Hello, week: we are here.

{a breath for being here when we get here}

Thank you, week!

This is the 417th week in a row and I am glad we are chickening here together!

What’s been working?

Not trying to solve/resolve all the things or think ahead to next steps. This moment now: what is needed? And then doing that.

This not only has been keeping me calm but also is supporting my bigger wish-mission of living by Do Less and Choose Ease.

I might try…

Keeping snacks around so that if a panic comes to visit or low blood sugar hits, at least I won’t have to deal with both at once. And also because this is a way of providing for myself, which is a form of self-treasuring.

Naming the days.

This was the week of learning about prowess and these were the days.

Sanctuary is beautiful. It’s all so clear. I’m a Special Occasion. Immersing and releasing. Harmonious space. Better names. Letting a new melody come in.

Upcoming biopic if it were based on this week…

Not A Worry And Not A Care: Okay Well We’ve Figured Out The First Half Of That Which Is Pretty Amazing But We Still Care Kind Of A Lot

8 breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.

1. Why do I go to the toxic places? I know the answer. Because pellet-pushing sometimes yields pellets of sweetness and sweet distraction and these are addictive. Ugh I went on twitter and read the things I should not have read. A breath for breathing through.
2. Holy god, the circus of the American elections in general and the republican national convention in particular, this is all very distressing. A breath.
3. I have gone from being over Portland to being really over Portland. But also I have to keep visiting Portland because of [projects]. When can we get to No More Projects. That’s the wish. A breath for trusting the exit signs.
4. Got super disassociated after seeing a woman suddenly collapse in the street and being part of the helper crew. Took a while to realize this had stirred up memories for a very young me (five? seven?) who was a tiny witness when my mom had a stroke? At least that is the word I vaguely remember being used but it seems bizarre. She collapsed. I remember the sound of the dining room chair hitting the floor, my dad running downstairs and kneeling by her side, calling 911 and stretching the phone cord as far as it would go from the kitchen and she wasn’t responsive, I remember seeing his panic and terror and helplessness, I remember EMTs taking her out of the house, and that’s all I know. What happened, where did I go while they were at the hospital, did no one ever talk about it, what was all that and how come I don’t remember explanations or reassurances or anything else about what was clearly a very scary thing. Anyway, there were a few very shaky days this week and I had to (or got to, depending on how you look at these things) drop everything and take care of tiny me and make safe rooms for her. A breath for life and how deep things go.
5. Oh the rage I feel about men commenting on my eating choices. What is it about a woman buying or consuming food that seems like an invitation for some random stranger to have commentary on it? WUSIT: What Unsovereign Shit Is That. And then also retroactive feelings about my frozen autopilot Placate-Placate-Placate mode, oh sure I will laugh with you about the joke you are making at my expense, because this is the mindset of survival, and you know what, to hell with that. A breath for prowess and not taking crap, and for endless self-forgiveness when I do because triggered response patterns are ingrained and old and have reasons for having come into existence.
6. Not only did Plans A, B and C for living at the coast fall through, but so did all the back-up plans, including the one I didn’t want. Even the last-ditch hail mary of fine we will just throw all of our money at this and do the really expensive option didn’t work. Adrianna the Italian heiress just shrugs her graceful shrug and does not worry and moves on, but I, while not worried, feel some sadness about this. All my friends keep saying some form of “why are you fighting this, why do you keep trying to make it work when it’s obviously not working, why try to send water uphill instead of letting it float downhill”, and sure, they’re right. I think I want to be in this small coastal town, and everything about being here is saying no to me. But there just aren’t any other options I like yet, any places I want to be, and I can’t be in Portland because Portland is not good for me, and I know there will be a marvelous answer but I want it to just show up already. A breath for me and for my wish and for trust more.
7. The extreme sound sensitivity that pms brings where every not-good sound is amplified and magnified and makes me want to set the world on fire, combined with the fact that the beautiful faraway cowboy came to visit me for three nights and the only available hotel room at the coast is directly across from a business with loudly beeping backing-up trucks that beep and back up at all hours. A breath for escaping to the wilderness, or at least for the wish of that.
8. 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.

8 breaths for the good, reassuring, delight-filled.

