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 #227: The Mysterious Order of Red Flashlights.
Where I cover the good and the hard in my week, visiting the non-preachy side of ritual and self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
I am pleased to report that this week a wide variety of perfect simple solutions showed up when they were needed.
This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that I am finding the funny again.
Also this week I said the following thing and it one hundred percent made sense:
I am off to rendezvous with a representative of the Magical Badger Brigade. He’s part of the Order of the Red Flashlight! It’s all very exciting and hush-hush. By jove, if that’s not the real hanky panky! That’s how you do it in the Bengal Lancers!
What worked?
Taking it to the cafe.
This was the right thing to do, over and over again.
Listening to the Havis.
The collective of internal Havis were not happy (Havi Bell needs an Emergency Vacation! Impending mutiny if she doesn’t get one!), and I forgot to listen but then I listened.
It took a while to really get what they wanted. Once I got it, everything changed. I also had a long listen with Havi-who-was-hurt-and-angry, and recognized just how much protecting of me she has done. That was useful.
Talking it out.
Over and over again, this proved to be the most helpful thing.
Next time I might…
Replenish first, even when that is scary.
The collective of internal Havis is very, very displeased that we worked on the weekend. And on Fake Beach Day.
So we’re going back to truth: empty first. Replenish first.
Ask for company.
It couldn’t hurt.
Start the day in my conducting vault.
That’s what it’s there for…
The hard.
- Oh, the people. Not you! Other people. With the making of assumptions and jumping to conclusions. It’s exhausting.
- Still with the drama. The unnecessary drama.
- Nightmares. PTSD nightmares. Lots of them.
- Not sleeping well because of the nightmares.
- Surprise business emergency! Unexpected challenge meant unexpected reconfiguring that changed plans and timelines. Which I think is going to be fine? Maybe? But oh man did this throw me for a loop. Loops. Thrown.
- Not doing the things that help.
- Knocked out by a virus in the middle of the week.
- Not knowing how to solve a problem.
- Running into walls in the internal video game.
- Doubt.
- Deadlines.
- Fallout from not doing the things that help.
- Issues around food — stuff I thought I’d resolved years ago — showing up again unexpectedly.
- Second-guessing everything.
- There was way too much stuff in my head and I got panicky and didn’t want to brain-dump even though I knew it would help.
- All the monsters. All monsters all the time. Monsters having a field day. An actual field day, doing long jumps and eating red popsicles and falling down in mud puddles. We had to have about a million negotiations this week.
- Forgetting to pause (paws!).
- I made a choice (because of the Unexpected Challenge) to work through the weekend and beach day and puttering day. It was the right choice. And it sucked.
- Needing to explain something and not having the words. Or any words. Feeling helpless about that.
The good.
- Spending all weekend with my playmate. Cats and bells.
- Sunday afternoon with Danielle. Slow sweet yoga. Companionship.
- On Monday I woke up and for the first time since this whole awful mess started however many months ago, I laughed about it. It still sucks and it still hurts but it was also somehow cosmically funny.
- On Tuesday I laughed some more.
- And by Wednesday I was able — for the first time in months — to respond to the question “how are you” with something more positive than the awkward “ohhhh, hanging in there” or the truth: “actually, everything is really really really hard right now.” On Wednesday, I felt fantastic. This is new and exciting.
- Sitting in cafes and watching the rain and writing writing writing writing.
- I know exactly what I want to do next year.
- And I was able to write about it.
- Oh man. All the points for metaphor mouse, who helped me figure out that what I really need instead of [the dreaded brain dump] is a Magical Badger of the Brigade of Magical Badgers, Order of the Red Flashlights to guide me through the forest to the tree where there is one door with one next step.
- Learning a lot about how I work and what I need. Making adjustments.
- The Floop! So much love and support there. I don’t know what I would do without it.
- Monster-negotiating was brilliant. They are now super excited about their field day, and using their field day games to generate fun, which in turn will help me get back to peacefulness.
- Watching British television and hearing someone pronounce lasagna as follows: La-ZANN-ya. I feel exquisite delight about this.
- Drinks and girl-talk with Dana.
- Pirate booty and storytelling with @vicarpac. And the Second Saddest Raccoon.
- Alon pointed out that two of my Unsolveable Problems do not actually need solving. This turned out to be true.
