seeded last week (that I know of) was “ha, it’s so perfect that it turned out like this” because I was hyper aware this week of how true that is.
Thank you, writing. Thank you, me who asked.
Keep me company?
You are welcome to drop in with wishes, gwishes, visions, personal ads. Small or large, and in any form you like. There is no right way to do this. Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is anything sparked for you.
Commenting culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We ask for what we need. 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 applies. Leave a wish here any time you want.
xox
Friday Chicken #281: Identity Shake-Up for 500
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
What worked?
S words.
I asked for S words and I got S words.
They solved things for me.
Next time I might…
Stand gloriously tall.
One of my dance instructors pointed out that I am ducking the tiniest bit on one of the turns.
I know that I’m not supposed to duck, of course. My mind does.
My body has a built-up aversion, thanks to being knocked in the head about sixty different times on that turn. So it ducks for me. To save me from discomfort.
My job now is to stand gloriously tall. This is harder than it sounds.
So I am practicing.
A wise thing a dance teacher said this week.
Applicable to everything, so substitute life for “dance”….
“Finesse always works better than forcing, with everything”
That was Chris.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- End of the Jazz Age. Or, in not-code: I had to stop taking my morning dance classes because of [time/money] and some other stuff that’s going on. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I got pretty clear intel that this is the Next Indicated Step, and also that it is temporary. Still not liking it. A breath for missing, and for trust.
- Good grief it is hard to get out of bed when it is freezing cold. Especially without the motivation of morning dance class. A breath for new patterns, not yet formed.
- It all hurts. A mysterious blister, mysterious everything. Woke up from a nap with a mysterious black eye. Seriously, body. I know there is a lot going on. A breath for reacting to circumstances.
- So many things breaking. My printer. Agent White’s furnace. A breath for worry.
- Hospital, not for me. A breath for loving people from afar.
- In Things That Scare Me, I Will Do Them, I picked Identity Shake-Up for 500. A breath for big changes
- […] A breath for things that are hard. And for the phrase “Let me see if I can get in an hour of Decent Work and appease the Monster Hordes, ideally while you remind me that I am not in fact a terrible person.” Also, Day 2 of Rally was so Day 2 it was ridiculous. Aka Day 4
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- Someone I trust recommended a book very highly. It sells for $125 online, so that wasn’t going to happen. Found it on ebay for $2. $5, with shipping. A breath for good surprises and for plenty.
- More great dance classes than I could handle. 6.5 hours on Sunday. And in case you’re worried about me overdoing it (because you are related to me), please know that there is very little aerobic activity happening in these hours. It’s mostly listening and watching. A breath for the delight of learning.
- I took Friday off and spent it with someone I adore. A breath for sweetness.
- Private dance lesson! Leaps and bounds. Not literally. A breath for how overjoyed I am about this.
- Operation High Burn Nation. A breath for knowing what I want.
- Taking care of myself. A breath for acting on knowing what I want.
- Genius ideas and breakthroughs and much laughter at Rally (Rally!). A breath for new understandings.
- Spending time with a tiny sweet thing, and some new secret agent code. A breath for trust.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
Lots of ops. I solved for S, though.
WHAM! BOOM!
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
[…}
And, I am the PROPRIETRESS of a ballroom, dammit.
Superpowers I want.
Same as last two weeks: Everything Is Simple And Pleasurable.
And also: extreme focus. And unwavering faith. Whatever I am doing in this moment is right. And if I change it, that is also right.
Salve.
The salve of standing to your full height.
Or really, of taking up space unapologetically, in all the possible ways.
When you apply this salve, you forget all the ways that you have learned to not take up space. They become irrelevant, unimportant, are clearly not about you.
You get to turn your petals towards the light, they are already turning that way, and nothing restricts your progress.
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 via my ex-husband, kind of.
Parenthetical Poppyseed
They are quiet and a little folk. And I’m pretty sure it’s just one guy…
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I am deep in an undercover mission to get better at receiving in all forms, or as I’m calling it: Glowing Receptivity and Being Receptive to Glow.
This involves, among other things, acquiring the skill of Gracefully Accepting Thanks.
And it is related to my mission of Coming Out Of All The Closets and sharing, particularly about my personal experiences with not-sharing-how-hard-things-are, when things were actually the hardest.
