2017

in yoga, a few days before the new year, Em said to us,
“if you had a terrible unpleasant painful year,
please know that you are not alone,
we are going to make it through, together
we are going to coast our way there”

a toast to company, and the superpower of coasting

a door into the new year

this year I am asking new questions,
less about what I want, what I think I want, etc,
and more along the lines of:

how do I want to care for myself,
how can I treasure myself

a toast to wild self-treasuring
even/especially in troubled times

treasures

a toast to all the treasure from 2017 received through painful experiences
like the treasure of way the hell more self-respect
found through learning what it is like
to lose it completely,
(ha yes, I meant the self-respect,
but sure, I also lost it completely in all senses of that phrase)
no more will I make room in my life for
people who will not make room for me,
— did it hurt to learn this? yes! —
but it is still treasure,
a toast to the good that comes from the hard,
here’s to the new good coming from good

we made it to the threshold, friends

good lord it was a toxic shitstorm of a year
not just politically but also personally,
for me it helps to remember that we all felt this

a toast to remembering that the pain/fear/anxiety/
is legitimate and understandable, and connected to bigger stuff going on than
just exceptionally bad luck or terrible life decisions

a toast to setting it all on fire,
and to breathing in light

small sweet surprises

I got piercings in my ears from someone who told me that
her only life goal is BE MORE FORMIDABLE
(she was nailing it by the way, I want this too)
and surprised myself by falling in love with motorcycles,
returned to yoga after a long time away,
undid an addiction,
discovered that hitting a punching bag feels amazing,
turned things upside down,
changed states (geographically and in all ways)
started over

a toast to BE MORE FORMIDABLE
a toast to changing states
and the equilibrium within the disruption

fountains

I drove all day from a tiny town in Kentucky to Chicago
sure this was a terrible mistake but this terrible mistake led to a
3am improvised dance so transcendent and so magical that
my new dance friend and I abandoned the floor
to spend the next two hours
moving to breath and music by the water fountain,
in awe of the dance-life force itself

a toast to discovery, good surprises, and Nothing Is Wrong

a toast

thank you for the good, the brave,
the moments from this past year that glow in my memory,
the moments I remembered to breathe into my heart,
may the good light the way to more good and help me remember
that not everything in this challenging year was awful,
to approach this new year with crown restored

a toast to raise and rays
and something better

yes, crown restored

Incoming Me keeps showing up to whisper
(sometimes it’s more like shouting),
and she always says the same thing:

the time has come to reinstate and reawaken your
UNWAVERING SENSE OF SELF WORTH!

god I love her

a toast to knowing that she is right

berlin

once upon a time I was a smoker who lived in tel aviv
and was planning a move to berlin,
and I knew that berlin-me did not smoke,
but I didn’t know how to make the passage,
wanting to trust this deep certainty inside of me,
but also wary

I can’t remember how close to the move it happened,
if it was days or weeks,
but I boarded the plane, cravings alive,
and on the other side, I was free,
haven’t desired one since,
though sometimes I still smoke in my dreams

I need this new year to work like that flight to berlin,
the toxic inhalations of loving-and-missing someone
who loves me back but will never put that love first,
or even move it towards the top of their list,
the aching and the fury
all that is over on the other side of the door

a toast to the other side

new

In 2018 the addictive pull of desiring sweetness and
feeling hurt/angry at its mysterious disappearance,
the need for the sweetness and for the anger
all this does not exist, because here on this side of the door
I breathe better air

a toast to right timing and to process and to
what you do not feed will not grow

up in the air

so much I’d hoped would be resolved
is still up in the air
and so I am taking a new approach,
no more asking WHAT IS THE ANSWER,
no more PLEASE COME IN, SOLUTION,
I am deciding there is no bad answer,
I go with what feels most indicated based on gut yes
and the best intel I have in the moment,
and hey, if it is all in the air,
then I will rise and play in the air,
an aerialist who draws power from all directions

do-overs

my new years eve was mostly terrible but that’s okay because
we get do-overs
that’s how it works, right?
pretty sure there’s a thirty day grace period
let’s test this theory, friends, come join me!

every time someone asks me how new years eve went,
I have been honest and said MEDIOCRE
and then they laugh and say that theirs was too,
so apparently I am not the only one in need
of giving it another go

a toast to hey we tried a thing and it wasn’t yes, let’s try again, cut, take 2!

