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.
Very Personal Ads #85: love letters in miniature
Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.
So my itty bitty personal ads made me realize that it’s time to make a regular practice of trying to feel okay asking for stuff.
Even when the asking thing feels weird and conflicted.
Ever since I posted the first one asking my perfect house to find me, which united me with Hoppy House, I have been a fan of the madness that is personal ads.
And now it’s my weekly ritual for clarity and remembering and stuff like that. Yay, ritual!
Hi! So. Today’s VPAs are happening on Toozday and not Sunday, because I spent the weekend running the Shiva Nata teacher training.
This week the very personal ads are also in the form of tiny love letters instead of the usual “What I want, how it could work and here’s my commitment.”
And everything is slightly different, because doing all that mad neuron-connecting flailing has changed what I know and how I know it. As it does.
Alright. Let’s do this.
Dear week,
I know things are a little off between us.
Like the fact that it’s Toozday out there in the world but not in my mind or in my body. Time is settling differently now. It’s landing differently. So we’re going to have to deal with that in some form that has not yet made itself known.
My wish for both of us is this:
Spaciousness. Ease. Support. Wonder. Appreciation.
I am going to take a breath — or maybe three — in each transition. I am going to ask you to hold me when I am scared.
The Rally (Rally!) begins tonight, and I am going to devote this rallying to learning more about my relationship with you. That is to say, with space and time, with divisions, transitions, boundaries and crossings.
Also this:
You are not arbitrary.
Even if this thing of week-ing is in some ways an externally imposed structure, it is one that I have agreed to. And I am going to investigate what is there within you.
There is love in here, and I will find it.
Dear twenty new graduates of the Shiva Nata teacher training,
Spending the past few days with you has been such a very special thing.
I wish that you could see how bright and radiant and powerful you are. That it could somehow be reflected back to you in the mirror reflections of the dance.
But even if you can’t see it, maybe you can feel the spark of it.
Over the next weeks and years, so much of what we did and said will be absorbed in new ways. It will spiral through your life.
And that is a big and crazy thing.
My wish for you is:
Comfort. Reassurance. Knowing. Discernment. Trust. Play. Freedom.
You are loved. You are safe. You are supported.
The rest of the things I have to say do not have words, so just this:
You are teachers. You always have been.
Dear Eric,
My heart says that the most important thing I can do right now is to stay receptive to the idea that you care about fairness. My gut feeling says that you cannot possibly be telling the truth.
I am hoping that my heart is right and that we (my stomach and I) are wrong.
Since there is no way of knowing, I am practicing the practice of not making assumptions.
I’m trying to make room for the possibility that I am wrong. That 99% of this is a misunderstanding. That there is a logical, reasonable explanation that is hidden.
And that what appear to be gifts of poison are actually flowers.
I am willing to be wrong. I am willing to be surprised.
At the same time, I also am not afraid of what it means if I am not wrong. My respect for your boundaries is not going to lead me to compromise mine.
What I wish for me:
Trust. Trusting that I can be present with this situation and not confuse it with other situations. To trust that I can take care of myself. To trust that I can know what is needed.
And safety, so that I can keep working on this trust thing.
What I wish for you:
Safety. May you feel safe enough to recognize that no one is against you. And that there is room for all of us.
And trust, so that you know that I am speaking truth as well.
Let’s have a peaceful, ease-filled resolution to this.
Dear March Rally,
Oh, how I am looking forward to you!
And at the same time, I have not been telling people about you, because I need a vacation first.
Also, because I don’t really want to talk shit about how much I suffered through SXSW.
I’d rather talk about how fabulous it will be, and how it’s so amazing that Jillian will be there to do headshots for everyone who wants one.
So I am hoping that this week I find all the right words.
What I wish for me:
Patience. Silly, lighthearted play. Exploration. Practice. Support. Community.
What I wish for you:
Support. Love. Spaciousness. Grace. Excitement. Possibility. Appreciation.
And all the right people.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
Let’s see. I wanted tools. Tools! That was a great ask, because I got to play with my crayons, and I also hired cleaning people for the Playground, and I wrote about what my tools are. Ohmygod. Did you read the comments on that? So inspiring.
I wanted to find people for the March Rally, and I did not do any of my commitments. So I am going to re-think and re-commit.
The next ask was for birthday rituals, and I have a couple of ideas. Nothing solid yet. But feeling more hopeful about the fact that it could actually happen.
