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 #280: and nothing else
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
What worked?
Asking for a very specific type of response.
I find myself navigating these situations, fairly often it seems, where I notice how much I want to have the quality/experience of [SHARING]…
And then I don’t share, because I have a basic understanding of How People Are. People want to meet you with love, and sometimes that love gets lost in the form they choose to deliver it.
For example, telling you what they think you should do vis a vis the thing you are sharing. Or telling you what they did, would do or think they would do in your situation.
It takes a lot of work, for me, to create as much safety as I need. It can also be work to remember: oh right I am being given LOVE, and I can receive LOVE without all the things attached to it.
And it also takes work to formulate a clear, loving explanation of your preferred forms of receiving love.
And yet I always do both of these, because that’s the work of sovereign communication.
I realized recently that I can also ask for a response that fills my need for [FUN], [PLAY] and [PLEASURE], and this response does not necessarily have to be related to the thing that I am sharing:
“Today I looked in the mirror at dance class, and the light/angle were exactly such that I could see exactly how many hairs on my head are bright white.
Twelve.
This is considerably more than the previous number, which was one.
So that was interesting. I am undecided as to how I feel about this so please don’t weigh in, you can however say words you like (Mellifluous! Extravaganza!), and I will interpret this in a positive light.”
And then everyone left the most joyful, wonderful, gorgeous words. I got sharing, companionship and play. They got sharing, companionship and play. And I didn’t have to process my reactions to responses, because my only reaction was WHAT FUN TO HAVE THESE PEOPLE IN MY LIFE.
Next time I might…
Wish everyone peacefulness.
Whenever I am in a situation, like the one with the fromagerie next to my metaphorical chocolate shop, I go through all kinds of different stages. And then I end up wishing everyone peacefulness.
Next time I’d like to just start with that. As Fred said: May peacefulness prevail.
Yes. And may that be my automatic response to everything.
A wise thing a dance teacher said this week.
Applicable to everything, so substitute life for “dance”….
“Don’t give up the space you own.”
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- So many monsters. Some familiar ones (time, money, guilt, shame) and a very loud one called You Have Created A Disaster You Will Never Recover From. A breath for patience, presence, perseverance and trust.
- Zero visible progress on the current ops. A breath for navigating my stuff.
- Twisted ankle. A breath for all the fear in that.
- People I love in their stuff. A breath for loving people while they are hurting.
- Where is the time going?!? A breath for worry about “finishing”.
- My business mentor and I finally got to talk about some of the things I want to do, instead of dealing with the ballroom. For the first time since May. A breath for retroactive pain.
- An ordeal of a social engagement that reignited all my stuff about Social Engagements Blech Everything Is Always Wrong, and canceled out the good brunch from last week. Also I discovered a big scary wall that I did not know about. A breath for things you didn’t want to see.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- Tomorrow I am taking the day off to do celebratory birthday things for (and with) one of my favorite Agents. A breath for play and surprises.
- So many great dance classes. A breath for discovery and pleasure. And dance.
- I got to be on the receiving end of marvelously clear communication. Yes. A breath for unlikely new beginnings.
- Community. Where I live. Not just online. A breath for how happy I am about this.
- I renamed something, and now I no longer find it distasteful. I might even be kind of excited about it. A breath for transformation.
- Hannukah! Cheery candles. Singing. Latkes with all my favorite Agents. And my wonderful cousin Noah. A breath for my chosen family.
- Genius ideas and breakthroughs still landing from last week’s Rally (Rally!). A breath for doors where you didn’t know there were doors.
- Very excited about a new idea that is very much a tiny sweet thing, and some new secret agent code. A breath for Nothing Is Wrong and for All Timing Is Right Timing.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
Many missions this week. The biggest deal was starting Operation A New Trust, and The Many Ships.
WHAM! BOOM!
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
The superpower of Dancing Solves Everything, the superpower of Sure, This Will Double As Clothing, and the superpower of having the Exact Right Shoes For The Job.
And, I am the PROPRIETRESS of a ballroom, dammit.
Superpowers I want.
