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.
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.
Very Personal Ads #84: not actually a song you would have heard of.
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!
Let us dooo eeeet.
Thing 1: tools, and a better relationship with them.
Here’s what I want:
Okay. I’ve found that many of my Very Personal Ad asks are for things that I want but am conflicted about wanting.
Often things that could really help me with my work, but in an indirect way, or maybe it’s just that technically I don’t need whatever it is because I can make do without it.
After many monster negotiations, some of which I may share this week, I’ve realized that there are certain tools of the trade that are vital to excelling in that trade.
So I’ve been trying to pin down what my tools might be. In the hopes of feeling better about wanting them.
And get better at the complicated internal process which accompanies the external process of acquiring them.
Ways this could work:
Journaling, walking, dancing, asking smart questions.
Playing. Possibly at the Playground, a place that I have eagerly outfitted with an enormous variety of wonderful tools (because I’m okay with other people having tools!).
Maybe some metaphor mousing.
My commitment.
To notice throughout the day how tools bring support, ease and comfort into my life.
To pay attention to all the tools that I don’t necessarily stop to appreciate (power cords, toothbrushes, butter knives, tote bags, everything that helps me do what I do).
To sing silly little songs. Tool tool tool tool tooooooooooolie!
Thing 2: a few more fabulous people for the March Rally (Rally!)
Here’s what I want:
Obviously, a Rally (Rally!) is the best and most fun way to get a ton of work done and change the way you work forever. Because I can’t shut up about that.
The February Rally is full, but there are a few spots left for March.
And March is a VERY good time to Rally, for two reasons:
One, you can join me in avoiding SXSW like the plague, but not feel bad about it because you can still meet incredible people, make useful connections and party like a rock star, should you want to.
But mainly the second reason: Selma and I have booked an amazing photographer to do private sessions so you can leave the Rally with a gorgeous new headshot for your blog or website!
There are four more spots for March. I would love for the Rally and its people to find each other. Yay!
Ways this could work:
I can remember to tell people about it. Like now.
And give people the link to the Rally page. Rally!
And, more importantly, give them the link to Jillian’s page where she talks about the photo shoot part.
And put it in the Biggification Board at the Kitchen Table.
And make a point of telling people that the photo shoot is included for anyone who wants it — there’s no extra Rally tuition for this.
All of that is “in the hard”. Not sure what I want to work on “in the soft”, but I’ll dance on it and see what comes up.
My commitment.
To share my excitement and enthusiasm for Jillian and her work (I adore Jillian, and I need this too since my avatar photo is crazy old).
To spread the word about Rally in the way that Rally is: fun, playful and magical.
Thing 3: birthday rituals
Here’s what I want:
There’s still a few weeks to plan, but what invariably ends up happening is that I never plan, and then my birthday ends up being stressful instead of reflective.
So I’d like to invent some rituals. Or come up with a really good idea for a run-away-from-everything kind of weekend.
Not sure yet what this ask is about, exactly.
But it has to do with conscious, loving, light-hearted ways to mark time and to think about this coming year, in the context of what I want, instead of what I usually do.
Ways this could work:
Not sure yet. Just planting the wish. Gwish!
But if you have suggestions for beautiful, quiet places in Oregon where one might hide out while doing this, I would love that.
My commitment.
To do some serious thinking about what this past year has been about, and what I want and need.
To recognize that taking time for this and for myself is also a tool. And that I get to have tools the same way I get to have time and space.
All of this is stuff I know, but the way it is sinking in right now is new for me. So really my commitment is about taking the time to let all this percolate.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I wanted the right words for a Playground sign, and got a pretty good version. Thanks for all the suggestions!
Then resolution to the heating crisis, and while it didn’t happen exactly, we do now have a gajillion space heaters, so that’s something.
Also I wanted a new name for my R&D binder, and was thrilled about all the beautiful and creative things you guys thought of. THANK YOU!