We’ll see what comes out of this week of rallying the rally, and I will report back.
Comment zen. Here’s what I’d love today.
- Your own personal ads, small or large. Things you’ve asked for. Or are asking for. Or would like to ask for. Or updates on last time!
Stuff I’d rather not have:
- The word “manifest”.
- To be told how I should be asking for things.
- To be judged, psychoanalyzed or given unsolicited advice.
Wishing love and good things for your Very Personal Ads! I’m so happy to have people doing this with me.
Friday Chicken #133: it’s all about the pockets
Because it’s Friday AGAIN. And because traditions are important. In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
I’m not sure at all how I feel about this week.
Just that it was really challenging for me, and I kept wanting to just run away and hide.
Which I would totally have done too, if I knew how.
Or where.
But then it got better. Yay. Anyway, cheers to being done.
The hard stuff
This low background hum of anxious and not good.
Not the kind where it’s loud enough to really get to you, but it just chips away at things.
I’ve been feeling kind of mildly worried. Not about anything specific. Which is in itself… well, there you go, mildly worrisome.
Probably there are all sorts of good reasons for it, as there pretty much always are, but nothing especially obvious.
Ready for this to be done.
Could things please stop breaking?.
So we’re about to start the Shiva Nata teacher training.
And the heat didn’t get fixed in time because it turns out that the entire ancient heating vent at the Playground needs to be replaced.
Which means it needs to be brought in with a crane. And that can’t happen until a part gets ordered from the east coast. And that can’t happen until the weather out there clears up.
And the weather here, because they have to get up on the roof to install it.
So we have a million space heaters, which is taking up a) way too much space and b) all the outlets.
And (surprise!) shorting the circuit breakers. Oh, and the circuit breakers in the Playground apparently aren’t relevant — we need to wait until our neighbors are around so we can use their box.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.
And maybe they could also stop being so expensive too, because that would be nice.
We had to buy a massive amount of additional blankets for everyone coming to the lovely heat-deprived Playground. Plus new outlet thingies and extension cords.
This week was ridiculous.
Sales are down.
Yes, this is in part my doing because I haven’t been posting and I totally forget to tell people about stuff we’re doing. Stuff! We’re doing it!
But it’s weird. And depressing. February is usually a really good month for us. Adaptation grumbles.
Inowanna! Inowanna!
The number of things I didn’t want to do this week was out of control
It’s iguana city over here.
Nothing to wear. Because I am six.
I was so out of sorts that the gentleman friend suggested we do something different.
Yay! Going somewhere! Dressing up! Booze!
But then it turned out that the neglected half of my closet which — in my head — is always full of all the gorgeous glamorous things that I never get a chance to wear…
…is actually full of stupid things that I look terrible in.
Pretty sure this is just my annual birthday crisis arriving early.
But it sucks.
The good stuff
Sun. Beautiful wonderful sun and its sunniness.
Thank you.
I took a WEEKEND last weekend.
For the second time in a row! Amazing.
It definitely is taking big bites out of the burnout. And even though I don’t get a weekend this weekend, I am taking that learning with me into everything I schedule from now on.
In unlikely Roller Derby news… Rat City lost to Montreal.
Well done, most awesome ladies in the world. I tip my hat to Montreal!
Even in a week of everything-sucks, at least I can be cheered up thinking about Seattle’s spectacularly embarrassing failure to win a bout that really probably should have been a sure thing.
It’s a small thing and I am a terrible person, but this definitely made me feel better.
See the video at the end, even though there isn’t skating in it. You’ll feel better too.
The Kitchen Table.
Watching my smart, creative, loving people help each other out in all sorts of beautiful ways.
It is so inspiring.
Love letter from Taylor.
It arrived just in time.
And if you haven’t ever gotten a love letter from Taylor, know that they are even better than they sound.
I really, really, really needed that.
It made me want to write love letters too. Except than when I love someone, I get all weird and start speaking in awkward, clipped sentences, so I’m pretty sure any love letter from me would probably just make the bewildered recipient feel baffled and uncomfortable.
Thank you, Taylor.
Thursday!
The day in which I miraculously found my way back into the zone and just fractal-flowered the hell out of everything.
Things got done. Things that didn’t have a chance at done got done. Also my hair looked great.
Hooray for Thursday because without that? This would be a messy, messy Friday.
Friends. And support.