what do I love towards

I was thinking about the plane-to-berlin phenomenon,
and typed the question what do I move towards…
except what I actually wrote was what do I love towards,
which might be the most beautiful and poignant typo I’ve ever made

what do I want/choose to love towards?!

pleasure/freedom/adventure/play
on my terms
feeing peaceful and powerful,
at ease in my life,
fullness in my thank-you heart,
thank you for this life, this aliveness-of-life,
this glow-state of breath

a toast to turning inward and glowing outward

love

love to all you friends here,
everyone who had it rough this year,
those in the “it’s only going to get worse” camp and also the
“it really fucking has to get better” camp,
despair + hope + all of the big real feelings are intense,
and we get endless cascading sparklepoints for being present with what is

I love you
thank you for your companionship in 2017
(which was a nonsense year), and
let us wish loving wishes for this new year,
may we ease our way in and take
exquisite care of ourselves
as we can when we can to the best of our ability

a toast to us

xox

p.s. you are welcome to seed new year wishes in the comments or share anything sparked for you!

dark

I woke up the other morning deep in solstice-adjacent despair,
an absolutely perfect turn of phrase that I am borrowing from Erin,
and (until she gave it a name and I realized what it was),
it was painful and baffling

But yes, of course,
it is terribly dark (in this hemisphere)
(but also, like, metaphorically)
(and in the news)
and all too much,
and this burrowing is a form of cocoon,
these days of passage from one year to the next,
when reflection — both the candlelight kind and the turning-inward,
is most needed but we are also busy, with holidays and
end-of-year scrambling,
and we are tired and culture wants us to
see all the people and make resolutions or take up running or whatever,
and it is all completely exhausting

clues revealed during a long sweet yoga

can I emanate good thoughts like incense around me
can I trust what is resonant (and do this through being more resonant)
what if illuminated is eliminated?
a flash of an image: lighting a bonfire,
igniting all that is no longer yes, letting it burn away with ease, bye

clues from a dance lesson

apply ease
move a little to get a lot
DO LOTS OF NOTHNG while increasing connection
breathe the dance
and if you’re too tired to implement the new learning, just go home and rest, babe
(no point in reinforcing old muscle memory)
(and anyway rest is a door to integration)

noticing

this month has been so intensely stressful that I’ve actually stopped stressing over
the usual things, most things in fact, as if a limit was reached, and that is that,
no room left to care about that stuff,
so now I am calm and steady where I used to be tense,
because I just do not have any more bandwidth to fret/obsess
about any of the things that used to matter to me

I go to bed and ask for things to solve themselves while I sleep,
come on secret solutions,
do your thing
because I can’t,
and I’m fine with that

what needs to change in my environment?

I asked this question, skipping it like a stone, of my secret mystery project,
which has to do with climbing,
but I’m not sure yet if that is metaphorical or not

me: hey mysterious project, what needs to change in my environment?
project: you could go UP!
me: I could??
project: you could, yeah!
me: up like upstairs, out of the subterranean spaces? up like higher ground? up like raise the price? up in the air? aerialist time? up like drive north and stay with J?
project, happily: SURE!
me: that is not helpful at all, friend, come on
project: you own a trampoline! you know about ascending! you need a raise! you need to rise! lots of things rise: bread but also smoke! heat rises! raise the roof!
me: whoa

a year ago

the librarian in the tiny utah town asked what my word for 2017 was
and I said FIERY, because turning fiery sounds
more fun than turning forty
she looked wary

are you sure, she said, because
you know you will get to know all aspects of fire,
not just the ones you want

I didn’t care, burn it all down,
I want passion and sparks,
intensity and wild beauty,
sure, let what needs to be destroyed be destroyed,
I will ride off into the sunset
and LET IT BURN

and of course you know what happened next
my beautiful love story immediately went up in flames
along with my ability to trust (myself? anyone?),
or even do basic life stuff like feed myself,
I forgot how to eat, how to even desire nourishment,
I became intimately close (closer than I wanted to be) with rage, fury, intensity,
I drove from the oregon coast to the red river gorge in kentucky,
and screamed at the sky

