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 #169: there’s only one thing that’s overcooked and that’s me.
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.
Finally.
After TWO consecutive Chickens that were both #168. Yes.
Okay! Here we are.
The hard stuff
Late chickening!
I forgot how completely all-consuming teaching is.
We are now on the fourth day, incredibly, of the eight day voyage that is Crossing the Line, and oh wow. It is intense.
So I didn’t have time to chicken. And when I did, I wasn’t really in the headspace for that.
Apologies for the lateness. We’re here!
Rough weekend.
This now seems like a million trillion years ago but I was not feeling my best last weekend.
Nightmares and scariness and not sleeping.
So then I had to miss the Rosebuds bout. And dance class. Twice.
Not fun.
Ohmylord so busy.
Yes well, there’s that.
Teaching is awesome and it’s also really powerful.
Yes, this is also a good thing, but it requires a lot of presence, and a lot of recovery.
Screw-ups! And then: having to apologize for screw-ups.
Three hard emails to send to clients about changes. Ugh. Sorry sorry sorry.
It’s cold!
Transitions.
Always hard.
The night when sleeping was off.
Sleep! It’s my favorite thing in the entire world.
So when it’s not working, nothing is working.
The good stuff
The massive amount of stuff I managed to get done before Crossing the Line began.
It was pretty mind-boggling, actually.
I had some of the most productive days I’ve had in my entire life. And I wasn’t even at Rally.
Including dispatching a massive box of iguanas.
And getting what felt like hundreds of things done.
Mmmmmmm.
I got to leave some marvelous presents for me-in-a-few-weeks.
And then when I got to the Playground there were all sorts of presents for me-now from me-a-few-weeks-ago.
Yay. Conscious entry. It’s helping.
Crossing the Line.
So I’m teaching this eight day retreat/voyage thing called Crossing the Line (password: haulaway), and it started Toozday and it is amazing.
Everyone there is smart, sweet, funny, creative, kind, goofy and delightful.
The Playground is filled with happy sighing and giggling.
We are having epiphanies like mad and everything we have done is working.
Love love love love love. This might be the most fun event I’ve ever taught.
I am SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW!!!!
Let me tell you this wonderful thing…
This is what one person at the Crossing said the other day:
“My realization on the second day was so completely amazing/perfect/mind-blowing and so EXACTLY-WHAT-I-NEEDED that this entire experience would have been worth it just for that. If I got nothing else (and yeah, fine, there have been hundreds of other things), I’d still be completely beyond-happy. I wish I’d known it would pay for itself in the first two days. The rest — unbelievable as it is — all feels like a bonus.”
And here’s what someone else said today:
“It’s like I have carbonated sunshine running through my body, and everything is changing and everything is better.”
Yes. The Crossing. It is that great.
Also we already have three sign-ups for *next* October. So maybe see if you can make it and try to make something happen. Scholarship available.
The Future! It is here.
We can take credit cards at the Playground now. Through our merchant account.
Yay for the Toy Shop! Yay for fewer administrative back-end procedures!
We updated the events page!.
Big new stuff.
Boulder!
We were able to announce my workshop in Boulder, Colorado.
And then it filled! But then the studio told us we could actually have more people there, so there’s a little more room.
We are going to have a brilliant time, I can already tell.
777!
My second-favorite number. Not because of slot machines. Because of the 777 Building (childhood landmark).
Anyway.
This week I was in the Pirate Log and saw that the First Mate had checked off more items off his list, and there was a note that said see the 777 things that have been checked off.
That’s a lot.
Take that, monsters. We are ACCOMPLISHING THINGS!
And having a party.
Second-funniest phone moment of the week.
Me to Siri: Set the timer for three minutes?
Siri to me: Don’t overcook that egg!
That is now my response to everything.
Thursday.
Several of the wonderful people at Crossing the Line decided to dance Thriller with me with a bunch of strangers in the middle of a street fair.
Then we ate mac and cheese.
Best. Day. Ever.
Onward, Chicken!
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, playing an all-burlesque show at the Playground as we speak.
The Easy Transitions
Though, of course, it’s really just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
- You won’t be able to Rally in April, August or October next year. January and June are both really close to full. If you’re thinking of rallying a Rally, this is a good time to sign up. Rally!
- November’s Great Ducking Out rally-retreat is sold out, but you can come to next year’s. Registration for the 2012 Ducking Out is officially open.
