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.
November of Ritual, and the luminous path
Reflecting on morning medicine in the form of hot herbal tea, bracing cold air, sweetness, pre-breakfast ritual…
A breath for these tough times
Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.
Also, apologies to anyone whose comments disappeared from the next to last post while we were fixing a website mess! I read them and appreciated them!
Announcement / last chance for Emergency Calming Down Techniques
I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.
Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.
I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤️
November of ritual and the luminous path
What I am thinking about when I am thinking about ritual
It is the season of fall into winter here where I am. The cold times aren’t here quite yet, in sunny southern New Mexico, but they are coming. You can feel it.
This morning I sat on the porch with a small cup of damiana tea and admired the morning light glancing on the fields, and in the shimmering glow of gold-tinged cottonwood trees, moving like music, pulsing in space.
I set out a small bowl of chocolate-covered cherries to accompany or contrast with the medicinal bittersweet of damiana-infused hot water, and thought about ritual and said thank you.
Thank you
I said thank you to my cup, and the potter who made the cup (Sarah), and to a new-old friend (also a Sarah) who is also currently feeling a strong pull towards damiana.
And to the fields, and to dance, and to the small and large miracles, and to hope, may it stick around for a while.
Yes. Are you listening, sweet friend? I missed you, hope. I am glad you are back.
Hope, you are invited to stay and party with us, or at least keep us company. Please do.
A knowing nod
The combination of chocolate and cherries was not exactly the right form of what I was craving, but it felt like a knowing nod in the direction of the qualities within the wish:
Sweetness
Intention
Ritual
Pleasure
And something about the comforting comforts of right-sized, small-but-mighty, and of course the magic of a beautiful container, or the superpower of the right tool for the job. The vessel is part of the experience.
Pre-breakfast of champions
My wish about a pre-breakfast of champions is a wish about ritual, about infusing the infusion, and ultimately infusing everything with intention and care.
It is about beauty in small moments, and about pauses.
Realistically, soon it will be too cold for morning porch pre-breakfast but right now the view is so good.
Realistically / fleeting
Each year I think I will just get braver over and time and add on layers, but if we’re being realistic, the cold will win on that one, so:
Yes, this is also a wish about more-and-compound joy and pleasure for right now because this time is so fleeting.
That’s part of being alive too, letting the sun-kissed moments come and go.
Tiny shifts is part of the practice
Noticing: I don’t know that I like the taste of damiana. I don’t dislike it either.
Maybe we can say that it tastes medicinal to me, and also medicinal feels important and compelling right now.
Bring on the bitter and the bracing, in the right amounts.
Balancing the elements
I like to have something small and sweet to accompany my tea or coffee or morning warming beverage, but would much rather have chocolate covered orange peel than the cherries so let’s focus on making that?
Or something else, possibly something I don’t even yet know about, maybe that’s the answer. We will keep experimenting. I have some ideas and the basic elements are already in place.
Then elements are in place.
The doctor is in / the elements are in
The elements are in (place).
The elements are all gathered here, and I continue to explore the Known Knowns, and expand what is knowable and known, and of course, all this while staying receptive to the idea that any of these elements can change.
I like vessels.
I like how ritual is a vessel.
And how it is both the container and the contained, in the same way that a river is both the banks of the river and the rushing water, both the boundaries and the contents at the same time.
Alive / Okay I will tell you
Sometimes when I do morning yoga / bobcat stretching / tiger time, I think of the word CONTACT.
I touch my heart and say: CONTACT.
Breathing into all the connection points where a part of my body is making CONTACT with floor, and feeling how my heart wants to make contact with me. Fixating, in a good way, on contact.
Thomas said: Tell me something that is alive for you at this time, that you are holding space and attention for just because and no outside reasons….
Okay. I will tell you. I can do that. Sometimes I think I can do that, and sometimes I can’t, but today I can.
Missing
For the past three mornings I have made damiana tea and then sat on the porch drinking tea and contemplating the chill in the air, and thinking about how Winter Is Coming, and mainly just missing Michael, my beloved friend who died.
I want to talk to him about this tea. I want to talk to him about this mug. I want to talk to him about absolutely everything.
Rose, for example, but maybe cardamom and maybe wild mesquite
Later on that afternoon, I wanted to make an invigorating cacao beverage, or some kind of spiced hot chocolate something or other, something with a bit of a kick to it.
The saucepan still held the damiana leaves so I let them steep with the cacao, then added rose powder and a chai rose syrup I made the other day, and served it with frothed oat milk in my favorite glass. It was delicious and also it was missing something.
That is a familiar feeling too, that sensation of missing something. Missing, something.
Like waking from a dream and trying to write a note to myself and knowing, as I write it, that it won’t make sense.
Michael and I used to text every day, often about culinary experiments (he had been a chef), and I know we could have a fun back and forth on this particular experiment, dreaming up flavor combinations and surprising ingredients to add…
The little but not little things
It’s the little but not little things like this, like not being able to talk this through with him that is so hard.
Yes. It’s not little because this is very hard. I miss my friend so much. It hurts so much, the not-in-contact, the lack of contact.
I mean obviously I still can and do talk through this with him in spirit, and I absolutely do, but/and/also: it is not the same.
Because what I am craving is unknowable, and what I am craving is his laughter, and what I am craving is the contact, and being surprised by joy.
Maybe: cinnamon bark
Sometimes when I think about Michael and wonder what he would suggest in this situation, I can feel him so strongly. For example, I can feel teasing me, gently, about how I am a flavor maximalist…
Or I just feel him.
Right now I feel him indicating that whatever I might come up with intuitively will probably be better than any suggestion he or someone else would make so I should just trust myself (but also I think he would try cinnamon bark).
So maybe I will start there. Or maybe it doesn’t matter, and what matters is the dialogue, the vessel, the time-taking, the listening, the play.
