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.
Moment of truth. Let’s ring the bells.
Hey we have a gorgeous new website!
Are we doing this? Moment of truth. And bells.
This week’s wish began as a wish about Legacy and became a wish of What Do I Want To Echo. But then something happened and I had to scrap it, and now it is a wish about the next few days and ringing truth-bells.
Interestingly, this is the month of Echoing with the superpower of — get this — being a bell, and here is my chance to practice.
Right on time.
What do I know about moment of truth and ringing this bell?
Do you want the short version or the long version? I don’t know which one I want to write.
To be honest, I think I’d prefer to not need to share any of this, but here we are.
Wisest quiet me says: Speak truth and be heard, be a bell, trust that it is the time to ring all the bells and let them echo.
The truth bell version.
(0) But first, we breathe!
Breathing here for the vulnerability of it all. Breathing receptivity, ease, intention, honesty, clarity, surrender, opening, presence. I am here. And: I am here for this.
Breathing for meeting this moment. Breathing for trusting life.
(1) In six days, we are out of options.
In six days, on November 8, we have to make our yearly payment of $1300 for our shopping cart/list system, and we don’t have it. We don’t have anything, actually.
So either we bring in (or otherwise come up with) that sum right now, or the lights go out in the gallery. For a while or for longer than a while or I don’t know.
(2) It’s not just that.
Yesterday the gorgeous new website (which I also have not paid for yet because my incredible designer is the biggest fan of my work and trusts that I am the right horse to bet on) was down for an entire day because our old tired server can’t keep up, and hey, now we need to pay twice as much for hosting.
To be even more painfully truthful, I haven’t paid him in over a year, and it’s been a few years now since I regularly paid myself enough to live on. Most of the people who help out in the business volunteer their time, just like I volunteer mine, because they love this work, and me, and they believe in the mission. They trust (as I do) that we will all be compensated in good time.
That is really beautiful — I am endlessly grateful, and this trust is treasure, and also it sucks. It isn’t okay.
That isn’t what I want to model in the world. What I want to model in the world is something glowing and beautiful and sustainable. Right now we work hard and make beautiful, amazing, vitally important things, but that isn’t enough.
I honestly don’t know if sustainable exists but I want to find out. I want to be able to find out. If we figure out a way to keep the lights on in the gallery for 2017, that will be my project.
(3) I genuinely want to find out what sustainable looks like.
Sustainable to me means:
+ Havi doesn’t get burnt out/isn’t perpetuating a state of burnout
+ generating enough income to live on* and to easily cover the costs of running a business
+ I am able to pay everyone in my business, including me, for their time and hard work
+ the business does not rely on personal debt, no more floating the operation from my own now-depleted resources
+ a business that is peaceful, good for the world, a source of sustenance and joy
+ powered by integrity and love-more-trust-more
+ everyone who finds us breathes a little deeper, we all take better care of ourselves
+ something I feel comfortable modeling (not something I would talk someone else out of trying)
(Glowing Reassurances)
Whatever happens in the next six days, whether the lights in the gallery stay on or have to shut off, whichever way the miracles go (because as far as Wisest-Me is concerned, it’s all miracles in all directions), I will deliver everything I have promised to everyone who has already paid for things this year.
There are two more YEARbooks in progress, nearly completed. The Path of Color aka the monster coloring course is all planned and we’ll send dates soon to everyone who signed up. The Six Month Online Rally/Retreat will still be happening.
So let’s breathe for that. Nothing to worry about. There never is.
All is and and will be well, however it turns out.
What is interesting about vulnerability?
Whether lights stay on or lights go off, I’m not the one who can determine that, and I cannot even tell you how deeply disconcerting this feels.
For the first time in the past twelve years of doing this, that decision is not up to me because I don’t have the resources to decide.
I’ve spent the past few months exploring all possible variations of the ultimate big question, a la The Clash — should I stay or should I go?! —and yet, here we are in this moment of deciding, and it turns out it’s not me who decides.
Either the funds will show up or they won’t.
I guess in that sense, my decision is a yes. I want to stay, but only if it is possible. And that part isn’t in my hands.
Can I find peacefulness in not having a say? What would that be like?
Mmmmmm, it’s a bit like the show So You Think You Can Dance, when the audience votes for which dancers get to stay on the show.
It’s a funny situation, really. They’re all phenomenally talented dancers at the peak of their ability. Some have to go. And the judges (the ones with the magic vision who can see the nuances of technique) don’t get to weigh in until the audience has spoken first about what they feel, what they love.
I can experience this lack of control as terrifying, but I can also let this be a relief.
Superpower of hey, it’s up to the audience now. Nothing more to do here except ring the bell of asking, and ask. And receive whatever results from that or doesn’t as a gift.
Whatever happens next will decide for me, because there isn’t anything else I can do.
What if I can let that be a beautiful form of freedom and enjoy not being in charge?
What do I want?
I want sustainable. I honestly don’t know if that is even possible, but I want to explore.
I want harmoniousness and congruence and entirely new levels of wild trust. I want to walk through whichever door shows up, trusting that it is the just-right door.
And I want the superpowers of: Echoing. Calm. Steady and powerful in panther mode. Rays of Light. I Am Able To See The Opportunity/Treasure In This. Honesty. Clarity. No More Putting Up With Unsustainable Situations. It’s Out Of My Hands. Landing On Feet. Beautiful ease-filled solutions that make me clap my hands with delight. Wild and Witchy. Peaceful heart.