Same as last week: Everything Is Simple And Pleasurable.
And also: extreme focus.
Salve.
The salve of getting what you need and nothing else. Also known as the salve of glowingly beautiful boundaries.
An example of getting what you need and nothing else:
The ability to extract the sweet kernel-essence of love from an interaction, without taking on the other person’s projections about you or anything that is attached to the love.
Or: feeling the kindness when someone wishes you well, regardless of the words they use to wish it.
When you apply this salve, all interactions reveal qualities, and these qualities can absorb quickly and easily in the exact amount that is right for you.
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 Richard. Very Portland.
Familiar Looking Beard
They are loud and raucous and in the Know (it’s a bar). Though actually I believe they are 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.
Wish #230: on the tip of my
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
At the very least, useful noticings about my relationship with wanting. It all counts.
♡
What do I want?
My very personal ads this week are on the tip of my tongue, if there was a phrase for that which involved the heart. It is as if my heart is about to let me discover them.
I have been skipping some stones to learn more about them, and everything feels tingly-funny, like when you know something is around the corner and you sort of don’t want to peek even though you also really want to peek.
What do I want? What do I know about what I want?
I am thinking about A) what I want to be doing this year, and B) what I can offer this year in a way that I can handle and that is not exhausting.
And what the intersection of A and B might be.
One thing that has helped is a google doc where I just listed all the possible things I could do, and noticed which ones sparked sparks.
Another thing that has helped is conducting (reclining on the floor and closing my eyes), and then visiting the document. That gave me some pretty clear information about which items are definitely a NOT NOW, HONEY or MAYBE NOT IN THIS FORM….
I conducted Harmoniousness, and then I conducted Emergence, and now I know some things I did not know before, so that was useful.
What do I want?
I have an idea for what I want, and it doesn’t have a name yet.
Well, it has a sort-of name, and it has a feeling.
I want to find out more about this idea, if it is viable, how it would work.
And I think I want people to play with while I figure it out.
So I could do that with Agent A, with Agent Em Dee, with the Shellbacks….
What else do I know about what I want?
It involves dancing. Dancing and writing and yoga.
Mainly it involves letting what I love and crave fuel what I do.
What else do I know about this?
The other big thing that came up for me is something I have to explain in a dance analogy….
Okay, so one of the things I have learned from the world of dance is that the more advanced someone is, the more time they spend on the absolute basics, returning to basics, relearning basics, polishing the basics.
I am fortunate to live in a city with an amazing dance scene. Many of my instructors have won multiple national competitions at very high levels, some are well known and highly regarded teachers.
One of them told me that whenever she gets the chance to get a private lesson with a top-level world-renowned teacher, she preps by spending hours and hours reviewing the basics.
And then the lesson itself is 95% basics. In a way, she gets the same lesson that a total beginner would get, just at a much higher level of … well, of everything.
This is something I am enormously excited about, both as a principle and in terms of how I want to teach this year.
Basics. Polishing basics. With intention, pleasure, dedication, warmth, presence, passion.
What else do I know about this?
I don’t want to be at the front of the room, literally or figuratively.
If I have learned anything over the past few years, it’s this:
The second someone is at the front of the room, everyone else in the room kind of lets their crowns drop. We let ourselves think that the person at the front somehow might know more about what we need than we do.
One of the best things about Rally (Rally!) is that I’m not the one who makes Rally amazing. I don’t lead Rally. I play at Rally. No one can pretend that I’m the one with the answers. We all have to find our own answers.
I provide concepts and culture. I am not in charge.
So something about that.
What would help me move forward on this?
I am going to talk this over with the shellbacks and with some Agents.
I am going to find out if there are any parts of me (sad, scared Havis or maybe some monsters) who don’t want me to get clarity on this, find out what they need, and how I can support their mission of Safety For Havi.
And I am going to dance on it and let this project/wish be a fractal flower, so that anything I do is helping under the surface.
What are the qualities of my wish?
Huh, exactly the same qualities as last week:
Permission. Playfulness. Readiness. Joy. Desire. Passion. Receptivity. Immersion.