1. The morning when the woman collapsed in the street: I was following protocol because Adrianna was delivering instructions. She insisted I have brunch, even though I’m not much of a brunch person, she chose a place I’d never been and didn’t let me walk the route I would normally automatically take to get there. She told me when to leave the house (“now!”) and when to pause and smell roses, literally, and for how long. She even made me smell one twice. And so it happened I was walking down this exact block on a small side street, exactly at the moment this woman’s friend was shouting for someone to call 911 and exactly as a jogger was stopping but didn’t have a phone, and so I dialed and handed my phone to the jogger, and then we waited for the ambulance. I also mysteriously had smelling salts, water and a handkerchief, which came in handy after it arrived. The woman was fine, her scared friend was fine, the EMTs were warm and caring and arrived very quickly. I got to be one of the angels in the constellation, right place right time, and because I listened. A breath!
2. Last week’s chrysalis is still yielding intense results. I have Adrianna’s powers of I Have Forgotten How To Worry, which might even have been her power that I wanted most. Things are clear and simple because Adrianna doesn’t experience worrisome things as worrisome, and now I can feel things the way she does. A breath of gratitude.
3. Writing writing writing and it is so good. This year’s YEARbook ebooks are going to be the best of all time. Between Adrianna’s wisdom and my river-to-ocean muse, things are just sparking and glowing all over the place, and I can’t wait to deliver them. A breath for this.
4. Mmmm did I mention that the beautiful faraway cowboy cut short a two week motorcycle trip and came to see me for three days and three nights? A breath for Sweetness and for Love and for sitting across the table from him at the cafe dancing in my seat to Huey Lewis and the News and we can’t stop smiling and how can anyone feel this glowingly content, like the cat with all the cream, is it even legal, and the amazing part of being Adrianna is that she/I can just experience the joy of this and the deep gratitude of savoring this moment right now, and let all the rest of it go, like the part about how tomorrow it is gone. And as I wrote that he kissed my neck three times in a row and whispered “that is all I have to say to you” and kissed me again.
5. An hour and a half in the float tank, letting it all go. A breath for deep peacefulness.
6. A two hours dance lesson with my teacher who came to the coast for the day, after we hadn’t played together in a month. I didn’t know if there would be much improvement, as most of my practice has been crying on the floor or posture-related, but it turns out that integrating Adrianna and her panther prowess has made all the difference in the world. Jen said, “This is the first time I haven’t needed to tell you to relax, this is the first time I haven’t seen you panic when you miss something, you are dancing like a queen, totally in command of your groundedness and your reactions, it’s incredible.” Also I got over my dislike of the mirrors, so there’s that, and it’s big. A breath of big joy for dance training, and the unexpected non-linear ways that progress happens.
7. I have been training and practicing in I AM A SPECIAL OCCASION, and there are so many unexpected wonderful results to this. The main thing I’m noticing is that I’m able to let go of decades of resentment over [various experiences of perceiving that I’m not appreciated] because I am taking so much time to celebrate myself. I don’t really know how to describe this because (monsters say) it sounds so cheesy. But there it is. A breath, as we did last week, of jubilation for the transgressive work of self-treasuring as a path to freedom! And also for no reason at all because self-treasuring is its own reward.
8. Thankfulness. Treasure in the form of two of the best meals of my life, surprise good fortune, lovely people to keep me company when the bus was hours late. Everything is okay and so much is good. 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 I had this week…

Last week I asked for the powers of wild magic, freedom in all things, and what if there is enough and more of everything I need. What beautiful wishes, and all received.

I also had the powers of brave-right-now, and Love More Trust More.

Powers I want.

More of the same please and also the powers of opening the doors that need opening and closing the ones that need closing, and being unhesitatingly clear about which is which.

The Salve of Letting Doors Be Magic.

This salve is an allowing salve. You don’t have to work for it, you don’t have to do anything. You don’t even have to choose which doors or whether to open or shut, you just let them do what they are wanting to do anyway, and rejoice over each opening and each closing. And if there is just a knocking, the kind you feel potentially hopeful about because you think this might be something you invited, you trust your own ability to sleep on it and feel things out, no hurry and no agitation, all will be revealed in right timing.

Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!

This week’s album is from a mysterious road sign, and the band is sort of named after a bottle of wine.

Sparkle Toes and the Boom Boom

Their latest album is Cement Washout, and this band is just one guy.

Announcement time….

The fantastic monster manual is still available in the place that used to be the the shop, and it is enormously useful if you would like to practice being Way Less Impressed with the horrible things that internal critical voices say!

