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 #176: no trombones this time. Except that sad one.
In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of ritual and self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
Wow. Hard to believe it’s been a hundred chickens since I got to make the 76 trombones joke.
Pretty much no one thought was funny but me. Speaking of which: sad trombone!
I have been avoiding writing this week’s chicken.
I think it’s because I don’t want to remember the hard parts. There was a fair amount of hard.
Okay, permission to not have to name it all. I’ll chicken as a way to say: I am here.
The hard stuff
Overwhelmed. So overwhelmed!
Here is a partial list of things that were going on for me this week:
- Planning the winding down of the year for my Kitchen Table program (our third and final year), answering questions, calming worries, planning the Appreciation Picnic.
- Planning the opening of the brand-new Floating Playground.
- Planning the opening of the new actual Playground (we’re keeping the current space but also expanding and moving into a larger space).
- Planning Shivanauticon!
- Planning my workshop on visualizations and badassery for the roller derby team.
- Planning for having a houseguest at Hoppy House.
- Planning to bring in a third full-time employee (three includes me, yes?) onto the pirate ship, and thinking about how best to train this person. Also, employee? What a depressing word! Where’s metaphor mouse?!
- Planning my Absconding because I need a pirate queen holiday pronto.
So. Each one of these is a really good thing, not a hard thing.
But having so many pieces to interact with (and so much of other people’s worry in my space) was really, really challenging.
I got a piece of AMAZING news and then didn’t feel happy about it.
Finally got a YES on the thing I have been wanting, hoping and wishing for over the past several months.
So now it’s real.
I’d thought this news would result in delighted skipping up and down the street.
But what actually happened was that the full OHMYLORD THIS IS HAPPENING began to sink in.
It’s not that I don’t want it. I want it more than anything. And it’s not that I’m not ready. This is the time. This is what I want.
It’s just the growth period that lives at the threshold. But my sadness in the moment of realizing that my wish is going to come true is made sadder by the realization that there’s sadness, if that makes sense.
So this week I’m going to need to spend some time with that grief, and find out about this new change. And figure out how to make it happen in ways that are fun and light-hearted. Because Barrington says that this is important.
A challenge that I don’t want.
I know we will find the perfect simple solution. It will work out as it needs to.
And in the meantime, I’m in the challenging part.
Advice.
I don’t like. I didn’t ask for it. I don’t want it. If I’d wanted it, I would have asked for it.
Frustrated mouse moments about this all week.
Got in a fight with someone who works on the pirate ship.
I tend to hire people who are very down-to-earth, to balance out my need for excitement and risk-taking that is part of (for me) being an unlikely business savant.
But then I get annoyed when they can’t get excited about the crazy fabulous things I dream up. But of course they can’t, because that’s not what they do.
Anyway, we worked it out. With compassionate communication. And discovered that (as always), it was just a misunderstanding. But not fun. And I’m feeling even more mama-bear-protective of my tiny sweet things than usual.
My stuff got triggered.
Someone called me a greedy little piggy. He said it in the most loving, endearing way. With a chuckle. As if it was adorable and sweet.
It was this moment of total disconnect.
Someone smiling happily at me but with this (to-my-ears) condescending and judgmental monster-script phrase coming out of his mouth. Echoing my actual monsters.
I froze. I made a safe room for me-from-then. And an entire apartment buildings of safe rooms. For angry, indignant me. For “what if it’s true” me. For all of my hurt.
I brought the pirate queen back to the front of the V.
I translated in my head to what I’m pretty sure this person actually meant to say, which was probably something like: “Wow, you’re really clear about what you want, and you’re not afraid to go for it.”
He had no intention of hurting my feelings, and no knowledge that this is something that can set off my stuff.
But man, it shut me down for days. And I’m still dealing with the fall-out. A lot of pain from then.
And more hard stuff that I don’t want to talk about.
We’ll just put this as a placeholder.
Reminder to sad, scared selves: I don’t have to name it. I can just know that it was there. Now is not then. Sad happens. It’s okay.
The good stuff
Change is exciting.
I’ve spent the past seven years working towards the things that are happening NOW.
And even though I didn’t know how awesome some of these things would be, I knew that we were headed towards excitement. And here it is!