And I had a problem that wanted and needed love and attention. It still does, but I’m pleased to say that I was able to give it a lot of my time this past week, and we are making really serious progress. I am so happy about that.
Yay, VPAs!
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 #132: a slow, bruised, triumphant return
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.
Well, I’ll say this much.
It was an interesting week, but maybe the first in a long time when the mix of working and playing was closer to the thing I want/wish/hope for.
I’m really glad to be here. Missed you guys this week.
The hard stuff
Dread.
It’s really my least favorite feeling.
That kind of low, watchful, pit of the stomach thing.
We had to do a lot of monster negotiating to work through that.
Stifled. Or the perception of being stifled.
There was a lot going on for me this week, some of it stuff which — for a wide variety of reasons — I couldn’t talk about here.
And even though I have complete freedom to talk about pretty much anything else, the net result was that my creative self was really not in the mood to come out from hiding.
Almost as if the part of me that was perceiving itself to be squashed/marginalized/silenced didn’t want any of the other parts to get to play.
It sucked.
I had lots of things to say, and they just wouldn’t come into form.
Having to make hard choices.
And all at once.
Saying no to things, canceling things, postponing things and revising things.
Each of which is ultimately something good for me and for the business, but the act of cutting the cords involved a long and difficult process.
Wanting to be appreciated.
Hard.
The Playground still doesn’t have heating.
And we have the Shiva Nata teacher training coming up next weekend. Stupid space heaters is not what I want (though thanks to everyone who has donated — you’re awesome!).
Yaallah.
The usual thing about horses and leading them to water.
Need to do some more creative thinking about this one.
The good stuff
A real weekend! Pineapple Upside Down days! I did it!
So you know how I’ve been wanting a wheel reekend since, oh, October?
It happened.
And it was lovely.
Two full days without internet, computering, work of any shape or form.
Thank you. Bliss.
Roller Derby!
Super fun, as always. And Portland’s Wheels of Justice beat the Detroit Derby Girls 197-75.
Nice.
Oh and then F.C. Union beat Hertha, much to the surprise (and joy!) of everyone I know in Berlin, so take that! Basically, last weekend rocked.
Being in the zone. Finally.
The Schwung! I found it. It’s back.
And I managed to be insanely productive, despite all the weird and unlikely things working against that.
Lots of clearing the decks, too.
Finished up two projects that had been hanging, and made big crazy progress on a third.
This is such an unlikely against-all-odds thing to be reporting. I can hardly believe it myself.
But stuff came together at the right place and the right time, and I’m feeling happy and relieved about that.
Outrageous shivanautical epiphanies.
Because we’re working on the Shivanautica Secret Lab, I’ve been triple-checking all the number sequences, and doing stuff way out of order.
Like, doing Level 6 twice, then Level 2, Then half of Level 5.
The moments of bing have been binging out of control.
So many huge realizations this week. It was like twenty years of therapy condensed into a few days.
Intense, but amazing. Because now so many things make sense.
Books!
Went to Powell’s and brought back a giant bag of books for the Playground library.
I’ve been reading up a storm all week.
Took the day off on Toozday.
Admittedly, the reason I couldn’t work on Toozday was hardly celebratory and actually completely depressing.
But the day I gave myself was beautiful.
Good food, good books, time in the hammock. And mostly: no pressure.
This is something that is usually pretty hard, so ten thousand sparklepoints for me.
My people being really understanding.
Even though I was making difficult changes and difficult announcements all week, my people were so sweet about it.
Everyone made allowances, and were really appreciative and helpful.
I feel so fortunate and happy when I think about that!
I worked through something that I’d thought couldn’t be worked through.
It’s a mix of exhaustion and a feeling of accomplishment.
Kind of like finishing a marathon that you didn’t really want to run to begin with, but you still feel proud and happy about being where you are.
Taking some time to appreciate that.
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’s band is — thankfully — not taken from my life at all.
Unfortunate Dayjob Episode
Unless running a company counts as having a day job?
Anyway, they rock hard. And, oddly enough, it’s actually only 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.