among the fiery learnings of this year

• oh how I love a bonfire
• emergence: the phoenix rising from the ashes is powerful, shining, glistening in the light
• yes, I can still build a fire quickly and efficiently and keep it going all night, I recently surprised a Nebraska farmer with this skill left over from the long winter of coal ovens, in a mostly-abandoned building in Berlin, so there
• I can breathe towards the place of fire in me, tending it with love and breath, my this is my eternal flame which, translated from hebrew is my forever-light or really my forever-candle, I can let my breath become brighter, I can let my internal space fill with light, I can remember that I am made of particles of light, a vessel made to house light
• burning down is not the same as over, the volcanic eruption of Mt St Helens, not that far from where I live, destroyed its surroundings, nothing left, life reduced to the microbe level, but just five years later tiny tree frogs, little flowers, life found its way back, everything might have been on fire in me this year but life will win
• see what is reflected in the flames, gather around a new hearth space

rising

yes it has been a FIERY RISING
this year of Turning Fiery,
this year of lava flow and emergence

a year of FIERY is ready to change form,
as the year of TRIUMPHANT comes in
what needs to happen for this to take place,
how does the door of ease open the passage?

intention

I am taking DO LOTS OF NOTHING as my theme,
when my dance teacher tells me to do this she means
[move less, react less, be patient, hang out and see],
and this is a lovely theme for ease and easing

but also I am thinking about how
hibernating is rejuvenating,
and how seeds do their thing under the surface
long before we see flowers and fruit,
can I do more nothing with powerful intention,
can I do nothing triumphantly,
trusting in the less and the ease,
trusting in the purpose, the intent, the seeds

a compass of opening to ease

OPEN TO EASE
OPEN TO EASE
OPEN TO EASE
OPEN TO EASE
OPEN TO EASE
OPEN TO EASE
OPEN TO EASE
OPEN (SESAME!) TO EASE

light and light-hearted

days are getting longer now (in this hemisphere at least,
waving to my friends on the other side, passing you candles),
the sun came out today and melted most of the ice

what do I want

a solution to the mysteries, a solution so brilliant and sparkling that I
clap my hands with delight

a new refuge, a new sense of what that might be

the right people to sit with me around a fire

fewer projects, only the ones I feel intensely passionate towards

to feel the forever-candle in my heart, its warmth and glow

to breathe sweetness for myself

faith in the [aliveness of life, the spark of love], how it finds its way through fire and through all obstacles, real and perceived, all I need to do is keep breathing into my heart

light more candles

Invitation for this post!

You are welcome to share !!!! or anything sparked for you in this salve,
or seed any wishes, intentions or desired superpowers for the year to come,
glow love for Incoming You, whatever you like…

We remember that People Vary, we take care of ourselves as we need, we don’t give advice.

Here’s how we meet each other here: with great kindness, appreciation and love.

Lots of heart-glow over here for you and everyone who reads.

Twelve days

Hi sweet friends,
I am taking twelve days to
learn what I want from this new incoming year

To listen-explore-play and call in (hear the call of!) my word for the year,
to receive a compass of qualities to guide me,
and make space for any wishes, projects or visions for the year
to reveal themselves,
and meet the Incoming Me who knows what to do with all this new intel!

A shape/form, and what it looks like

December 18-29

This time period covers hannukah, solstice and christmas,
and I’m letting these three points-of-light on the calendar
form a constellation, take shape and meaning
each star-point glowing qualities that can be beacons:
Dedication / Illumination / Mystery

Passage

This is how I want to passage towards the new year,
with intention, curiosity, receptivity,
and whatever else is needed,
breathing into my heart

Calling in qualities like sparks of light,
surrounding myself with them,
glowing them inward and outward,
dedicating myself to illuminating the mysteries,
and my relationship with these qualities

DEDICATION / ILLUMINATION / MYSTERY

Taking a moment to connect these dots,
illuminate the connection points:

dedicated to illuminating the mysteries,
dedicated to the mysteries of illumination,
illuminating my dedication to these mysteries,
illuminating my mysterious dedication,
the mystery of how to illuminate dedication,
the Mystery in my dedication illuminated

First spark: DEDICATION

Hannukah literally means Dedication, and I am dedicating myself to
this intentional time, dedicating myself to
my relationship with myself

Dedicating myself to drawing inward
— in yoga we call this pratyahara: withdrawal of senses,
to receive clarity on important things like
who I am, what I need, how to best care for myself,
and this is a form of contemplation and self-study, svadhyayaya.