Reverberating. Grace.
The mea culpa section.
Monsters want me to list all the ways that I screwed up, to take responsibility for my part in this. So let’s name these.
(I plan to write more about this, that is, about my decisions and about circumstances, sans monsters, because I don’t actually believe in screwups, in Love Letter To A Museum Dreamer, which you can read here later if we stay open.)
- When the business was doing well, that is, prior to 2012 when it all came crashing down, I could have paid myself and put funds aside as a cushion instead of putting everything back into the business. I also could have chosen not to expand the retreat center when we had the opportunity. I took a risk because I wanted to be able to make the work more accessible and reach more people (and offer lower prices), and it bombed. We couldn’t make the larger space work, and every penny we made over the next three years went to overhead. Wrong move? Sure. However, I see how it came from my good heart, and so I glow love to past-me for wanting to do what she thought was right.
- I could have saved everyone a lot of pain by getting things in writing, so, for example, when my mentor changed his position on everything he had ever said and wanted to sue me for doing what I thought he wanted, I could have said hey let’s look at paragraph three. I wouldn’t have ended up in the awful helpless position of not being able to stand up for my students or my work, knowing anything I could possibly say in our defense would end up being used against me. I can think of about twenty other examples of Get It In Writing. Lesson learned, I hope.
- Shmita. Here I am disagreement with the monster crew. Taking sabbatical time when I did, when my body was on the verge of collapse from exhaustion and burnout, is by far the best possible thing I could have done for myself, and I do not regret it. A completely transformative experience. However, it did involve shutting down our primary income streams while I was in recovery mode, and I no longer have it in me to be in teacher mode because I no longer believe that’s the right way. I need more time to figure out an alternative, and, as mentioned, we are out of time. So there’s that. That’s on me.
What else do I want?
I want to not have to do this again.
I feel so much joy that there are people who want to help, and I also don’t like asking people to keep us afloat in an emergency. I don’t want to be at the edge.
I want a way to live (and a place to live) that doesn’t depend on having to ask for help keeping the lights on. A foundation for me so that I can do my best writing and teaching-without-teaching, and share the full body of work, without constantly dealing with how to keep the place up and running.
So, one example, if I had the funds to finish my basement, I could possibly turn it into a rental and I would consider that a sustainable solution even if not a plentiful one. External resources that mean not having to scramble, or panic about server hosting costs going up. I want that.
And I want people reading and playing here. Both because I want the work of self-fluency to reach a much broader audience, and because people often write to us and say they’d be glad to pay ten dollars a month or whatever for this space, which is so sweet but that really only becomes a viable option when we’re talking about a much larger group of playmates.
And? I want to preserve the freedom to write what I want to write, as it comes through me, trusting my instincts and trusting flow.
States of…
Vulnerability, state of. Perceived Emergency, state of. Peacefulness, state of.
And, also: Bell state. The state of being a bell. Resonance. Echoing and reverberating. Clarity. Truth love.
I am thinking about bridging between states, and what this means.
Sometimes I imagine opening a Metaphorical Travel Agency. I want to take you to all my favorite places, taking us through the qualities of these places which live in the names.
I have been through Bliss and Starlight (actual places), and now I want us to visit New Hope.
What pathways do I want to traverse in my bell state as we cross states? From emergency (perceived emergency) to emergence to new hope to starlight to bliss, and then to whatever lies beyond that starlit bliss of self-renewing hope?
These are the kinds of questions that I explore in my writing and weekly wishes, these are the questions I want to continue to visit, that for me is one piece of keeping the lights on.
Let’s apply self-fluency, like we do.
Here’s my part: Getting quiet. Turning inward. Skipping stones. Consulting my wisest selves and Incoming me. Being present. Open heart. Grace state. Bell resonance. Being as true to myself as I know how. Echoing and reverberating. Asking for help.
Here’s your part: You decide. I trust you. I love you, whatever comes of this. Vote.
We are out of time. Do the lights stay on?
It’s been a few years now since the museum business adequately covered all expenses, and we muddled through okay, but now we are past the point where that’s an option, so here we are, moment of truth.
Is it scary to let the audience decide? Of course. But it’s also okay. I’m not worried either way. This entire experience has been full of magic for me. Do I hope for more? Of course. But mainly I am trusting that whatever comes next will be just right.
Here’s how you vote. You can give us money and get stuff in return, or you can give us money as a thank you for everything that has been and is and may be, and expect nothing in return. Either of those work for us!
First option: If we raise enough funds to keep this going, here’s what will happen: I’ll spend 2017 figuring out if/how sustainable business works. Those of you who join the six month rally at the Secret Door Society will get to watch that process and maybe think through things with me if you want. I will keep exploring wishes here.
Second option: Not enough funds. In that case, I will get another job or three, and it will look like this: yes to the six month rally at secret door society for Friends of the Museum, yes to what I have already promised, no to the blog, no to everything else, because there won’t be time to do any of it.
Third option: Should we make more than enough funds to solve this, then I can do this full time. The blog will stay. I will write posts about all the stuff I want to write about. Exciting things will be happening. Big wild exploration.
Here’s the situation. November 8 is when we have to either pull the plug or go forward (again, either way we will deliver everything we’ve promised plus the Secret Door Society), but it takes a few days for funds to actually arrive in our account. So if your vote is for yes let’s stay open, then help us out now if you can.