If you would like to take a part in this and support me on my mission by sharing sweetness and appreciation for any aspect of my work, I would love that. You can do it with the magic of words, through the comments, or add something to Barrington’s Discretionary fund. (Explanation!)
And if the way you are glowing appreciation is quietly in your heart, I like that too. It all counts. ♡
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.
The F Word.
When my brother was little, he came home from nursery school one day and announced, “I know the S word!”
The parental reaction to this, if I remember correctly, was about halfway between shocked and bemused. And of course we had to figure out if he really did know the S word.
WHAT’S THE S WORD, EZRA?
He didn’t want to say it, because it was a secret, but then he did.
“The S word……….is………sssssssssssssssssnake!”
Snake is a very fine S word, of course. A slippery S word. An S word that is satisfying and sufficient. We’re not there yet though. Not yet.
Today is for the F word. And for all the F words.
I know the F word, you see.
What is the F word?
F is for FLOWERS, which make everything better.
F is frozen and frost, beautiful forms (yes, forms) that water can take.
F is fascination.
F is fixation; not-quite-obsessed.
F is fellowship, company on a path.
F is flips: acrobatics and play.
F is frangipani, a flower I associate with Ounce Dice Trice.
F is fixing.
Fixing in the sense of not trying to fix things.
And in the sense of Tikun: healing. The bringing back together of fragments of our broken vessels.
Also fixing like aiming to do something. And: all the fixings.
The F word is Flow, the state of effortless movement.
Flow is the removing or dissolving of obstacles. Flow is strong beautiful boundaries that are steady, but also flexible. Flexible.
The F word is flexibility: a willingness to go with what is. And a side effect of yoga.
F is flamboyant. Doing things with panache!
F is flourish, like thriving. And like decorative flourishes.
Fortune favors…
The F word is FORTITUDE. Pronounced like this: Fort-i-tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!
That is a word that I will forever associate with my sweet friend Colleen the Signmaker.
F is flying, the best superpower.
F is feathers, which are both clues and wings.
F is forward, a beautiful direction.
F is furnishing, the thing we do with internal and external space, with homes within homes.
F is fish, and all my fellow Pisces friends.
F is finesse — elegance and grace. As my dance teacher says, it is the thing that is more effective than force.
F is firmament, a place for stars.
F is fancy, something I used to frown upon and now find fun.
The F word is FOLLOW. In the dance sense: total presence and receptivity. Feeling rather than thinking. And following a trail. Like a detective or a lover.
F is fortuitous, auspicious, lucky. Fortunate.
F is freedom, the thing I want more than anything else, other than safety.
F is frisson, a sudden thrill. Physical. Fleeting.
F is far, and farther.
F is fortune: good. And fortune: the seeking of. Fortune, in cookies and in general.
F is the force. May it be with you.
F is falling in love.
Or falling like tripping, the good kind.
F is fashion: a delight in costumes (and really, everything is a costume).
Fashion is also a delicious verb….
F is festive. Celebration, warmth, color, decoration.
F is festivities. Rejoicing.
F is finish.
F is feminism, something I feel strongly about.
F is fission: dividing and splitting.
F is fornicate and fatuous, both words I associate with Maude Lebowski.
F is feelings, acknowledging them and letting them exist.
F is the Floop, the nickname for my wonderful online community, the Floating Playground, which is a year that always begins in February, another word that starts with F.
F is functional and functions.
F is all the things that are funny, almost everything really, when you get enough distance from it. A rollicking Buddha laugh for the funniness of life, and all of our sweet misunderstandings.
F is FLIRTING, my favorite everything.
F is fragments, figments, filaments. Bits and pieces, real and imagined.
F is fault, the kind that causes earthquakes, and also a faulty verb because most of the time it is nobody’s fault at all.
F is for fan. Fandom is an experience that changes a person. It is big.
F is fragrant: a scent that captivates.
F is for things factional and fictional, and all the places they meet up.
F is funeral, because everything dies, ends, reconfigures. And this requires a ritual.
F is fractal.
And fractal flowers.
F is forests, places for frolicking.
F is also the Frolicksome Bar, our (edit: defunct) facebook page.
F is falling, and also knowing that you are not really falling.
F is failing, which is either very useful or does not exist, depending on how you look at it. F is for the glorious spectacular Flailures in life that are actually secret doors.
F is for fallacies, uncovering the untruths that we hold onto for reasons that are both legitimate and interesting.
F is flick kicks!