- I am a madcap masterpiecer! Of the masterpieces!
- I brunched the Year of Emptying & Replenishing! This has been my heart-love and tiny sweet thing, and now I get to tell people about it.
- Turning the Unexpected Challenge into an Unexpected Sale felt like a loving thing to do, not an uncomfortable compromise. I’m actually weirdly glad it worked out this way.
- Comfort.
- Speaking of comfort. This little guy. What a schmoo!
Superpowers!
A superpower I had this week…
The superpower of Actually This Is Kind Of Funny.
And the superpower of I Truly Believe This Is Going To Work Even Though I Can’t See How Yet.
And a superpower I want next week.
The superpower of This IS Right Timing Because It Just Is.
And also the superpower of choosing ease. Even if things aren’t easy and I can’t find a way to make them easier. Choosing it as a state of being. This also has to do with the power of peacefulness.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
Background. Ez and I make up bands. Stu (retired Bolshevik-fearing voice-to-text software) once invented hanging out at the Meme Beach House“. It’s just one guy.
This week’s band is:
Cosmically Hilarious
They’re just that funny.
Though, of course, as it turns out, to no one’s surprise but mine, apparently it’s just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
You guys! The YEAR OF EMPTYING & REPLENISHING! And a semi-secret sale.
Explanation. I’m running only one program in 2013. I’ve never felt so over-the-top passionately intently devoted to something before. It feels vital and immediate: this is the thing that’s needed.
The plan was: announce it next month. Prices all lined up (reduced at first, full-price in January). But then the Unexpected Challenge happened and I decided to temporarily drop the sale prices *lower*. By a lot. Through Wed (Dec 7).
Also: Anyone who gets a sailing ticket by tomorrow night, Dec 1st, gets a prize — a lovely prize that a monkey wearing a pig-hat pulls from an imaginary barrel.
The page –> https://fluentself.com//replenish
The PASSWORD –> compass
And if you’re not into it or this isn’t the right time, there is some interesting “what Havi is thinking about” food for thought on the page, as well as some soothing peacefulness. Take whatever works and the rest will work out when it works out. <3
That’s it for me …
Join my Friday ritual in the comments if you feel like it. Or call silent retreat!
We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. And we don’t give advice (unless people specifically ask for it).
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
Shabbat shalom.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.
The Treasure Box of Tiny Stones.
At the Playground, where I work play, there is a very small treasure box.
Whenever you remember something that hurts, you drop a tiny stone from the bowl of tiny stones into the treasure box.
If it hurts a lot, you can drop more stones. All the stones! It’s okay.
Each stone makes a sound halfway between a tiny plop and a tiny thunk. A tiny plop-thunk. It is the best.
When the treasure box is full of stones, you empty the stones back into their bowl, and you begin again.
Here is what the box is good for.
Recognition.
Guess what? Things from then can still be painful, even if they are over.
They can still get to be painful.
Plop-thunk.
Legitimacy.
It is okay that this thing still hurts.
Or that I have uncovered a new hurt.
It’s okay that I am feeling whatever it is that I’m feeling, even if I’m not sure why this is coming up right now.
Actually, sometimes why isn’t even the right question.
This is what I’m feeling. Plop-thunk.
This is what is true for me in this moment. Legitimate.Plop-thunk.
There is nothing wrong with me for feeling this. Plop-thunk.
Comfort.
There is the having-something-to-do part, which is comforting. Plop-thunk.
The ritualized aspect, which is (for me) also comforting.
There is a symbolic but very physical repository for pain, which is comforting.
The stones are there for you whenever you need them, which is comforting.
And you are also comforting yourself through giving legitimacy to the feelings and marking the moment of being in them.
Interruptions.
Plop-thunk is the sound of patterns being interrupted.
Telling the story of a break-up, for example, is very different when you do it while sitting by the treasure box of stones.
You tell the story differently.
It’s almost like you get to tell the story without going into the story.
You have to be paying attention because you’re dropping stones as you talk. So it’s not the same old story. It’s a new one.
This version of the story comes with awareness and is accompanied by acknowledgment. Rewritten through the addition of sweet pauses. All the old patterns getting interrupted with love.