WHERE TO GO & WHAT TO DO
If you want to join the Friends of the Museum, go here.
If you want to either buy past products or toss some money our way as a thank you for nearly twelve years and seventeen hundred posts and thirty four thousand comments and to keep this beautiful space going, you can do that on the foundation page.
Bells, wishes, doors.
Calling on all the superpowers of (perceived) crisis into door, the superpower of beautiful solutions, the superpower of welcoming the moment that is a door.
Agreeing to let perceived crisis slide into that category of good things that are not immediately recognizable as good things at the time. Which is probably most things.
And we are not in any way required to recognize them as good things, that is not necessary, because forcing ourselves to find the good inside of a moment of hard is not compassionate. Compassion is letting the hard thing be hard. Once we’ve done that, the good will reveal itself in right timing anyway.
I trust this and I trust us, and I am ready for whatever happens or does not happen. That is how echoing works.
last week’s wishes
last-week-me wished a wish called say what you want to say, and much to my surprise I am saying things I did not want to say, but it is the time to say them, and so in that sense, it was a very powerful wish indeed.
invitation: come play with me…
you are invited to share this post and to share many !!!!!! about what is here, or share appreciation or anything sparked for you while reading
deposit wishes, gwishes, superpowers, qualities, ingredients, intel, possibly in code
safe space for creative exploration asks us to let go of care-taking and advice-giving
wishes are never late because whenever you wish is the right time for wishing
we remember that people vary and my wishes don’t have to be yours, each process is unique, and this is a good thing
here’s how we meet each other’s wishes: with great kindness and appreciation and awe, whispering (and sometimes shouting) oh, wow what beautiful wishes
♡
the week of wind blessing sails
This is week 431 of this ritual, and so we chicken.
What’s been working? What do I want to play with….
I had a giant project that couldn’t possibly done in time (it needed two weeks and I had two days), so I imagined that there is a version of me who could handle this.
Specifically, the me who is really good at letting rough things be rough.
Yes, my mind went to some lovely dirty places there too. But what I actually mean is this: I assumed there is a version of me who is so completely grounded in Trust Love that she can let a rough draft be enough, trusting there will be time to polish later. Then I let her tell me what to do.
We got two weeks of work done in two days and yes, it was rough, and also so good.
Breathing for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Learned something I didn’t want to know. Breathing for comfort.
- Big miscommunication with someone I don’t know very well that resulted in inadvertent and very unnecessary hurt feelings, as well as all kinds of conclusion-jumping. Breathing for clarity, trust-love and sovereign communication, as well as for everything resolving itself under the surface.
- Learned about a big wish-desire, and it scares me so much that I can’t even think about it. Breathing patience. Breathing trust in proxy magic.
- The Everything Is Hopeless Why Even Bother monsters were still around, not just about the big wish but about everything. Breathing for comfort and Safety First.
- I am ready to be out of the Tantrum Prevention business, and I suspect this means taking more action on my part than just stating that I’m done. Also really ready for an actual vacation, the kind that doesn’t involve spending most of the day troubleshooting. Breathing for this.
- So. Much. Rigged. Game. Cultural. Bullshit. Breathing for this.
- Creepy dudes being creepy. Breathing badass panther prowess and DNFW.
- Tired of being on the edge, tired of the ongoing museum situation/crisis, tired of options getting narrower and narrower at every turn. I’ve been without a home base for 183 days now, which is mostly a super fun adventure, but I am so ready to have the option of sanctuary and foundation and a place to land when I want it. I genuinely don’t mind not having a place like that right now because it isn’t my yes, but I mind a lot not having the resources to make that an easy choice if it happens to feel right. Having the OPTION is my yes, and right now I don’t. Breathing for solutions and ease and the superpower of Surprise Good News.
- Working a million hours a day instead of going for beautiful walks and stretching and napping. Missing dance and movement and training. Breathing for my body.
- Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. May peacefulness prevail. Trust-more love-more release-more receive-more. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Breathing for the good, reassuring, and magical!
- I AM SLEEPING AGAIN! ALL NIGHT LONG! Apparently the answer was as easy as Get Out Of Los Angeles because as soon I landed back in the motorhome, I was sleeping ten hours a night instead of three. I have no idea why I would sleep better in a noisy supermarket parking lot or some random truck stop than in my friend’s beautiful peaceful apartment on the edge of a hill with pretty trees, but for whatever reason, my body remembered how to sleep, and I am so happy about this. Breathing thankfulness.
- When new friend was upset with me and jumping to conclusions and saying hurtful things, I did not make shit about me, I did not take it personally, I one hundred percent understood how misunderstandings worked. And I was able to respond with love and presence, grace and ease, and friend was able to back up and do the same. Breathing thank you for self-fluency and the past twelve years of training.
- Sweetness and joy and love and levels of connection that are pure magic. Breathing thank you.
- Hey did I mention that I got two weeks of work done in two days, thanks to Incoming Me being the world’s biggest badass and telling me exactly what to do and how to do it? Breathing for Rally magic.
- Oh, and finally (like, after many, many, many months of agonizing over this) figured out what I want to do about the museum and what I want in its place, and how I want that to work and what I want to look like, and set it all into motion. Breathing joy and gratitude and sparks of love for this.