Expanding the Playground!
The vision knew about this 18 months ago. It even told me what it would look like.
And now it’s happening.
Plus we get to keep the current Playground.
This is big and important.
Getting closer to something important.
I can tell by how much my stuff was up this week.
For months I have been trying to figure out what the bridge is between the cool stuff that I’m doing and the cool stuff that I want to be doing.
The bridge is here.
I just hadn’t realized how much growth is required in stepping onto it. But you guys! The bridge! I have been dreaming about this for so long.
Proud and happy.
At the end of the first year of the Kitchen Table, there were some temper tantrums. People who didn’t know how to process endings. People who were in their stuff.
Same thing at the end of the second year.
Not this year.
I have a hundred people who know how to take ownership of their experience. They can process the hard. They can do the advanced practice. They can destuckify.
They remember how without me having to remind them. They live what I teach without falling so deep into their stuff that they forget how to interact with what’s happening.
I feel joyful and appreciative watching them do it.
Roller derby workshop!
I taught a two hour workshop that used Shiva Nata and force fields and extreme silliness to help a group of amazing athletes get better at using visualizations and meditative processes to skate better.
It ROCKED. They rocked.
So excited for this season!
Bryan’s CDs arrived.
Remember when I asked if anyone had Long, Slow & Deep?
Gaye did and she sent it to me. Perfect timing.
The Playground calendars are here and they are so completely beautiful.
They’re filled with play!
I burst out laughing every time I pick one up. They’re exactly what I wanted, and I can’t stop looking at them.
This might be the most gorgeous product we’ve ever made.
The rendezvous was a success!
I loathe meetings, as you might imagine.
But we had one. And we managed to make it fun.
And now I have all the information I need to move forward, as well as the go-ahead from the people in charge of the thing I wasn’t sure about.
Healthy.
Usually when I have this much going on, I get sick.
But — tfu tfu tfu — things have been fine.
I’ve been taking naps, dancing, meditating, yoga-ing, processing, reflecting, taking care of myself.
This is a sign that this work I’ve been doing has changed how I teach and how I lead. That’s a big deal, and I want to remember that.
The fun part of the Chickening happens here.
From the archives.
Old, weirdly pertinent posts that I don’t remember having written, encountered while looking for something else:
- Look how wise I was two years ago. This made me so happy to rediscover: You don’t need to take the leap.
Playing live at the meme beach house — it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
Background? Ez and I make up bands. Stu (retired Bolshevik-fearing voice-to-text software) once translated “people will hate me and be jealous” to “they’ll hang out at my Meme Beach House“. It’s just one guy.
This week’s band:
Proxy To Spare
Though, of course, it’s really just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
- Less than two weeks until Rally prices go up. January is sold out. You can still make February or March. Rally (Rally!) . It’s the best thing I do.
- If you’re thinking about the Floating Playground, you’ll definitely need the Art of Embarking. Which is also still at not-full-price, so you can enjoy the fact that I’ve been too busy to update things.
- I’ll tell the HAT list (Havi’s Announcing a Thing!) about the Floating Playground before I open it to the public, so that’s always a good thing to be on. I hardly ever send out announcements but when I do, that’s the place.
I think that’s everything? If not, I’ll add stuff to the Very Personal Ads over the weekend.
That’s it for me …
And of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments if you feel like it.
Yes? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come. Shabbat shalom.
p.s. It’s okay if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.
Buy your project a beer.
The thing with projects is that they often like to talk.
When you’re willing to show up and buy them a beer.
And by project, I mean that mysterious thing that is anything at all that you’re working on or playing with. Anything you care about.
It could be the next chapter in your novel. It could also be remembering to put on lip balm. It could be making a change in your business. It could be having a happier relationship with getting up in the morning. It doesn’t matter. A thing that you are in relationship with. That’s your project.
Anyway, I’m a big fan of interviewing projects to see what they know.
And today I’m collecting interview questions.
Here are mine. These are the questions I generally ask a project:
I ask one or two of these in a very casual sort of “hey, project! what’s up?” sort of way, and I bring snacks!
- What do you need, project?
- Anything you want to tell me?