The luminous pathway
After I cried more about missing Michael, I set up my kitchen space for yoga, and took an online class so that I could let my brain turn off and move my body through its paces.
Here was my clue from yoga class: “When you breathe in, your heart is ensconced by the lungs like under a pile of blankets, when you breathe out, your heart is revealed.”
And here was my other clue: ““The pathway is luminous because you are attending to it, feel the luminous path through your side body as you stretch…”
Thank you, Cary. Thank you, body. Thank you, technology. Thank you, waking up early.
The conditions were favorable
The conditions were favorable.
I was in the right place, which is to say that I am where I am, and sometimes it hurts and sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is medicinal, and sometimes all of these at once.
My heart was snuggled, my heart was revealed, the path was and is luminous, and porch tea helped, as it always does.
Talking to my friend from inside my heart helped, as it always or often does. Contact.
Mapping the many trails
This weekend I went to Tucson, for reasons, as a way or form of [okay, let us simply attend to the luminous path and see what happens].
And what happened was that Sarah and I went to a high-magic courtyard and breathed in herbs.
We talked about damiana, and talked about Michael, and cried, and hugged, and cried more, and laughed, and cried more. I learned that while I am busy missing Michael, many people from his life also know about me and think fondly of me. This had not occurred to me.
And what happened was dancing and sharing extraordinary moments with other dancers, and now I miss people I didn’t even know about before this weekend, how astonishing and life-affirming is that.
The luminous path of And What Happened Was
And what happened was that the courtyard encounter lead to a conversation about vessels that lead to a conversation about ritual.
And what happened was that thinking about ritual and vessels lead to remembering that once upon a time, before the great sadness, I used to enjoy morning hot beverage on my porch looking at the light.
And what happened was that when I arrived back home, Dominic happened to be just down the road from me and came over and I made mullein tea…
And that is how I remembered I happened to have a jar of damiana leaves on a shelf…
”Seen from the perspective of your helical heart…”
From heart perspective, I see:
The luminous path, and the luminosity that comes from attending to it.
The favorable conditions.
The way that ritual can hold space for grief, and for joy, and for story, and for the various pieces coming together and reconfiguring. Ritual as a vessel. And using a vessel as a ritual, or in the ritual, or to enhance the ritual.
Containing and being contained.
I am trying to spend time with the clues and with the damiana leaves and with the tea. With the shifting of the seasons, and the November wishes, and all of this.
Some November wishes
To be honest, I thought today I was going to be writing about Hard Reset November, which is one of my big wishes at the moment, also related to ritual and clue-following and contact.
And I thought I was going to be writing about practices and rituals related specifically to boundary issues, which is another theme for me right now.
And maybe about how all this relates or interacts with existing within fascism and terror and truly devastating times, because oh boy here we are.
But for whatever reason, and I am sure the reasons are good, I wish to focus on morning light, on porch time. I wish to hone in on medicinal practices that are grounded in pleasure and in noticing…
And maybe this itself is a container for the bigger November wishes, banks for the river to flow between.
What else supports November wishes?
Clearing off and cleaning / gleaming the kitchen table.
The practice of Fall Gleaming generally, a variant on spring cleaning, different energy, but same-same.
Releasing. Saying the most fun word: Futtitinni!
Yes, what if we practice being extremely Sicilian, and letting it go, with a dramatic hand gesture. Just keep saying it, and maybe something will let go. It might, right?
What else?
A good boundaries reset.
Staying with the known knowns, reviewing the known knowns. (What is known?)
Asking: what’s true and what’s also true?
Glowing attention and attentiveness towards the questions, following the luminous path of the questions.
The answers will come or they won’t, the clues will be revealed in right timing, I am following the questions, and they are following me.
Talk ritual to me
Yes, I am thinking about how maybe really everything is a grieving/remembrance ritual, and that’s okay because living and remembering go hand and hand.
We’ve been here before but also we’ve never been here before, right? This moment is new.
So that is something I am glowing attention towards.
Something I think about a lot is how no one tells you while you are growing up about how adulthood, whatever that means, is mostly grieving. Like, there is always more and more loss? It keeps compounding.
Soul-alchemy
I talked to Thomas about the tea, and about how when I am making tea I am also talking to Michael about flavor combinations…
He said that it feels like “the dance of a soul-alchemist, rehydrating the dust and bones of the past with the living warm waters of the present”, and that beautiful and poetic thought itself was bracing and reviving and medicinal for me.
Glowing attention towards, as a form of reviving. Everything is alive in some form on the luminous path.
If I’m doing it, then it is a form of ritual
Apparently we are all supposed to somehow muddle through life pretending it is not full of sorrow and memories that hurt?
Except it does not work for me to pretend that all this grief isn’t there, and so I turn everything into ritual.
I make tea for Michael and it is also for me. I introduce a friend to a favorite courtyard. I ask people to tell me about their vessels.
All of this is ritual and also it is all very simple and unfussy, if that makes sense.
The ritual forms itself. If I am doing it, then it is ritual. If I am following it then it is the luminous path.
Welcoming the November wishes
Instead of naming them directly, I am going to let these collected thoughts and clues be the vessel and the cauldron that hold the wishes.
The flowing river, the wishing waters, and the banks of the river, the boundaried container of the flow of wishing.
What is yes, what is a good clue, what are we glowing towards, and how are we taking care of ourselves and the vulnerable practice of allowing ourselves to want?
I want better for our world, and I am going to wish on that too, and make tea, and let the wishes be held in the ritual and let the ritual hold itself. A breath for following whatever comes next.
May it be so, or something even better
Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.
I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.
Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.
Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company
Leave a pebble (o) to say you were here, so I know I’m not doing this alone.
Also it feels good to pick up a pebble and place it somewhere, I have noticed.
You are invited to share any related situations or musings, or name any wishes in process.
And of course you are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped, bingo card wishes, clues received, or anything on your mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…
I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.
Or if there’s anything you’d like to explore further or toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.
Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!
If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.
This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.
I am emailing copies of the Emergency Calming Techniques package!
Anyone who gives to the Discretionary this week (more info below) will get my Emergency Calming Techniques package by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!
I have some ideas for the next ebook too but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.
A request!
If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously.
I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.
And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️
Accelerating now to reach escape velocity / the art of slowing for a gentle landing
Reflecting on the beauty in a peaceful grape vineyard on a sunny day against the background of rolling hills…
A breath for these tough times
Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.
Also, unrelated to the tough times, weird things are happening on the website, the comments disappeared from last post, the header disappeared, doing what I can to solve the mysteries, gotta do upgrades and updates.
Announcement / last chance for Emergency Calming Down Techniques
I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.
Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.
I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤️
Accelerating now to reach escape velocity and the gentle art of slowing for a even more gentle landing…
A beautiful Saturday at the vineyard
Many, many years ago I worked part time at a vineyard in Wisconsin.
My mind still holds beautifully glowing memory fragments of these sun-kissed Saturdays. Traipsing among the vines, carrying heavy boxes of grapes, reading bits and pieces of a novel during downtime, showing excited families a good place to pick their grapes. No, I do not stomp the grapes…
This past weekend, my first real weekend back home after a long summer that began with great upheaval escaping the big fire and ended with a joyful dance party among new-found friends and a road trip with a long-lost friend from another time, guess where I landed…
Yes! I found myself at a vineyard, on a perfect sunny fall day.
Something about arriving, something about belonging
It was in New Mexico, not Wisconsin, and I wasn’t there to work, I was there to meet up with my beloved hiking crew and to meet some of their freinds, but something about the sun, the sparkle, the glorious fall everything, sent me back thirty years in time.
Why am I telling you this? I don’t know exactly. Something about arriving, something about belonging, something about a sense of being held by a landscape, something about hope.
And because it feels related to my theme of slowing for a gentle landing, which begins with accelerating to reach escape velocity.
And how there is a balance between the acceleration and the slowing, and it’s a little tricky at first, but then it kind of holds itself. Or at least, I am playing with the idea that it can hold itself, for me.
Arriving (home)
I had some trepidation about arriving home, knowing that much of my area was devastated by the big fire.
I was worried about what I might see, and also about what I might not see. Mainly I was worried about smoke damage to my sweet home, where I left all the windows open, back in June, when I thought I was going away for a weekend and not for months…
There were a few burned trees visible on the opposite side of the road from my place, but, miraculously, the parcel of land I am fortunate to call home was untouched. Thank you, fire fighters, thank you winds, thank you good fortune, thank you.
My home too was seemingly fine. It smelled exactly like itself, like my house, like a place of wood and peacefulness. I am so lucky. So lucky and so thankful. What a miracle.
There were no signs of the trauma of the fire, other than some soot on the roof, and some rats built a nest next to my hot water heater but didn’t make it directly into the house. They shall be vanquished. More on this later, but not today.
Remembering and forgetting and re-remembering
The re-entry process is full of tiny rememberings and re-rememberings.
Some parts just land. Like the joy of taking deep breaths on my porch beneath a million stars before bed, or morning bobcat-stretching watching the birds play above the field…
Other parts are more tricky, like remembering what I usually pick up at the supermarket, or where things go, or all the various tiny house routines…
Not to mention the steady rituals and practices that promote mental well-being, and the way my mental well-being can tank fast when I neglect them. Whoops! Now I remember.
Whoops! I did it again. But now I remember!
My teacher Esther always says that forgetting is part of remembering, and I am trying to remember this as well.
Landing takes time. Learning to land takes time. It is okay to forget. Sometimes it is even useful to forget.
I am being returned to beginner’s mind, and this is useful, and the tuition just is.
Accelerating to reach escape velocity
Leaving the northwest was hard and I kept wanting to do fun things for the last time, to soak up all the hugs and dancing and camaraderie before heading back to my life of isolation.
Except there wasn’t time for most of these, because of [I Am Accelerating Now To Reach Escape Velocity for my trip], and this turned out to be useful framing for me.
The phrase is via a dance friend. I sent them a song that the DJ played on my last night at a favorite dance event, and they said: “Thanks! I’ll listen to it later. We’re accelerating now to reach escape velocity to leave for our trip to the Redwoods.”
Yes. Sometimes things are accelerated. Sometimes the acceleration takes some time. And then you have to slow for the gentle landing. It is not always elegant. That’s the place of play.
Landing
A favorite yoga teacher used to have an amazing youtube video about floating forward from downward dog to a standing forward fold, and sadly this video is no longer online, but I probably watched it two hundred times.
It was full of fun drills like having bare feet on a blanket on the floor and just sliding back and forth between the two end points. And by fun, I mean excruciating core work!
This video made me beg for mercy, but I learned so much about edges, and about landing, and using the ground, and about the path between not-graceful-at-all and more-graceful.
And about not rushing that path, because that’s not how the path works.
Not rushing the path, because that’s not how the path works.
That’s not how the path works.
You gotta stay playful, alert, receptive, patient, and hang out in the non-linear.
Like with any process of releasing or becoming, or both.
It’s hard to trust the messy in-between, and yet, much if not most of life is messy in-between.
And that’s not a bad thing. Even there, in the messy in-between, you might find a sun-kissed Saturday, a glowing cottonwood tree shimmering in the breeze, a vineyard, a place that smells exactly like itself.
Ah the old plop-and-flop!
But my favorite part of regularly working on that float-forward jump, which I can still only nail maybe a quarter of the time, was the way it helped me understand that it’s okay to plop and flop on your way to learning the art of a graceful landing.
In fact, the more you know about plopping and flopping, the more intimate knowledge you have of the mechanics of it all. You can be okay with the not-graceful landing, and the graceful landing will come.
Chef John voice: “Give it the ole’ plop-and-flop!”