F is flashes and sparks.
F is fruits. And fruits of…
F is fill, filling and fullness.
F is foundations: structure, and the good kind of firmness.
F is feelings, which are not always fun, and the feeling of the feelings, which is also not always fun. Though the feelings are always legitimate, always useful to know about.
F is fundamentals, basics, the thing I will return to teach this year, possibly for the last time.
F is FAITH, the quality that got me through half a year without a home.
F is fondness, a feeling that is both warm and sweet.
F is fungible, a truly fantastic word.
F is Flalaleelaloola, and word I once invented to answer questions. It means: “I love you, and I can’t answer that because it is not actually a question for me, and I love you.”
F is the foxtrot, one of the most graceful dances I know.
F is forage. And forest fruits, the wonderful Hebrew catch-all term for any kind of berry that isn’t a strawberry or a raspberry.
F is the Friday Chicken, where we get to hang out each week, a ritual that has been in effect since August, 2008.
F is FORGIVENESS, which has a silent Be. Both forgiveness and having a silent be are two of the most advanced practices I know of.
F is floating and fluidity.
F is fluency and self-fluency. It is what we do here.
With as many F words as we want, dammit.
F is FREQUENCY, in the sense of how often something happens. And also like a radio. Attunement. Tuning in.
F is finding. Discovery. Locating clues and doors, new ways in or out. What a find.
F is flavor. Richness and sensual pleasure.
Also freak flags, letting them fly.
F is forthrightness. F is fierceness. F is focus. F is frivolity. F is fulfillment. F is friends. F is fuzzy blankets. F is fantasy.
F is glorious joyful flailing. Dancing without rules.
Thank you, letter F.
I am looking forward to whatever [fascinations and frequencies] you have for me. And I’m willing to be surprised.
May it be so! And come play with me.
If you want to whisper words or sound effects that start with F, 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.
And yes, you may use that F word too, if it fits. Sometimes it is fitting. Fitting.
If you want to throw anything into the pot for Rally F this week (Rally! Rally!), go for it.
Waving from the Playground! Whispering loving spells that begin with F, for myself, and for anyone who wants…
Solstice Stones
I am cobbling together a ritual for solstice this year.
And I would like company with my ritual, because the whole point of it (for me) is companionship.
So consider this an open invitation to join me, in a form that you like.
What this is about, for me.
Some of the qualities important to me for a solstice-together experiment:
Comfort. I want to be able to do this while curled up in blankets and wearing the fuzziest, coziest sweater I own. Holding a mug of something delicious.
Play. This is about allowing a form to emerge that feels good for me, right now. It is flexible, it can change. No rigid structures, no agenda, no one right way.
Light. You pretty much have to have candles on the shortest day of the year, right? And, as my wonderful uncle Svevo said in his Hannuka postcard (sent on the back of a box of holiday candles)…”Let there be lightheartedness.”
Warmth. Warm heart, warm belly. Contentment.
Quiet. A turning inward. A listening. Solstice is definitely a listening time.
Radiance. I guess this is the warmth. And the light. It just seems like its own special quality. The glowing of all the other qualities. The glowing of them and the receiving of them.
Companionship. Togetherness. Smiles across the room. Knowing that we are sharing this, in whatever way feels comfortable for us.
Discovery. Ritual reveals things. Well, it is a form that allows for pause. Pausing in turn allows for quiet, and quiet allows for discovering the things you already knew but didn’t realize that you knew. This is creating time/space/safety for those Known Things to show themselves.
These make up my compass of Solstice Stones. It is a compass of Gemütlichkeit.
I know I’ve written about Gemütlichkeit here before…
Yup. Found it. From last year:
Ah, the marvelous and vital German concept that combines all that is good from both coziness and comfort.
Think plush rugs soft under your feet. Warm sweaters. Cheery lights. Whatever is snug, cozy, pleasurable to touch and look at.
I want to be the snuggliest cat this December. And I want my setting to invite that kind of contented curling up and turning inward.
That is the feeling I would like for Solstice.
So here’s the plan.
I want my day to include stone skippings, my favorite practice.
Solstice Stones.
And I want it to have luxurious stretching, old Turkish lady style. I want to be a cat.
And I want company. Though of course the people who are keeping me company do not need to do any of these things that I am doing, they can do whatever appeals to them. This is not a prescriptive ritual. It is an exploratory one. So it can be reinvented to take all kinds of shapes and forms.
