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.
Things I know about monkeys who wear clothes.
One of the things we do at Rally (Rally!) is make up a ridiculous and unlikely cover story for why we’re here.
My story for this week of the Great Ducking Out turned out to be that… get this, I have an obsession with monkeys!
Specifically monkeys who wear clothing. And that’s why I’m at the Playground. Because there are several of those here.
Not here to work on a big project, no no no no no! Nothing happening here, monsters!
What do I know about monkeys wearing clothing?
More than you’d think, as it turns out.
Certainly more than I’d thought.
We did some stone skippings after the morning shivanauttery, and one of the stone-questions was this:
What do I already know about why I’m here?
And since why I’m here is to be obsessed with clothed monkeys, the question became …
What do I already know about monkeys who wear clothes?
Things I know about monkeys who wear clothes.
I know that:
Monkeys with clothes are 300% cuter than monkeys not wearing clothes. FACT.- Clothes make the monkey!
- A monkey dressed as a sailor is unmistakably a sailor. A sailor monkey.
- Oh! of course. Wear the clothes of the person who runs Shivanauticon, and that is the next step!
- Costumes are magic.
- A clothed monkey is in a double-costume. And he probably finds that entertaining. I bet he chuckles to himself while adjusting his bolo tie.
- Clothes are a kind of home. Wow. I did not realize that before but of course it is true.
- They are (or can be) a container or a cocoon for the change that they symbolize.
- That’s why CONGRUENCE is so incredibly important.
- Monkeys are always playing.
- Monkeys love Playgrounds. Isn’t it perfect then that I’m at the Playground?
- They are graceful, agile, curious.
- They find alternative ways to get places. YES!
- “Monkey” was already my code word for the favorite place.
- Monkey bars! Like parkour skills. Grace and balance.
- Trapeze! Especially since Shivanauticon is a crazy circus!
- Monkeys do not worry about whether or not people are taking them seriously.
- And what become of the monk the monk the monk the monk….
- Of course! The Animal Fair …. it’s a parallel to the Flairground (the flair-filled fairground where Shivanauticon is going to happen. Yes yes!
I probably know even more things about monkeys who wear clothes.
But that’s where I stopped in order to skip another stone.
Here were the other questions:
What will I need in order to do this?
What needs to change in my kingdom for this to happen?
What’s next?
The monkeys told me what to do, and now we’re cool.
Other sneaky problems that the monkeys solve.
This way we don’t have to talk about our mysterious projects (unless we want to, of course!).
And we can speak in secret agent talk.
(“How’s my clothed-monkey obsession going? I’m learning all sorts of fascinating things! What about you? How’s that rug-researching?”).
Plus when the cover story gets to double as a super sneaky proxy, you can work on that instead of your projects.
And then the monsters are extra quiet, because they aren’t invested in telling me how I’m going to FAIL DISASTROUSLY at caring about clothed monkeys.
It’s pretty great.
One more thing I can tell you about clothed monkeys.
They can dangle from anything.
And this is fun for them.
They especially like it when you say YAY when you see them dangling from something particularly unlikely.
Isn’t that a reassuring thing to know? It was for me.
Play with me! And the giant commenting blanket fort.
So, obviously, this is not really about monkeys.
It’s about my project. It’s my subjective experience of these particular monkeys. Who aren’t real. One is a stuffed toy and the other is a picture on a wall.
If your experience of monkeys happens to be different (“Monkeys should never wear clothing! I feel strongly about this!”), of course you are allowed to have your own monkey-experience. That should be a given.
However, I’m going to ask that we play along with my version here today, in support of my mission and my secret project.
If you would like to make up your own cover story for what you’re doing today (double especially if you’re going to be doing something for American Thanksgiving!), go for it.
Then you can look for clues about it while making (or avoiding) the small-talks.
Let’s play! As always, we make room for everyone to do their own thing, and we don’t give advice. Unless people ask.
Lots of love. The monkeys and I are wishing you an extra-strong force field today.
A tragic scarcity of puppy photos.
So yesterday at Rally (Rally!), I was reflecting on my mysterious project.