There is something useful in the inelegant mess of learning about a graceful transition, if that makes sense. It’s a compelling trail for me to follow.
A (more) gentle landing
I have been staying close to the questions of “What is working” and “What might help”, and allowing more time than I think is needed for literally everything, including the massive projects of house-cleaning and laundry.
Another part of landing: I made a promise to myself on the return trip to not forget my goal-wishes that revealed themselves this summer, and to take one step each day towards, however small.
This has forced me to name some really tiny steps, and to get okay with steps being tiny and sometimes symbolic, but they still count as steps. Some days I take multiple steps, and some days I take one tiny step. It all counts.
Carving out sanctuary space through intent and focus
These are scary times and I am trying to stay focused on beauty, the land, my feet on the ground, the practices that sustain me, being a beam of glow powers for myself and the world and the people I love.
I am practicing sanctuary space within, sanctuary space in my home, wishing sanctuary into the world for everyone in harm’s way.
Intending my way towards. Intent, intention, and focus.
Superpower of I am always in the right place
Over the summer I kept noticing how I would miss something I thought was my yes, and then end up at something even more my yes. I AM ALWAYS IN THE RIGHT PLACE.
And sure, sometimes I am not, but even that, and the moment of realizing it, is also a form of always in the right place.
Remembering this is helping me when I get frustrated in my cramped tiny space and with all the projects and fear about the cold winter coming and still no heat in the house, and so on. Things are moving and shifting, and I am always in the right place, I just need to figure out how.
Sometimes this means a reconfiguring and sometimes this means adapting and sometimes it means moving. The right place is always changing, as am I.
CLUES DU JOUR
Each day I try notice the clues and stay receptive and keep practicing.
The practice changes and so do I. What is helping in this moment? What do I crave and what do I need, and how can I be true to this moment right now, the me of right here right now?
How can I stay seasonal?
For example, last night I went to my favorite yoga class and it was a delight, and also I noticed that now is the season of driving home in the dark, which is not yes, and so maybe this class goes on hold (for me) until spring, and I create my own class for me in my kitchen, with practices to practice that will take me from now to then.
Similarly, can I let the old things be old and done? Can I make room for the new to arrive without necessarily knowing what it is?
What is next?
Let’s wish some wishes.
Wishes for the world: Peace, peace, peace. Sanctuary. Miracles. Right Timing. Things shift or change for the better in surprising ways. Solidarity. Empathy. Care. Hope. Faith. Wonder. Good surprises. Perfect simple solutions. Networks of care and mutual support. Some good energy. Be gay do crime!
Wishes for my home: Help and support with the various projects. The right people at the right time. Help figuring out heat for the winter and a fix for my gate and a way to vanquish the rats from beneath the house and from the other structures that ideally does not involve having to feed cats.
Wishes for me: Supportive routines, deep nourishing sleep, focus, self-treasuring, a glorious return of the ambition that I felt good sparks of this summer, community, connection, play, delight, hope. Glowing beautiful boundaries from a place of love and care. Being a beam of light, while staying grounded, steady and clear. Embracing aliveness with all of its rough edges. Working on my landings. Being brave and practicing.
Naming something that doesn’t have a name yet
I am interested in a return to teaching or [verb]-ing, offering? Offering. Some kind of movement class or space that is playful, mindful, curious, alive.
Something like the way I play with being a bobcat each morning and evening on my kitchen floor.
For sure this class or workshop combines things I have learned over my years of learning and teaching, and combines some elements from various forms of things I play with like dance and yoga and Gokhale and Feldenkrais and Franklin method and things that don’t have names…
I am imagining that it also involves some journaling time, some integration time, some imagination time, some forms of play like we used to play with at Rally at my former retreat center…
The time for namestorming will come but I am dropping this wish and related wishes into the wishing cauldron, and hope I can offer a form of this soon for us to play together. Leave a note in the comments if this is something you’d be into!
What helps with accelerating and decelerating
This is what I’m humming on these days.
Presence. Discernment. Self-treasuring. A true desire to take care of myself and want better for myself (and for everyone). A lot of this involves taking more time or allowing more time than I think is needed, and especially building in integration time.
A lot of this involves noticing, which itself asks us to pause and rest and tend to ourselves to be able to hone that skill of noticing.
Noticing
What can we notice about the practice of noticing itself?
Noticing requires breathing room.
But what if we are too hurried to remember about breathing room? What if we are too stressed to pause and notice?
That’s where grace comes in. Gracefully or not, giving ourselves some grace for whatever comes up in the noticing…
Giving grace (to ourselves), can we give this a try
We forget and remember and re-remember. We can do it right now. Let’s re-remember together!
A breath for breathing room, a breath for integrating, a breath for remembering to remember.
A breath for REST & DIGEST. A breath for the next indicated step revealing itself in right timing.
Gracefully or not, we will get there
If it involves a plop, then good job to us for plopping. Whatever works, it all counts.
Giving ourselves grace for the not-graceful moments, and for needing rest.
Getting to escape velocity takes a lot out of us. Re-integration takes time.
Here we are, bravely keeping on keeping on in these shaky times. Proud of us, it’s not easy and we are still here.
May it be so, or something even better
Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.
I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.
Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.
Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company
Leave a pebble (o) to say you were here, so I know I’m not doing this alone.
Also it feels good to pick up a pebble and place it somewhere, I have noticed.
You are invited to share any related situations or musings, or name any wishes in process.
And of course you are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped, bingo card wishes, clues received, or anything on your mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…
I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.
Or if there’s anything you’d like to explore further or toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.
Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!
If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.
This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.
I am emailing copies of the Emergency Calming Techniques package!
Anyone who gives to the Discretionary this week (more info below) will get my Emergency Calming Techniques package by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!
I have some ideas for the next ebook too but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.
A request!
If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously.
I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.