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!

this is a queen

let us not stop taking breaths of awe and wonder
admiration and appreciation
for Iesha Evans
who schooled the entire world in what it means to stand
in sovereignty, grace and power

what it means
to stand, period
literal physical stance
as well as
to stand in your own power
to stand up to (distortions of and abuse of external) power
and to stand for rightness:
queenliness embodied
embodiment embodied

these are the qualities

awe wonder admiration appreciation respect, yes,
when people reveal their light, glow their beacon at full glow
we pause everything and breathe for this

I almost didn’t write about this

because this is a person
who deserves above all sanctuary, quiet, safety,
not only from prison cells and men with guns but also from
the white gaze, the analytical gaze, being turned into
someone else’s story or symbol
it’s how the world is
but that doesn’t make it okay

this is a person, who is already experiencing, in addition to
wrongful arrest and standing down armed combatants,
other complicated things:
lit up by spotlights she didn’t ask for on the one hand while
simultaneously
erased in the same moment
as the focus turns to the white-and-male person who saw her,
who “captured” something, what a telling word, with his iconic photo
and his story/perspective/experience
and this is how it always goes because this is the nature of
the rigged game

so my heart is conflicted

I want to glow endless safety for her
to allow her the space I would want for myself
away from the noise

and also we have that very rare thing which is a real person
modeling sovereignty and true power in a real situation,
applying silence, intention and presence
in the kind of scary dangerous moment that would make most of us want to
crumple and contract and surrender our strength
instead of radiating with the power of our own internal authority
(which is stronger than external authority
regardless of consequences
but the human condition/illusion is such that
remembering this even exists as an option
is almost impossible to remember
and painful to think about)

no one shows us what this looks like

and here she is
in her steady queenly grace, her certainty and her power

so we need to talk about power and prowess
because that was already my wish this week
and because she is a beacon
and we need more beacons so that we can
bring more light into all the dark corners

what is power really

our culture tells so many lies about power and what it is
and why so many people want it and why they do terrible things for it
but it is all distortions and lies
and I have been thinking for years about how to explain this
(though etgar keret once wrote a story that explains part of it)
and now I don’t have to explain
because we have this unforgettable image of Iesha Evans living it

power is not the person who holds the weapons
it is not even the person who makes the decisions, who calls the shots
literal or figurative shots
shots
are a big deal
but that is not power and not worth elevating

power is presence and intention and stateliness
and standing in your steady grace, knowing what is true for you
knowing what is right
glowing your power

a detour of campsites / leave no trace

I want to tell you what is important to me about this,
what we can see and learn about real power, real prowess and presence
from this photograph that shows a moment
but first I have to share a technique or an approach,
a state of mind,
to ensure we do this in a way that causes no harm

you know those signs at campsites about how to be at a campsite?
in hebrew there is this verb lehafkir, and it means, hmmm, to discard, maybe,
I don’t know if there is an english equivalent to what I want to say
but when you are in the field
it absolutely unacceptable to do this, to leave anything behind,
not a mark on the space
this is instilled in the culture, and
people who hike and camp absolutely live this
you respect the campsite by leaving it pristine
leave no trace
I don’t know if I am explaining this well
let me try a different angle

sensitive

I am a Highly Sensitive Person
as well as sensory-defensive, which is not the same thing
(a limited but functional explanation looks at personality trait versus condition)
as well as super witchy, which is not the same thing
and clairaudient, which is not the same thing
and have PTSD, which is not the same thing,
and oh probably also on the autism/unicorn spectrum
which is also not the same thing
and a flavor of selective mute (tagline: I’m Very Selective) which is its own
world unto itself and
don’t look it up because the wikipedia page fills me with fury and rage,

and anyway
none of these words come close to being my preferred terminology
for how I want to self-define
they are extremely limiting and ignore the most important aspects
of what they are trying to describe
but those are the words that currently exist in the world which attempt
to convey who and how I am in it
and some of the challenges involved

but first we acknowledge magic beans

let us pause here to breathe for the
enormous amount of magic beans of privilege and good fortune
that I possess which allow me to be in the world with all of this
and not be locked up

magic beans of whiteness and class
highly educated and able-bodied
I easily present in a way that matches the gender I was given as a baby,
Thin-ness and Conventionally Attractive do a lot more than is generally acknowledged
not to mention other gifts of both nature-and-nurture

all these things combined with a
generous helping of good luck/timing
have allowed and continue to allow me to
live my life with relative ease
even when it’s not always that fun to experience the world as I do

just for example

I can pretend to be an Italian heiress
and people will choose to think I’m delightfully eccentric instead of
diagnosing me with multiple personality disorder
this is of course in part the work I have done to know-and-trust the
workings of my mind, to cultivate a
conscious and loving relationship with my internal world/s
all the work of self-fluency
but mainly, let’s be honest, it’s the magic beans of being white
combined with other useful things that influence positive bias like being tall
not to mention elegantly dressed
all this works to keep me out of trouble,
though, I mean, of course elegantly dressed,
I am after all an Italian heiress