- Come to my workshop in Boulder! The Schmoppet will be there too…
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. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in at any point in the week (or not) and it’s no big deal.
More clews!
So I went clew-searching again.
And every time I do this, I wonder why I don’t do it a hundred times a day. It’s crazy-helpful and always surprising.
These are the clews that I decided were clews. The ones that caught my eye as I was perched on my teaching stage yesterday at the Playground:
- a pink flower
- happy purple elephant (on my sock!)
- magic wand
- tiny wooden door
- General Ignorance (on the title of the Book of General Ignorance).
I said: Hey clews, whaddya got?
And this is what they gave me.
The flower:
Grow. Expand. Trust. Breathe. Be patient. Be as flamboyant as you want when you’re there because why not.
The elephant:
Silliness is not just for bringing joy to you — it reminds you about the joy that is brought into the world through that process. Feet feet feet!
The wand:
Be intentional. Point, draw, declare, ask, show up, know, proclaim, fill up on fullness and possibility.
Want what you want. Be a scepter. Have a scepter. Visit the corners.
The door:
Uh, come on. Door! Door! More door. Entry, exit, movement, transition. Hidden passages. Make doors where you need them. Find them. Close them. Walk through when you’re ready.
General Ignorance:
Just call me General. *snickers*
Be willing to be wrong. Don’t assume. Invoke the principle of People Vary. The people who come into your world will get what they need, and you don’t know what that is — and that is as it should be.
Detach detach release release trust trust patience patience.
And then?
Then I changed my place to change my luck.
I visited the corners. I asked more questions. I wore a giant blue feather boa and a crazy, impossibly tall pink hat with a peacock feather.
There were noticings and pretzel sticks.
There were Remarkable Discoveries that had nothing to do with the clews at all. Until they did again.
Playing and the communal comment blanket fort.
You can explore, find clews, examine clews, interview clews.
Or do what you need to do.
We remember that our stuff is probably going to show up because that’s what it does. We care for ourselves as best we can.
We play. We don’t give unsolicited advice. We pay attention to what we need in any given moment, and try to meet that need in a way that feels safe and comfortable.
And I am blowing kisses from the Playground where it is currently the second full day of Crossing the Line (secret word: haulaway) and where we are having marvelous adventures. Wishing you all the best surprises today.
Entry: Sleep
Sleep is another one of those voyages I sometimes forget to prepare for.
Though rigorous internal scientific studies have shown that whenever I commit to any form of conscious entry, everything goes better.
Interestingly enough, the monsters have reviewed these studies and found them remarkably convincing.
Lately I’ve been doing some stone skipping before bed, as a way to practice the thing I am currently obsessing over:
Enter as you wish to be in it. Exit as you wish to continue.
Hello, sleep.
Of course, if I’m really exhausted, my bedtime ritual is just naming the moment:
SLEEP. ENTRY. DOOR.
But if I’m in the mood for writing, I’ll scribble on one or two of the following:
- What do I want from this time/experience of sleeping?
- What will help me have the sweetest sleep tonight?
- What am I releasing?
- What am I beginning?
- How do I want to feel when I wake up?
- Which part of me do I want at the front of the V when I wake up?
- What do I want to remember when I wake up?
And if none of these appeal to me, I pick a card from the Playground stone skipping deck…
Last week.
Last week I put up three new forum boards in my Kitchen Table program.
One of them is dedicated to sleep and dreams. To be honest, I was pretty sure no one would post there aside from me, but it’s been flooded with various threads about this.
We’re all practicing.
We’re practicing Morning Begins At Night (an awesome Andrey-ism).
And setting things up to be caring and supportive. Generally treating sleep like it’s the best present ever for slightly-future-you.
Which it kind of is.
And we can play here too.
Comment zen for the collective blanket fort…
You can use any of these stone-skipping questions. You can share if you like. You can deposit stories about how changing one aspect of approaching sleep changes other things.
Or not! You can always declare silent retreat, if you don’t feel like saying anything.
As always: we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a practice.
We take responsibility for what’s ours, we let everyone else have what’s theirs, and we don’t tell each other what to do or how to feel.
I am declaring a secret napping room in here today. If you don’t have time, you can send a secret self to nap for you while you’re doing other things.
