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.
Community.
Today I’m off to Denver!
By imaginary ocean liner. Though I will actually arrive in Denver. That part: not imaginary.
The Denver-ing itself is the result of all sorts of support. Unexpected helper mice being marvelously helpful in a variety of ways.
Like Audrey, who spent hours tracking people down, making calls and getting things sorted so we could run our gorgeous full-page Shiva Nata ad in the program at roller derby Championships.
Or Liz, who offered to drive me and the First Mate from Denver to Boulder, where I’m teaching tomorrow, and then back to our hotel.
Then Taylor offered a house to stay in, which I will totally take her up on the next time I’m in town.
And Leni, who sent a magical postcard offering help and support back when this trip was just a tiny baby wish.
Audrey, Taylor and Liz have all been to Rally (Rally!), and I know Leni from here!
And on short notice.
A couple days ago I realized that we would need some sort of stage after all at my Shiva Nata workshop, and so I asked if anyone had ideas.
Turns out lots of people did. And many of them sent in suggestions to the First Mate.
Liz was able to locate risers at her son’s school.
And Beth has the perfect sized table that you can stand on to teach (and she teaches, so this table has had practice!), and offered to bring it in her car.
Nicole had cinderblocks she could bring if someone else had a board.
It was like having perfect, simple solutions land in front of my feet.
Not just for me, though.
There’s a facebook group for the graduates of Crossing the Line, who spent eight days together at the Playground with me last month. They’re constantly helping each other in the most amazing, silly and unexpected ways.
Last week, three members of my 2009 Kitchen Table program got to hang out together in Montreal.
Two years ago I taught a one-day workshop in Sacramento. Two women who met there have spoken for an hour by phone every week since then to work through business and personal stuff, offer encouragement, brainstorm. Every week for two years.
I see people who have been to Rally (Rally!) with me doing things for each other. Graduates of my Shiva Nata trainings encourage new teachers online.
And commenter mice here have bought each others’ stuff, become friends, visited each other in person. It’s beautiful.
It’s an extraordinary thing.
There isn’t really a word that is good for what I’m trying to describe.
Community is so over-used and it doesn’t seem to hold all the sparkliness.
This is the thing that I have always wanted and didn’t even know I wanted:
A world where there is support, shelter, companionship, warmth, creativity, hilarity, experimentation, amnesty, strength, permission and play for everyone who wants to be there. In a completely sovereign and non-forceful way.
As in: These qualities are available to you in whatever amount and form you desire, but you do not need to partake of them unless you happen to want them.
Not an us-versus-them. Just an optional togetherness where there’s company when you want and need it. With people who are just the kind of people I want to hang out with. Like all of you.
Here’s something I’ve been thinking about lately.
It often happens that biggified bloggers will shut down comments on their blogs. For a variety of perfectly legitimate reasons.
And when this happens, comparisons get made out there in the world-of-blog to my decision three years ago to go on email sabbatical.
I find this fascinating, because — to me — there is no parallel.
Email sabbatical was a way to bring in more spaciousness into my life so that I could spend more time with my people and my world, and be more present with you guys. Together, as a community.
It was a way to open things up so that I can create and write things for us, and spend more time at the local twitter pub and the Frolicsome Bar (our facebook hangout).
It was a move towards connection. Towards a strong, loving, supportive community of people who are all working on their stuff, each in his or her own way, but with the warmth and appreciation of the collective.
There is no one right way.
I’m not trying to say that no-comments is a terrible move. It’s clearly the right solution for some people in some situations.
(And of course any decision related to how you work or write or live is valid. You know what you need.)
There isn’t one way to create a world, forge a vocabulary, go on adventures or build a loving network of support and connection.
There are endless ways.
But I am overjoyed that the way that we have found has turned out like this.
This is the kindest, friendliest and most supportive place on the internet.
One of my favorite things in the world is reading the comments on the Friday Chicken when you guys review your week.