- What do you wish I knew?
- What are some of your superpowers?
- Do you have thoughts on resources and allies that can help us?
- Can you tell me why you chose me as your partner for this?
- What would help you trust me more?
- What would help you feel safe, supported and loved?
Play! Let’s come up with some more.
It seems like it might be useful to have a shared library of possible interview questions.
So if you have any or would like to invent some, go ahead and add yours here.
You can also use any of my questions or anyone else’s as a Stone Skipping, and talk to your project that way. Here in the comments or on your own.
As always, usual comment blanket fort zen applies:
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on it. We take loving responsibility for our experience here (and everywhere). We make this a safe space by not giving each other advice or telling each other how to feel.
I’ll start!
It’s a little early for beer but I am going to invite my project for today to join me for breakfast. I wonder if it likes pancakes.
Postscripting! Come to a Rally (Rally!) and turn all your projects into enthusiastic friends. The kind who adore you. And who buy you beer. January is sold out but we have two or three February spots still open. 2011 prices good for another 2 weeks.
Trusting my instincts.
I never end up doing that thing where people choose a theme for the year.
It makes sense, sure. I see how it can be useful to name an intention or invoke a quality. Kind of like my OOD practice.
But for whatever reason, that word theme — for me! — seems more loaded, somehow. How am I supposed to know the theme before it’s happened?
And then every year at about oh…. maybe mid-December-ish, the themes all become pretty obvious. I recognize them. They find me.
So, fine. This year has been all about that crazy, wonderful, bizarre, ever-changing thing that is trusting my instincts.
Oh, right. The same thing, just in different shapes and forms.
1. Putting my body in charge of the company, and letting it make the executive decisions.
2. Playing more enthusiastically with sovereignty, and getting to know some of the qualities related to sovereignty:
Autonomy. Presence. Curiosity. Permission. Courage. Delight. Experimentation. Trust.
3. The advanced practice of wanting what I want.
(Not having to necessarily do anything related to getting it, just having permission to want it.)
4. Also things like….
Taking joyful responsibility. Setting loving expectations. Running Enthusiastics.
So now I’m in the awkward position of having to practice it.
I have trusted my instincts and they have taken me somewhere. To today. To the place where I get to make a very big decision.
My instincts are all: YES YES YES YES THIS IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF WHAT YOU’VE BEEN DOING ALL YEAR! DO IT! YAY!
And here I am, second-guessing them.
Because of grown-up considerations and because of not yet knowing how.
So I am going to talk to Slightly Future Me who has already been through this, and see what she knows.
And I’m doing it here because I need company.
And we begin.
Me: Hey, version-of-me-who-knows-what’s-good! I could really use some help here.
She: You’re asking me to validate trusting your instincts? Because you don’t trust yourself to trust them?
Me: Okay. You’re right. That is a little problematic. And at the same time, you know my history because we share it. So you know how scary this is for me. Can you help me see what happens as a result of this new way of trusting?
She: You know what will happen.
Me: How could I possibly know what will happen? You’re the one who is there.
She: Come on. Use your whole body. Stay with me. Be fully here. What happens when you say yes to the thing that you have already internally said yes to but are afraid to say out loud?
Everything is quieter.
Me: Everything is quieter. And sturdier. The building hums. Wow. Really? So the building where the Playground lives can take me to the humming castle? Interesting. Anyway, there is a happy buzzing of activity, but it’s all really grounded. There is so much stability. The building IS stability. It’s steady. It radiates this deeply supportive warmth, and it holds things.
She: That is exactly what happens! It’s even cooler than it sounds. What else do you know about what will happen when you trust your instincts and we do this?
Me: The back stairs are important. There is this beating heart there. I have to be where the heart is.
She: Which means?
Me: I’ve been thinking that this is about the money and how to raise the money. But it’s about how to be at the heart. If I commit to that, the financial part comes from that commitment.
Ahahahahaaaaaaa. That is a SERIOUSLY CRAZY thing to say. That is not the kind of thing I can just bring to my accountant, you know? There are grown-ups involved in this. I need to be able to justify things to them!
Stay with the heart.