And here’s part of a train of discoveries from the rabbit holes:
Puppies!
Apparently puppies sleep 90% of the day. For the first few weeks of being alive.
NINETY PERCENT OF THE DAY.
Sleeping.
Cuteness!
That seems like a really good plan.
In fact, it seems like that much hiding, shelter and processing would also be good for any tiny sweet thing.
For any Gwish.
For anything you really care about.
Pause, pause, and then more pausing. Paws!
So then I tried to ignore it.
In the afternoon my body wanted to nap.
But I was having so much fun playing with my project and hanging out with it that I couldn’t bear to go to sleep.
I said, How about we interview Slightly Future Me about the project instead?
Slightly Future Me gave me two useful pieces of information.
And I’ll tell you the second one:
Puppies are smarter than you.
She was right.
So I slept on it.
I planted the thing I wanted to know about my project into the nap and decided to fractal flower it by sleeping.
Then I woke up and did some old Turkish lady yoga, and then about six different outrageous shivanautical epiphanies made themselves known to me.
Which I can’t describe yet.
Being that intensely alive requires a lot of prep time.
Puppies are smarter than I am. They are also more trusting about sleep than I am.
These are related.
Ninety percent of the time.
That’s a lot.
That’s how much I could dedicate to the hidden parts — the processing and recovery and entry. And it would be a valuable investment of time too.
You know what else puppies are good for?
Enthusiasm.
Play.
Joyous fidgeting and exploratory movements!
Snuggling.
Slow sleepy breathing.
Puppies live yoga.
You can’t hurry a puppy.
So why do I try to hurry my deepest wishes and desires?
They’re just doing their ninety-percenting so they can play when they’re ready.
Play! And the giant commenting blanket fort.
Tragically, I do not have any puppy photos for this post.
You can help. Possibly.
The public needs adorable puppy pictures! Share.
Schmoo schmoo schmoo! Puppies!
Other than that, we can play with the concepts here in whatever way we want.
As always, we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff.
Each of us is in charge of our own experience with this. We avoid giving each other unsolicited advice. We’re supportive and welcoming!
That’s it. Love to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.
A world of tiny homes — inside other homes.
This weekend I had a shivanautical epiphany about the concept of HOME, and all the various ways that any one thing can be a home for another thing.
If this thing that I did not know was a home is now a home….
Well, then everything changes.
“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”.
— William Morris
Any container is a home.
Or can be. And anything can house anything else. If you want it to.
If an inbox is a home for things that people are bringing before me for my consideration, then it’s okay if I want that home to be clean.
It’s okay that I only want things in there that bring me pleasure. That I know to be useful. That I believe to be beautiful.
If a binder is a home for ideas that I’m excited about, it’s okay to spend time lovingly decorating it and making it beautiful (even if the monster collective points out that no one will ever see it but me).
If a policy is a home for the experience that I’m trying to build, it’s okay that it is firm, sturdy and dependable. In fact, it really needs to be.
If a bed is a home for sleeping…
If a blog post is a home for a certain magical and palpable culture of play and welcoming …
If breakfast is a home for caring for myself…
If my body is the actual physical home of where I live…
If a bath is a home for immersion…
If five minutes of Shiva Nata is a home for rewriting the patterns that don’t work anymore…
If shavasana is a home for letting the new thing be absorbed while the old thing is released…
Then everything changes.
Without guilt or pressure: I do not have to remodel all of these homes today or this week.
Or at all, maybe.
I just need to know that they are homes.
To recognize them and name them, and allow my relationship to them to shift.
To remember that they exist to shelter me, comfort me, protect me and care for me in some form.
To close doors that need closing. Revisit expectations that want attention. And to curl up and hide — or to spread out and take up space — in whatever way that I instinctively feel drawn to do.
That is what I’m doing now.
Very Personal Ads #124: everything hums
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!
This week I had about a million Very Personal Ads come up, and of course this morning I can’t seem to remember any of them.
Let’s see…
Hello, wishes.
Thing 1: Congruence.
Here’s what I want:
It occurred to me this week that the website for the Playground is all wrong.
The Playground is a center where people come from all over the world to work on projects, solve problems and get things done.