I read every single Very Personal Ad that you guys leave, and make a secret wish for you getting what you want and need. And also for all the people who are silently joining in on their own.
Support is something I have a hard time with. I crave it and resist it. Having this blog and running the Playground has been a gigantic healing for past-me.
You guys have helped me in so many ways, just by being here.
And knowing that I can call on you guys for ideas, reassurance and playtime is the best thing that has ever happened to me.
Tomorrow I will see twenty-seven of you lovely people in Boulder. And then I’ll see more of you at Championships, where Rose City is going to be taking the world of derby apart.
Speaking of awesome communities: derby! You guys! Go to a bout and get involved with your local team!
And the rest of you — someday it will happen. We will get to drink tea together and play at the Playground, and it will be grand.
Until then, please know that you are appreciated and adored by me. Even if you’ve never commented. Even if you don’t ever plan to buy anything.
Even if you have no idea what I’m talking about half the time.
The fact that you read stuff here has added to this world of mine being special and sparkly. So thank you for helping me realize that support is a thing. It’s real.
Okay, enough of that.
Don’t let me start crying.
I just did my fabulous plane-flying make-up.
Do you want to see the ad we’re running at Championships?
It’s gorgeous.
Right? That’s another wish you guys have helped me with. Spreading hot, buttered epiphanies throughout the world with the help of Shiva Nata.
You can click on the image to see it in its glorrrrrrrious full-size!
Play with me. And the extra-supportive commenting blanket fort.
If you want to mention a way that you have received or experienced support in some form because of this space, that would be beautiful.
Or you can leave a tiny pebble.
Declaring silent retreat is always welcome.
We’re all working on our stuff. We take responsibility for our experience and let other people have their experience. We make this a safe space by agreeing to not give each other advice (unless people ask, of course!).
Love, as always, to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.
Barrington.
Barrington is my travelling companion, of course.
She’s absolutely smashing at it. Just frightfully efficient. One doesn’t know what one did before she was here to take care of it all.
Today she is doing up my valise and hat boxes and such, in preparation for our ocean liner voyage tomorrow.
To Denver. Yes. My, the places one can travel to by ocean liner these days. This truly is an era of Progress, wouldn’t you say?
Barrington is so good at these things. So very competent.
Dashedly competent!
Anyway.
The world in which Barrington and I live is kind of a mash-up between the world of say, a Marx Brothers film, an Agatha Christie novel, and socialites aboard the Titanic*.
* Except not the Titanic, of course, because our travels are always highly amusing but without any unpleasantness to speak of.
With some Gilbert & Sullivan thrown in for good measure, because often as not it turns out that Barrington and I are actually twins separated at birth and reunited.
Or possibly we were switched at birth, and actually I am meant to be her travelling companion. Which sometimes I am. Do you see? Never mind. It doesn’t matter.
The times change. Sometimes it’s more 1910-ish, and other times it’s already the early forties. When it’s earlier, we get to be secret suffragettes and wear bloomers in our staterooms! As the century progresses, we sometimes get to be spies. Or disguised anarchist rabble-rousers.
We get to be British, of course.
Mainly so I can say Rawther. And Quite.
I refer to things as being smashing, and amuse myself with my terrible attempt at a posh accent.
I will also throw in other British pronunciations of words which amuse me, no matter how irrelevant to whatever I happen to be speaking about at the time.
Zebra! Goulash! The cha cha!
Barrington and I get on ever so well.
You’d think that might be odd given that I’m her employer.
But of course we are secret cousins or best friends or lovers or who knows, so all that is just an act.
She calls me Brooks. Not in public, of course. Then I am Her Ladyship. But privately. Or sometimes under her breath, and we try not to collapse in giggles.
And sometimes we both call each other Rosie! I can’t tell you why. Or Old Thing. We have fun.
Brooks and Barrington, Barrington and Brooks! Partners in crime.
Sometimes Barrington is Barrington, and sometimes I am Barrington. Either way, it’s very useful.
Today, for example.