She: Stay with me, sweetie. We’ll figure that part out too. What happens when you and the heart of the building are playing together in joyful collaboration?
Me: Oh, wow. Joyful collaboration is such an unlikely and perfect phrase. That is exactly what it feels like. We’re working together and that connection generates all sorts of astonishing things.
I thought that the Playground Cooperative was the next piece, with the Floating Playground as its counterpart. But all this is really just the first piece.
Everything I have been doing for the last seven years has prepared me to be the person who can go into the heart of this and be at the wheel.
She: Exactly.
Now?
Me: Now can we talk about how to deal with the grown-ups who want numbers and projections and stuff?
She: You’re the pirate queen. You steer. You know. You hold the map and you remember the stars. You get to set the course and you get to set the expectations for discussing that course.
Me: Soooo…..?
She: Convene an Enthusiastic. Trust your instincts. Rinse. Repeat.
Me: Rinse-Repeat? That doesn’t sound like you.
She: No. Literally. Rinse and repeat. Your instincts always know that the answer is found in immersion in water and warmth. So do it.
Me: Do it?
She: Bath. Shower. Pool. Use the water.
What’s next?
Me: Got it. Water. Instincts. Enthuse. Is there a theme for next year or do I have to discover that at the end too?
She: It would spoil all the fun of discovery if I gave it to you now. Anyway, all themes are cousins. But the point is: you have just spent a year learning how to do this so that you can do the thing you are about to do. All of this blah-blah-practical-blah is taking you away from what you know. It’s not your practical knowing. Your practical knowing says that there are countless ways to make it work, and you will choose the one that is right for you. And if it isn’t fun, you’ll choose the next one.
Me: Right. Why do I keep forgetting that?
She: Because there is an entire world out there of people who cannot see the things you see. They need you to trust your instincts so that all those sheets of ice can be broken.
Me: I don’t see the sheets of ice…
She: Don’t worry about it. Take care of yourself and give yourself what you need.
Me: What’s next?
This is next.
I’m going back to the practice.
I don’t have to know what’s next.
I just need to keep learning about what keeps me safe. About what I want and need. To get better at navigating these internal worlds by paying attention. And of course, as soon as this stops being PLAY and becomes work, I have to pause (paws!) and re-enter.
Play with me. And the commenting blanket fort.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff.
We make room for people to have their own experience, and we make this a safe place for that by not giving each other unsolicited advice.
What is welcome: Excited murmuring for the new adventure that I am apparently embarking on. Happy hopeful hand-on-heart sighs. Alliteration!
If you’d like to identify themes that have come up for you in the past year, that’s welcome too.
I am blowing a kiss to all the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.
Very Personal Ads #127: in this together
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
Each week I write these VPAs 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!
Sunday!
This morning I woke up with five sweet little wishes nestled in the palm of my hand. Like little colored puffballs.
That’s never happened before. It was a pretty cool feeling.
Let’s do it.
Thing 1: Ease and clarity for the rendezvous on Monday .
Here’s what I want:
On Monday I’m meeting with someone to discuss a possibility that is a really big deal for me and for the business.
I am so excited that I can hardly sit still. And also noticing some anxious what-ifs from some sad, scared parts of me who think that now is going to be like then.
I want to be filled with sweetness and caring when I interact with these parts of me-from-then.
And to go into this meeting feeling strong, confident, clear and ready. Grounded and present.
To enter as I wish to be in it.
To learn or to remember that this entire experience can go smoothly. What if it can be pleasurable and harmonious? What if all options are good? Yeah!
Ways this could work:
I can do five minutes of Shiva Nata on it and have realizations!
I can ask metaphor mouse to help me rewrite my words and experiences so that I remember that now is not then.
When does a meeting not have to be stressful and terrifying? When it’s a rendezvous!
I can prepare code words. And I can also do various entry rituals to prepare myself for the experience and to shape my relationship with it.
Oh! Of course. Find the version of me who knows how to be in this situation, and ask her to come to the front of the V.
My commitment.
To do my secret marathon training sessions (shhhh, this is a proxy and it’s actually relaxing).
To reflect. To investigate. To plant the wish.