And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️
Meeting a wish through learning about the opposite
Reflecting on a network of roots surrounding the base of a fire hydrant where I was seeking treasure someone left me and did not find it, sometimes the treasure-seeking is the treasure,sometimes not-seeking is the treasure, and so on…
A breath for these tough times
Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.
Also, unrelated to the tough times, weird things are happening on the website, the comments disappeared from last post, the header disappeared, doing what I can to solve the mysteries, gotta do upgrades and updates.
Announcement / last chance for Emergency Calming Down Techniques
I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.
Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.
I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤️
Scary times to be a person
I am in beautiful, creative, vibrant, peaceful, playful, Portland, Oregon, a place of much whimsy and good-heartedness and care, and also we have national guard troops here pepper spraying protestors, and there is a lot of contrast there.
It is both absurd and terrifying at the same time.
There are people I know in crisis and I am worried about them. I am worried about my beloved trans friends. I am worried for the safety of so many people, and for all of us.
And I am lighting candles for SANCTUARY, SAFETY, MIRACLES, SURPRISE EASE, things shifting and changing for the good. With some strong Return To Sender spells.
A little hex, a protest spell, Return To Sender
May the fascists be hexed with so much clarity (this is my best hex).
May they be delivered so much exquisite clarity that they have a dark night of the soul over it, over and over, seeing themselves revealed in this mirror of clarity until they have no choice but to either do better as humans or perish.
This is my protest spell, and it is not enough, but a breath for something better, this situation speedily solving itself, and for safety for everyone in harm’s way.
Sanctuary and entry
Sanctuary for the sanctuary city. Brutal clarity for the people doing harm. May their machinations be undone and thwarted over and over, gracefully when possible, or not.
And now we turn inward, to the right here right now of it all. Recentering.
Which itself is another small form of protest. Staying intentional.
The intimacy of intimacy
Last week I wrote about heart wishes, and knocking at the door of my own heart through listening to it knocking back to me, a call-and-response living breathing knock-knock joke of exquisite self-treasuring.
Here I am. Here we are.
And I didn’t state this explicitly but all of the wishes I have been wishing were and are wishes about intimacy.
Intimacy in the sense of presence, listening, being embodied, staying close to my own heart, being intimate and vulnerable with myself, and creating safety around that experience. What beautiful wishes.
Predictably, you know how this goes
And in the predictable way that we wish a wish and then either immediately are confronted with the opposite of our wish, for contrast…
Or in the predictable way that we can wish a wish and then run at top speed in the opposite direction of our wishes…
Or both, realistically, often it’s both…
You know where this is going.
I wished for intimacy with my own heart, and then went knocking on a bunch of other doors that were not my own heart.
Looking for love (intimacy) in all the wrong places
Yup. Looking for love (intimacy) in all the wrong places.
And, equally predictably, I was disappointed in what I found or didn’t find at those doors.
It happens.
It goes like that
I was craving intimacy and got the opposite of intimacy.
In fact, I got the kind of lonely that is made worse by being in physical proximity to someone who doesn’t know how to share closeness, or who can only offer closeness in a way that feels like distance.
It sucked, in a way that was entirely predictable, because I forgot to stay with my own heart and let myself open inwards instead of outwards, and entirely forgot about being a well-boundaried beam of love.
So, yes, it goes like that. We wish a wish and then we learn about its opposite.
The contrast and the ongoing practice of discernment are where the learning happens, and then keeps happening.
What do we add and what do we subtract
What do we add and what do we subtract in these situations, as we meet them, and ourselves, with patience.
Because this is a known phenomenon and it happens, and it hurts and also nothing is wrong.
We add: COMPASSION. GRACE. PRESENCE. SWEETNESS.
We add softness and softening.
Adding softness
I was taking yoga class with a very young man who had the energy of a golden retriever puppy (“Let’s gooooooo!”), and I was not expecting anything profound, just to do a bunch of arm balances.
But then he asked, “Can you meet this challenging moment with some softness?”
And I nearly laughed, because what could be more profound than that…
Can we add softness to meet a challenge?
Can we soften when challenged?
I don’t know! But I love this question. A good question for intimacy and matters of the heart and the right now.
Returning to practice
And then I went to yoga class with the doom metal yoga person, and the theme of that class was about how you just need to keep returning to the practices that help instead of being mad about how long it’s been.
I needed to hear this.
Mainly because it seems like I have been entering this new year by making one mistake and misstep after another, to the point that I already have all my corn chip regrets for next year ready to be cast into the river.
It was Rosh Hashana, and then I entered the year with a bunch of whoops that wasn’t what I wanted at all, and can I meet this challenging moment with some softness too?
Context
Context is also something we can add in these challenging moments.
For example, I am being hard on myself about having forgotten to tend to my poor sweet heart after wishing for intimacy and tenderness.
And yet let’s look at the context, including but not limited to:
- It is the anniversary of my mother’s death
- My father is going through a mental health crisis and it is is terrifying and I feel even more helpless than usual
- Monday was the anniversary of a meaningful to me day that was all about deep, intentional intimacy with a human whose heart I loved, and now we barely even talk to each other
- Right, the fascism
- So many people I know either breaking down hard or on the verge of breakdown or mid-crisis, or circling around crisis, and I want help for everyone, and stability for everyone, and there is not much I can do other than breathe and check in…
- I am about to head home to my life of quiet in the wildnerness which is very beautiful and meaningful and what I need (sanctuary space for me), but is also a hug-less dance-less life, and I am panicking about that and thinking about how it could be changed and what that would involve…
Reset restart reconfigure
Yes, let us name the context, and make room for the contrast.
Let’s add sweetness and compassion and softness to meet the challenges and the experience of being challenged.
Let’s meet our wishes through learning about the opposite, and meet learning about the opposite through cultivating even more heart-listening. Knock knock, it’s my heart.
And mainly it’s just returning, without wasting time judging this, to doing the things that work and help.
No recriminations, just RESET RESTART, TRY AGAIN, LET’S GO.