Because tiny stones are the most compassionate interruption there is. Plop-thunk-plop-thunk-plop-thunk..
Flow.
Sometimes this thing happens where we tell stories about old pain, and then the telling just serves to reinforce something. We go into wheel-grinding. Each retelling makes the narrative that much more rigid, deepening the pain-grooves and the perception of being wronged.
But! When you tell your story while dropping stones into a treasure box (plop-thunk!), everything begins to move again.
New insights reveal themselves. Something that used to be about disillusion can suddenly turn out to be about discovery. Or freedom.
Stories (like anything else) are made new when you get to interact with them in a new way. Yay, unexpected opportunities for movement. Plop-thunk.
Presence.
Oh. Hello, pain. This is me and this is my pain and this is my stuff and this is me reminding myself that I am noticing all of this.
And every time I notice, I’m stepping out of the pain-experience and into a new state: the loving-observer-of-me-going-through-the-pain-experience.
I am being with the pain and with the me-who-is-in-pain. But I am not the pain itself. This leads to the (advanced practice! super hard! but really great!) superpower of compassionate detachment. And to love and permission. To all the good things, really.
And I can do this even while I’m in the hard. Even when I’m not liking being in the hard. Just by dropping a stone into a box.
Each plop-thunk of stone-into-box is helping me be the tiniest bit more conscious. Plop-thunk. Plop-thunk..
Reminders.
I am here, now.
Now is not then.
I have different tools and different skills that weren’t available to me the last time I felt this way.
There are always more stones.
Commenting blanket fort. Come play, if you like.
Seriously. There are always more stones.
If you would like (plop-thunk!) to drop a stone or several stones or ALL THE STONES here, you are welcome to.
In a way, it’s a bit like bringing things to the fountain. Or throwing things into the pot. And it also works really well as a subset of silent retreat.
So if you would like to play, I would love to have company. Drop in stones with me. Or say plop-thunk with me. Or leave something that got sparked for you.
The usual reminders: We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process. We make this a safe and welcoming space by not putting our stuff onto other people. We take care of ourselves while not trying to take care of anyone else.
Visions #177: Safe passages for everyone.
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
Each week I write these Visions of Possibility and Anticipation to practice asking for what I want. And to get clarity on what that really is, even when asking feels conflicted.
I always get useful information about my relationship with various aspects of the ask. Join in if you like!
Thing 1: No more drama, please.
Here’s what I want:
Well, what I would really like is for all the myriad tempests-in-teapots to calm down.
What does that mean for me? I guess I am asking for peacefulness and sweetness and perspective. Also that magical thing of how time-heals-all-wounds.
And since I can only work on the part that is mine, I would like to undo whatever relationship I have with drama.
I want to release any need I have in any part of my life to have things be fraught or tempestuous. I want to commit to living my life in an environment where the people around me automatically, as a matter of course, turn inward and work on their stuff when there is stuff.
Enough with the stirring up. We choose quiet sitting instead.
That is what I want. To be in this world where steadiness and peacefulness are important to everyone involved. To commit to this.
It doesn’t mean that stuff doesn’t go haywire, because such is life. It means that the people in my world are, like me, committed to getting quiet, turning inward and breathing, also in times of wah-it-is-all-haywire.
The qualities inside of the want:
Peacefulness. Spaciousness. Love. Presence. Patience. Sovereignty. Autonomy. Compassion.
Ways this might work:
Turning inward. Changing internal space through changing external space. Being curious, gentle and loving. Sitting shiva. Mourning and grieving. Rewriting the patterns.
I’m also open to some miraculous dissolving-of-drama all around.
I’m playing with…
Living by this.
Taking time for writing and processing. Taking it to the red rug, to the floor, to the ground. Reclining. Breathing. Dissolving and radiating.
Thing 2: Vibrant fiery orange.
Here’s what I want:
This is a wish about vitality and aliveness. And also about company, because there is a painful situation I wish I could talk about and I am not at liberty to discuss it.
I want [vibrant fiery orange], which is a stand-in for all of this. Vitality. Enthusiasm. For these qualities to show up inside of loving, private spaces where I can also talk things out. Ease-filled resolution.
The qualities inside of the want:
Vitality. Aliveness. Community. Comfort. Sustenance. Sweetness. Power. Presence. Appreciation. Warmth. Vibrancy. Courage. Strength. Companionship. Togetherness.