- Pretty scenery in Arizona and Nevada, and now I am in Bishop, California, where it is no longer too hot, and where the leaves are pretty colors and I can wear layers again, and there is a dusting of snow on the mountains. Breathing for this is where I want to be.
- The Cowboy and I generally want very different things and then a few of the same things, but right now we have remarkably similar visions in some ways. Breathing and smiling.
- Had so much fun spending two days on the road dreaming up ideas and excitement for someday wishes, and inventing fun, creative and playful names for all of it. Breathing joy.
- Thankfulness. Treasure in the form of clues everywhere, loving friends, surprise nachos, walking to the movie theater with my favorite human, having the exact right thing to wear. Nothing is wrong, even when I want to believe it is. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. Thank you for this grand adventure. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
Superpowers.
Last week I was stranded at LAX all day and asked for extreme levels of believing that something that looks like bad news (missing my flight?) is actually What Unexpected Good Fortune.
This was a marvelous superpower to ask for! First of all, it did turn out to be good fortune because the cowboy wouldn’t have been able to pick me in Phoenix because of massive delays due to a road accident involving a twenty car pile-up.
I think I had an easier time this week finding the good and not assuming [Doom], even when challenges arose, as they do. So I am glad to have met this superpower.
This week I am asking for the power of Effortlessly Grounded in Panther Powers as well as People Rejoice With Me, and all the powers of the beautiful wind-blowing spirit emoji blessing my trajectory and my sails with love. May it be so.
How was your week?
Come play in the comments. Share something from your week, take a breath, or just say hi! No rules, my format doesn’t have to be yours, we’ve been doing this every week for years now and there still isn’t a right way.
Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We lovingly refrain from giving advice.
And of course it’s always okay to comment under a made-up name, whether for play and delight, or in the interest of Safety First.
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — jump in whenever you like. Blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers too!
say what you want to say
the point isn’t getting my wish (though cool things have emerged from wishing), it’s learning about my relationship with wanting, accessing the qualities…
wanting can be hard, it is easy to feel conflicted about it, and the reasons for that make this a surprisingly subversive practice…
this is the 380th week of wishing, come play!
Say what you want to say…
That is the song playing right now.
Say what you wanna say /
And let the words fall out /
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
Honestly I want to see myself be brave.
Say what you want to say and say what you want.
This is how the song goes in my mind.
What do I want?
I have been less than honest with myself lately, maybe always, both about yeses and about lots of things.
I have been upset with other people for not sharing with me what they want or how they feel but I have also been keeping my cards close to my heart, and then sometimes even forgetting to look to see what my cards are to begin with, it’s been so long since I looked at them….
What do I want?
Beautiful Clarity. Wild Clarity. Trust in my clarity.
Quiet. Freedom. Quiet Freedom. Out under the stars. Deep healing sleep.
But mainly I want to keep being present with my cards, checking in with my current yes.
Am I following the path of now-yes, or am I taking long, winding, not-particularly-fun detours related to yeses that past-me set into motion, and somehow I got distracted by life and neglected to alter my course. Ah, of course, this is about intention and trajectory.
What do I want?
I want to be someone who sets clear, loving, sweet expectations with everyone in my life. I want to say hey let’s put cards on the table, let’s be warm and honest and vulnerable about true yes in this moment.
I want to release expectations and assumptions. Conclusion jumping is the most dangerous sport in the world, and I feel upset when people I love partake in it, but to be fair to them — and to myself, I need to permanently quit too.
What do I want?
A new way.
Do I know what I mean by this?
Yes: A new way (or possibly many new ways) of communicating what I want, of being beautifully clear.
Is there anything else I mean by this?
Yes: More time communing with the yeses, finding out more about what is true yes, what is 120% yes, what thrills me and calls my name.
Is there anything else I mean by this?
Yes. But I don’t know how to describe it yet.
A new way of everything, maybe. I will know more about this later. For now, this is more like a clue about clues to come.
What do I want?
A new metaphor.
What do I want?
Less is more.
Well, sometimes less is more. Other times less is clarity. Other times less is just right. Either way, I want to practice Do Less and Choose Ease. I want to remove distractions.
What do I want?
To keep asking this question until I know.
What do I want?
To be out in quiet peaceful places, writing, in happy connection with fun playful people, creating. Trusting the process of life and taking joy in being alive.
What do I want?
Some goals in the form of secret missions.
And to go wild with proxy missions, following all the rabbit holes.
For example, yesterday I was imagining what it would be like to run a retreat center in Bliss, Idaho, because who doesn’t want to come hang out in a state of bliss?
Clues about what I want…
- Phoenix rising from the ashes. Aka sometimes letting it all burn to the ground is a good thing.
- I had a dream that Vanna White came to visit me and she told me I was beautiful. Best dream ever.
- Lady K of the Jewels said something about how in order to achieve [Thing X] that I strive for, first you have to become a walking fuck-you to the rigged game. I used to be that, and then I forgot how. Time to remember.
- All week long I have been asking people how they feel, meaning: emotions, when to me it is very obvious that this is the context, and they have been responding with answers about their physical environment or how tired they are, and it is time to ask a different question, or to ask the same question in a new way.
Superpowers
I watched all the Cubs vs Dodgers games in Los Angeles, surrounded by Dodgers fans.
As you might imagine, I am always happy to watch the Dodgers suffer humiliating loss, in addition to being thrilled to see the Cubs finally make it to the World Series. And so I was completely charmed and surprised when the series ended and the bar full of Dodgers fans applauded the Cubs for winning. Their team lost and they applauded. I’ve never seen anything like that before. It was beautiful.