Hannukah is also about Reclaiming (space and time and holiness!),
it is about restoring what needs to be restored,
which means I am also rededicating myself to boundaries and
all related practices of Crown On.

And, Hannukah is about Courage and Justice, not to mention
Surprise Last Minute Miracles and Celebrating Light, and
oh wow do I ever need all of this right now

Second spark: ILLUMINATION.

Winter solstice, at least here in this hemisphere
is the door of [hello, darkest moment] and [trust that ease is coming] and
[this is the turning point, we made it, transition time, more light!]

It is the day I dedicate myself to the transformative question of
what needs to be eliminated and what needs to be illuminated?

For me, right now, Illumination is about revealing the light that already is,
glowing towards clarity, easing into releasing

For me, right now, Illumination is full and wild, lighting up everything,
I whisper “illuminate”, and suddenly I am back beneath that
wild magnificence of Idaho sky at midnight,
a vastness of stars

Third spark: MYSTERY

I don’t celebrate Christmas, but, much like American Thanksgiving,
it is a time when I often feel intensely lonely and disconnected,
craving [love, community, companionship] as well as
needing some sort of mysterious project to keep me
present and engaged
while the world around me is
doing its thing that I am not a part of

When I still had the retreat center, we’d sometimes host a last-minute x-mas hide-out,
always the coziest best thing ever, and we called this event X Marks The Spot

X is a treasure map and X is kisses and X stands for all the mysteries,
and solving for X is also a way to
celebrate Mystery, in the sense of
Awe and Wonder, Treasure and Delight

What these twelve days will look like.

I’m going to skip stones (journal on questions),
channel a compass (this is magic)
play with capers (this is my word for exercises, because exercise stresses me out),
and meet Incoming Me
aka the-me-who-has-already-embodied-these-qualities
and find out what this version of me knows and wants to share with me!

And I’m going to breathe-breathe-breathe
and light candles and take exquisite care of myself

I am going to welcome the new year and also release,
with sweetness and presence and grace
— though possibly also with some smashing,
what was and has been,

And I don’t know what else is going to happen
because it is a beautiful mystery!

YOU ARE INVITED

I loved the Hermitsgiving experiment
(and received so many revelatory insights through our shared process!)
and I want to spend these twelve days in companionship,
closing out this challenging year and this beautiful Month of Ease together

Let’s ease this time, together,
and bring ease to this time, together,
and find what treasure awaits us
or is already inside of us,
glowing like stars

Invitation for this post!

There is a lot here (because this year was a doozy, wasn’t it), I would love to think out loud on these qualities some more and together, whether you are coming to play with me or not, feel welcome to share anything sparked for you while reading…

For example, anything about the beautiful qualities or constellation points of Dedication, Illumination and Mystery, or the process and practice of creative intentional approach, and of course you can also share this post with anyone who might need this.

You are also invited to use the comments space here to seed superpowers and wishes for the end of year!

We can begin our entry for the new year here, or notice whatever we want to notice about the year-end as well, practicing [exit as we wish to continue]…

Begin with the breaking

There are so many stories I want to share with you, where do we begin?

Begin with the breaking

A story about a bottle

I have been crying for six months straight,
riding the rage waves of this painful breakup, the betrayal-and-loss,
crashing with the grief tide,
sometimes shattered, sometimes barely holding on through
heart-breath heart-breath heart-breath,
and, at some point on the six week solo road trip voyage of
[Into These Big Feelings / Get Out And Be Hard To Find],
not sure where exactly, some hippie grocery, in Madison or maybe Lexington,
I picked up a bottle, a grief-release tincture,
you can spray it around you or place some under your tongue,
according to the label it is supposed to bring ease

perceptions of

Except I didn’t care for the taste or the smell,
so mostly it sits in the car next to me, a reminder to keep breathing into my heart,
now and then I spray a little when the tears blur my path beyond seeing,
until this morning when I took my sweet star car back to the mechanic
(haha, yes, lots of things are broken)
(not just in my heart, in my perception)
and hastily transferred the contents of the front seat into my bag,
walked maybe half a block, pulled out my scarf, you’ve already guessed what comes next,
the grief bottle took this opportunity to dramatically fling itself on the sidewalk,
breaking in half