Ways this might work:
Actually, there are safe places where I can talk this out. That is important.
I can talk about it with Richard, Marisa and Danielle.
I can text with my former partner-in-crime.
Maybe it can become part of storytelling hour.
I can talk about it on the Floop if I stay inside of the metaphor.
Maybe I will call Svevo.
I’m playing with…
Finding this color of orange everywhere, and knowing that it is my ally. Being at the Playground which is full of orange, and also full of safety.
Remembering that I can also always talk with slightly future me. I am my own source of companionship and comfort.
Thing 3: The whisper brunch for the Year of Emptying & Replenishing.
Here’s what I want:
I am ready to whisper-tell people about the one-and-only thing that I am offering in 2013.
I want to quietly let this come out into the world with love.
The qualities inside of the want:
Rejoicing. Safety. Protection. Provision. Delight. Sparkliness. Radiance. Humming. Belonging. Welcoming. Sweetness. Courage. Presence. Permission. Ease.
Ways this might work:
I will tell everyone who owns the Gwish Kit because they get the lower prices and the best deal and the first look. I will whisper to the list of whispers.
I will dance and bounce and write it love letters and sing it little songs.
I’m playing with…
Delight. Knowing and remembering that I am being one hundred percent true to myself and to the mission of this ship. Crossing the crossings, opening the doors, stepping through.
Making this fun, for me and for everyone. Because even though yes, it’s a new voyage, it is a marvelous adventure under a sky full of glowing stars. Yes.
Noticings about the things I want this week…
I am really really really into sweetness. Sweetness and comfort, autonomy and freedom. And all three of these asks are actually about safe passages. Who knew.
Bonus wishes, please!
Some of these are secret agent code and some of them are things I’m silent retreat-ing on. Some are qualities that will help. And some are almost pre-wishes: tiny seeds for future processing.
- More people hanging out on the Frolicsome Bar — that’s what I call our Facebook page. Liking and playing. I want to play! Yay.
- Sparkliness.
- Remembering the compass.
- Postponing things that need postponing.
- Perfect simple solutions everywhere.
- Making a decision about the weekend.
- Wonderful surprises.
- Making peace with things. Having this happen in a sweet and mild way. See? No drama.
I’m playing with…
Trust, trust and more trust. Trusting more . No. More than that. Still more. Doing the opposite of my initial panic instinct, which is to turtle up and never trust anyone again. Hello, trust. Let’s start again. And if I can’t always do this? That is okay too. Safety first, sweetheart.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I wanted my own personal Ducking Out from Thanksgiving, and I had Hermitsgiving:
Twas the afternoon of Hermitsgiving, and all through Hoppy House
Havi Bell was writing while being a cozy little mouse.
The scene: Fireplace. Rug. Cushions. Candles. Lamps. Mug of tea. Stuffed bear wearing a pig hat. Hot water bottle in lap! Also: Notebook.
So yeah, that was good. It was also really hard because of some PTSD stuff that showed up. But the plan itself was solid. I will make adjustments for next year.
Then I wanted all the closets to become not-closets, and it totally happened. Huge rearranging of the house!
I also wanted to write about a bunch of things and, amazingly, I was able to write about most of them.
And I wanted to make progress on the year of X and Y, and guess what? Very much huge progress yay.
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 #226: Hermitsgiving.
Where I cover the good and the hard in my week, visiting the non-preachy side of ritual and self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
Hey. So. Those of you who can read between the lines have probably figured out that this has been a rough year for me, with the past few months getting progressively more rough.
I can’t talk about it here, partly because I’m not at liberty to discuss most of it and partly for other reasons. So I apologize for being cryptic, and yes, things have been pretty hellish for me, and I am waiting for a lot of different situations to resolve themselves.
In the meantime, I am using — and living by — the stuff that we practice and play with here. And that’s what is helping me with this challenging experience. So thank you for playing with me and being here while I go through this.
What worked?
Canceling appointments.
I canceled everything this week and was a hermit!
This was good. I didn’t even know how much I would need this, just acting on a hunch. Past-me is a genius. Again.
Ritual.
Using the things that I taught at my Crossing the Line retreat. Over and over again.