Can I be done with the boring stories?
Truly it is such a boring story to be frustrated by repeating the same lessons, so what if I can channel EXCITEMENT for the same lesson.
Like ooh yeah my old buddy I know this mistake and how to maneuver out of it.
Here’s to having been there before. I already have the beta on this climb.
As the golden retreiver in human form yoga teacher would say: Let’s gooooooooo!
Pitter-patter
I went to masked fusion dancing (masks in the sense of kn95 or better, not in the sense of costumes) in Portland, and my dance-crush from long ago was there, and I melted into their arms, and I can only describe it as a sort of rooted floating.
Of the earth and ethereal. Each moment a treasure. Dreamy, dreamy, dreamy, real, real, real.
The song both lasted forever and ended too soon, and eventually we had to let each other go, and they put their hand to their heart.
They put their hand to their heart and glowed at me with their eyes above their mask, and, drumming on their own heart, they said: PITTER PATTER!
And then they disappeared into the night like Cinderella, and I listened to the reverberating in my own beautiful loving heart.
Beating, as in keeping the beat or beating as in taking a beating
Immediately after that, I danced with someone who in some senses knows me intimately and also truly does not know me at all.
And they said, what happened to you, your heart is beating right out of your chest, and I felt like a reverberating brass door knocker echoing through space, because they were not wrong..
Pitter-patter, thump thump thump thump, knock knock knocking. What happened to you babe.
Oh right, gotta reset. Back to my own beautiful loving door. My own space for just-me.
A good volley with the universe
Speaking of wishes that come in their own timing, a few months ago I made a wish about having a good volley with the universe, and lately I have been having many such volleys.
On Sunday, dance friend James took me on a fun walk around Mt Tabor.
We saw some musicians playing, and one of them plays with James in another band so we stopped for a while and chatted and then of course we had to dance, which was wonderful.
Then two women passing by joined in and started salsa dancing, and one of them had a banana shaker in her purse, so she temporarily joined the band!
Superpower of always having a shaker in your bag. You never know.
We kept walking and people kept saying, “ooh you’re the dancers!” and wanting to chat, and we had all the time in the world, so we stopped and chatted with all of them, and I never do this, and it’s really great actually?
Connecting
One of the people who said, “HEY YOU ARE THE DANCERS” was an older man named David who told us that his wife had just died a few weeks ago.
They’d been married for 61 years and he’d been her caretaker, and he told us that now he doesn’t really know what to do with himself, so he just goes to the park. But they used to dance. In fact, they used to jitterbug way back in the day.
He said that if his wife was there, she would have wanted to join in and dance with us, and then James asked if he wanted a hug and he did, and it was a beautiful day of heart-healing and connecting in Portland, sanctuary city of good hearts.
Jamming
In the evening there was more dancing with friends, and more music-making and music-appreciating, and more connecting, in ways that were simple and sweet and didn’t hurt my heart or involve compromising anything.
Just the back and forth of hearts saying oh wow yes I hear you too and thank you for that, a jam session of hearts, every heart getting a good solo in. Good solo time, together.
Adding sweetness, subtracting whatever is unnecessary or extraneous, softening, pulsing, a lot of grace.
I feel so extraordinarily lucky.
Undoing stories to rewrite them
So that’s what is on my mind right now.
Undoing the boring stories of HERE WE GO AGAIN, THE SAME FUCKING MISTAKES.
And softening enough to welcome some new stories about how sometimes I get the opposite of my wish and sometimes I get an unexpected form of my wish, and how it is all very special to experience even if some of it was painful.
I am glad to have been the right dancer in the right time and right place. The right dancer for the job, the right heart-haver for the job.
Softening even more, but not an unboundaried softening
And I am also trying to soften into some thankfulness (not forced, just thoughtful and thankful) for the harder and more challenging learning experiences.
Specifically around this ongoing reminder that a lot of attempts at intimacy that I think could be meaningful do not in fact support my heart or my emotional well-being.
My heart and my softness deserve sanctuary, and they deserve high regard, and they deserve way better boundaries, and this is the practice. Ongoing.
The lesson remains: I need to take more tender care of my heart, and I want to, and I plan to, and sometimes I will fuck up spectacularly, and we reset, restart, reconfigure, and dance again.
(Let’s gooooo! And may it be so.)
May it be so, or something even better
Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.
I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.
Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.
Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company
Leave a pebble (o) to say you were here, so I know I’m not doing this alone.
Also it feels good to pick up a pebble and place it somewhere, I have noticed.
You are invited to share any related situations or musings, or name any wishes in process.
And of course you are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped, bingo card wishes, clues received, or anything on your mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…
I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.
Or if there’s anything you’d like to explore further or toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.
Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!
If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.
This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.
I am emailing copies of the Emergency Calming Techniques package!
Anyone who gives to the Discretionary this week (more info below) will get my Emergency Calming Techniques package by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!
I have some ideas for the next ebook too but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.
A request!
If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously.
I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.
And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️
Knock knock knockin’ (gently, at the door of my heart)
Reflecting on the words on this amazing sticker: ASK ME ABOUT THE BRINY DEEP
A breath for these tough times
Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.
Announcement / last chance for Emergency Calming Down Techniques
I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.
Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.
I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤️
Knock knock knockin’ (gently and at the door of my heart)
Into the heart of it all…
Deep diving into heart-space in my journal.
Or at least: those were the words I wrote on the page:
Deep diving into heart space…
And then I panicked. And then I noticed the panicking, and gently, lovingly, backed off.
Good intel, thank you
Okay, maybe we aren’t ready for deep diving into heart-space, whether in a journal or generally or at all. Good intel. Thank you, body-mind. That’s useful to know.
Or maybe, if thrill-seeking appeals sometimes if not always, let us go for the thrill of honesty here:
I am here tentatively dipping half of a toe into the waters of heart-space, testing it out, not ready for the deep dive, or any dive for that matter, and, secretly or not, also:
Yes. Yes, I am absolutely drawn to the idea of diving in to the depths.