Barrington is in charge of packing. Which is perfect because I quite loathe packing, and of course she does a ripping good job.
So today I am Barrington, and this is the best and sneakiest plan in the entire history of sneaky plans, because Barrington does not have any of my monsters.
Barrington has decided what I am going to wear each day.
If I were to try something like that without her, my monsters would have a field day.
“Really? Could you be any more boring? What happened to the fun, crazy, up-for-anything girl who moved to Berlin based on a hunch? Packing?! Lists?! Next thing you know, you’ll be driving a mini-van. To soccer practice! Mom-jeans. Inspirational quotes on sweatshirts. We need to stop this self-care bullshit now before you lose your freedom and forget how to be fabulous. Code Red! Shut all systems down! No planning ever or it will be the end of you!”
But Barrington lives in a world where mini-vans do not exist, so this is not an immediate danger. Also she is delightfully immune to monsters. Mine and in general.
This means she can do all sorts of things to take care of me and make my life easier, without anyone objecting.
It’s another form of embarking.
Instead of leaving presents for slightly future me, Barrington leaves them for me.
And when I am Barrington, I am leaving them for Brooks. Which is part of my job description and also something I enjoy.
I can plant all sorts of delightful surprises for this person I love, without any of the guilt, the objections, or the usual accusations of Shameful Extravagance coming from the Collective.
What is Barrington up to today?
All sorts of things that I would never do for myself. Either because I wouldn’t remember or I’d deem it unimportant.
She’s already printed out the brackets for Championships as well as a list of everyone who is coming to my workshop in Boulder on Thursday.
She’s downloaded the exact-right books to my phone for reading on the plane.
Itineraries, clothing, special bags, snacks. Barrington does it all!
And she knows why it’s important, whereas I tend to forget to take care of myself-from-now and me-of-next-week.
Sometimes I make lists of things I secretly wish Barrington might do (and then she does!).
Sometimes I make lists of things that I, as Barrington, feel moved to do for Brooks.
Sometimes we put fascinators in our hair and frolic around the room.
Play! And how things work in the spacious commenting blanket fort.
If you had your own travelling companion or personal secretary, what would he or she be up to today?
Or what would you do for your person if you got to be the companion? What would you like to have ready for you for the next voyage? Internal voyages count too.
If you like, you can whisper-share here. Or declare silent retreat, which is always okay.
What I would love:
Entertaining phrases that Barrington and I can use. Or things we might say. Like: “sharp as a tack!”
(Not invited: critique of the world that Barrington and I inhabit. I don’t especially care about plot holes, anachronisms, or if anyone is worried about my many personalities, as sometimes happens. Barrington can confirm that I’m delightfully eccentric, and she is always right!)
This is a place of support, play, shelter, exploration, and conscious interaction with our stuff. We don’t give each other advice, and we try to have as much fun as we are capable of.
Oh, and would you care for flowers in your stateroom? I believe that can be arranged…
Very Personal Ads #122: if you know what I mean…
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!
Hey there! Sunday! It’s you! Oh, Sunday. How have you been all week?
I had adventures. And it’s really good to be back here at the Gwishery!
Yes, the place where I secretly and not-so-secretly deposit my gwishes.
Let’s do this. And you can play too if you want.
Thing 1: A stage-like thing and a perfect simple solution.
Here’s what I want:
So I’m teaching this workshop in Boulder on Thursday and there will be 26 people.
But we decided not to rent a stage because it was too complicated to arrange delivery with the location, for a variety of reasons.
And it is not impossible to teach Shiva Nata while not being taller than everyone so they can see easily, but it’s a challenge.
So I would really like a small, portable, DIY stage-like thing to magically reveal itself.
Ways this could work:
No idea! Let’s see.
Hmmm… maybe one of my people in Boulder or Denver has access to a bunch of milk crates and a large board?
Maybe someone works somewhere where there are portable risers and could help arrange for transport?
Maybe one of my roller derby connections has access to something. Like a tiny section of bleachers… ?? Or something else?