So much help from Hiro.
A hilarious meeting with my Board of Surprisers, who all help me see what is working.
Looking forward to Maryann’s wonderful Society of the Secret Playdate (if you haven’t signed up yet, I am highly recommending this — be there!).
And hugely excited both about the Rally (Rally!) coming up this week and the one in March where Jillian will be doing blog photo shots for everyone. Yay!
I get to spend the next two days having epiphanies!
At the last Shiva Nata teacher training, I had so many moments of bing that my head nearly exploded.
In a really good way. It fueled so many good things. Also my arms got such a workout I was practically Suzy Hotrod hot.
Now I get to do this again. Today, tomorrow and Sunday. With twenty smart, fun, capable, talented people. And it is going to be incredible. I can’t even tell you how delighted I am.
Yay.
And … playing live at the meme beach house it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
My brother and I have this thing where we come up with ridiculous band names and then say in this really pretentious, knowing tone, “Oh, well, you know, it’s just one guy.”
This week?
Collapsible Kangaroo
A very Portland band, of course. Eco-friendly and scruffy. You can see them all week while we’re on Rally. Except that it’s actually really just one guy.
That’s it for me …
And yes yes yes, of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments bit if you feel like it.
Yeah? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day and a restful weekend-ing.
And a happy week to come. Shabbat shalom.
Fractal Flowers
Everything is connected. At least, theoretically.
And even if it isn’t, we can pretend (or assume) that within the world of you and your you-ness:
Connections are everywhere.
This comes in handy whenever things get overwhelming. Or when your to-do list is seventeen million miles long.
Look at the garden.
It’s a beautiful garden. It’s the place where all your projects, hopes, possibilities, things that might happen and gwishes are growing.
But there are way more things growing in this space than you could ever possibly tend to.
Sometimes it seems like there isn’t any point in taking care of any of these flowers, when taking care of one means abandoning all the others.
Luckily, these are fractal flowers.
Also possibly magical. I’m not really sure how it works.
Here’s what happens.
You just decide.
Every time you lovingly, intentionally do one caring thing for one flower, something about that act and the process is secretly working to nurture and support the other ones.
Even the most sloppy, half-assed splashing of water in one corner counts. Fractal magic.
And so you keep doing just one thing.
Any thing at all, really. Just one thing.
Today I will not be able to accomplish the shocking number of things that are asking for my attention.
But each piece will count. And somehow it is helping the entire garden.
Getting the Playground ready for the cleaning crew will somehow — symbolically or otherwise — help clear out my head as well.
Buying a toothbrush will somehow do something for the upcoming Rally (Rally!).
Walking briskly around the block will somehow lead me to a clue which will reveal the insight that will make this weekend’s workshops better than they ever could have been.
Time with clients will activate underground creative processes and I have no idea what that will lead to but for sure it will end up being good for everything else in the garden.
So I don’t have to do everything.
Even though the urgency monsters say that actually I do.
One thing at a time.
Each thing activating, untangling, supporting and helping all the other things.
Even if I can’t see it or feel it. Even if it’s underground.
I’m going to let the fractal flowers do the real work, and I will do what I can, in the way that I can. Trying to trust that every piece counts.
Play with me? Thank you.
The Piling and the Depiling: Part II
Follow-up! To this bit I wrote about my relationship with making piles of things.
It’s part of an ongoing process/investigation:
Figuring out why I create these giant piles of iguanas and doom, what their purpose is, and what needs to happen next.
So I’m documenting both the piles themselves and everything I know about them, as well as everything that I’m trying/learning/noticing/perceiving/experiencing in the investigation.
And I’m also documenting the variety of experiments that I’m using in this destuckification practice. And letting you peek.
Hey, piles. What do I know about you?
Oh, piles! Piles of paper, piles of information in my head, piles of Direct Messages on Twitter, piles of messages at the Frolicsome Bar, collections of things.
Why I make them
To not forget what is important.
To keep projects in view (even though I know from experience that the second one lands in the pile, it’s gone). But there is something calming about knowing that at least I will stumble onto it eventually. The security of knowing that it’s there.
So that’s the mission. Does it work?
No. Because knowing that it’s there also stresses me the hell out. And the only time I consistently look at piles is while depiling every other month or so.
Then what will help me remember what is important? Hmmmm.
How I make them
Everywhere. On my computer. In my documents. At the Playground. In the bedroom. In the gwish room.