I’m not saying there aren’t obstacles, just that they get smoothed more easily

so even though yes, many people do assume upon meeting me
that I am impaired, broken, perhaps not very bright,
unable to function in the world
and who knows, maybe they are right about that last one

and even though sometimes they decide I am someone
who needs to be spoken to
VERY SLOWLY AND AT TOP VOLUME
or maybe I don’t get spoken to at all
or treated like a child,
even with all that, and with how draining it can be, I am generally able to convey
— if I desire to, if I can be bothered to put the time and effort into it —
that I am a highly intelligent, capable, successful adult human
and this works thanks to these many magic beans

gratitude for this good fortune along with
acknowledgment that magic beans are inherently unfair,
privilege is the rigged game in action
may we always bring out attention to the rigging
with clear seeing

back to the original detour!

years ago back when I was a Talker in the world of Talkers
when I didn’t know I could opt out — at least to some extent
from being in a state of constantly overwhelmed by input

back then I always knew
when X was about to call
because it would be announced in advance
like a mysterious telegraph system that existed between us
that I’d never (knowingly) agreed to

a painful piercing sensation in my right temple
slightly cold and very red
giving the impression that it wanted to drill inward
arriving thirty to ninety seconds before the ringing of the phone
it took me many years to realize this was
the sensory experience of this person actively thinking about me
and trying to be in my head and guess what I was thinking
not knowing of course that this was
how I experience it

I have established better boundaries and made different choices

both with X, and in
all areas of my life
so this happens more rarely
but I know that if I send an email out to the list
or write a post that results in people thinking that
they wish they were me instead of reading it and
wishing to be as in tune with themselves / their selves
as I am with myself and my selves
then there it is, the painful unwelcome signal in my right temple
that announces:
[someone is knocking at the doors of your space]
and I have to use every technique I know
to get everyone out
and sometimes I whisper inside my head that campsite phrase

lo mafkirim zevel b’shetach!

which means there is to be no discarding of junk in the field!
there can be no discarding of energy in my field
no one gets to be in my space but me
out out out out it’s closing time

hesitance

hmmmm I feel very hesitant to share this online
and maybe this is why I didn’t press publish last week
and I have two fears here:

first there is the fear that a skeptical person with
good heart but a disinclination to just trust me on this one
will try to test it out for themselves as an experiment to see if I get
splitting headaches all week
and I’ll have to shut this place down
or I’ll just deal with the headaches the way I always do

and then there is the fear that
people who should not have this information will
use it to ill effect, I mean, good god,
did you see what people did to Leslie Jones this week
have you seen the internet? how people are online?
and honestly while it will be bad for me if the
Dementors come for me, it will be so much worse for the people who sent them

however I am sharing it

with as much trust as I can muster
because
if we are going to think about Iesha Evans and be
inspired by her — as everyone should,
we need to do this without violating the sanctity of her space
without trying to be in her head or heart
we need to figure out how we can follow the trail of her light
while staying in the bubble of our own glow
yes?

we need to turn on/up our own lights without trying to be in hers
this is important because it is respectful
and it is also important because
we cannot make the mistake of thinking
that some people, other people, are the magical unicorns
and that we don’t have our own power and our own radiance
(we do!)

beacons exist to light a way
not to be the way

does that make sense?
we need to train ourselves to not try to think-feel what they are
but to think-feel what we are
to hear what is inside us
hear the melody

hear the melody

that is the best and possibly only
instruction for life

this is what I mean about campsites

if we want to visit the campsite of the world of Iesha Evans
we steer clear of her sanctuary
we respect her headspace by not trying to guess what it is like there
and we do not deposit any of our energy in the campsite
while admiring her and using her as a model for
sovereignty, agency, queenliness and her pure channeling of
the superpowers of Unapologetically Standing In Truth,
Radiating Power,
Regal As Fuck
prowess

dance

I am dancer who dances in order to
creatively self express through the art of
filling space and time with movement,
and I dance because it is obsession,
an expensive and humbling addiction
but mainly I dance because I desire to become
my panther self, to return to pantherdom

in order to get closer to dance, I study lots of things that are not
directly related to dance
and I took a weekend training with Esther Gokhale
who thinks about primal posture and how we have lost it
everyone said why they were there
(back pain, back pain, back pain, back pain)
but I said I was there to become a panther
she knew what I meant