Timing (1)

Yesterday morning my grief finally broke,
in a miracle of easing,
and exactly twenty four hours later my grief bottle followed suit,
as if to say, hey you don’t need this anymore,
breathe easy without me
breathe ease, breathe ease

Timing (2)

The day before the grief broke, I was listening to
one of the best (sorry, it’s in hebrew) angry-hurting-heart songs there is,
a song that rages its way into sweetness,
thinking about this line:
“just me and the bottle, I’ve got no one /
drinking my soul out, I dive into the bottom of the glass but it’s broken”
and now the glass is broken, it’s just a different glass,
a better kind of broken,
who even knew there was a good kind,
hello, sweet miracle

A story about chance

I was thinking about someone and how I haven’t texted them,
because I don’t know what to say or how to connect,
then I walked into the cafe where I’ve been writing (and crying) every day
for the past few weeks, and no one knows about this secret writing spot,
but this person was there, very mysteriously,
and, even more mysteriously, behind the counter,
because this is their new job,
surprise!

So that brought ease to the mystery of [how do I approach] because hey there I was,
so I said the thing I wanted to say, and it was easy,
and later I cried some more but this time not about heartbreak or any other
mysteries of humans (and communicating),
because now I get to cry about other things like everything else that is broken,
but now I have a friend who works in the place where I cry,
they brought me napkins and hugs,
and listened, without trying to fix,
this was also a gift of ease,
thank you for this unexpected treasure
in the Month of Ease

A story of A Fortuitous Misremembering

A fellow secret agent told me they’d had in their mind that December was
the month of RELEASE, which turned out to be a doozy of a quality,
just like this month,
and somehow I hadn’t even realized
that EASE is inside of RELEASE, hiding in plain sight,
but yes, the Easing in my heart was in fact a Releasing,
an undoing unwinding unbinding,
also a champagne cork,
but more on that later!

included

The month of Ease comes with the superpowers of effortless release
and relaxed positivity,
easing into the releasing,
many things this month have been surprisingly fortuitous for me,
surprising and fortuitous,
including all the breaking

Here’s to the superpower of Fortuitous Misremembering,
may this turn out to be related to
all other forms of fortuitous realizations,
may it be revealed that the obstacles were not obstacles,
that the breaking was necessary and important and healing,
and that yes, there is treasure both in easing my way through the hard
and also in having found
the hardest way into ease…

The hard parts of ease (ha!)

Yes, it is the month of Ease, and the month of Ease been quite possibly
the hardest month,
one piece of seemingly-terrible unwelcome news after another,
in every category, from
the $2500 car repair, not covered by insurance,
which was already not fun but then a dozen other
impossible-to-anticipate and increasingly terrifying
[mysteries, expenses and other forms of upheaval],
showing up both out of nowhere and all at once,
so many, and in such quick succession that it seemed like,
I don’t know, contrived somehow, engineered, clearly a redirection,
like the road blocks that appear on every road in The Truman Show,
when he finally gathers his courage to leave town

Then other blocks and obstacles, more and more,
a virus that knocked me out for four days except it wasn’t a virus at all,
every possible thing going wrong / seemingly-wrong,
all of it directing me to the place I was when the grief broke

Taking it / taking it to heart

Okay, I will take the Redirection,
because it is there,
and because sometimes the path of ease is the path of least resistance,
but also, and this is important, I will pay attention and question the Redirection,
because I am tripping over things so hard,
and because it is said that Ganesh, the god of removing obstacles
sometimes puts them directly in your path in order to get you off the path,
because that path was not yours or because there is a better path,
and so I will listen and notice and keep breathing love
into my heart
and all around me,
easing my way

Easing

As you know, I love cover stories and proxies, and
working on things by intentionally going around them,
pretending I’m working on something else,
for December I have been deep undercover in Operation Corkscrew,
it is so completely undercover that even I don’t know what it’s about,
or what it stands for, or what “corkscrew” might mean.

It is a stand-in for [how do I solve all the mysteries] and
[what do I do when everything is breaking all around me] and
for my wishes related to Ease.