And I will spend time hanging out with my new friend: the concept and essence of EQUALITY. Spending time experiencing this quality helps me remember that I am not a supplicant. I am not dependent on other people’s decisions, even when I am reminded of painful situations from a time when that was true or felt true.
We are all equals. We are all in this together.
Thing 2: What January name will the last Crown Pouncer hold?
Here’s what I want:
The January Rally (Rally!) is going to be so ridiculously great.
This Rally can hold fourteen people, aside from me. We have thirteen of these people. We had fourteen but then someone had to move her spot.
So.
We also have fourteen special-edition one-time-only navy blue Crown Pouncers. One for each person coming.
Thirteen of these Crown Pouncers are each secretly and gently holding a name in their navy blue mouths. And there is one lonely Crown Pouncer who does not know which name to hold.
What if the last person for the January Rally signs up this week?
Ways this could work:
I’m not sure.
It’s just going to.
There is someone out there who is going to know that this is the time.
I will also add that this particular Rally has three people coming who were at Crossing the Line, and two people who were at my Shiva Nata training. You can ask them all your questions!
My commitment.
To kiss the Crown Pouncer on the nose every day, and remind him that we can still love this person madly even if we don’t know who it is yet.
Thing 3: You need these holiday cards.
Here’s what I want:
Everyone in the world needs to read this blog post. And if you hang out at the Twitter bar, then follow @bradmcginty.
And then order his incredibly disturbing and super-awesome Christmas cards.
Five dollars. Because let’s face it, such an incredibly entertaining post deserves five dollars just for existing.
My dad said that instead of going to church on Sundays, my grandfather would often go “Irish fishing,” which entailed leaving before sun-up and returning late in the day with a bunch of stones. My father was never allowed to go with him, because he was half woman (on his mother’s side).
Anyway, you need these cards. Everyone needs these cards. I’m getting some too.
Let’s support this guy’s crazy-ass mission. I love it. So much.
Ways this could work:
I am telling you about it right now. Buy these cards.
Also I will alert the Frolicsome Bar.
My commitment.
Cards!
Thing 4: Thursday’s workshop.
Here’s what I want:
I’m running a workshop on Thursday for the hard rocking ladies of the roller derby team that I sponsor.
It’s on visualizations and how to make them work for you. And how to turn them into full-body Perceptings. And how to show up to a situation in your strongest force field, ready to break some furniture and take stuff apart.
It’s going to be awesome. Except that I want to be able to fit about seven hundred hours of material into two hours. Or, failing that, to plant all the right seeds.
Seeds. Got it.
Ways this could work:
Shiva Nata. Shiva Nata. Shiva Nata.
My commitment.
Doonsk doonsk!
Dance it up. Let it be fun.
Thing 5: Prep work.
Here’s what I want:
There are two big announcings that need to happen this week.
Possibly three, depending on what happens at Monday’s rendezvous.
This requires some deep internal and external preparations.
And some interactions with an old iguana.
Ways this could work:
Trust. Faith. Practice. Play.
My commitment.
Crown. Scepter. Bubbles. Force field.
To remember that now is not then. Now is now, and now is better.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I wanted to know how all my seemingly-contradictory wishes could fit together, and that happened really fast Hooray!
Then I wanted to write a HAT and I did not write that HAT. Though I had a very good reason for not writing it, and I learned something about why I’m not writing it. So that was useful.
I also wanted to arrange a holiday for the pirate queen, and I renamed it! It is now the First Absconding. And it’s in the works. Not completely planned, but the elements are all there. Progress!
Next I wanted to take steps on the Grand Enthusiastic, and that is going to be worked out during the Absconding.
And I asked for ease-filled monster negotiations, and we had lots of these. DEEP EXHALE.
Play-filled comment zen. Here’s what I’d love today.
- Wanted: Your own personal ads, small or large. Updates on past ones if you like.
- You can also do these on your own or in your head. You can always call silent retreat!
- Leave your gwishes! Throw things in the pot!
- Things we try to keep away from: the word “manifest”, telling people how they should be asking for things, unsolicited advice.
- VPA amnesty applies, of course. Leave yours any time between now and next Sunday (or whenever, really) — it’s all fine by us!
xox
Friday Chicken #175: let’s bring back the phrase Hot Diggity!