How am I going to play with this?
I am going to keep conducting.
There will be costumes. There will be dancing.
Anything else?
I don’t need to know the next steps. I just have to keep asking questions and learning more about what I need. My commitment is to taking care of myself.
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?
I think this week is about Rally Recovery, and figuring out more about this wish. Internal ops.
I’m playing with…
DANCING. Transitions. Permission. Practicing.
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 Not Obsessed Exactly…
I wanted to throw myself into this obsession-like thing, with pleasure and joy. And that happened.
There might have been less dancing, actually. Because American Thanksgiving kind of threw things for a loop, and I didn’t get to dance for four days.
Except I felt like a dancer. I approached things in dancer mode. I was in it even when I wasn’t in it, and I am feeling good about my wish.
I really enjoyed Rally (Rally!), and that was a great place to work on figuring out a better schedule for dancing, as part of my Rally project.
The smartest thing I seeded last week was “I can see why this moment is good.” I could. And that was so sweet.
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 #279: It’s the tautness
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
What worked?
Applying things from the world of dance to the world of not-dance, aka the rest of life.
For example, “take smaller steps”.
This is helping me with my turns, but/and also:
Take. Smaller. Steps.
That was relevant this week in relationships, in work, in worries, in recovery. I figured that if my teachers keep repeating something, I should probably do it.
So I’m taking smaller steps, and being okay with smaller steps.
Or then there’s the thing they keep saying about “movement originating from the core”.
So this week a fellow Agent was very upset in the middle of the night, and I was too tired to do anything about it except offer a sleepy kiss on the cheek and a pat on the shoulder. But I whispered in my heart, “Let it originate from the core.”
And so I gave a sleepy cheek-kiss and shoulder-patting that were really and truly given with love and adoration, even though I was exhausted. They originated from my core.
Dance solves everything. Incoming me said so at the first Rally this fall, and she is still right.
Next time I might…
Check the Book of Me.
The Book of What Havi Needs aka the Holy Days of Havi Bell.
There is a lot of documented information about Hermitsgiving and how I get during this week where the energy of the whole country is pretty insane.
Specifically: I need potato chips. Lots of potato chips. This is important. And I cry, a lot.
Anyway, I found myself in some familiarly-uncomfortable moments, mainly because I hadn’t checked the research.
My internal scientists have already come up with working hypotheses and some pretty good plans. So the next piece has to do with looking at the notes so I can do the things they suggest.
A wise thing a dance teacher said this week.
Applicable to everything, so substitute life for “dance”….
“Dixie cups. The magic of communication is not the line between them. It’s the tautness.”
That was Jon.
And yes, it’s the tautness.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- The energy of American Thanksgiving and the days leading up to it are like walking through water for me. It is so hard to remember that this debilitating fog is not my stuff, just me picking up on everyone else’s. A breath for sensitivity.
- Haha, and then there is the part that is my stuff. A breath for navigating my stuff.
- We are ridiculously overworked. A breath for how scary this is.
- Not enough sleeping. A breath for being worn out.
- A day 4 that acted like a day 2. A breath for discomfort.
- Doing the hard things. Dealing with lots of Ludicrous Fear Popcorn about Getting In Trouble For Doing The Hard Things Wrong. A breath for safety and for trust.
- I know what I want to be doing, and I am not doing it. A breath for patience and for changing aspects of patterns.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- Sitting on a couch wearing a blanket and two purring cats. A blanket. This blanket has solved my “I like cats except I also like to wear beautiful clothes, and cats like to sit on my beautiful clothes” problem. A breath for perfect simple solutions. And purring.
- During my thanksgiving freakout I really, really, really wanted potato chips. But I did not want to venture out into the world to acquire them. Then Elizabeth showed up with these amazing coconut oil potato chips and it was perfect. A breath for getting exactly what you need in the exact moment and form when you are desiring it most.
- Everyone who has been driving me crazy in dance class is no longer driving me crazy. It’s like we all just started over. They are all being completely warm and respectful, and everything just worked itself out. A breath for new beginnings.