A story about being a bell

I go see K’s show,
because blues is the medicine for the blues,
and because Lisa is playing too, and she is made of magic,
and because dance is my salvation

During the last song K comes off stage and puts his guitar around me,
placing it on my back, holding me close, playing guitar on me and
singing the rest of the song in my ear,
the music is REVERBERATING IN MY SPINE,
and for the first time in my life, I understood what it means
to be a bell, which is a funny thing for someone
whose middle name is bell

All of me

All I want in life
is to be a bell in a bell-tower,
powerful-and-peaceful, resonant, always at home in myself,
echoing and reverberating,
ringing out qualities in sweet concentric circles,
but this was the first time I understood what it means to
vibrate sound with all of me,
to be vibrating sound, all of me

More

I wanted more of this
so I invited K, as both musician and fellow broken-hearted friend,
to accompany me to some singing bowl sound meditation thing,
which sounded like it could be weird and cool and possibly healing, as well as
a way to focus on something other than
how much everything hurts

During the sounds I had a vision,
and after the sounds, I was flat on my back for four days,
which was incredibly frustrating and felt like the opposite of the vision,
but I think what was actually happening was a sort of
{integration / incubation / chrysalis}
as if my body was trying to be very clear with me:

you are to do absolutely nothing other than sit
with the information you are receiving,
and really receive it,
everything needs to pause
while you listen

Easing

I know I said the month of Ease has been the hardest month
but it has also contained more moments of ease than
the past year combined

It has delivered unexpected solutions,
and it has brought peace,
and we still have most of the month to go,
I am looking forward to seeing what else might ease

Noticing

Once I could walk again, I went to yoga,
where I had three massive heart-healing breakthroughs,
one after the next

I am not going to describe them,
because I can’t,
but I can tell you what happened after

Ringing

Drawing to the end of shavasana, T asked,
what are you noticing?

And, ringing like a bell inside me,
was my beautiful heart,
and the three missing qualities,
[Joy and Hope and Ease]
circulating through my bloodstream,glowing and alive

After an agonizing day of grief and sorrow,
after six months (sure, okay, it’s been a year) of sobbing my eyes out,
I noticed joy

Unbottled

In yoga T said press down to go up,
and suddenly I understood what “corkscrew” means

Wings

We used our hands and arms to imitate the motion of breath,
with the inhale the diaphragm drops down
while the ribs expand out,
with the exhale the ribs narrow,
the diaphragm lifts,
do you see,
it’s a corkscrew,
the breath itself works like opening a wine bottle
with one of those bottle openers where the sides open out like
unfolding wings
and then you press down
the cork pops up and out,
an ease of releasing

A key

A wine key,
made of wings and ease,
angel breath,
easing the passage,
making room for Clarity and Sweetness,
and whatever other treasure is on its way

This is what it feels like to be unbottled,
decanted, released

A song

This is what happens with each breath,
an easing of ease:
wings spread,
a key opens something,
and then we get to do it again,
life force reverberating through us
like music

(a breath of awe for this)
(what if everything can be easier, even this?)

Wishes at the threshold

Last month I wished for Solace, and
An Undoing that is a Returning,
and I Am A Bell

I received all of these and am crying again now,
but tears of thank-you this time

Invocation for Easing Into Ease

Asking for:
Ease-Filled Solutions (that benefit everyone involved!),
Sweet Simplicity, Wild Miracles, Joyful Timing,
Heart Overflowing Gratitude,
I Am The Luckiest / This Worked Out Perfectly / It Is So Very Clear,
Powerful & Peaceful, My True Bell Self,
LIGHT-HEARTED
Welcoming All The Right Allies, Playmates & Dance Partners,
I Trust More / I Trust Love More / I Trust-Love More,
Excited For This New Path, Wind In My Sails
I am Fierce & Fearless, Powerful & Striking,
Of The Earth & Wild, Glowing & Alive,
Triumphant in movement and in stillness,
riding-striding-sailing-embarking,
at home in this beautiful heart full of light, yes to life,
may it be so

Invitation: Communal wish/processing space! Come play with me…

You are invited to share this post and to share many !!!!!! about what is here,

You can share appreciation or anything sparked for you while reading or deposit any wishes of your own.

Safe space for creative exploration asks us to let go of care-taking and advice-giving.

It’s always okay to comment under a made-up name, for play and delight, or in the interest of Safety First.

People vary and my process doesn’t have to be yours, this is a good thing.

Here’s how we meet each other: with warmth and appreciation, whispering oh, wow what beautiful wishes!