Here’s to the superpower of applauding the outcome, even when it isn’t what you want.
I also want the superpower of entirely new levels of DNGAF, and the related power of Saying What I Want Even If It Scares Me, and the related power of treating myself like I am a wild wonderful genius worthy of being cherished, may it be so.
Anything else?
Yes. Maybe this is a clue too. Or maybe it is more like a theme.
I own two lipsticks. One I lost almost immediately after acquiring it, as if being instructed to go with deep bold red and not screw around with being sweet and pink, because now is not the time for that.
After I made peace with bold red intensity, my friend found my other lip color under her couch. Time to make peace with the bold intense things and then trust.
Or to trust, and then be bold and intense. Something like that. Maybe that is another form of say what you want to say.
Centered
This is the month of Centering, with the superpower of Delicious Space, and I am returning to what centers me by asking what I want.
And actually you might say that being curious about what I want and need, as a life practice, is a form of making room for delicious space.
last week’s wishes
last-week-me wished a very long wish called new breath / new air to breathe, and now I am out of Los Angeles and out of a ridiculous misunderstanding and out of all kinds of things, and this is good.
invitation: come play with me…
you are invited to share this post and to share many !!!!!! about what is here,
or share appreciation or anything sparked for you while reading
deposit wishes, gwishes, superpowers, qualities, ingredients, intel, possibly in code
safe space for creative exploration asks us to let go of care-taking and advice-giving
wishes are never late because whenever you wish is the right time for wishing
we remember that people vary and my wishes don’t have to be yours, each process is unique, and this is a good thing
here’s how we meet each other’s wishes: with great kindness and appreciation and awe, whispering (and sometimes shouting) oh, wow what beautiful wishes
♡
the week of finding the corner of hope and hope
This is week 430 of this ritual, and so we chicken.
What’s been working? What do I want to play with….
Applying legitimacy (oh hey yeah this thing that is hard for me is actually hard), going on clue walks, three minute dance party.
Also TURNING OFF MY PHONE and then taking notes about how that goes. For example, if I know I check my phone 752 times in three hours, and in that entire time literally only one person texted, with the least interesting intel in the world, that is useful to know. Ta da! I just saved myself hundreds of tiny disappointments, the not-fun compulsiveness of pellet-pushing, and gave myself the gift of clear head space.
Breathing for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- I’m stranded at LAX right now because I missed my flight to Phoenix, on standby for a flight that leaves in three hours. Haven’t had a full night of sleep in two and a half weeks, and can barely walk a straight line. Breathing for what if this somehow turns out to be lucky.
- Pretty much everyone in my life was AWOL this week. Craving companionship and closeness and not knowing where to find it. I mean, I do know — it comes from connecting to myself, to Source, to life, to love, to wise incoming me. But in the practical sense of wanting people to play with. Long nights feeling lonely, confused, and Prone To Monsters (fake band of the week, it’s just one guy!) Wanting more people to talk to about yeses and passion and the stuff of aliveness and life. Breathing trust. May I remember that I always have Wise Me and Diana Rigg, they always want to hang out with me.
- Extreme lack of sleep. Each night something different — marauding Coyote Karaoke Hour (also a fake band), the person throwing weights on the floor, raccoons on roof, loud bleating electrical surge noises, and so on. Apparently being awake each night from 2am-5am is just my thing right now. Tired. Very tired. Breathing gratitude for useful intel about what supports rest.
- Missing dance and movement and training. Breathing even more trust..
- Still being visited on and off by powerful waves of hurt and anger related to information I learned a few weeks ago. Sometimes I can channel Diana Rigg (the calm cool collected Avenger) instead of my furious avenging self who wants to rain destruction, and sometimes I just have to let this run its course, trusting that all pain is legitimate, my process is legitimate, and one day it’s not going to hurt like this. Breathing.
- So much about Los Angeles is not good for me, like the air which hurts my lungs, throat and eyes. Like not feeling close to the moon, and drivers who are unaware of pedestrians, and the current extreme heat wave which is I experience as somewhere between boring and oppressive, and being surrounded by workaholics. Breathing patience: this adventure is treasure, and I am learning.
- People in my life who are jerky jerkfaces and/or lack communication skills (yes, okay, me too right now) and can’t say what they want, and I am realizing that if I want other people to treat me with more respect, I need to believe it is okay to expect better. This is actually true in many areas of my life, so at least it is an interesting theme. Breathing an invitation for new people with new skills, or for the current people to catch up. Breathing trust.
- It was 97 degrees this week (36 degrees celsius). Missing fog and mist and drizzle and coziness. Breathing.
- The Everything Is Hopeless Why Even Bother monsters were in full force this week, which made it difficult to receive an important piece of information. Breathing peacefulness.
- I’ve been working my ass off trying to come up with creative solutions to the museum crisis, finally found one, then realized it isn’t going to work. Breathing for the next solution, may it reveal itself soon.
- Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. May peacefulness prevail. Trust-more love-more release-more receive-more. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week.
Breathing for the good, reassuring, and magical!
- LA RALLY! A week of solo rally and a beautiful day of shared Rally with four favorite secret agents from the Playground. Wild Clarity. Getting so much done! Even on th most stuck projects. Breathing for treasure, and for companionship.