Where does an idea live? And what lives in my heart?
Anyway, I had this idea that I wanted to go to a yoga workshop about the heart, and questions of the heart, and my relationship to my heart, and being (being!) in heart-space, as in: existing there.
A place I am curious about! And also, at the same time, very reasonably hesitant to dive into!
While also noticing how much I am craving an experience of internal heart space:
Yes, tell me, tell me all about the briny deep…
Speaking of noticing, speaking of the briny deep, speaking of speaking
Speaking of noticing, I just noticed that the bumper sticker says ASK ME about the briny deep, not TELL ME about the briny deep.
Which might be why this sticker wants to live on my refrigerator and not my car, and I am laughing about this a little.
I do not wish for anyone to ask me anything. Pretty much ever!
However, it is true that I do very much enjoy being invited, in a very casual way, to talk about a theme I am passionate about. And I love when someone else tells me all about something they are passionate about!
So I do know about the depths, as it turns out
So I do know about the depths!
I know about the depths in the sense of info-dumping; I can deep-dive hard into a special interest, or something I am excited about!
I can tell you about my briny deep.
Back, back, back, backing into it, slowly
Back to the workshop, the one I didn’t go to.
I had a desire to be in heart space or examine my relationship to my own heart and heart-space, except I realized that the idea of the workshop on heart-space was living in my mind.
Aka not in my heart or my breath or my body. Noticing that the desire lives in my mind. Can a heart wish live in the mind? Sure, I mean, everything lives everywhere in some sense.
Mainly though
I also realized that the workshop itself would realistically probably involve a ton of backbends, not my favorite, understatement.
Mainly though my realization was the usual realization: that a partial yes is a clue, and worth exploring, and also a partial yes is different from an embodied whole-hearted yes.
In fact, a partial yes is even different from a curious open yes that also has some useful trepidation hiding in it that is asking to be explored..
The Signmaker
Also I thought about how my friend Colleen The Signmaker once told me, many years ago, maybe well over ten years ago, in a tiny kitchen in LA, about a friend who was saving up for a big trip, to the Himalayas, maybe. A misty mountains place.
And how this friend would take a picture of every wish that popped up, to remind themselves about the focus of this bigger wish, as in:
Oh yes, this [current desire, a sweater, a plant, a workshop etc] is a beautiful wish and also I am just going to take a picture and not give money to this particular wish because I am gathering my resources for the bigger wish of this trip that will take me to a majestic and meaningful-to-me place.
Calling in some element or elements of the desired experience
I thought about how I could do the equivalent of this, how could I take a picture, so to speak, of the idea of the heart-diving workshop and then give myself some element of the experience I am wishing for…
And this is how I ended up at my journal, noticing how unprepared I feel (in a good way, possibly) for this kind of immersive deep dive.
Completely unprepared!
To quote the title of the Alan Lew book about the Jewish High Holidays:
THIS IS REAL AND YOU ARE COMPLETELY UNPREPARED.
Completely unprepared.
Relevant to so many experiences right now. Including but not limited to everything in the news, and also my wish to visit the depths of my heart space, to meet myself with intimacy there.
Anyway, ask me about the briny deep and I will tell you that I am very cautiously examining the surface, and don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful place to begin.
A heart-clue that resides in a poem
A breath for the beautiful poetry and life of Andrea Gibson, from the poem Every time I said I wanted to die…
And your heart
could lift a city from how long
you’ve spent holding what’s been
nearly impossible to hold.
This world needs those
who know how to do that.
Andrea, Andrea. You gave us so much.
Honoring through words, honoring through echoing
Andrea, Andrea. Can I honor your life through receiving these words with love and receptivity? I am going to try.
That is another form of diving and dipping. Honoring through words, speaking them and allowing them to reverberate. Heart-space loves resonance.
Can we honor existence (and the hards parts of existing) through humming in our hearts?
Round space, round sounds. Resonance. Echoing. Reverberation. Maybe not ready for the depths but I am here for the heart-hum that breaks the surface tension.
The heart grieves and breathes, and it drums
The heart grieves and breathes. The heart keeps on keeping on, beats on beating on, a drum of drumming. Percussive. This is interesting to me right now.
You could say that the heart is both the door and the knock, the place and the entry, the hollow space and the boundary.
See? I can learn so much through letting poetry echo through me.
A heart-clue that resides in question (in a poem)
Here is the resonant question that drew me to the workshop to begin with, this gorgeous line from the poet Rumi:
Why are you knocking at ever other door? Go, knock at the door of your own heart.
-Rumi
Go, knock at the door of your own heart.
Tell me, heart, about knocking at my own door
I can do this through journaling.
Or I can do this through moving or stillness, or any combination of those.
I can knock at my own door through breathing and listening, or through echoing poetry, which is also letting poetry echo through me.
Or I can honor my temporal no to a deep-dive while still honoring my own briny deep.
Can I let Rumi’s question be a beautiful stone to skip, letting it echo through my consciousness and onto paper? What do I know about knocking at the door of my own heart?
One good stone (journaling question) deserves another
For example…
Why is it more appealing to feel or perceive that I am close to someone else’s heart than it is to come close (closer, closer) to my own?
Come close. Come closer.
Is this what I am afraid of? Closeness? To myself? With myself.
Asking the question is as brave as knocking, as brave as diving. Any form of approach is brave. Safety first.
More beautiful questions offer themselves…
What am I avoiding (or: what do I think I am avoiding) when I avoid my own heart?
Is my fear or disinclination to knock at my own door a fear that it won’t open to me…or that it will????
What am I gaining from any story I am telling myself about being a stranger in a strange land vis a vis my heart space?
What else do I know or can I feel about the door of my heart, such a powerful image…?!
And again, Rumi’s just-right question, what am I doing at these other doors when I have my own beautiful door to visit!