In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of ritual and self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
Wow. I kind of don’t remember anything like this ever happening. Ever. Certainly not since I started chickening each Friday a hundred and seventy five weeks ago.
But I had a FANTASTIC week. To the point that all the good is just kind of blowing my mind right now. Usually I have to process the hard before getting to the point where I can remember good, but this week was all about the good.
Weird. Awesome-weird! I would not mind feeling this way more often!
The hard stuff
Some people are just not very nice.
I have (through learning stuff the hard way….) built my business and my systems over time in such a way that I hardly ever have to deal with people like this.
Or even know about them.
But there’s one of these people in the building where the Playground lives, and I am not willing to put up with mean people releasing the mean in all directions. I’m done.
So something about this is going to have to change. Fortunately I feel very capable right now. So even though I don’t know yet how this is going to work, it’s going to work.
I chose not to do a thing I’d really wanted to do.
It jus wasn’t the right time.
Sad me is mourning that. She’s having trouble turning the page.
I made her the best safe room ever, so now she is watching 80s movies and eating popcorn.
And writing a dramatic manifesto about how Everything Was Better Then, and sometimes she snickers to herself when she thinks of something funny.
Time! It keeps moving faster than I expect.
There is still a lot to get done (whatever that means) by the end of the month.
So I’m going to have to make some interesting decisions. Or plant some things for later.
We’ll see. Right now I’m too baffled by the fact that it’s already Friday.
Monday.
I have a Secret Rendezvous (special agent code for a “meeting”) on Monday.
It is something that I feel very excited about and hopeful for. I want it to go well! But but but. The monsters are throwing a giant What-iffery party inside my head.
So there is a little anxiety there that I’ll need to spend some time with.
Sore abs.
It’s all that bad-ass training I’ve been doing.
You know what hurts? Laughing. Please do not be funny unless you absolutely have to.
Kidding about that. Be as funny as you like. And don’t mind if I wince from the pain.
When caution is warranted but you kind of wish it wasn’t.
There’s someone I love very much who can be pretty ambivalent about my biggifying. It’s his stuff, and he’s allowed to have it.
But I have to remember to be very careful about how I present information to him.
The good stuff
Look at this picture of Andy and Selma!
Okay, so Kate was at the last Rally (Rally!). She’s amazing!
And she brought Andy.
Andy is a charming, well-traveled and highly photogenic fellow, and he and Selma hit it off marvelously.
Is this not the most adorable thing you have ever seen?
I am so strong right now. I am so at home right now.
I have energy. I have zooom coursing through my veins.
But not in a stressful way. Just a peaceful, grounded, ready here I am.
My body knows what it’s doing, and we are friends and we delight in hanging out, and we are making lots and lots of time for each other.
This is the thing I have been working and playing towards for the past several years. I’ve had it in bits and pieces, in spurts and hidden moments.
This week it was just there.
Giant progress! And a new gorgeous ritual that I love.
I had a massive epiphany (thank you, Shiva Nata) about how I treat my desires.
Specifically that I turn my gwishes into iguanas by leaving them hanging out in awkward places or hiding them until I process them (which then I don’t).
So instead I created a secret home for my wishings, and started decorating it.
I’m using a book technique that I learned from Joy.
Each gwish goes into a red envelope with a magic reminder-word on it.
With information about its qualities and superpowers. What Barrington says about why this wish is important and meaningful.
Once a week I choose one gwish and do some playing and processing around it.
The ones that are done go into orange envelopes, and those go into a special book.
They become reminders about types of wanting that used to scare me but don’t anymore! And I can also track what has changed as a result of wishing the wishes.
This is HUGE!
Speaking of wishes….
The thing I have been massively wanting (but terrified of because ohmygod it’s so great) since the day we moved into the Playground space is on the verge of coming true.
Clews and coincidences! .
Walking my usual walk to dance class, there was construction.
I decided that going around the block was not be a waste of time, because it would hold a clew for me. Just because.
There were three clues and then there it was. The EXACT thing I needed.
Then after my dance class, I went to visit R and she gave me an even better clew about the same thing. That information can help me get the thing much faster. Plus there is a secret rooftop deck, and that is another clew.