You can skip some stones with me if you like….
Here are the two questions I am using as stones:
“What needs to be eliminated?”
And also:
“What needs to be illuminated?”
I will let these questions ripple out, and I will write whatever comes into my head.
I may ask them a couple of times. Or maybe once will be enough.
And I will let pen move on paper and see what reveals itself. I will find out what I know that I do not know that I know.
What needs to be eliminated? What needs to be illuminated? These are my questions for solstice. These are my solstice stones.
If you would like to do this with me in Portland on the Solstice….
I’ll be at the magical Playground enjoying a day of lovely quiet things. Conducting, napping, stretching, clew-searching, coloring monsters, collage, writing. Almost like a solstice mini-Rally.
The Playground is the most gemütlich place ever, gorgeous lamps and warm blankets. Lots of nooks for napping and writing. A bunk bed and a hammock. A kitchenette. Bring a candle or a tea light!
We’ll be open from 10am until midnight, come for as much as you like. Self-guided, though we’ll skip some stones together, run a late afternoon Chicken and watch constellations on the ceiling.
$40 for the day. $20 if you are part of the Alphabet Carousel. If you want to play, email the First Mate to set this up and reserve a spot.
Whatever you are doing from afar can be a part of this too.
I know the Solstice is crazy close to holidays, and there is much General Madness in the air, so you might only be able to carve out five minutes that day, and that counts too.
You might only be able to pause for eight breaths, and that counts too.
Even if you don’t get a chance to skip the stones, you can ask them out loud:
What needs to be eliminated? What needs to be illuminated?
Or maybe:
What wants to be eliminated? What wants to be illuminated?
A ritual doesn’t have to be complicated. See also: this list of 31 tiny mini-rituals I put together last December. Apparently I had ritual on my mind then too.
What I really want to say is this:
Know that you are loved and adored by me.
Know that you are part of this community by virtue of wanting to be a part of it, there is nothing more that is needed.
Happy solstice in advance.
Tomorrow I will be talking about the F Word.
Not that one. Though maybe, who knows.
And a week from Saturday I will be throwing myself into quiet and Gemütlichkeit. Though I may break out some dance moves too. This is likely.
I am one hundred percent convinced that however you join me will be the exact right way.
Happy solstice. Happy solstice stones.
If you want to leave possible solstice rituals (that you do, might do, read about, just thought of, whatever), that is welcome here. If you want to skip the stones now, that is fun too! You can always skip them again, that is the magic of stones.
We could also have a little virtual tea party right here in the comments. I am bringing a pot of Egyptian licorice. The pot is deep blue, and it is beautiful.
Help yourself. Love, as always, to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers, and anyone who reads.
Wish #231: Many happy returns?
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
At the very least, useful noticings about my relationship with wanting. It all counts.
♡
What do I want?
I am thinking a lot about the word Return.
It is the word (and quality) for December in the Playground calendar.
This means that last-year-me had a hit that RETURN was something me-now would need this month.
The cow on the train makes me think of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou:
You seek a great fortune, you three who are now in chains. You will find a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek. But first… first you must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril. Mm-hmm. You shall see things, wonderful to tell. You shall see a… a cow… on the roof of a cotton house, ha. And, oh, so many startlements. I cannot tell you how long this road shall be, but fear not the obstacles in your path, for fate has vouchsafed your reward. Though the road may wind, yea, your hearts grow weary, still shall ye follow them, even unto your salvation.
Oh so many startlements. I am thinking about return.
And the following of my heart.
What do I want?
I want [Return], in a variety of ways.
There are things I want to return to, practices and wishes.
There are things that belong to other people (thoughts and projections about me) that I wish to return to them, or to return to the earth. Allowing these to break down and decompose. To not-keep. To release. Release and return.
There is returning in the sense of transformations: the next rotation of the wheel. Turning into.
The is re-turning, in the sense of dance. A one-and-a-quarter turn that turns into more turns.
There is turning inward, and then doing that again. Like what Amy says:
“Relax your jaw. Now relax your jaw again.”
There is returning like library books. “I found this thing useful, and now I’m finished with it and someone else gets a…turn.”
Yes.
What do I want?
Okay. More specifically it has to do with ritual and community, and the intersection of these two things.
I want to return to this.
Except in an entirely new way, one of my own invention. With a culture that is respectful of the sovereignty of each person involved.