I said I was there because I deal with street harassment
all day every day
and I want to convey with my body that I am
not to be fucked with
I am to be respected and given space
and she knew what I meant

dance

we studied pantherdom, embodied grace, standing in power
for an entire weekend
and every single thing we learned and practiced
is what Iesha Evans is doing in this photo
crown on
the world didn’t know about her yet
or we would have studied this photo too

she has prowess in every way
in every molecule of her being
it glows
in the conviction of knowing she is right
and it glows through stance
serene, effortlessly grounded, in her full power
this is what panthers know how to do
and they/we don’t stop knowing it
even if people are rash enough to handcuff them
because real power — source power — just is
standing in this
radiating strength
from the earth / of the earth / with the earth

what do I know about my wishes?

I am wishing wishes about sovereignty, grace and powerful presence
wishes about embodying
standing in truth, for truth, with truth, for the sake of truth
being extremely vulnerable
through choice
both because it’s right and because
there are moments when letting others have their weapons disarms them
(let that not be read as a stand against gun control)
(because it isn’t)

my wishes are about being and becoming
deep trust, letting go, being slow, deliberate, intentional
advocating for what is right
standing for what is right
in every aspect of our lives, in these challenging scary times
and also literally in how we stand
changing stance
to stand differently
and I mean this so completely beyond the physical
though also through the physical
as one possible door
so really these are also wishes about the
right doors opening
and reclaiming space and sanctuary
glowing powerfully from within

now

I am wearing a crimson beanbag cushion as my crown
going through a tunnel
on a bus that is two and a half hours late but I don’t believe in late, I only believe in figuring out why this is secretly fantastic good fortune
feeling thankful that last night me bought a very delicious sandwich for me
and wrapped it with love (and with a cloth napkin) and put it in my bag
even though she knows I never eat on the bus
but she said hmmm just in case I want you to have this please
and I am grateful

the superpower of hearing the melody

July is the month of HARMONY, with the superpower of hearing the melody

and as I said, this is really the answer to everything, maybe even all I need

thank you, past-me, for being such a good namer and calling this into being

last week’s wishes

last-week-me wished a wish called nothing to be decided, everything to be received …

and this is exactly what I have learned to do, not only because it is more harmonious but because it is correct

invitation: come play with me…

you are invited to share many !!!!!! about what is here,
or share appreciation or anything sparked for you while reading, including any stories you wish to let go of, any adventures you wish to welcome

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

here’s how we meet each other’s wishes: oh, wow what beautiful wishes

♡

Hello, week: we are here.

{a breath for being here when we get here}

Thank you, week!

It is Sunday and this was a very intense week, and this is the 416th week in a row and I am glad we are chickening here together!

What’s been working?

Trusting that this moment is right, and if the most notable thing about a moment is the strong intel that things are wrong, then that is the rightness of the moment, in revealing to me what needs to change, and in giving me an opportunity to meet myself with compassion.

I might try…

Eight slow breaths, slow it down, slow it down, slow it down, slow it down some more. And I don’t mean slowing down my breath, my breath can be whatever it wants or needs to be, I mean allowing my breath to slow me.

This always works or at the very least helps me find the next step, it is always Adrianna’s first choice, and still I forget. So this is a remembering-seed, and also a celebration of all the times I did do this, next time let’s do it sooner if we can.

Naming the days.

This week was (still) the week of doors into harmony and these were the days.

Steady flow and steady glow. Access Internal Resonance. Celebrate radiance. Surprise Good News to the Tenth Power. Effortlessly lucky. Change the energy. Wild magic: It’s on!

Upcoming biopic if it were based on this week…

Look Out, World. Or At Least: Look Out, Internal World. Alternate title: A Force To Be Reckoned With.

8 breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.

