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 #228: Secret Window Time
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 wish this week has to do with time, and it has to do with writing.
I don’t know that much more about it yet, so maybe the wish has to do with secrecy and shelter, or uncovering and exploring. We’re just going to have to find out.
What do I want?
What do I want?
I want something that is absolutely impossible, according to the well-meaning monster hordes. Namely, time for the many things I want to give time to.
They give a big emphatic NO to this wish. A wall to shut it down. If I poke and press a little at the wall, they whisper that I am delusional.
I know what their mission is. To keep me from getting hurt, feeling disappointed, giving up.
If I try to do the impossible, I will fail at the impossible, and then I won’t try other things that I need to try. So they want me to give up before I take on this thing that I will fail at.
They want to keep me from pain. I can support that mission.
So let’s find a way to think about this, with the understanding that we are not going to do things that cause me pain, alright?
What do I want?
To take a bath.
What do I want?
Hahaha, now I know exactly what I want. Because I took a bath, and that’s where the answer showed up.
What I want is to follow the instinctive pull of desire, like I just did with taking a bath. What Alon calls taking the Next Indicated Step.
And the other thing I want is a new relationship with the Secret Window.
The Secret Window is my new name for the two hour slot of 11:30-13:30.
This is the time period I have been thinking of as more like a swamp of doom, but actually it is a secret window.
During these mystery hours, I cannot seem to get any work done, no matter how hard I try. So I either try to force it (which, surprise, does not work), or I give myself permission to not-work and then just end up doing little internet-ey things and feeling generally dissatisfied.
I want to use this Secret Window for my own purposees.
What if I use this Secret Window.
What if I use this Secret Window to do things that really, truly appeal to me? All the things I wish I had time for and never get to, because I’m supposed to be working…
What if this secret window is a wrinkle in time? What if it is “wrinkling time” through a tesseract?!
Huh, that is actually kind of like fractal flowers…
What if I consciously choose to use this secret window for missions and ops that are deeply pleasurable…
And what if (hypothesis!) doing this actually improved the quality of my work that happens later?
Things that could happen during Secret Window Time.
I could…
- Learn and practice some new ASL signs
- Watch west coast swing videos and take notes
- Take a bath and learn useful things, like I did just now
- Have a miniature version of Putterday
- Skip all the stones and write what I want to write
- Take a nap
- Go for a walk
- Do yoga nidra
- Sit in the closet and spend time learning about the parts of me I don’t let out
- Have a conversation with Incoming Me
- Play at Transformers (this is a new practice I’m doing, more about that soon)
- Any of the above, in any combination
What are the qualities of my Secret Window Time wish?
The qualities of:
Playfulness. Spaciousness. Desire. Delight. Grounding. Exploration. Joy. Humming.
How am I going to play with this?
Well, calling it Secret Window Time already feels much more expansive and lighthearted.
It makes me think of the bat cave.
I would like to have an image that goes with this, and of course it will be a tesseract. I kind of wish I had something like a Secret Window Time cape.
But some kind of costume for sure, possibly a necklace.
Because everything is a costume.
Anything else?
This is perfect for a spy. A spy would absolutely have Secret Window Time. Operation Tesseract! There will be secret agent code.
And flowers. Flowers and dancing. These are the two things that make everything better (for me), so if it isn’t fun, there aren’t enough flowers or dancing, clearly.
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 4th Closet: mini-announcement.
- Up the Bork
- 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.
- Happy BeeNBeeNBee.
- 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 might work on D is for Dance. There’s still Operation G Presto and the Book of Salves (not a fake band, though it sounds like it).
I will have to see how I feel at Rally (Rally!)
I’m playing with…
Asking questions. Being patient.
Requests and announcements!
This year’s 26 Rallies are almost completely full, with just eight Rallies have openings, though they won’t for long. Take a look at the new page…
I would also like support for our magical Red Rose Ballroom — likes on Facebook is great, as is spreading the word to anyone you know who might want to have an event, program, party, anything at all in Portland…
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka Operation Delete 8…
I wanted to delete things, and I did.