- A much-needed smackdown from wise incoming me on the topic of No, You Really Do Deserve Better and You Need To Get Clear About This and Stop Putting Up With These Astounding Levels of Crappiness. Breathing thank you for truth-love and much-needed perspective.
- Best night ever out at La Cuevita with amazing DJ, fun new friends, playfulness, creative sparks, big joy. Breathing thank you.
- The three hour nap the other day that is the only reason I am still hanging in there. Breathing rest.
- Reorganized everything on my computer. Typed up all my notes. Understood how everything fits together and gave it all new names. Feeling inspired and, for the first time in many months, hopeful about the mission. Breathing for this.
- First glimpse of redesign for website and business (to be unveiled shortly, and also an experiment to see if there is something I can do other than burning everything down, a different kind of bonfire maybe). Excitement and sparks and, again, hope. Breath.
- Agent Ravenstar and I parked at the corner of Hope and Hope! Clues everywhere. Breathing hope.
- Finally came to resolution and understanding with something that was causing me great distress, and with someone far away that I love. Breathing appreciation and joy.
- It was so hot out that I ended up wearing my favorite scarf as a top, and every day someone asked me where I came by this gorgeous outfit. This worked really well with my current proxy mission of I am an avant garde fashion designer. Breathing playfulness.
- I was wrong about something, and I am glad. Breathing and remembering that very often my assumptions are completely off base.
- Stone skipping for days. Breathing creative power.
- Thankfulness. Treasure in the form of clues everywhere, loving friends, the best secret agent to hide out with, ice cream, smiles. Nothing is wrong, even when I want to believe it is. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. Thank you for this grand adventure. A full breath of deep appreciation in my thank-you heart.
Superpowers.
Last time I asked for the superpower of Speedy Recognition, and it led to big understanding.
Now asking for extreme levels of believing that something that looks like bad news (missing my flight?) is actually What Unexpected Good Fortune. I would especially like to remember this when I get lost in shame-blame and self-judgment about how I’m probably the one who screwed everything up.
How was your week?
Come play in the comments. Share something from your week, take a breath, or just say hi! No rules, my format doesn’t have to be yours, we’ve been doing this every week for years now and there still isn’t a right way.
Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We lovingly refrain from giving advice.
And of course it’s always okay to comment under a made-up name, whether for play and delight, or in the interest of Safety First.
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — jump in whenever you like. Blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers too!
New breath / new air to breathe
the point isn’t getting my wish (though cool things have emerged from wishing), it’s learning about my relationship with wanting, accessing the qualities…
wanting can be hard, it is easy to feel conflicted about it, and the reasons for that make this a surprisingly subversive practice…
this is the 379th week of wishing, come play!
The thing about smog.
When I enter a smoggy city with thick congested polluted air (Fresno, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City), my whole body rebels, all my senses registering high alert.
Eyes watering, chest tight, I feel sleepy, irritable, impatient.
The lack of clarity especially feels restrictive, not like mist or fog that enhance a view even as they obscure, heightening beauty and mystery.
More like: my body and mind are not comfortable here.
Then after a few days, it becomes normal to breathe unpalatable air, I stop noticing that vague unsettling feeling, I adapt.
We can make an argument in either direction about whether that adaptability of human spirt is useful (sure), or whether it’s dangerous (that too), but the point is this:
The atmosphere we immerse in — what we we see, hear and breathe — becomes our normal, even if it is a crappy, depressing normal, even if it is an absolutely horrifying normal, and we even stop noticing that this is not an okay normal.
Air can stand as a metaphor here but also: air is not only a metaphor here.
Oxygen and circulation and environment, the stuff of vitality and life, this matters.
The Sandwich.
I was once in a relationship with someone sweet, thoughtful, generous, and loving. A buddhist who meditated and did yoga and brought me flowers, always a kind thought in his heart for everyone.
I noticed that his parents, while wonderfully warm and welcoming to me, had a habit of making snide gossipy remarks about people who weren’t around. They would sneak these in between nicer comments, in a maneuver I began to think of as The Sandwich.
“Oh we saw so-and-so, she’s the loveliest person, of course she’s really let herself go, she’s gained so much weight, she looks awful, but she’s so nice.” “Oh yes, so-and-so is very ambitious but not talented at all, really just wasting their time, but nicest person, really nice.”
And when my lover was around his parents, he’d unconsciously pick this up. Suddenly the guy who only had compassion for everyone was making these little negative critical sandwich judgments.
I understood he was just adapting to the normal that is the normal of how his family communicates. And I recognized that if I spent enough time with them, this could become my normal.
It bothered him that I wasn’t interested in hanging out with his family more often.
And the truth is, while I thoroughly reject the notion that loving someone means I need to spend any time at all with the people who raised that person, I really didn’t want to be around The Sandwich.
More than that, I didn’t want to see the loving-hearted person I cared about morph into someone who unconsciously cut other people down.
Okay, also I was aware that my only real motivation for showing up had become making sure I wouldn’t be the the subject of a mean snippy sandwich along the lines of “Oh, Havi is so great, but [ten flaws about Havi], but we love her so much!” Awesome.
No thank you to this toxic air, I don’t want to breathe that in, I don’t want this to ever seem normal to me.
Real estate.
I am currently sitting in a house in Los Angeles, way up in the hills with a gate and giant picture windows and a view as far as the eye can see. It’s not a particularly large house, and there isn’t anything interesting about it other than the view, but it’s worth well over a million dollars.