Call and response
What do I know about these questions? Why am I knocking at other doors?
I guess the other doors feel tantalizing to me, because there is a thrill when they open and there is clear intel when they do not…
However my own door could also feel tantalizing to me, if I let it. Or if I understood that it is the most important door, maybe even the only important door?
I guess I am scared of my own door!
I guess that if I open to myself i might not need anyone else and that is scary too.
Though realistically if I am open to myself then it is more likely I could (theoretically) also have a good connection with someone else, if that came to pass…
What else is known here
I know that daily practice matters and helps, and is hardest to maintain when [circumstances].
And yet: the practice of [turn inward and knock gently at my heart door] could be as simple as three breaths or a walk around the block or free-form dancing for one song. Or five minutes of journaling.
Practicing: let us knock gently at the door of our own heart
me: I am knocking at the door of my own heart, bringing with me: love, curiosity, tenderness, patience, motion, stillness, a sense of weaving, a readiness to give and receive, a readiness to be present for the encounter
door of my heart: you are always welcome
me: hmmm for some reason I thought it would be more complicated than that?
door of my heart: it is in fact if anything much less complicated than that, and you are always welcome, this space exists entirely for you, it is your home in the best meaning of that word, and if that word is not your word then it is your place
Because
me: I don’t know why I have been avoiding heart space
door of my heart: because you are hurting
me: I am hurting a lot, sometimes, at times, right now, it ebbs and flows
door of my heart: this is a good place to bring that
me: I want to burn it all in the hearth
door of my heart: there is plentiful hearth space in the heart space just for that
What else happens when I knock at the door of my heart?
Here is what I learned through asking this question…
Nothing is wrong, there is no judgment and no shame, nothing to be avoided.
I do not have to force myself to look at harsh truths, there is only lovely light and lots of space to be comfortable.
My pleasure is welcome here, I do not need to earn it or do better or be better, I can just rest into whatever it is I need to be resting into without worry or concern.
There is space and there is time and there is respite
There is space and there is time and I am not doing anything wrong, which itself is the respite from the rest of the day and people asking me what I am up to these days, and me being like “wellll I am trying to figure that out!”
And then telling them and then regretting it, or not telling them and then regretting it.
Especially on these wanting to crawl out of my skin days. A good reminder. Breathing into the reminder.
Back, back, back, into The Heart of it all
Thinking about how the heart is at the back as well as the front, and I can breathe into back space.
Back, back, back. No bending required.
On ventricles and vestibules
Thinking about ventricles and vestibules.
Thinking about how the heart has ventricles: cavities, open spaces, chambers.
The heart and brain have ventricles!
The belly
But — and this is also interesting! The word itself comes from late Middle English: from Latin ventriculus, diminutive of venter ‘belly’.
So a ventricle is a space, and also it is a mind spce and a heart space and a belly space. A space for trust your gut and figure out how to digest it?
Chambers
Meanwhile, a vestibule is also a chamber.
A chamnber that is a passage, an antechamber between exterior and interior, a bridge space.
So, when I wish to go into the heart of it all, I do not need to dive into depths. I can simply move into a chamber.
In fact, maybe I don’t even need to knock. I am already there, in the spaces of moving between. I am the passage and I am in the passage, in the heart of it all.
Into the heart of it all
I love being wrong, and I especially love being wrong about the depths.
I am all about the depths, and also I was wrong about the depths. How is that for poetry?
The depths don’t need to be scary unknowns at all. As the kids say, it’s not that deep.
A memory
This reminds me of how for many years I didn’t want to try sensory deprivation float tanks because I was picturing them as very deep, when in fact they are like shallow bathtubs.
The depth experience comes from the floating, being suspended in your own personal tiny sea of salt, but you can always touch down whenever you want to.
That is also poetic. It’s not that deep, literally. And also it is a chamber to access the briny depths of self, and to be held in sanctuary.
The heart can be deep and also the heart can be a bath
I was anxious about the (perceived) briny depths and it turned out there were none at all, because it is all surface!
This is true for my own briny depths and for the float tank experience.
It all happens on and at the surface, and that’s the beauty of it all.
I love this so much and especially love how it feels like a little joke about surface tension. Surface! Tension! It’s all at the surface! No tension needed.
I can relax into the depths of my own heart, and also touch down at my leisure. I am contained in a right-sized space. The briny depths are an idea, and I can float on the surface, held in love.
What lives in my heart / How do I live in my heart
Here is a clue I received in yoga this week:
I AM THE KEEPER OF MY PRECIOUS PEACE
I am the keeper. I am the protector. I am the one for whom the door of my heart opens, no knocking needed.
This quiet place is for me. This must be the place. I reside in my own heart.
Unprepared. My heart could lift a city. My heart can be a city. I can visit whenever I want to. I am the keeper of the space, and the space is the keeper of me.
Peace, peace, peace.
Knock knock
Listening to the thump-thump (knock knock, who’s there? it’s me!) of my own sanctuary, laughing at my own knock-knock jokes.
Letting the thump-thump knock-knock of heartbeat and laughter reverberate through the briny deep of this body of water, this place of being.
I am the keeper. Keeping on keeping on.
May it be so, or something even better
Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.
I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.
Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.
Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company
Leave a pebble (o) to say you were here, so I know I’m not doing this alone.
Also it feels good to pick up a pebble and place it somewhere, I have noticed.
You are invited to share any related situations or musings, or name any wishes in process.
And of course you are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped, bingo card wishes, clues received, or anything on your mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…
I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.
Or if there’s anything you’d like to explore further or toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.
Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!
If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.
This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.
I am emailing copies of the Emergency Calming Techniques package!
Anyone who gives to the Discretionary this week (more info below) will get my Emergency Calming Techniques package by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!
I have some ideas for the next ebook too but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.
A request!
If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously.
I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.
And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️
Reflecting on taking it all to the river and then letting it go, with love