There is still much more to delete, but it was a useful experiment that I hope to continue.
Sometimes deleting was liberating and sometimes it was full of stuff. Sometimes instead of deleting, I found I needed to consolidate things into museums (The Museum Of The Thing I Used To Teach) and put them aside for later, and that was okay.
And past-me was a genius, and I was able to see that. So I’m glad I asked.
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 #277: remembering and then remembering again
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
What worked?
Remembering that nothing is wrong.
The bus left without me and Nothing Is Wrong. Apparently it wasn’t my bus.
I mean, it is quite clearly not my bus, because if it had been my bus, I would be on it.
I canceled my appointment and went to the cafe to write.
And then I couldn’t write, but Nothing Was Wrong. And it worked out perfectly.
I have been working with Not My Bus — both as a concept and a practice — in a pretty steady way for about a year now, but it finally feels like it’s landing. It is slowly becoming my automatic response, and I’m able to think it with a smile instead of a groan. This felt big.
Museums.
This week involved a lot of deleting and letting go of things, in various forms.
There were things I wasn’t ready to let go of but also really did not want to look at, because they are full of pain or perceived iguanas. And I also suspect that one day the pain will be over, and I will want to look at them.
So I created museums in the form of folders on my computer and boxes in my basement.
The Museum of The Thing I Used To Teach.
The Museum of The Retreat I Used To Lead.
The Museum of Juanito.
Next time I might…
Keep remembering that nothing is wrong.
Because I forget, over and over again.
And then I notice this pattern-habit of my mind, making assumptions about [Wrong] and [Not Good Enough], when I have no evidence to show this new state of affairs is either of those.
Related: something a dance teacher said this week.
Applicable to everything, so substitute life for “dance”….
There are lots of signals your lead (dance partner) can give you while you’re dancing. But all signals mean the same thing, so really there is only one signal. And the signal says: “Something is about to be different.”
It doesn’t tell you what you should do. It tells you to pay attention so you can feel what is happening, and then you will know what to do and you will already be doing it.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Feeling many [Feelings!] about a number chocolaterie-related situations. Including some chocolate shop patrons smoking pot and wandering around naked. And not just that: in the public hallway that we share with the rest of the building. I really wish that were part of some complicated metaphor, but no, that actually happened. And the fromagerie next door is still leaving their crap in our entryway. A breath for intense frustration, and for legitimacy.
- I made a list of all the things that happened this week, and then lost it. A breath for letting go of what was.
- For the first time since going silent, I ran into some challenges. A breath for being patient, and for letting go.
- Another friendship on the rocks. Sometimes it seems like the more I work on my stuff, the faster the relationships in my life change, and sometimes they change by breaking down. A breath for the pain of this, and for the necessity of it.
- Same as last week: Filters of perception that make now look like then when in fact now is not then. A breath for comfort.
- Worried about the emotional health of someone I love. A breath for trusting in well-being.
- The time gremlins (aka the There Is No Time gremlins) were working overtime this week. Feeling pretty down about all the things that I don’t get to do. A breath for safety and for trust.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- It took my zero time to get ready this week. This never happens. I’d wake up, and get ready in seven minutes and be out the door. A breath for a crazy new superpower that allowed for a lot of freedom and spaciousness.
- I let myself wear the things I never wear. It felt fantastic. A breath of play and Eccentric Glamour.
- Clues everywhere. Also the fact that three different people referenced Simon Doonan means I should probably read Eccentric Glamour. A breath for seeing next indicated steps.
- An amazing conversation with Alon that helped me feel better about everything. A breath for legitimacy and support.
- Agent White invited me and Agents Em Dee and Mueller for a beautiful dinner at his Agency. A breath for joy, friendship, pleasure, ease.
- SO MUCH DANCING this week! Five hours Sunday, four hours on Monday and another four hours on Wednesday. Little practices in between. A breath for play and pleasure.
- I went to an Israeli dancing workshop, something I haven’t done in twenty years, and it felt sweet and familiar. A breath for surprises and for thoroughly enjoying myself.