Going to the cafe. Getting my pot of harmony. Sitting in the same chair.
This was steadying and grounding.
Bouncing it up.
I kept dancing. When in doubt, dance dance dance and then dance some more.
This is not the right thing for everyone, but it is very much the right thing for me.
Next time I might…
Change the setting. Have even more snacks stockpiled.
It is so very hard for me to be in any situation where I know that everything outside is closed. I go into deep scarcity stuff and I think that it is THEN, even as I remind myself that now is not then.
So even though past me (and loving friends) did a great job of stocking the house with good things for Hermitsgiving, I need More Of That.
And what I’m getting is that I really need to be somewhere else where I can’t think about the fact that I can’t go to the grocery store or walk to a cafe or something, because that turned out to be a much bigger trigger than I’d realized.
Like maybe spend the week at a beach house. Or on Rally.
Wear more costumes!
I am convinced that Hermitsgiving could have been improved with the addition of costumes.
Ask for help sooner.
My friends are amazing. I don’t like asking and sometimes I forget that I can. But I can.
The hard.
- Drama.
- Pointless unnecessary painful drama.
- Other people’s drama.
- Other people’s drama being loud and in my space.
- Other people needing their drama to be my drama.
- People not having the tools (or having but forgetting the tools) to turn inward and process their drama on their own.
- Not-fun phone call.
- Nightmares and waking up in the middle of the night.
- Trouble getting back to sleep.
- Doom. Doom. More doom. The doomitty doom of doom! Lots of monsters, and also some people in my life who sound a lot like my monsters.
- Sadness.
- Grief.
- Working through this ongoing personal crisis while all these other things were happening.
- I had hoped that this week would bring some ease after a massive challenge got resolved last week, and I’d apparently been really looking forward to that because all of this hard that came with this week was surprising to me.
- Too much computering.
- Rearranging the house and now my bedroom feels smaller, and I can’t decide if it is cozy and charming or if it is going to drive me crazy..
- A phone message that was full of hints of dread and doom.
- Thanksgiving. I really, really dislike Thanksgiving, for a variety of reasons that I won’t get into, but let’s just say: PTSD and panicking. Not good.
The good.
- Lots of sleep. Ten and a half hours on Friday night and again on Monday night. Naps all over the place.
- Writing and processing. So much writing!
- Saturday afternoon. Faraway playdate in a cafe. My faraway friend asleep next to me on the couch while I write. A pot of tea called Harmony. Rain outside. Soft music. Beautiful.
- Going on a fabulous storytelling adventure with the delightful @vicarpac.
- Back to my superpowers.
- Back to my strength for the first time since the Crossing. Finally. Yay. Killing it at dance class. Double yay.
- Compassion.
- Courage.
- Using the tools.
- My brother.
- Richard and Marisa.
- Cafe days. And a very productive Fake Beach Day.
- Turning the rain different colors, and also getting an unexpected clew.
- Turning Thanksgiving into Hermitsgiving. Even though it didn’t really work, it gave me a form.
- Descending to the rug for slow sweet yoga.
- Rearranging the house. Things are new and different, and now I have a writing nook!
- Sweet reassuring notes and letters and DMs from people who care and believe in me.
- Paperless, again! This app is solving all the problems. And also turning into a portable Book of Me that tells me what to do when I am in any situation.
- My playmate getting on skype at four in the morning to comfort me.
- It’s over. Friday. We’re done. Goodbye, week. It was hard and it was over.
And! No matter how hard my week is, I know that I can come here on Friday and all of you will be here with me, whether silently or in the comments. I feel hugely appreciative when I think about this blog and the people who read and keep me company. Thank you.
Superpowers!
A superpower I had this week…
Recognizing when I was grinding wheels and immediately stopping.
And a superpower I want next week.
The ability to maintain a deep, powerful, steady, loving focus on what I need. Commitment. Provision. Presence.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
Background. Ez and I make up bands. Stu (retired Bolshevik-fearing voice-to-text software) once invented hanging out at the Meme Beach House“. It’s just one guy.
This week’s band comes from Nick and it is one of my all-time favorites:
The Soft C
Though, of course, it’s really just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
I am this close to announcing the thing that is my doing-and-teaching focus for 2013.