I make them because the pattern says build.
The purpose they serve is…
Aside from reminders that don’t work? Hopefulness.
Oh! To hide iguanas.*
* Translation! Iguana = anything you don’t feel like doing.
Like that letter from X. I didn’t want to look at it because looking at it was reminding me that I had to deal with it, and that was depressing. Since I wasn’t ready to deal yet, I stuck it in a pile.
Ha! I am like the Witness Protection Program for iguanas.
I protect iguanas. I’m trying to protect me from them, but in effect what happens (bing! shivanautical epiphany!) is that I am protecting them from me.
On one level, there’s this beautiful attempt to be helpful: solidify, structure, keep everything together. I am compiling to create more order. Because better a pile than 70,000 papers all over the place.
On another level, obfuscation and hiding: keep the iguana away from me. But not too far away.
Really, I should thank my psyche for being so creative and for coming up with the best possible solution it could. That’s kind of sweet.
What I know about them, me and our relationship
Apparently I still need them. Both the piles and the iguanas.
I need safety. And the iguanas need safety.
Also needed are systems and forms to emerge that will hold things differently.
So this is about need, and releasing all these symbolic pieces that are not working.
I want to be able to say YES to needing things like support, creativity, order, freedom, hiding places.
And to identify the part of me who desperately needs worry, fear, iguanas, something hanging over my head what’s that called, dread. Ah, the dread.
Where the pain is
Monsters, iguanas and deadlines, oh my!
But really? Why am I keeping an iguana compound in my space? That isn’t helpful to anyone.
So I need:
- structures and containers for things to flow into so the piles pile less frequently.
- And when there is a pile, it still needs a box to live in. A home! And that box needs a date and a plan. And rituals that can be fun.
Ooh! Idea! International Iguana Depiling Day. I.I.D.D. Once a month. And time to work on the Book of Me.
Also the home for the Pile could be like a dollhouse. Or a Cardboard Box that is a house, with a door and a chimney. Oh, adorable. I want to make it a home.
Oh! My piles are pieces of me that are homeless. I identify with them. Just like there are safe rooms for my various selves, of course there is a safe room for my pile. But not to keep it safe from me. To keep us all in a general state of safety.
Oh! And I can spray the pile with the magical spray-bottle-of-making-things-better. And other rituals for it that can be fun.
What they symbolize
The parts of me that need containers, boundaries, a home. Lost little orphans who need love, support and acknowledgment.
Why I need them
To remind me of my creativity. To remember that I am the queen.
Why I’m done with them
Because the queen needs spaciousness to create. And piles are not conducive to spaciousness.
What is the connection between my past and piles:
There are people in my life who need boulders. Friction. They choose the way of friction.
Not out of intention but because they are disconnected.
This new thing is about committing to this new way of EASE and FLOW instead of living in friction.
The version of me who is done with them.
Ah. The me who knows about this ease and flow thing.
There is spaciousness. Support. Structure. Shiva Nata.
Sweetie, you are moving into the world where that old way cannot exist anymore. One day piles will really truly be like cigarettes. Or sugar. You just won’t need them anymore.
And you won’t even remember why you did.
What I don’t know yet.
How. But I’m closer to finding out than I realize. And that’s what the next Rally is for. Rally!
Playing. And the comment zen blanket fort.
My goodness. I have no idea if any of this makes sense to anyone who isn’t me. I was pretty spectacularly brain-melty from all the awesome Shiva Nata we’d been doing before writing this. God I love Rally.
What I would love:
If you wanted to think out loud about any of those questions, investigate your own relationship with piling, or do some of the super-speedy word association thing too.
If you would say Vhoooooosh! Which is the sound of stuckness dissolving and all the right spaces opening up.
What I would not love:
Please no advice, recommendations or pep talks. I am sharing a really personal and intimate process in my own way and in my own timing, and I need lots of spaciousness with that.
As always, we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process.
Love to all the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.
These are my tools.
It took me a while to get here.
At the last Rally (Rally!), I spent a disproportionate amount of time thinking about what makes a supportive workspace — for me, at least.
Because that’s where the biggest gap is in my own version of the Book of You. So I started poking around, and before long I was deep into monster negotiations with the various parts of me who think that I don’t get to have space for just me.
And then I learned about tools.
Here’s how it started.
My fuzzball monsters were dead set against me having anything that looked like a supportive workspace, especially if it was silly and playful and had glitter crayons.