- I did lots of brave things this week, and am filled with thankfulness for all the beautiful ways that I surprised myself. A breath for seeing how much good is in my life, and a breath for realizing that I do know how to be confident and fearless, two things my monsters are generally convinced I will never experience.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
So many things done this week! The biggest op was called Four Closets and a Castle.
But it was actually Six Closets and Two Castles. Only one of the closets was an actual closet.
I kicked ass on this mission. There was a lot of stuck, and a lot of breaks for processing, and we got there.
WHAM! BOOM!
Superpowers!
A superpower I had this week…
The superpower of being confident and fearless.
Or really: the superpower of realizing that I actually am being confident and fearless in situations where I think that I am not.
And a superpower I want next week.
The same one I asked for the last two weeks: the twin superpowers of graciously letting go and graciously receiving.
Salve.
The salve of Strut.
When I put on this salve, I feel like strutting down the street in four inch heels. Suddenly my messy hair is glamourously messy. There is something about this salve that brings out a hidden wild confidence that you didn’t know what there.
You can’t help but having mini-adventures and warm shared smiles, because you just feel deliciously more alive.
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 comes by way of Jon:
Catastrophic Scheduling Failure
It’s melancholy folk, with a lot of harmonica. And also it is just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. ANNOUNCEMENT.
If you know people in Portland (the west coast one) or someone who might want to run an event here, and you can help spread the word about our Red Rose Ballroom or help do that on facebook, that would be hugely appreciated!
Come play if you like…
Join me in the comments. Some of us share hard and good, some of us check in with a hi or a ♡, 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 #227: Operation Delete 8
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
At the very least, we get to learn useful things about our relationship with wanting. It all counts.
♡
What is Operation Delete 8?
The goal is: create clarity and spaciousness by deleting eight things.
- 8 things in the downloads folder that I don’t want (like some menu from a restaurant because for some reason they had to have a pdf instead of a link).
- 8 draft that are never going to be sent or published or whatever.
- 8 documents in a folder.
Or any combination of these that adds up to 8.
This is because I am not actually going to carve out a day to delete the seventeen million monsternumber things or possibly seventeen billion monsternumber things that need to be deleted.
Even though I imagine that one day I will just magically be in the mood to do this. And I might. But let’s stop waiting for that day to show up.
Let’s create some spaciousness, and maybe it will show up.
Or maybe it won’t, but either way stuff is being deleted.
Sometimes when I’m working, I’m a bit like that stereotypical writer at the typewriter who types a line, wads up the paper and tosses it on the floor. Until the floor is littered with crumpled up first tries and second tries.
And then I never throw them away. And then the room is knee deep in paper. Not just in paper but reminders of That Thing You Tried Didn’t Work. You can’t see them because they’re all files on my computer, but I can feel them.
And they start to feel like iguanas. Like a mess of iguanas, which is actually a giant scary pile of iguanas and doom.
And then I avoid the writing room, or I feel uncomfortable while I’m there.
But I’m not actually going to spend a day putting all the papers in the recycling bin, because I have things to do.
So I am going to throw eight of them in the recycling bin, each time I pass the room. Or each time I remember.
This is Operation Delete 8.
What else do I know about this?
This mission is also a stand-in for other things that I’m working on. That is: working on them by not working on them. Like Operation Secret Maybe Mitten Visit.
And! This practice feels very light and freeing to me. It reminds me of the practice of Just One Thing or the related Ten Things Gone.
I know that probably I will delete more than eight. I actually just deleted sixteen blog post drafts from 2009. I’m probably not going to write those, they can stop being reminders of Things Not Done.
What are the qualities of Operation Delete 8?
The qualities have to do with freedom and spaciousness. And ease.
And now I just giggled, because look at the qualities I planted in last week’s compass of qualities, for my gym bag search:
Ease. Spaciousness. Freedom. Options. Play. Pleasure. Delight. Glowing.
Yes. Those are also the qualities I want for Operation Delete 8.
Del8. Delight-Del-eight.