- Unconditional love. It is kind of terrifying and great at the same time. A breath for being seen and for acceptance, wow, this kind of acceptance, I don’t even have words for this.
- Brunch with lovely people that did not ignite any of my stuff about brunch. A breath for warmth and companionship.
- I took a country two-step class that blew me out of the water. For one thing, I was the youngest person by at least thirty years, which completely calmed my monsters who think I missed the boat on throwing myself into dance. For another, I was the only one who didn’t know any country two-step and it didn’t matter, because I know enough about frame to be able to play. I can play! And they could see that I can play! The teacher said, “Okay, clearly you dance, so here’s the deal: the rhythm is quick-quick slooow-sloooooow, expect lots of turns, mostly to your left, with a bunch of grapevines and promenades, let’s do it”. And we did. It was a rollicking romp into a new, exciting world. I loved every second of it. Now I have new monsters who are afraid that this is a gateway drug into riding a mechanical bull while wearing a cowboy hat. I will deal with that later. In the meantime, a breath for play and for delight!
- It was Rally (Rally!) this week, and I love Rally, and thank god for Rally, especially at Hermitsgiving. A breath for sweetness, and for company while exploring.
- We made it through the hard. And I had my first good night of sleep in about a month. And today is Blanket Friday and I get to hide in blankets. A breath for trust and for patience.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
Lots of interesting missions this week. Such as…
Operation Rocketeeranium Wham-boom
Operation Vice! President! Chicken! Wham-boom
Mission Enough Is Enough Is Enough Wham-boom
But mostly this week was about turning inward and getting quiet. Taking care of myself. Not all the ops got named, but they are important.
And there are some good things happening at my Red Rose Ballroom, and I am wishing for many more to come.
WHAM! BOOM!
Superpowers!
Powers I had this week…
The superpower of All My Interactions Are Harmonious. I have been working on that one fairly steadily for about nine years, so it was very exciting when it kicked in big time this week.
I also had the superpower of Following All The Rabbit Holes, which was very useful, as well as the superpower of screw it, I’m just going to research the thing I want to know about.
The superpower of remembering not to fight with Incoming Me, and to let her lead. Also remembering that following is not passive, it’s active.
Also, as I realized last week, I am the PROPRIETRESS of a ballroom, and that is its own superpower.
Superpowers I want.
Ease and Es. Lighthearted teleportation. Everything Is Simple And Pleasurable.
Salve.
The salve of ease and Es.
It goes on so smoothly you almost can’t feel it. There is noticeably less friction when you take this salve. It is like a lubricant for life-stuff.
And it holds all the secret Es. Like effervescence. And exceptions…
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 thanks to Taylor:
Possible Carousing
They played at the Playground on Blanket Friday.
There may have been a tambourine. And yes, it is 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 History of Blanket Friday
Last week someone on the bus asked me if I’m “looking forward to Black Friday”.
That was a little weird.
Not compared to things that happen on the bus. Much weirder things happen on the bus, both to me and in general.
In the land of Havi, though, the question seemed bizarre. Just the concept of someone — anyone — theoretically looking forward to Black Friday is something I can’t really wrap my brain around. Yes, people vary.
I am not in fact looking forward to Black Friday. But what if that changed? What if I could?
I mean, since I’ll be hiding under blankets, I guess I could look forward to that for starters. So, why can’t blanket-hiding became my holiday?
Blanket-hiding.
That is what I do on Black Friday.
Hide. Under. Blankets.
Blanket-hiding is basically what that day is for, as far as I’m concerned. In fact, it’s kind of odd that this is not already a thing, that they don’t just call it Blanket Friday.
There’s probably a perfect German word for it already. Like Unterdendeckenversteckungstag.
Or, possibly, Tag der Ab Ins Bett Einheit.
I made those up, but they feel right.*
I suggested these on Twitter, and then Jessica volunteered Bloßnichtausdembettkrabbeltag (Justnotevencrawlingoutofbed day!), which is even better.
The Holy Days of Havi Bell.