If you’d like to decorate the secret napping room or donate imaginary pillows, that would be lovely.
Love and a sleepy happy wave to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.
Door.
This is a door.
This is me approaching the door.
This is me standing here: threshold.
This is me going through the door.
Door.
This is me saying DOOR.
Door door door door door.
And sometimes: Hello, Door.
Entry.
Last week I taught this class on the Art of Embarking.
It was about setting things up and preparing for the voyage.
And later a bunch of people asked me how you begin to start paying attention to entry.
They wanted to know how you begin to establish rituals of entry.
What’s a ritual?
A ritual is not as weird or complicated as it sounds. Or rather: it doesn’t need to be.
It’s really just a marker.
A ritual is a marker.
Anything that marks time or space. Anything that says: I am here. Anything that reminds you about your presence in a specific place or moment.
Start with the doors.
Symbolic and literal entrance. The moment of door might be the easiest place to begin.
Or maybe it’s three moments:
- The moment before the door.
- The moment of door.
- The moment after the door.
Or maybe it’s hundreds of tiny little moments. It doesn’t matter.
That is: it doesn’t matter for our purposes right now.
Being aware of DOOR as you are crossing through is another form of the pause. Paws!
Today I’m entering Crossing the Line.
We begin the Crossing (password: haulaway) at 5:00pm this evening.
I am saying hello to all the entryways as I pass through the doors.
The literal doors:
The door to the building, the door to the Playground itself, the doors to the Refueling Station, the Treasure Room, the Toy Shop, the Galley and my Pirate Queen Quarters/Dressing Room.
The pink fairy door.
And other more internal doors.
The doors to teacher-me and writer-me and dancer-me and the me who knows how to be at the front of the V.
The doors to creativity, inspiration, play, delight, curiosity and the scientific process.
But here’s the thing.
Everything is a door.
Even walls, as uncle Ralph said.
So the question becomes:
If everything is a door, what am I doing to mark the moment of passing through it?
Hello, door.
This is me and this is the door.
Me and my relationship to the door. Me and my relationship with myself as I am going through doors.
Me and the person I am becoming as a result of having experienced this particular passage through this particular door.
All of it.
Play with me!
Self-practice and the giant communal and commenting blanket fort.
We can invent rituals.
We can name doors.
We can pile on ridiculous things so that our door-rituals become more and more baroque, and the entire day just becomes one giant door-crossing extravaganza. (I’m picturing illustrations by Dr. Seuss.)
We can have doors for depletion and doors for celebration.
We can put doors inside of doors. We can say door over and over again until it loses all meaning. We can make doors for future-us.
Usual comment zen applies. We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff.
We take responsibility for what’s ours, we let other people have what’s theirs. We don’t give advice. We’re supportive and welcoming. Everyone belongs. We play.
Very Personal Ads #120: I hardly even know her? No one should laugh at that.
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!
It’s Sunday, you guys!
Not sure when that happened.
Of course you can VPA all week, if you like. Okay.
Thing 1: It’s happening. Shiva Nata workshop in Boulder!
Here’s what I want:
Guess what? I’m going to be teaching a two hour fun-crazy-wonderful destuckifying Shiva Nata workshop in Boulder, Colorado.
It’s going to be on Thursday, November 10.
3-5pm.
All levels welcome, including total beginners and people who have no idea what this is.
It’s going to be amazing.
What I want: 18 people! And for everyone to sign up in the next couple days, so that I don’t have to talk it up because I’m going to be running the Crossing this week and next week.
Ways this could work:
First off, I am going to give you the link so you can read all about it.
Then I am going to ask you for all your questions about this (or the questions you would have if you lived in or near Colorado).
So far all I’ve done is put up the page and also I told the Frolicsome Bar. And six people signed up right away, which is excellent.
Let’s see.
I can let people know at the local pub (yes, twitter).
And tell the much-neglected HAT list (aka Havi’s Announcing a Thing).
Tell the shivanauts. Update the Doing a Thing board posts at the Kitchen Table.
Put it up as an event on Facebook…
And of course, I can talk to slightly future me and find out how she did it. While wearing a costume!
My commitment.
To keep making my favorite not-funny joke.
Boulder? I hardly even know her. Ahahahahaaaa. COLORADO!
To be present for this. To be joyful about all the fabulous people I get to hang out with there.