Anyway. What I want is what I want, apparently, regardless of whether I’m focusing on a gym bag or on my writing.
How am I going to play with this?
It feels very important that this remain lighthearted and playful.
As soon as it becomes a “Do X Every Day”, I am going to lose interest, because that is not my kind of thing.
I would like it to feel a little like a game and a little like a ritual. A breath of spaciousness. Whoosh! Clearing out!
Maybe as a break, or as part of a break, or the thing I do whenever I get stuck. God, if I do it every time I get stuck, I will have deleted an actual seventeen billion monsternumber of things because I get stuck all the time. Excellent. Now I can be secretly excited about being stuck, because: deleting.
Also I would like to remember that sometimes the deleting itself will be loaded with Stuff. Identity stuff, desire stuff, I-wish-things-hadn’t-been-like-this stuff. Sometimes it will feel heavy instead of light. This is part of clearing things out.
So I would like to remember to drink lots of water to flush things out, and to do lots of walking/dancing/bouncing to disperse whatever gets stirred up. That’s just me. Someone else might need to do different things of course.
Anything else I know about this?
I can let this be easy.
And if it doesn’t feel playful, I need to make it more playful.
Also I can be a spy and make up secret agent code, and pretend that I am REDACTING things or deleting documents to save the mission!
What might help with this?
Oooh, maybe I have a costume for this.
I can interview the me who loves deleting things. Interview slightly future me aka incoming me aka slightly wiser me, and finding out what good things happen as a result of me deleting all the things.
Flowers. Flowers always help. And dancing.
What I want.
Some of these are secret agent code or silent retreat. Some are qualities and some are dreams. Some are re-asks and some are pre-wishes: tiny seeds for future processing.
- Progress on the ops!
- 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.
- Happy BeeNBeeNBee.
This week’s ops?
Aside from Delete 8, it might be Operation G Presto and it might be about the Book of Salves. It is definitely still about borders/boundaries, and about dancing.
I’m playing with…
Dance. Bath. Tea. Compass. Asking questions. Skipping stones. Taking care of myself.
Requests and announcements!
This year’s 26 Rallies are mostly full, but there are eight Rallies that have openings. Take a look at the new page…
I would also like support for our magical Red Rose Ballroom — likes on Facebook is great, as is spreading the word to anyone you know who might want to have an event, program, party, anything at all in Portland…
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week, aka I want to write…
My quest for a gym bag was indeed actually about IDENTITY, as predicted.
I found a number of possible bags, but nothing that had all the qualities I wanted. So I think what I need to do is either get a genius pack backpack and cover up the unappealing-to-me logo with a patch, or get a sexy bag that feels like Bond Girl, and just carry my dancing shoes in a separate bag that I carry on my other shoulder to balance things out as I go from bus stop to bus stop.
It was a very interesting and useful quest, and I am enjoying all the things I am learning.
Also I said I would work on the Life of a Chocolatier, and I finished it! The 122-page ebook was finished, formatted and twice-edited. It went out yesterday to the people in my Year of Emptying and Replenishing program, and I am really happy with it. Yay.
Thank you, writing. Thank you, me who asked.
Playing. Shelter for the comments.
What’s welcome: Your own wishes, gwishes, visions and personal ads, small or large. Updates on past ones if you like. Things sparked for your own process.
I’m receptive to warm wishes for the things I’m working on and playing with.
We ask for what we need, and we give each other space and spaciousness for the process.
This is a place of safety for creative play and exploration, with a very non-dogmatic approach. We don’t tell each other how to ask for things and we don’t give unsolicited advice. We play.
That’s it. Let’s throw a bunch of things in the pot!
As always, amnesty applies. Leave a wish here any time you want.
xox
Friday Chicken #276: not really about lip gloss
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday}
What worked?
The word CONVICTION.
Not in a religious sense.
Just the feeling of deeply knowing. And also the word itself was a clue for me.
Letting Incoming Me call the shots.
I let Honey the Bounty Hunter (long story!) be at the front of the V. She chose my clothes. She told me what to do. She figured out what I needed when I was feeling hurt and upset.