If you live in a place where houses cost millions of dollars, one of two things happens.
Either it seems normal to you to invest in a million dollar home, or it seems normal to you that home ownership is not remotely an option and it doesn’t even show up on your radar.
Million dollar homes do not coexist in the same world as my normal and so it is difficult for me to understand why someone who had one wouldn’t just sell it immediately, invest the money, and go retire right this second. Live in Mexico. Eat fish tacos. Write all day. Be happy.
That’s what I would do if someone gave me a million dollar home in LA.
But presumably if I stayed here long enough, probably not even that long, I would start to see this as an awesome desirable place to live. My normal would change course.
What is waste.
I try to live as close to a zero-plastic zero-waste life as I can, and yeah, sure, I make some conscious compromises here and there, but that’s my aim, the trajectory of how I want to live, something that is always in my sights.
And I would have told you that this is a very significant part of who I am, but then I went to Idaho for a month and oh wow, did that ever fall apart fast.
In Portland, everyone recycles and most people compost, it is relatively easy to acquire bulk food without plastic packaging, I may be considerably more fringe in my choices than most, but my lifestyle is not wildly at odds with the broader culture in the same way that it was in Idaho.
At first it felt unbearably painful to toss food scraps, or worse, glass. Once it’s in the earth, it’s in the earth forever, and it isn’t going to decompose. I agonized over each item in the bin, sending it off with a grieving heart and whispered apologies.
But after a few weeks this gradually downgraded to more of a small twinge, and I imagine that if I had stayed, my normal would shift more, even though I don’t want it to.
It became easier to make compromises for the sake of “convenience”, and slowly, without noticing, I had become part of the broader culture, making choices that normally (that is, in my previous normal) I would never have considered, like purchasing a drink in a to-go cup, or using a paper napkin instead of the cloth one in my bag.
My entire perception of what seems wasteful and unacceptable shifted in rural Idaho. It still bothered me to see people use plastic cups (and straws!) to drink water instead of a glass, but it became a normal kind of bothersome, something that just is, something you don’t need to think about.
Smoke.
Many years ago when I was a smoker, I had this idea in my mind that I didn’t smoke very much, but this was really only because I was a bartender in south Tel Aviv and spent my days and nights in the company with people who smoked pretty much constantly.
Most of the regulars smoked four packs a day, lighting one cigarette from the next, the hardest part of my job was keeping all the ashtrays emptied.
Oh, and trying to keep the place from burning down. We had constant trash can fires because they would leave a smoldering butt in a pile of pistachio shells and wander off to the bathroom with a new cigarette.
And so, because I smoked so much less than the clientele or any of my co-workers or my lover, I was able to believe that I wasn’t much of a smoker at all.
Out with friends, I’d smoke one cigarette for every three or four that everyone else did, so clearly I wasn’t smoking that much, right?
Then one day I was out with Alona, the manager at the other bar where I worked, and we ran into Gili, my best friend’s girlfriend. She said, ohmygod I can’t believe how much you guys smoke, and I was in shock, because obviously I smoke way less than Alona, so why would you even put us in the same category.
My normal was so skewed that I couldn’t see how [a lot] and [even more] could look the same from the outside.
An amusing reversal of this happened later that day at Gili’s apartment, when it became clear there was a huge disparity between my normal for smoking pot (a couple times a year maybe?) versus the normal of all of her other friends (all day every day), which meant that her normal (just in the evenings) seemed moderate to her and wildly excessive to me.
But really, what is normal. Or: what about when normal is unacceptable.
This week we learned that sexually assaulting women is Donald Trump’s normal, as is his expectation to encounter zero consequences for being a rapey predator who terrorizes women.
I read a thoughtful piece about that called What Trump’s brag reveals about this election and our culture, which, among other things, references an interesting study that concluded some types of harassment are so common as to become normal, in which case women may come to perceive them as ‘bothersome’ as opposed to scary and threatening.
The idea is that women essentially build immunity to unacceptable behavior, as you would to a virus, in order to be able to function at our jobs.
This resonates truth for me. A friend and I, recently discussing our university days, were shocked by how many awful incidents of harassment we had experienced, but more shocked by how little they had registered at the time, because other harassment was so much more egregious.
Just one example, once I was late to a professor’s office hours and came running in to plop down on a chair. He looked at my chest and said, “Do that again, I like it when they bounce like that.”
So gross. And yet I honestly didn’t even consider that harassment because harassment in my mind, back then, was more like all the times another professor put his hand on my friend’s thigh.
I didn’t recognize his words as belonging to the same continuum of predatory people in positions of power testing the waters of what we would put up with, pressing up against boundaries (and sometimes pressing up against our bodies).
Wildly inappropriate things happened to me over and over but I stopped registering them as inappropriate because they were so common, and also seemingly so minor, at least in comparison to the more egregious stuff happening all around me.
Car-free and carefree.
I’m nearly forty and have never owned a car.
This is a highly unusual state of affairs here in North America, but guess what, I’ve never needed one.
In fact, the one common feature of the various places I’ve lived both abroad and in the states is ease of walkability (is that a word?), places where cars are unnecessary and there is nowhere to park them anyway, so why bother.
Right now I’m in Los Angeles where not owning a car is something people cannot grasp, you might as well say that you don’t brush your teeth or that you don’t own underwear, because not owning a car is so shocking and horrifying that people wring their hands at the thought of it.