Additionally, I want to do this in a way that is not exhausting (I can wear out easily), and also conducive to people (me) who are HSP.
What else do I know about what I want?
I want to test-run an idea I have for one possible form of ritual-in-community. And I think I want to do this for the solstice, which is crazy soon.
So I need to keep it small and simple.
I want this to feel lighthearted, playful, ease-filled, the way I feel at Rally (Rally!).
It is important that both the setting-up-of-the-thing as well as the thing itself be pleasurable for me, because otherwise I won’t do it.
Simple and pleasurable. These are the guiding lights.
Where/how do I want to start?
Naming the op.
Operation SOLSTICE.
Let’s see. Solstice has the word lost hidden inside of it, which is perfect because this ritual is about returning.
Returning things that are lost, returning to things that were lost, returning from places where I felt lost, and all the lost things returning.
The superpower for December on my calendar is the superpower of All That Is Mine Returns To Me.
This could mean: I thought it was lost and yet it is back. Or it will come back when it is ready and I am ready. Or it was the thing I needed then and not the thing I need right now.
Everything is returning.
What are the qualities of my wish?
Here is my acrostic for SOLSTICE.
Shelter. Orchestration. Light. Simplicity. Treasure. Intuition. Companionship. Ease.
And let’s add the qualities from the last couple weeks:
Permission. Playfulness. Readiness. Joy. Desire. Passion. Receptivity. Immersion.
What would help me move forward on this? How am I going to play with this?
Oh. Skipping stones, of course.
And writing an OOD.
I am going to keep conducting.
And dancing it out. Letting Dancer Me and Writer Me call the shots.
Anything else?
Thinking about last year’s solstice at the Oregon coast with Danielle, and how that was the perfect thing for last year. Thinking about how this year can be full of mystery. Imagining what next year me might have to say about this.
Leaving a note to myself to talk this over with Agent Em Dee, and not to do this by myself, which is my tendency.
I want to ask: How Can This Be Simple? And then ask that again.
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…
- The Salve of Salves.
- The Compass of Signs.
- May Peacefulness Prevail!
- Announcements.
- Everything is getting easier.
- Miracles everywhere.
- Regular dancing gigs at the ballroom, which is also the Spiegelsaal.
- 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 is money for this.
- I can see why this moment is good.
- Trust and steadiness.
- Hawaii.
- I am fearless and confident, and I do the brave things and give myself sparklepoints, and it is not even a big deal that I did the brave things but I still get sparklepoints, yay.
This week’s ops?
Operation Solstice. Operation More Options. Operation Tell The Story In Bits And Pieces. Mission Mad Hot.
I’m playing with…
DANCING. Breathing. Transitions. Permission.
As well as: Hello, habit, you are so interesting and I am learning many things about you and about me.
Attenzione! AGENTS.
I am deep in an undercover mission to get better at Gracefully Accepting Thanks. Or: Glowing Receptivity and Being Receptive to Glow.
This mission also resolves a question we get from people a lot, which is “I really, really want to thank you, except I’m not going to buy products and I can’t come to a Rally.” And it is also related to Operation Coming Out Of All The Closets, so I can share some experiences from Then where past-me thought her best survival strategy was not-sharing-how-hard-things-are.
If you would like to support my mission by sharing sweetness and appreciation for any aspect of my work, I would love that. You can do it with the magic of words, through the comments, or add something to Barrington’s Discretionary fund. (Explanation!)
And if the way you are glowing appreciation is quietly in your heart, I like that too. It all counts. ♡
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka On the tip of my…
My wish had to do with Emergence, and with the emerging wish for how I want to teach this year. Well, how I will teach-by-not-teaching, which is my preferred method of teaching.
And it emerged. In dance class. Further evidence in support of my Dancing Solves Everything hypothesis that the monsters resist so much.
So now I need to act on that information, or find out how I would like to act on that information. I have the information, though. And that is fantastic.
The smartest thing I seeded last week was “Polishing basics” (that helped) and also “Peacefulness prevails”, because it did.
Thank you, writing. Thank you, me who asked.
Keep me company?
You are welcome to drop in with wishes, gwishes, visions, personal ads. Small or large, and in any form you like. There is no right way to do this. Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is anything sparked for you.
Commenting culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We ask for what we need. 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 applies. Leave a wish here any time you want.
xox