And she had me drink a lot of tea. I’m not sure why. Pretty much any time I asked her what needed to happen, she told me to drink my tea.
Drinking tea.
Ginger. Egyptian licorice. Tulsi rose.
It was warming, comforting, replenishing and refreshing. She was right. It helped.
Shabbat with friends.
And singing.
Next time I might…
Take a day off.
And remember that closet-clearing is identity-shifting, and it stirs up all the dust.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Another infuriating situation with the chocolaterie. So many upset and hurt feelings about this. A breath for big emotion, and for legitimacy.
- The owner of the building promised that [thing X] would never happen, and that [thing Y] would not happen again. Not only did both X and Y happen, but we were not informed or warned about it. A breath for feeling extremely Alabama Crimson.
- I am learning so many things right now, and it is hurting my head. A breath for being at the beginning.
- A straw is such a light thing. That’s why we keep putting them on camels. A breath for everyone I know being overloaded, a breath for recognition and ease.
- Filters of perception that make now look like then when in fact now is not then. A breath for comfort.
- So. Much. To. Do. A breath for trust.
- Change is/can be scary. A breath for being in the middle of it.
- Inhale, exhale. Goodbye, mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- I thoroughly reorganized my closet. A breath for new openings.
- Clues everywhere. A breath for discovery and excitement. I’m on the trail!
- Lovely things in the mail. A postcard from my mother. A letter from TJ. A breath for sweetness.
- Incoming me picked out all my clothes this week, and I allowed myself to really enjoy getting dressed. A breath for being okay with being seen.
- If dance is a language, I am now at the point in west coast swing where I understand when someone gives me directions. I may not be an especially interesting conversationalist yet and I can only talk about a very limited number of topics, but I am having conversations. A breath for the magic of learning.
- My fellow agent and I got an accidental private dance lesson again. A breath for gifts.
- Marisa and I had a writing day together, and I resolved a big stuck and finished the latest book! A breath for companionship.
- I am filled with appreciation for so many things, many of which are absolutely astonishing. A breath for seeing how much good is in my life, even when things are hard.
WHAM BOOM! Operations completed.
This week was all about very large ops and very small ops.
Sometimes the very small ones ended up being not very small at all, or they did not feel small, or they were important in their smallness.
For example, Operation How About You Put Some Clothes On You’ll Feel Much Better was a marked success, but it took three hours to get there. And that’s okay. All timing is right timing.
What else? Oh right, I finished another one of the Y.E.A.R. books! Wham boom.
The ongoing mission of Pause Every 5 Minutes And Sip Your Tea-
Operation Emerge. Operation: Life of a Chocolatier Part XUndercover: It’s In The BathOperation Salve/Salve IIOperation Danceful x2
WHAM! BOOM!
Superpowers!
A superpower I had this week…
The superpower of being brave.
And the superpower of clues showing up exactly when I needed them!
When I was at the Playground, I pulled a stone skipping card that said “take 5 steps backwards”, so I did, literally. And suddenly right in front of me was the biggest clue ever.
Then on Wednesday when I was having the hardest day, bam! Two clues out of the blue.
And a superpower I want next week.
The same one I asked for last week: the twin superpowers of graciously letting go and graciously receiving.
Salve.
The salve of I Have What I need.
I don’t really know how to explain this salve other than in very indirect ways. Which maybe makes sense because this is a particularly indirect salve.
I will tell a story to give an example of the feeling of this salve:
Last week I bought a lip gloss, and as soon as I opened it I realized it was not the color for me. I put it down on the table at Rally, and then an hour later Elizabeth said, “I have to go out and meet someone and I am urgently wishing I had lip gloss.”
And lo, there it was, this brand new lip gloss that I did not want! She was so delighted to have it, and I was so delighted to give it to her, and the whole thing was so simple and easy. But then I thought, petulantly, why does this not happen for me? Where is my magically-appearing lip color?
I walked to the post office to pick up a package I’d ordered, and for some inexplicable reason, the company had included a lipstick from some company they were promoting. Even though the package contained a windbreaker. And this lipstick was the exact-right color for a Havi, and now I have the thing I needed.