So if you don’t have a Gwish Kit, grab one. Because that way you’ll hear about the new stuff before everyone else and you’ll already have the prerequisite class on TIME before I write the sales page and everything goes up to full price.
That’s it for me …
Join my Friday ritual in the comments if you feel like it. Or call silent retreat!
We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. And we don’t give advice (unless people specifically ask for it).
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
Shabbat shalom.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.
Secretly turning the rain into different colors.
Today I am secretly turning the rain into different colors, and this is a proxy for what I am actually going to be doing.
I want to do some writing about a (potentially) painful (to me) thing. But I also don’t want. So instead I will be secretly turning the rain into different colors.
Beginnings.
And before I do this thing that is not at all that other thing because today I am secretly turning the rain into different colors, I will begin by remembering why secretly turning the rain into different colors is important (to me).
I am going to note eighteen possible Interesting Or Useful Things about turning the rain into different colors.
Obviously I don’t know what these are yet. But I am about to discover them. Finding out what I know about what I do not know, again.
Eighteen interesting or useful things about secretly turning the rain into different colors.
- You can do the thing of secretly turning the rain into different colors while sitting in a warm cafe drinking tea. You don’t have to be outside IN the rain.
- Any color that comes to you is the right color.
- You can always change the color later if later it stops feeling like the right color.
- The rain likes having its colors secretly changed. The rain is in on the secret, you guys!
- So it’s not like I’m imposing stuff onto nature. I am playing, and nature wants to play too.
- Also it is happening secretly so no one else needs to see the color changes unless they want to and are really really really paying attention.
- Changing the colors of the rain changes the entire environment.
- Rain here comes with this very specific grey Portland-ey light. The colors that the rain becomes are startling and vivid against the grey. My city has the perfect backdrop for a sudden, unexpected, secret color change.
- My mood lifts with each new bath of color.
- This is probably where rainbows in puddles come from. That totally makes sense. Someone — someone like me who transforms external space through making changes in internal space and vice versa — is doing lots of secret-color-changing, and the colors are blending and reflecting.
- I used to think it would be really stressful to be the person who changes the colors of the rain. That it would weigh on me, all that responsibility. But actually it feels so light and playful. The secret part helps. Knowing no one is watching to see if I screw up is making the whole thing easier.
- Blue rain is my favorite rain right now. I have tried pretty much all the shades of blue that I can think of, and I like them all.
- I am drinking a tea called Harmony right now, and this is a very good name for someone in my profession: a secret changer of rain colors. The colors blend and harmonize. Each color adds to the ones that came before it, enhances the ones that will come later.
- It turns out that the rain has different functions as relates to the colors. It blends, and it washes away. It mixes and it clears out. It transports and it releases.
- The more I let the rain change colors, the more the rain is serving its purpose. Or maybe better to say: the more its purpose is apparent.
- A truth about the human experience: entropy. Everything changes. Everything ends. Everything reconfigures. This is a way to practice letting that be beautiful instead of painful.
- I like having this quiet, gentle superpower. I’m changing the environment just by being, and people can feel how everything is better but they don’t know that it’s because of what I’m doing. Just like my vision from fourteen months ago of being the queen in the hidden castle, who hums her secret hum.
- I trust myself a lot more than I would have thought. My instincts are good. I have a sense about what colors would most contribute in any moment, and when they flow into the world through the rain, everything is sweet and soft and right. Huh. Who knew.
Things that just happened! Or: things I just noticed.
I feel better about writing now! I am ready to try giving twenty minutes to the thing I was avoiding.
Proxies are the best. Always.
Everything I could possibly need to know is hidden somewhere inside of whatever seemingly-random thing my brain invents in an attempt to be playful.
Being playful is quite possibly the sneakiest and least-painful way to access truth.
The more I play, the more I discover. And the more I play, the less things hurt. And just like with changing the colors of the rain, there is no way to play wrong. As long as I stay committed to the twin superpowers of safety and sovereignty, all is well.
Commenting blanket fort. Come play, if you like.
The usual reminders: We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process. We make this a safe and comfortable space by taking care of ourselves while not trying to take care of anyone else, and by not giving advice.
I am receptive to: enthusiasm for how great proxies are, naming lots of beautiful colors because naming colors is fun, warm smiles, things sparked for your own process. xo