It’s an extraordinary place.
It’s time for the online space that represents it to become more harmonious. More congruent with what it is supposed to be reflecting. To come into present time.
Ways this could work:
I may not have time to do anything with it this week because I’ll be at Rally (Rally!), and who knows what my mysterious project will turn out to entail.
But I will be at the Playground and immersed in Playground. So I’m hoping that will point me in the right direction.
There will also be ridiculous amounts of Shiva Nata, so I am going to throw this into the pot, and ask for some hot, buttered epiphanies related to this project and to congruence in general.
What if it could be simple? And entertaining? I’m ready to find out.
My commitment.
To plant this without knowing how it’s going to happen, and without having an agenda.
To be genuinely curious about what could happen.
To consult slightly future me.
Thing 2: Staff page.
Here’s what I want:
This might be for the Playground site and it might be for this one. I don’t know.
But a page about the people who work and play in my business. To give a feel for how our company runs and what it’s like.
Ways this could work:
Again, this might not be something I’ll be able to play with this week.
But it feels important.
Maybe I can connect to the essence of this. I could do some processing and writing about what it means to have a crew.
My commitment.
To have fun with this. To let it be silly, lighthearted and Playground-ey.
Thing 3: SHIVANAUTICON!
Here’s what I want:
Preparing the ground for the grand announcing.
And sharing the process.
Here’s where we’re at right now.
- I have 49 pages of notes in my Anthology.
- We brought in Metaphor Mouse as a consultant.
- We’re this close to signing with the desired location, and we have three back-ups if it falls through.
- More than a hundred people have already signed up to be notified when we announce this. Hi, guys!
So things are moving.
Oh, and we have a new logo! It’s fabulous.
Seriously, go look at the gorgeous page. I’m so excited about this! Shivanauticon!!!!
And now it’s time for next steps. In the hard and in the soft.
Ways this could work:
I can play with this at Rally (Rally!).
Dance on it, flail on it, meditate on it, sleep on it, cross-train on it, and keep it with me at all times.
And of course, a giant field of fractal flowers.
Also I think it will be useful to tell people to sign up for the announcing even if they’re 100% sure there’s no way they can make it to Portland, because we might be able to offer a video option.
My commitment.
To stay connected to what I know.
To remember to laugh.
Thing 4: Reflecting.
Here’s what I want:
Many and varied individual parts coming together in a variety of combinations.
Venn diagrams and kaleidoscopes.
Reflecting and reflections.
I’m sorry that I can’t be more specific on that. It’s hard to describe.
Ways this could work:
Playing with my First Partner In Crime.
Creating a collage but not calling it that. Secret code words!
Lots of madcap shivanauttery, of course.
Paying special attention to mirrors and surfaces. Surfaces!
My commitment.
To hum.
Because humming is the aural form of shining.
Shining and reflecting are cousins. Humming is the way in. For me. Right now.
This is one of the many crazy things I learned at the September Rally, and it is changing everything.
Thing 5: Rally! (Rally!)
Here’s what I want:
This week is Rally #15.
It’s also the second year of the Great Ducking Out, which is the special Run away from Thanksgiving extra-long Rally.
This is pretty much my favorite thing in the entire world.
I want it to be absolutely glorrrrrrrrious!
And I want to discover whatever it is that I need to discover.
Ways this could work:
Breathing.
Declaring silent retreat whenever I need to.
Sending out the link to the secret Playground ENTRY page.
Planting the seeds.
Writing it out.
My commitment.
This one is being whispered in my heart.
I love you, Rally!
See you tomorrow.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I’ve been doing a lot of processing on my complicated decision, and am feeling better about the situation.
Then I wanted to be able to work on a bunch of things at once, which totally happened in a much easier way than expected. Yay, proxies!
I wanted to play with doing things every fifteen mini-newts, and completely forgot about this! But the point of doing that was to have more mini marathon-trainings (shhh, not actually marathon-trainings at all), and I actually have been doing that. Interesting. I will revisit this!
Also I asked for recovery, which has been happening nicely.