Maybe I just go get outrageously high platform shoes and we don’t do any high-impact jumping around.
Maybe I have the just right idea. In fact, most likely: Maybe Shiva Nata gives me the idea or the solution, since that’s one of the things that it does best.
Do you guys have ideas?
I’m receptive to a variety crazy goofball suggestions. Not things along the lines of “just deal with it”, though. That’s not what I want.
My commitment.
To have fun. To have so much fun.
I’ve already planned the class and today I’m having my imaginary Traveling Companion pack my valise.
So now I am just asking the ask and WISHING it. From a secret hidden room that is filled with trust, calm, strength and endless playful possibilities.
Thing 2: Recovery. Easy Transitions. Consolidation. Revue.
Here’s what I want:
I just finished pulling off mad feats of brilliance, grace and athleticism at THE OLYMPICS (shhhhh, that’s my proxy for teaching eight days of Crossing the Line).
But on Wednesday, I’m flying to Denver.
And there are all sorts of things that need to happen for that. Not to mention all sorts of recovery practices, exit rituals and a sparkly spangly dancing-mouse Revue of what was.
Ways this could work:
I have created an Anthology of Exit. It’s at the Playground. And maybe I can play with that.
Also I need a new word for consolidation because it’s stressing me out.
Magical synthesis? Can I relate it to the fractal flowers? Because that would be awesome.
Basically I don’t know how any of this will work.
But I know what I need:
Spaciousness. Curiosity. Investigation.
And also…. tea, notebooks, scribbling, doing old Turkish lady yoga and secret agent marathon-training sessions (that aren’t actually marathon-training sessions at all, because that’s code too, ahahahaaaaa!).
My commitment.
There has to be a way to make this fun, creative, safe, permission-filled, light-hearted and ridiculous.
And I’m going to find it.
Because if anyone can find it, that person would be me. It’s what I do. And if you think about it, this whole project is a sort of strategic conceptual blanket fort.
Whoah. Strategic Conceptual Blanket Forts. Is it just one guy?
Thing 3: The Page That Shall Not Be Mentioned Except By Proxy.
Here’s what I want:
On Friday, roller derby Championships begin. The Continental Divide & Conquer!
We’ll have a full page ad for Shiva Nata in the giant program.
It will be directing people to a page on the website.
That page does not really exist yet. Yes. Hilarious!
Because who doesn’t love doing something risky, expensive and possibly stupid? At the last minute? I live for that stuff.
I wish this were not true. Okay. It’s kind of not true. Oh god. At this point I’m just kind of muttering stuff under my breath awkwardly!
So this has to work, people. How is it going to work?
Ways this could work:
We’re going to have to proxy it, of course.
And I need a daring plan.
It will involve secret agent code words and a hot water bottle that has a bear on it.
I will have to use all my superpowers and my best costumes. And I will need help.
My commitment.
To do my secret marathon-training mini-sessions (wink, wink) so that I can be focused and ready.
To pretend I’m at Rally (Rally!).
To do some Shiva Nata on it, make it hard, and have realizations about what to do next.
To trust and trust and trust some more.
Thing 4: Recommendations for speakers!
Here’s what I want:
Not the kind of speakers who stand behind a podium.
The kind that play music and make a room sound beautiful.
I had another shivanautical realization this week. I have these portable speakers that go with my ipod because I am still in the identity of Traveling Yoga Teacher Who Wanders The World.
But now I’m the director of a center where I also run a yoga studio. This is different. We need an actual sound system.
It doesn’t need to be crazy fancy, because the Playground has magical acoustics and an enormously high coved ceiling, and everything sounds terrific there.
It needs to be relatively affordable (not something my high-end-audiophile ex-husband would recommend) but also sound good and be relatively easy to install.
Ways this could work:
I can ask you guys for ideas and recommendations.
I can bring it to my Kitchen Table and ask there.
Or ask the Frolicsome Bar? Or the twitter pub?
My commitment.