They also think a ten minute walk is extremely unreasonable, even though the weather is more conducive to walking than anywhere else I’ve lived, i.e. places where a ten minute walk barely even counts as walking. I know this about LA, and still it surprises me each time I visit.
But if I lived here, I would probably become someone who drives to the cafe that is not even half a mile away, and that’s why I don’t live here. I don’t want that to be my new normal.
Oh, air.
I will say it again.
WHAT WE SEE, HEAR AND BREATHE BECOMES OUR NORMAL, even if it is a shitty, depressing, horrifying normal.
And if we stop noticing the incongruence, the disharmonious state of being surrounded by values or behavior that does not support how we want to live, then we agree to a certain degree of toxicity, and it becomes increasingly more difficult to take care of ourselves.
Obviously there are any number of things we just can’t change and it’s certainly not fun or healthy to be in constant rage state about the rigged game, tilting at all the windmills, incensed about the things that are not okay, because god knows there is no shortage of them.
I am talking about something different: a conscious relationship with the air we breathe, noticing which aspects of our environment support us and which do not, figuring out where we can tinker with things a little.
Or a lot.
What do we do about air? Or: what can we do about air?
Cultivating awareness comes first, as it always does: What am I noticing about my normal and how it changes or shifts in different situations? What assumptions am I making about normal, what has become normal to me but is not actually okay for me?
Then the next piece is bringing attention to desire: What is my true yes? What would be 120% yes? What do I really want?
Next I look at what is working versus what isn’t, without judgment. What needs to change when it comes to the air I breathe? Where in my life do I already insist on metaphorical clean air? Or actual clean air, as the case may be.
And then I can look at my options. What changes or adjustments can I make, even in tiny but symbolic or otherwise significant-to-me ways? Because, even if I am dealing with various limitations and/or perceptions of limitations, there is always something that can be messed with to add spaciousness.
And then we keep practicing. Noticing. Checking in. Where am I and where is my yes? What have I begun accepting as normal and okay that I am actually super not okay with?
(A small example)
Last week at a dance thing, I hung out with couples, something I never do, and specifically straight married couples.
At some point one of the wives said something about how she gets her husband to tell other men to leave her alone if they are being too forward on the dance floor, and that I need to get a man to do that for me, and I only barely twitched.
That almost imperceptible mini-twitch was a sign for me. Or really, not the twitch but how barely noticeable it was. That was the sign for me that my normal had shifted, because normal for me is a full-body visceral reaction of no no no what are you saying what unsovereign shit is this.
My normal normal reaction, as a independent woman who is content and happy in her solo life and passionate about freedom, would be something like this:
I appreciate the kind suggestion, and I am fully capable of standing up for myself and setting my own boundaries. And, should I determine that I require someone else’s support in that, it shouldn’t have to be the person I’m sleeping with, it should be anyone who cares about human decency. I deserve to be treated with respect BECAUSE I AM A HUMAN BEING, not because I “have a man” or anyone else who perceives that I “belong” to them and it’s their job it is to protect me.
But instead my reaction was more of a laugh-shrug because we have different perspectives. At some point the air around me had stopped seeming wildly suspect, and had become more like a mild irritation.
I realized I needed an immediate change of air, because this for me is actually grab your oxygen mask before you pass out levels of complacency with regard to the entire sexist coupled primarily-hetero rigged game culture that I have zero desire to take part in.
What is my wish here?
Of course part of my wish is that the culture will change, and, more specifically, that the work of self-fluency (everything we do here) will support the changing of culture.
But mainly this is a wish about how I interact with [air], it is a wish about awareness and agency, being conscious about both my choices and my compromises.
It is a wish about focus and intention. I want to be as present as possible with how I breathe, not just in posture or dance or a yoga pose but in all forms of what surrounds me.
I want to be someone who insists on making conscious choices about what air I am willing to breathe. [When I can, where I can, as I can. Safety First, always, and of course sometimes change needs to be cautious and incremental and that’s okay, we don’t need to force anything.]
More than anything, this wish is a continuation of my previous wish about Delicious Space. I want to choose Delicious Space, I want to choose to be in a gem state (a state of glow, light, reflection and refraction), whether or not I am in The Gem State (Idaho).
This is a wish about a new normal, about intention and love and outrageous wild improbable new levels of self-acceptance, may that become my new normal.
centered
This is the month of Centering, with the superpower of Delicious Space, and my return to center is directly related to the choices I make related to what I breathe, how I breathe, what is acceptable or tolerable in my space, and what needs to change.
last week’s wishes
last-week-me wished a wish called delicious space, and it brought me both to a very delicious space (my friend’s apartment), and delicious headspace, and the realizations that I am working with/through now, so that was a very good wish that went deep.
invitation: come play with me…
you are invited to share this post and to share many !!!!!! about what is here,
or share appreciation or anything sparked for you while reading
deposit wishes, gwishes, superpowers, qualities, ingredients, intel, possibly in code
safe space for creative exploration asks us to let go of care-taking and advice-giving
wishes are never late because whenever you wish is the right time for wishing
we remember that people vary and my wishes don’t have to be yours, each process is unique, and this is a good thing
here’s how we meet each other’s wishes: with great kindness and appreciation and awe, whispering (and sometimes shouting) oh, wow what beautiful wishes
♡