And I wanted to whisper-brunch the HEY THIS IS COMING page for Shivanauticon, and that happened! Plus we have the logo. So yay, progress.
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 #172: A Dramatic Waste of Make-up!
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.
Not entirely sure how it got to be Friday. Was it not just Friday five minutes ago? Was I not just complaining about how fast last week went?
Oh right. It’s been seven entire days since then. Filled with impossibly hard and good things.
So let’s have at it.
The hard stuff
Travel. I don’t like it.
Having to take a shuttle four hours prior to the flight.
Being pulled out of line to have my ponytail holder inspected (it was seriously just a run-of-the-mill hairband thingy).
Being squooshed into a horrible tiny seat, and feeling stiff and constricted.
I say UGH to all of it.
Plus recovering from all of it. Not to mention the derby hangover.
Oh, lots and lots of stuff from then…
I discovered giant reserves of old pain this week after several different incidents each triggered my PTSD in a big way.
So I spent most of the week just hiding and quietly processing.
And the spiral of spiraling.
That’s the thing about being in a place of deep vulnerability. I begin to disregard the safeguards that are working.
So despite everything in the Book of Me, not to mention all of my wonderful Absolutely Absolutelies, I pretty much managed to break all my own guidelines this week.
Like reading about the nightmare of Penn State when I know that reading most forms of non-soccer or roller-derby related news is not good for me.
Double-especially if it’s news about terrible things happening to people who can’t defend themselves.
Or reading comments on someone’s blog when I already know that the only place online where the comments are consistently and dependably kind, loving and supportive is HERE.
Or checking up on a thing that I knew I would hate, and then hating it. Surprise!
And anger. Anger and grief.
The gentleman and other friends spent a lot of time this week patiently explaining to Angry Me why you apparently can’t call the cops on a parent who is tickling their kid and won’t stop.
Even if the kid is struggling and screaming and begging for them to stop.
If they were hitting the child, you might be able to do something about it.
But a four year old who is learning that there’s no such thing as a safe word? That STOP doesn’t mean anything. And PLEASE doesn’t mean anything. Now that child’s experience of the world is forever changed.
(And yes, this is MY STUFF. And it is from then. And part of me is still so very furious.)
Anyway, apparently there is no means to stop something like this when it is happening right next to you.
You can’t call the authorities. You can’t even punch the person in the face, no matter how much you want to. Even when you believe in your heart that what you are witnessing is a form of torture.
This was a week for crying over brutality, real and perceived. For practicing compassionate communication inside my head. For piling on new experiences of safety. For remembering that Now Is Not Then. It was a lot.
And identity stuff, related to the anger and grief.
Because then Crusader Me, Impassioned Defender of the Weak and Vulnerable Everywhere makes her way to the front of the V, even though this also doesn’t help.
So then I also had to do a lot of negotiating with her, so that she could realize that we practice doing things differently now.
We are changing both the external and internal worlds (and our experience of them) through love and play instead of through anger and blame.
This is hard to remember.
Forgetting to set expectations.
Lots of unclear agreements and arrangemenets.
Again, now is not then.
Even when now is reminding me of then.
Separating out from then. Making safe rooms in my heart.
People not owning their stuff.
Hilarious, of course, as I was in my stuff so much this week.
Lots of experiences of people being in their stuff. And completely abdicating responsibility for their stuff, and not even recognizing that they’re in it.
And then wanting me to take on their stuff. Awesome.
Dentist.
That’s pretty much never fun.
Oh, and then they had some systems error that resulted in me getting three different calls from them, and having to call twice to be able to keep my appointment.
Grrr.
The Misunderstanding of Doom.
Yep! Fun for the whole family.
The good stuff
Oh thank god I’m back in Portland!
Home! Hoppy House!
And oxygen! Sweet, sweet oxygen! There is air here and you can breathe it, and this is the most indescribably marvelous thing.
And color! Glorious, rich, saturated color. Everywhere.
Lush greens. Red, orange and yellow leaves. Even a red traffic light is beautiful when it’s glowing against the grey skies. I instantly felt better when I was back in the world of color.
And moisture. And not having to apply lip balm and lotion every five minutes.