They were very emphatic about this. No crayons!
Even though they know from experience that I do my very best work at Rally, which is the most playful and loving space in the entire world.
The monsters were divided in two factions. The ones who think it’s DECADENT and FRIVOLOUS — that I should do without because I can.
And the ones who really, truly want me to have everything that will help me do my best work but say we can’t afford it and anyway what will people think.
But then I couldn’t remember why the crayons were so important.
It was all fascinating, but at some point I realized that I wasn’t sure myself why I get to have crayons. It was like I couldn’t really be on my own side. Interesting.
So I sent the monster brigade off to the Room of Infinite Mashed Potatoes (it’s kind of like their safe room), and took a minute for myself.
I wanted to get clear — for me — about why it isn’t really decadent or frivolous to work in a space that encourages me to approach everything I do in the most playful, creative, and expansive way possible.
I wanted to remember what it’s like (and what I’m like and what the creative process is like), when there is construction paper and crayons and yoga blocks and a hammock.
Obviously the crayons were a symbol. But they weren’t just a symbol.
The investigation behind the investigation.
The question:
Okay, so having a Wish Room that is a supportive space to work is not decadent or frivolous because…??
And the response.
- If something helps me work better, faster, more efficiently and get more things done, that’s a reasonable business investment.
- I’m pretty sure that other people (read: “boring grownup people”) spend money on desks, bookshelves, filing cabinets and office supplies.
So really I’m just taking what would be a perfectly reasonable budget for the home office of a CEO of a growing company, and directing it towards different things that serve the same purpose.
- If I were an artist, I’d need paints. If I were a sculptor, I’d need clay. If I were a designer or programmer, I’d need software. Tools! Tools!
In which I start to claim my tools.
Well, I’m not a sculptor. At least not in ways that aren’t metaphorical. But.
But I’m an inventor of culture and a writer and a teacher and a creative professional, and I need tools too.
My tools are yoga blocks and magic markers and I need them to do my work well.
Without having to know what I do.
It doesn’t matter what I do. Even if I have managed to run this company for five years without knowing what I do or being able to define it even slightly…
That doesn’t mean I don’t get tools!
Because I don’t ever have to decide what I do, dammit. But I can still know lots of things about the culture of my kingdom.
I am a …
Creator of alternative communities.
Conjurer.
Director of a preschool/yoga studio/unusual co-working space (the Playground!). Head of a corporation. Owner and CEO (Chief Eccentricity Officer, thank you).
Writer, creativity consultant and pirate queen.
Highly unconventional teacher and educator. Wild-eyed inventor of ideas, concepts, words and worlds
I am all of these things and I get to have tools!
And these are my tools.
These are my tools:
- Yoga blocks and blankets.
- Stuffed animals, cushions and a napping area with a hammock.
- Music and snacks and rugs to roll around on.
- Crayons, markers, construction paper, and glitter pipe cleaners.
- Stencils and glue sticks and color everywhere!
- Puppets, toys, stickers.
- Costumes and wigs and sovereignty boots and stripey socks.
- Feather boas! And over-the-top hats for every imaginable occasion.
- A slide and a trampoline and a slackline!
- Headphones and ear plugs and hiding places.
- Boxes and boxes and boxes.
- Bubbles to blow and magic wands to wave and magical force field spray.
My tools are pretty, powerful, sparkly, sweet, funny, childlike, welcoming. They are thoroughly unapologetic about enjoying themselves.
They want to play.
What about you?
Tools for everyone!
If you were a graphic designer, you would need software.
If you were a painter, you would need paints.
If you were a photographer, you’d need a camera and a dark room, or access to one.
If you were a knitter, you’d need yarn and needles.
If you were a baker, you’d need flour and pans and measuring cups.
You are a destuckifier. And a creative thinker. An inventor of metaphors.
A maker of culture and an explorer of internal worlds. And so many other things.
What are your tools? Play with me?
I am a ___________________ and I need tools!
These are my tools!
And comment zen for today.
As always, we all have our stuff and we all take responsibility for our stuff and make room for everyone else to have their stuff. It’s a process.
So we let people have their own experience and we don’t give unsolicited advice.
That’s it. You are more than welcome to join in, and we can cheer each other on. Yay! Tools!
Let the Tool Revolution begin!
I’m pretty sure that’s it’s just one guy.