To keep investigating this. To find out where the stuck lives and ask it loving questions.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I wanted to find the shortcuts and I found all the shortcuts. This is incredible.
Note to me-who-forgets: The shortcuts include a) proxies, b) fifteen mini newts!, c) mini “marathon-training sessions” wink-wink, d) choosing the door by choosing the world you want to be in and doing something that represents that world, e) write it down.
I asked for documentation, and created the best Anthology ever. Yes!
Then I wanted good recovery time, and am still working on that. But some things that helped: hiding with Briana, immersing myself in the hidden hotel, writing notes to myself, using the Anthology of Exit.
Also: thai massage.
The ask for a Partner In Crime resulted in all sorts of marvelous and unexpected results, including a fantastic idea I had that will most certainly lead to shenanigans. Of the good kind.
I also wanted Rally sign-ups for the January Rally (Rally!), and we that happened. I believe there are now two spots left? And a scholarship ship?
And next steps on the Convening of the Enthusiastic, which is moving full speed ahead. Wow. Best VPAs ever. I can’t believe so much of this actually happened so quickly.
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 #170: Chicken takes the gold!
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.
You guys! I am doing a different thing for this week’s Chicken, and that thing is proxying.
I will still chicken my week. But!
Whenever I refer to having just been in the Olympics (!) and then winning all those medals and oh wow best Olympics ever (!), I am secretly talking about something else.
Yes?
So. I just finished teaching Crossing the Line (the password for this: haulaway), and it was a long and amazing eight day voyage that was secretly years and years in far-away lands. So that is the hard and good of this week.
And for our purposes it was the OLYMPICS. And they have just ended, and I am an exhausted, happy, proud, deliriously overjoyed athlete who is recovering because dude, the Olympics.
The hard stuff
OHMYGOD THE OLYMPICS ARE INTENSE.
Wow.
I feel really energized but also really drained. Not negative-drained but still like it is time to just fill fill fill fill.
Also I kind of can’t move.
Cold packs! Or hot packs! Or whatever my trainer knows is best, please.
OHMYGOD THE OLYMPICS ARE OVER.
This is disorienting!
Especially when they are both the ending and the beginning. The culmination of everything you have been caring about in your life, and also the door into the next layer/level/thing of your athletic identity.
It was almost like our athletic training center (yes, this one) suddenly revealed that it had come into being for the purpose of this experience and these Olympics, and that was a crazy thing to discover.
So I am excited about the rest of my athletic career as well as my eventual retirement and transition into a new aspect of this, but I am also dealing with encountering the various and unexpected forms of Oh Everything Is Different Now.
Recovery is challenging…
Like when you just want to get back to your regular training practices but you can’t because now is the time for sports therapy and stuff like that.
Also you are toast. Toast, I say!
Because you were functioning at the PEAK of your peak of peak performance and you were on a mission, and you were fully there.
Nostalgia?
Sad about missing all the incredible and dedicated athletes who I got to spend so much time with and who shared this experience.
My entire body hurts.
Both in an awesome way and also in the way that requires deep attention and immersion in warm water.
Exhausted and dead tired and just wanting someone to deposit me in a bath.
I am flying to Denver on Wednesday for another athletic event.
Ha! I actually am.
And this is wonderful and weird. I need this next week to magically be three weeks so that I can enjoy the confetti parades and still get taken care of and also prepare for the body feats that will happen there.
The good stuff
WOW THE OLYMPICS!
There is no good way to explain how overjoyed and delighted with being alive I am right now.
Or how important and spectacular and meaningful this experience was for me and for my team and my country and my sport and the world.
WOW WE WON THESE CRAZY-AWESOME MEDALS LOOK!
Everything that needed to happen happened in exactly the right way.
My secret hopes, dreams, wishes and desires for this experience all came true.
We reached records that we didn’t know could be reached, and stayed loose, flexible, graceful and strong.
We were unshakeable. There was no shaking.
FLOW-STATE OF HAPPY!
And so much fun.