To remember to wear my outrageously colorful shopkeeper’s hat when I’m telling people about this, because that makes everything easier and more fun.
And here’s the link again: http://ShivaNata.com/boulder
Thing 2: Advance planning, whoah! Crazy.
Here’s what I want:
For the past few years I’ve kind of taken advantage of the weird thing that is internet fame.
Mainly because I’m crazy-busy and also it’s just been the easy way.
Like announcing things five seconds before they start, because they’ll fill. See: the ask directly above this one.
Or forgetting to tell the announcement list about events/programs/special-weird-opportunities that are happening. And then people — rightfully — feel upset about having missed stuff. Sorry sorry!
It’s not fair to my people. And it’s not how I want to treat me-from-next-week either. It doesn’t go well with conscious entry, which is the thing I’m trying to live by.
So. I want to start announcing things way in advance, and giving everyone plenty of planning time. And I’m going to play with this.
Ways this could work:
Looking at what is working. It’s not all terrible. Steps are being taken!
A couple of the 2012 Rallies are already full.
We’ve already opened registration for NEXT November’s Great Ducking Out. As in, not next month but a year from then.
*waves to the brave signer-uppers who have a year to prepare for this*
And while my Crossing the Line 8 Day Voyage program starts this Toozday, you can already go ahead and apply for next October. Password: haulaway
Progress.
What else can I do?
Some stone skipping to find out what’s next. I can schedule the Rallies for 2013. I can finish the HAT for Shivanauticon…
My commitment.
To experiment and play.
To invoke the qualities of safety, exploration, permission, autonomy, form and preparation.
To notice how my teachings about FLOW (our quarterly theme at my Kitchen Table program) are related to this wish.
To have fun with this when I can. To forgive myself when I can’t. There’s probably a good reason for why the old way has been the way.
Thing 3: posties….
Here’s what I want:
So if I’m teaching straight for the next eight days, not sure when/how blog posts are going to get written.
But they just are.
That’s what I want.
Ways this could work:
I have a list of 16 post ideas at the Playground…
Could share some of the capers we’ll be doing.
Or bits from my journal.
Or this could just magically resolve itself in a perfect simple way.
My commitment.
To love this space for what it is: a safe place to process, experiment, discover and goof off.
To stay connected to the culture of the blog, the Playground, and the Crossing. To feel or remember how they’re all connected, knowing that they share the same qualities:
Freedom, amnesty, safety, sovereignty, play, wonder, delight, calm, peacefulness, creativity, possibility.
Thing 4: Calling all KT-ers, past and present.
Here’s what I want:
We extended the Rally sale for Kitchen Table mice, whether from this year’s KT or graduates from 2009 or 2010.
Through November 4th.
I’m not going to have time to do a lot of spreading the word, so I need the word to somehow spread itself.
Ways this could work:
Not sure yet. Obviously I’ll put it up at the KT. And I’m planting this here.
The link. Password: crackers
My commitment.
To find out where I’m stuck on this. To ask wise, loving questions. To be willing to be wrong. To throw confetti.
Thing 5: Nailing Thriller and then learning the Shim Sham
Here’s what I want:
I’m feeling pretty good about the Thriller dance.
At this point I can do it at full speed without watching the video as long as I have audio cues.
This week I’ll practice some more until I can do it without any help.
And then I want to learn the Shim Sham!
Ways this could work:
I’ll get to practice Thriller at Last Thursday, and then during the Zombie walk next weekend.
And I can practice on my own.
Plus I’ll do some Shiva Nata for extra fabulous-coordination-agility-hotness magic.
As for the Shim Sham? I’m putting here and will let the wish percolate for a while.
My commitment.
Grab and pull, punch-punch-punch-down!
Dance it up. Dance it up.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I wanted to learn Thriller, and I did!
It took going to three different classes and studying the youtube videos, but I’ve got it and it looks great.
Then I wanted love notes from shivanauts who do roller derby. Which happened but then I didn’t do anything with them, so that’s the next step.
I wanted to Go Dark and run away, which sort of happened and sort of didn’t. But big progress happened on my secret hideaway, so I’m feeling good about that.
Also I wanted to plant surprises for slightly future me, and we worked on that all week. So that was pretty cool
I asked for lots of people for the Art of Embarking, and for it to be incredible. Both of those happened too. A pretty good week this time. Right on.
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