Oh, and not getting nosebleeds. I love that. Well, now I do. I hadn’t really thought about it before.
And the water tastes good. And doing aerobic exercise doesn’t feel like being stabbed in the heart.
(It seems that elevation is not my thing anymore? Yes, well. Lesson: learned.)
Home.
Comfort and routine.
Hiding. Blankets. Flannel. Good.
Getting ridiculous amounts of stuff done.
Which is weird, given how much of the week I spent sobbing in the bathtub.
But so much done!
Including two days of massive behind-the-scenes progress on Shivanauticon!
It’s an Unconventional. It’s going to be the most fabulous and goofy-ass-crazy-circus thing that has ever existed.
We had to invite metaphor mouse on thirty seven different occasions. Turning metaphor-mousing into an extreme sport!
Yay!
I made a neat discovery at the dentist..
Dentist: Wow, you’ve got great teeth!. And look at this, you must have an incredibly low-sugar diet.
Me: Yeah, I quit sugar nearly twelve years ago.
Dentist: Well, that makes sense because you have zero cavities even though your teeth have weird grooves and should be full of cavities, and also because your saliva is very high in calcium. It’s super basic, not acidic like most people’s. Interesting!
Me: ???
Dentist: The way you eat has changed the content of your saliva. And as a result, you have really strong and healthy teeth. But you also get build-up on your teeth significantly faster than other people do because your saliva isn’t eating away at your teeth.
Me: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That kind of explains a lot.
What it really explained was this:
I switch dentists every year. That’s because whenever a dentist sees me for the second time, he or she will tell me that I need to floss more.
Except I’m a mad flossoholic who already veers way too far into OCD over-flossing tendencies. I live to floss!
So dentists who tell me I need to floss more when more would probably get me institutionalized? Screw those people. They shouldn’t get to hang out with my gorgeous teeth. And they definitely don’t get my money.
But here’s what’s really been happening. It’s not build-up from not-flossing. It’s because my saliva is different from everyone else’s. Now that I know this, I won’t have to keep switching dentists.
That was probably not very interesting to read, and you might also possibly be worried about me, but I assure you that this was a highlight, albeit a weird one, in my week.
Asking a smart question instead of falling apart.
The dentist made worrisome noises about wanting to take out my wisdom teeth.
And I totally didn’t start screaming OVER MY DEAD BODY, YOU PSYCHOPATH!!!!
Instead I calmly asked some questions.
And determined that this was purely an aesthetic consideration. My wise, wise teeth are not going to cause me pain or health problems. They might just make my lower teeth move a bit. Which is fine. I can live with charmingly snaggly. In fact, I think I prefer that to a boring straight line of teeth.
Crisis and breakdown magically averted by asking the right things.
Results.
People getting great results from the Kitchen Table call I did on flow yesterday. And the graduates of Crossing the Line are dong miraculous things and still having gigantic epiphanies.
And I am living by what I teach and getting what I need. This is a truly beautiful thing.
This week I used the OODs and Very Personal Ads and the Emergency Calming the Hell Down techniques, and all of it was brilliant.
Especially the Shiva Nata, which is blowing my mind and making everything doable. And now it’s Friday. Hello, Friday!
The fun part of the Chickening happens here.
Tabstravaganza! Or: what’s Havi been up to with all those open Firefox tabs?
- Oh my lord, Tortalandia! I want to eat there right this second.
From the archives.
Some old, weirdly pertinent posts that I don’t remember having written, encountered while looking for something else:
- A Tiny Sweet Thing. Always worth re-reading.
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, of course:
The Misunderstanding of Doom!
They put on a pretty raucous show. Lots of cool effects. Bring your ear plus. And yes, it’s really just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
- Reminder: Rally prices are out of date. They’re going up. Also we can maybe-possibly sneak you in on the January Rally on a stowawayship scholarship ship.
- I highly recommend the Art of Embarking, which is the thing I am most excited about right now. This will be the prerequisite for everything I teach in 2012.
- Oooh, and registration for the Floating Playground will be opening later this month. If you’re not on my HAT list (Havi’s Announcing a Thing), you can sign up on the events page.
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.