Really the whole experience was so incredibly great that I can hardly stand it.
Usually the first few days of an athletic event are all about focus and getting into it before it gets good, but this entire experience was brilliant, sparkly, exciting and exactly-what-it-needed-to-be for the full duration of being in it.
I knew I would love it but I had no idea how much. So much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I had to make a list of accomplishments in my life that I am most proud of and joyful over, this now catapults way to the top.
Being an athlete doing the thing that you have trained for forever is so right.
You can feel all the years of working up to knowing what you know and being to execute things in particular ways.
Every cell and every moment saying: we have brought you here.
I am very much not a “life purpose” sort of person, as you guys know. I believe that what I will do will always change, and that this is a vital part of being me.
But this week felt aligned. This is exactly what I was supposed to be doing this week, in this way, at this time, in this setting, with these people. And it worked in the deepest way possible.
Now I have all these ideas about possibilities!
Like all the rest of the things that can be achieved in this particular athletic field.
And the as-yet-impossible maneuvers and skillful movements that are now in the realm of maybe-someday.
Everything feels right.
It just does.
Look at all this confetti!
Who doesn’t like confetti?
I am filled with excitement, gratitude, anticipation, gleeful rejoicing.
And most of all: LOVE.
These are very nice things to be filled with.
Especially after I hurt my leg at the last Olympics, so I had been feeling a little anxious about that.
But being at these Olympics helped me remember how beautiful and powerful the last ones were, even with the hurt leg. And that was a healing for me-from-then too.
So yeah. Basically this is me blinking in the light, trying to assimilate the impossibly beautiful thing that I have experienced, and finding out what happens next.
And I’m putting this here so that in a few months when I’m tired/cranky and can’t remember why I love the Olympics (especially given just how much insane work I put into getting to them), you can point me here and I will remember.
The fun part of the Chickening happens here.
Tabstravaganza! Or: what’s Havi been up to with all those open Firefox tabs?
Hardly anything because I wasn’t internetting, what with being at the Olympics. But:
- Obviously I love this: Can I stream it? Extra points for the domain name.
- Bonnie pointed me to this outrageous piece of joy (the first two and a half minutes are heaven).
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.
We came up with twenty seven hundred fabulous band names at the Olympics and now I can’t remember any of them. Argh.
So. This week’s band:
There Are Two Of Everything.
They pretend to be a duo, but I know the secret. It’s all done with mirrors and recording studio magic. Because it’s actually just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
- Come to the Rally (Rally!) in January! We will play and it will be magical.
- Even though the Olympics aren’t for another four years, another four years is happening in OCTOBER. And you might be there. So take a look at Crossing the Line: the 8 Day Voyage! (password: haulaway)..
- The class in Boulder next week has 24 people and we are full. But you could try getting on a waiting list just in case?
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.
Hello, November.
Saying hello to the months is an experimental form, and always changing. This is the fifth time I’m trying this (in a row — whoah!), and each time I’ve done it differently.
I’ve read over July and August and September and October, and each one is lovely and sweet in its own way.
What about this month’s hellos? What if they parallel last month’s goodbyes? That could be interesting. I’m trying it.
Hi there, November.
Hey, November. You’re here. I wasn’t expecting you but now that you’ve arrived, I’m weirdly happy to find us together again.
Oh, November. This is me preparing for the voyage (of being with you, November) through conscious entry.
What I love about November.
This is a bit of an odd place to start because I’m pretty sure that I don’t normally love November.
But somehow asking this is reminding me that actually I do love some things about it:
- The smell of rain.
- Having the parks to myself because all the Fickle Fair Weather Frolickers aren’t there. Spaciousness and long walks, with everything so green against the grey. Beautiful.
- Hot baths. Warm towels.
- The Playground is extra snug and cozy, with its magical rugs and soft blankets.
- Shavasana. Hibernation mode. Feeling the movement into winter.
- I look good in ALL hats. It’s my superpower! November is totally a month of hats.