I’m sorry that I can’t tell you more about this, but just know that it’s all very tingly and exciting.
It’s a win-win-win-win-win. Win. Or something.
I ran into J, and it turns out that my secret plan that I can’t talk about is also good for her and also good for the other person that I was worried might not like it.
So basically the thing I want is good for everyone involved.
And everyone is FOR IT! They support me in wanting it.
The Floating Playground site is all ready after months of hard work.
And it is gorgeous.
More about that to come but for now just know that it is BEAUTIFUL.
Even more wishes coming true. All over the place.
Like asking you guys if anyone had Bryan’s Long, Slow & Deep CD, because it’s out of print and sells for fifteen hundred dollars now.
And Gaye did. She’s sending it to the Playground!
My number one partner-in-crime is on her way here too.
And everything is coming together.
Reflecting.
I have been reflecting on things, using words and images and collage-like bits.
The reflectings are smarter than me, and I am listening.
This is related to the thing I said last week (which is still true) about how setting expectations goes hand in hand with releasing expectations, and how when I do both, everything works.
Another epiphany!
Because the shivanautical zapping is just getting better.
Here it is:
Play keeps me present.
Work keeps me from being present.
I am sneakily inventing new ways to turn every aspect of my work into silly childlike exploration. Even when it seems like it will take longer.
It’s working. You should have seen me on Wednesday with my scepter and my elephant ears, getting stuff done like nobody’s business.
I have an Almanac and it is the best! Thing! Ever!
Thanks to Cairene who helped me realize that I needed to metaphor mouse the quarters of the year.
And now I am in love with next year. And tossing everything that is not congruent, even if it seems like a smart thing to do, business-wise.
Ohmygod. Congruence is EVEN BETTER than I’d imagined it would be.
I have been working on CONGRUENCE as my theme for the past month.
And I’d always imagined that congruence would feel very placid.
But now that it’s here, it’s actually blissful.
I’ve felt so incredibly happy about being alive this week. Aligned and peaceful and creative and trusting. It’s grounded, but it’s also so very sparkly.
The more I am playful, the more things fit. And the more things fit, the more I play. Like that. I am not explaining any of this very well, but be happy for me if you can. I am going to figure out what I know about this state, and we will bottle it! 🙂
The fun part of the Chickening happens here.
Tabstravaganza! Or: what’s Havi been up to with all those open Firefox tabs?
- Skate-aroke! It’s roller skating karaoke. Come on!
- This beautiful, honest and heartfelt post from my friend Michelle about divorce, pain and yoga.
- Hiro made a video of her poem and you should experience it. I love her voice so much and I could listen to her all day. Our business is the business of love.
- This interview with Scald Eagle, my favorite skater, all around amazing person and soon-to-be a shivanaut!
Okay, so I’ve mostly been reading derby-related stuff this week but that’s because I’m so excited about the new season starting, you guys.
From the archives.
Some old, weirdly pertinent posts that I don’t remember having written, encountered while looking for something else:
- Crumbling.
- Eleven and a half insights that changed everything I do.
- This one with the impossible name (Where’s Waldo? Inside of a Jack O Lantern wearing invisibility cloak love potion number nine, apparently). Yes.
Playing live at the meme beach house — it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
Background? Ez and I make up bands. Stu (retired Bolshevik-fearing voice-to-text software) once translated “people will hate me and be jealous” to “they’ll hang out at my Meme Beach House“. It’s just one guy.
This week’s band is brought to you by my iPhone not understanding the word glorrrrious.
Glitter Riots of Possibility
Though, of course, it’s really just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
- Rally prices are going up at the end of the month. Most of the 2012 rallies are close to full. Seriously. Find a way. Come to a Rally (Rally!).
- If you’re planning on doing anything I teach next year, you’ll need the Art of Embarking.
- We are close to making an announcement about Shivanauticon! It’s crazy. But in the best possible way.
I think that’s everything? If not, I’ll add stuff to the Very Personal Ads over the weekend.
That’s it for me …
And of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments if you feel like it.
Yes? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come. Shabbat shalom.
p.s. It’s okay if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.