I keep a notebook called the Holy Days of Havi Bell Who Is A Bell.
It’s where I keep notes about holidays and rituals, so my relationship with these days can be more conscious and more playful. So I can be a bell. And so I can find ways to not be in my stuff about holidays. Because I have big stuff about holidays.
Some of the Holy Days of Havi Bell are Jewish holidays that I do my way. Like Purim, the holiday of costumes, and also the holiday of surprising your friends with delicious baked goods. Or Sukkot, which is practically a festival of blanket forts.
Some are broader-culture holidays that I actively play with, or sometimes subvert.
Groundhog Day, which is the holiday of do-overs.
It is also a day for getting to do everything twice. Two times breakfast! Two times bath!
Or Hermitsgiving, where I run away and avoid American Thanksgiving.
Or Operation V.A.L.E.N.T.I.N., a day to practice being completely and utterly dedicated to sensual pleasure and vital aliveness, combined with zero contact with the extremely irritating (and excessively pink) outside world.
Basically all my holidays are about avoiding. Also connecting.
Avoiding: static, noise, external rules, social media, other people’s expectations and projections.
Connecting to: myself, quiet, peacefulness, presence, desire. What I need and want. Taking exquisite care of myself.
Avoidance in the sense of turning inward and getting quiet, and also in the sense of oh good god make all that noise just stop.
Connection with the things I want to connect to. With the qualities of the voyage.
Blanket Friday is exactly what I need.
Here’s what I don’t want to see, experience or even hear about on the day-after-Thanksgiving:
Pushing. Pressure. Lines. Stress. Anxiety. Commercialism. The collective forgetting, on a grand scale, of everything said the day before about appreciation, thankfulness, kindness, grace.
I know this world of Black Friday exists, and I don’t want to know anything more about it than that.
I want my world of Blanket Friday: cozy, grounded, safe, sheltered, full of sweetness and possibility.
I will be at Rally (Rally!), so this will be somewhat easier because the Playground is absolutely full of blankets, and it is a world unto itself, separate from everything happening outside.
But even if I weren’t, I’d be following the same basic plan:
Stay indoors. With the exception of a walk to the park, maybe swinging on the swings if it isn’t too cold.
Stay offline. Other than to play here with the Friday Chicken.
Naps. Multiple naps.
Skip some stones. Play with some spirals. Color in a monster.
Drink tea. Be with people I like.
I don’t really know what else is part of Blanket Friday. I guess I’ll find out this Friday.
We are writing the history of Blanket Friday. Rituals will evolve. There will probably be cheese.
That’s probably enough.
Because really, what more needs to be said about a holiday, other than “there will probably be cheese”.
And since the first Blanket Friday hasn’t happened yet, I can’t know what it is like, how I will feel or what I will need.
Like all grand experiments, parts of it will probably be not-so-great, and then I’ll have more information for next year, for the book of the Holy Days of Havi Bell.
There will be good things too. Like comfort and sweetness. Appreciation and a thank-you-heart.
I will whisper a thank you to the person on the bus with the unlikeliest question. And a thank you to past me who filled an entire playground with blankets.
As if she knew that one day I would need a whole day for this.
Join me if you like.
If you would like to celebrate Blanket Friday with me in any form at all, or to adopt an aspect of it, you are invited to. Or invent your own holiday, your own form. We get to play however we like.
If you’re like me and run away from American Thanksgiving, then a peaceful ease-filled Hermitsgiving to us this Thursday.
If you celebrate American Thanksgiving, then I am wishing you a safe and pleasant one. If you’re Canadian, a retroactive happy Thanksgiving and a happy perfectly normal Thursday. If you don’t celebrate, then may it be a beautiful day. And a comforting Blanket Friday to all!
And if another wish is in order, here is a wish for the thing you need and desire in the best form for you to receive it.
Thursday night is also the first night of Hannukah, so chag urim sameach.
Things that are welcome here: Excitement about Blanket Friday, as an idea and my new experiment! Well-wishes of all forms. Blankets. And cheese.
Everything Ends, yes.
Everything ends. It is true.