This feeling of “oh, hey, I have what I need and it is so simple” is the feeling that you get when you rub this salve into your skin.
Obviously life causes us to deal with bigger and much more urgent needs than what I am describing, but the feeling of “oh, I am okay” and “somehow this worked out in a way I couldn’t have expected” is the same. Suddenly everything is a little easier, a little more hopeful. It is a salve of Comfort, Hope and Possibility.
If you are not a salve person (today or in general), you can have this in tea form or in pill form or as a shower or whatever works for you. Not only is there enough salve, there are also enough ways to receive it.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band comes by way of Anna:
Staffed By Elves
It’s like a trance version of Riverdance. Though, somehow, it is actually just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. ANNOUNCEMENT.
You guys you guys you guys!
I have some things that are on the verge of being announcement-ready, but nothing for today. Soon-soon!
AND. If you know people in Portland and you can help spread the word about our Red Rose Ballroom or help do that on facebook, that would be hugely appreciated!
Come play if you like…
Join me in the comments. Some of us share hard and good, some of us check in with a hi or a ♡, 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.
What is more astonishing?
I keep looking at the unfinished question.
It is half a question. Or a whole question, half-asked. Like a croissant with a bite out of it, just sitting on a plate.
Or maybe it is the finished question. Finished as in: ready. Ready for me. Maybe it’s all I need to ask:
What is more astonishing?
Yes, Havi. What is more astonishing?
I found this question one morning, scribbled on a post-it next to my bed, and laughed for a very long minute.
It’s like a Richard Brautigan poem, from that very specific category of “Things a regret-filled alcoholic writes down, finds later, is intrigued by, recognizes as poetry”.
Of course, the original question I intended to write and didn’t finish might easily have been more along the lines of: “What’s more astonishing, that Chris Pratt has an entirely new body or that the Tile app is a thing that exists, or will?”
But I don’t know. I don’t have an X or a Y to compare. All I have is the question, and I love it.
So I’m going to ask it. I will let it reverberate, like a stone skipping across the water.
What is more astonishing?
That I spent ten years devoting my life to bringing a very particular dance into the world but didn’t think of myself as a dancer. A dance instructor maybe, but not a dancer.
And now I don’t teach that dance anymore. (Well, except secretly at Rally, but that isn’t actually teaching so much as playing).
But you know what? I am more of a dancer than I ever was before. I am at home in dance.
I am at home in dance again. In the sense that I have returned to being a dancer. I have returned to my gazelle roots.
What is more astonishing?
That I am a dancer who suddenly has a ballroom. With the best dance floor in town.
I have a ballroom. I have a BALLROOM. I have a Ballroom.
What is more astonishing?
That oh, maybe six or seven years ago, in Berlin, I was slowly climbing the stairs to an old dusty ballroom. Trembling, because I knew this was the most thrilling and important moment of my life even though I didn’t know why.
I walked in, felt its pull, looked up at the chandeliers entwined in masses of cobwebs, and burst into tears.
It was the strongest emotion I have ever felt in my entire life.
I stood on the low stage, filled with awe, and whispered: I have danced here. I have danced here.
It wasn’t true because I had never been there, but it was true, because I remembered it.
The next day I went back and the ballroom was being renovated. Cleaned up and modernized. No more cobwebs. I had been with it on its last day as what it had been. What it had been when I had danced there in my memories and dreams.
I had arrived just in time for the goodbye. And now I have a ballroom of my own.
What is more astonishing?
That I was not thinking about any of this when I suddenly acquired a ballroom. In fact, I tried to make my ballroom into a [magical bookshop, let’s say] instead of letting it be a ballroom.
That is astonishing too.
What is more astonishing?
That my ballroom is the Red Rose.
I always thought I didn’t like roses, but then I moved to the Rose City almost six years ago, and then one thing happened and then another thing, and now I am mad about roses.
A song just came on in the cafe I am in and it is a song about roses. It was a sweet moment.
What is more astonishing?