- The Great Ducking Out, which is the best thing in the entire world. It will be spectacularly great.
- Root vegetables. Roasted beets and potato.
- Everyone is brewing porter again.
- Brewing. It’s also a kind of door, right?
- Sitting on the window seat and writing…
Things I am planning to love about this November.
- ROLLER DERBY CHAMPIONSHIPS!!! YEAH!!!
- And I am going to be there in person, watching Rose City kick ass. And we’re sponsoring! Because Shiva Nata and roller derby are cousins. Sort of.
- The workshop I’m teaching in Boulder (which you can still sign up for because the studio is bigger than I’d originally understood it to be). Yay.
- The Ducking Out, of course. Which you can’t sign up for because it sold out months ago but you can come in November, 2012 if you’d like…
November things about which I feel ambivalent or conflicted ….
Stupid being cold! Stupid dark all the time! Dry skin!
Also November is dentist time. This always requires force fields and secret agent code words and safe rooms and preparation.
I need lots of recovery time after the unbelievably amazing thing that was Crossing the Line this past week. But it’s going to have to happen in doses rather than in one piece. Not entirely sure how that will work yet.
November is also when we (me Selma the duck, and the First Mate) meet with our accountant and various other grown-ups in the business. And while our Treasure Crew is completely great, I always get nervous about how to translate stuff we do for the World Out There where they live.
But the Book of Me has a note that this always goes better than I think it will, and that I just have to be the Pirate Queen and wear my costume (not a pirate costume — a “regular person” costume).
Though ohmygod maybe I should go in a pirate costume. That could in fact make the whole thing significantly more awesome.
What do I know about November?
One of the things we did at Crossing the Line (haulaway) last week was discovering the things we know that we didn’t know we knew.
So what are the things that I know but don’t realize I know about November?
Or: If I had an Almanac of Me, what would it tell me about my relationship with November?
I am going to ask slightly wiser me about this.
Slightly wiser me has plenty to say about November, as it turns out:
“It is important to remember that now is not then.
“Those past painful Novembers are part of experiences from then.
“They are not held in the November-ness.
“You hold them. And you don’t have to anymore. You can keep the wisdom from those hard times without holding the pain in your space.
“Dark and cold is an opportunity to burrow.
“So go deeper into the blanket forts. Use color. Use texture. Use your quarters at the Playground. Be inspired by the Refueling Station. Follow everything that is orange.
Sorge dafuer dass es dir warm, gemuetlich und behaglich ist.
“Trust water. Trust the element of water. And be in warm water as much as you can. And drink tea!”
The qualities I want to hum in November.
Yes, hum. Havi, remember what the castle told you: humming is the aural form of shining!
Safety. Shelter. Appreciation. Replenishing.
Courage. Sovereignty. Spaciousness. Sweetness. Right timing.
Elimination. Transportation. Easy transitions.
And booty bouncing, of course.
(The monster collective would like to register their opinion that saying “replenishing” is almost as embarrassing as “nurturing”, and that I shouldn’t ever admit to wanting it, but I asked them to let us try as an experiment.)
Planting November’s gwishes.
A gwish is somewhere between a goal and a wish, and I have lots of them, but I am going to whisper-plant them in my journal instead of putting them here.
If you would like to whisper with me or whisper loving wishes for my dreams, that would be good.
Come play with me! Comments in the giant collective blanket fort.
I’m putting this all into the pot with love.
If you would like to throw things into the pot and/or think about your relationship with this November, go for it. You can do it here in the comments or silently in your heart. Or wherever and however you like, obviously.
We all have our stuff. We let other people have what’s theirs and take responsibility for what’s ours. And we do this through not giving other people advice or telling them how what to do or how to feel.
Extra wishes for a safe, healthy, delight-filled November with lots of the good kind of surprises.
Postscripting!
Come hide in blanket forts with me! There are a few spaces left for the January Rally (Rally!), and I would love to hang out with you and find out about all the magical things that will happen when we’re at the Playground together.