And. That is not the only truth that starts with E.
There are many truths that begin (and end) with E.
Effort and effortlessness.
They are twins, did you know?
Sometimes the thing that is needed is EFFORT. Showing up. Putting some heart in it, as my imaginary personal trainer would say.
And sometimes the thing that is needed is EFFORTLESSNESS. Releasing expectations, softening, letting the thing that is happening just happen in the way that it happens to be happening in this moment.
They go really well together, effort and effortlessness.
A lot of people try to make one of these their modus operandi.
I find, for me, everything works a lot better when I call on both.
Emergence.
Another truth of life is that we cannot always see progress. We mostly cannot see progress.
That’s because it’s happening under the surface.
Truth of life. Here’s another one: 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.
We turn emergence into emergencies. We think something is terribly wrong because we can’t see “results”, and then we panic. The results are emerging.
Guilt makes it hard to see what is emerging. Letting things take their time makes it easier.
This is sometimes called experimenting, and sometimes it is called embracing, two words that begin with E.
So many beautiful things that begin with E.
I want to write about all of them.
About Echoing and Efficiency. Emptying and Exploring.
Effervescence. This might be my favorite word ever.
Expanding and Experimenting. Ease and Easing.
Eliminating. Exulting. Expecting. Evaporating. Energizing. Evolving.
Endlessness. Experience. Editing. Efficacy. Expansiveness.
Exuberance and Extravagance. Excitement and Enthusiasm.
Equality. Enough and Enoughness. Evenness. Empathy. Endurance. Efficiency.
Edges. Which are boundaries (B) and containers (C) and dance (D). And also Assertiveness (A).
Elegance, and elegant solutions. Elements. Expanding elements.
And epiphanies.
E is for Entry. And also for Exit.
Embarking, a beautiful word that starts with E.
Conscious entry: preparing for the voyage and saying hello to what is coming.
Intentional exit: thank you, thing that was.
This is important, because everything ends.
And, also:
Everything Ends. It really does.
Everything ends, dies, reconfigures. And this is okay. This is the way of things, and it is okay. Sometimes it hurts so much. And it is okay. It hurts and it is okay. It is not okay and it is okay.
The hurting ends too.
Ends, dies, reconfigures, changes shape, becomes new.
Endings are doors, and so they are also openings.
Echoes.
I was talking to Incoming Me (aka slightly wiser me) last week about this summer, when everything was disintegrating.
Everyone kept saying how when one door closes another one opens. Or that god doesn’t close a door without opening a window. I wanted to kick them all in the shins.
She said, “It’s the order that’s wrong. It isn’t that one thing closes and then another opens. It’s this: the opening you automatically head towards needs to shut now so that you can see the opening that is better for you, which is currently invisible to you, because you haven’t been paying attention.”
I don’t know if this is true. It feels true in the context of the specific thing that happened this summer, and I can feel that truth spreading through my body. It is warm and expansive, and it echoes.
Everything ends, and nothing is wrong. Everything ends and it is my job to pay attention to right-now so I can see the beautiful beginnings that I hadn’t even noticed were already here.
May it be so! And come play with me.
This week is Rally (Rally!), my favorite thing in the world, and it is Rally E, full of things that begin with E. And it is also American Thanksgiving aka Hermitsgiving (for me), and it is also Hannukah. So it is kind of a big week.
It will require Effort and Effortlessness. Emptying and Emergence. (I am smiling at this one because as my Year of Emptying and Replenishing heads inexorably towards its own ending, I am looking warmly towards the coming year, which will be the Year of Emerging and Receiving).
If you want to drop some wishes in for yourself for this week or this year, you are welcome to.
If you want to whisper words or sound effects that start with E, go for it. If you want to share in any of qualities, you can. They work like the salves in the Friday Chicken: just take some, there is always more.
If you want to throw some superpowers into the pot, that is welcome.
Also, Agent White pointed out that Good Es sounds like Good Ease, and goodies. So there’s that.
Waving from the Playground! Whispering loving spells that begin with E, for myself, and for anyone who wants…