That I don’t want to wear black and grey anymore.
What is more astonishing?
That I ended a relationship and doing this was the scariest thing I have ever done, because who am I without this and how can I be happy without this.
And nothing is wrong.
I still have this person, I still have this love, I still have all the things I need. Just in a new configuration. Everything reconfigures. And I am okay.
And if I had lost this person, I would still be okay. That is astonishing.
What is more astonishing?
That I am looking forward to being 37. A smoking hot 37. This number suddenly appeals to me greatly.
What is more astonishing?
That I suddenly have two mathematicians in my life. Me, who barely has fourth grade math skills.
What is more astonishing?
That I am admitting to myself that I care deeply about things that I have always cared about but pretended not to.
Dancing, for one thing. Clothing and costumes. Adoration. Thankfulness. Flowers.
What is more astonishing?
That I am suddenly ready to care less about other things.
Even more astonishing: I think I’m finally ready to let go of the need to care what everyone else might be thinking about the other things. Or about me…
Because caring what they think and worrying about what they are possibly thinking falls under the category of Not My Job.
I’m quitting that job. I keep agreeing to come back, but I’m quitting.
It’s hard when you were raised in a culture that thinks this is a very important job and also that it should be your job.
It is astonishing that we put up with that.
What is more astonishing?
That suddenly I want to be seen.
In all kinds of different ways.
What is more astonishing?
Actually, it is even more astonishing than that, because not only do I have this sudden unlikely desire to be seen, I also want to be more invisible than I have ever wanted before.
It’s almost as if the ways I want to be seen and invisible are not just different than they used to be, but reversed.
I used to want to be seen in my business, seen as a teacher, seen as a leading expert of the [Tree of Life] practice. A being seen that was about authoritative presence.
But to be invisible in my personal life: anonymous, free to slip by without being noticed. An invisibility that was about safety and comfort.
Now I want my Ballroom to be seen by people who need it, and the techniques and concepts that I play with to be seen by people who need them. But I don’t want to be at the front of the room anymore. In fact, I don’t want to even be in a world where there’s anyone at the front of the room.
I want us to play, together, as equals. Not with me as the leader. Without being projected onto, without being cast in the role of the person who knows stuff. We all know stuff.
But in my personal life? I want to wear tight gold pants. I want to shine. I want to dance all night and to carry my beautiful, quiet, steadily humming glow with me everywhere I go.
Yes, this is astonishing.
What is more astonishing?
That I have been silent for nearly a year now, and this has been one of the most creative periods I have ever experienced.
That the quieter I get, the more my heart overflows with sweetness.
That I have an imaginary chocolate shop, which is also filled with sweetness.
That I had to get this quiet to let other things get louder.
What is more astonishing?
That my whole life is full of absolutely astonishing things, and I am apparently oblivious to this, blithely walking through my astonishing life and not even noticing.
What is more astonishing?
That pretty much everything in my life fell apart over the last two years, and I am actually suddenly, much to my surprise, kind of okay with all that. Kind of happy about it, even.
Or let’s say that differently:
I am discovering an astonishingly thankful heart. Along with the me who trusts that all timing is right timing.
I am uncovering appreciation for the way I lost the things I lost, and appreciation for the parts that are not lost at all. I am looking at the broken pots, and loving them, deeply. Roses for the broken pots. Roses for the new containers. Roses for all of it.
Play with me?
You can ask this (astonishing) question yourself if you like, and discover what is more astonishing.
You can share sparks sparked for you. You can leave love and flowers.
Commenting culture: we are on permanent vacation from caretaking and advice-giving. We let people have their own experience, and we are kind, both to ourselves and each other.
Love, as always, to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads. The fact that you are all here to keep me company counts as another astonishing thing that I appreciate greatly.
postscript.
This post is an (edited) excerpt from one of my Year Books for my Year of Emptying And Replenishing, where I model process/techniques in a more intimate way than on the blog. Currently deciding if these should be made available for purchase on their own, or just with next year’s program, which has not been named yet. Let me know if you have an inclination.