1. This week was intense. Out in the world and inside in my world, which is where my focus was, but I could feel it all. Let’s talk about internal intensity though. Like those images of funnel cloud storms, except I was the storm cycling through my internal landscape. It wasn’t bad. It was powerful and intense, and powerful intense things are what they are. They take over and they destroy some things. Sure, mostly things that needed uprooting. I have zero regrets or sadness about this, I am just still in the intensity of it, and it is quite the experience. A breath for breathing through, in my power.
2. Incoming me is blessedly free of many of my sensitivities (for example, she doesn’t freak out during fireworks) but she has other ones, new ones, that I hadn’t even considered. This is taking some getting used to. She doesn’t like anything that has been stored in plastic, not even nuts from the bulk bins at the co-op, she can taste the plastic. A breath for being tender and patient with myself and my selves, and trusting that this will play out or I will get used to it or I will get over it, and trust trust trust in all is well, and all intel is useful.
3. The Cowboy Paradox — this is shorthand for something Pam Houston said, about her taciturn indecisive beautiful faraway cowboy, not mine, that I half-agree with but see very differently, but anyway the idea is: getting the thing you dearly longed for two weeks after you stopped wanting it. This happened over and over this week, in every area of my life, in such obvious and sometimes ludicrous ways that it turned into a sort of running joke. Like watching the movie of my life with the understanding that yes, this apparently is supposed to be a comedy. A breath for the audience cracking up in unison.
4. I poured out heart-and-soul in a letter and got an actual literal form letter in response. This is also part of the comedy of this week, and it’s probably better that I didn’t get the thing I thought I wanted, given that the Cowboy Paradox is the theme of my life right now. A breath for letting go of a dream.
5. The above was not the only example of endless beacons of no, where everything said no to me this week, and it all turned out to be useful, but there is so much deprogramming involved in understanding that people-and-situations saying no to you is treasure. A breath for self-kindness and patience.
6. I followed a hunch and found an actual place that I want to live, after having been on the search for this exact type of [yes this feels like it could be a home for me] since December, and someone else had applied for it the day before, so it’s probably not going to happen. So yes, all timing is right timing, and desires don’t need to be more than clues and indications of direction, and I am okay. And also I am having a sad. All of this can co-exist at once. A breath for my sweet heart, and for past me of the years of wandering.
7. The world is such an angry, hurting, stressful, reactive and scary place right now, and it can be difficult to find our place in it. Of course standing gracefully in truth and power is of vital importance, and we have to speak up for the things that matter. For example, this should go without saying but it doesn’t so let’s say it: BLACK LIVES MATTER. And simultaneously I can only be in ally/activist mode when I am highly functioning, and I am only highly functioning when practicing [safety first beautiful boundaries preserve clarity], and sometimes this can feel like a conundrum. A conundrum of someone who has the magic beans to take the time to think this through because I am not being attacked, intimidated and oppressed based on my appearance or identity. In the meantime, too much input gets me easily undone, and so the mission is to maintain clear headspace. A breath for glowing while I wait for next steps to be made clear, for understanding that waiting is sanctuary and treasure too, and doing everything I can to be a clear conduit, while not neglecting my commitment to be a beacon of truth force, let’s all use our powers for good to the best of our abilities, amen.
8. 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.

8 breaths for the good, reassuring, delight-filled.

1. I went into a chrysalis, which is like a private rally where I retreat for three days and three nights for the express purpose of integrating an incoming, and my only project is finding out what needs to happen to support this process of emerging/becoming. I do this very rarely because it is SO UNBELIEVABLY INTENSE, and also because it requires seclusion in a hotel which the monsters deem expensive and wildly extravagant. And the whole time they whisper about how it isn’t working and what a waste of resources, and of course it does work, and then it’s terrifying and amazing (yes, there is a word for this already: Awe) because then I am a channel of wisdom and clarity, a funnel cloud of deliberate movement, in my power and witchy grace, at my most clear resonance, and it is big wild magic and also everything is changing. This is also kind of a summing up of why this week was hard but everything that has emerged from this has been gorgeous and sweet. A breath of gratitude.
2. DECISIVENESS. That is Adrianna’s superpower, one of many. And now, thanks to chrysalis, Adrianna has landed and so she just tells me what to do and I do it.
   After all these months of trying to figure out where I want to live, and how, what to do with all my stuff in the storage room, and what needs to happen with the secret studio, and what do I do about current problematic situations X and Y, and so on, she just knows. And she tells me. We emptied and transformed the storage room. She told me exactly which three buildings she is willing to live in and when. She told me which trips to plan and which to cancel. She found me the world’s easiest exit from [thing that wasn’t working]. She is so clear and so aware of her yes and her no, and we are in love with being together, and everything is easy with her. A breath for all of this .
3. I heard the melody. I received the clues. Everything was laid out for me perfectly. There was even really good wine. A breath of deep gratitude.
4. I know what I want, I know how to take care of myself, I am blessed with magic beans in so many forms, and all is well. A breath.
5. Still flowing with illusory plans being illusory. I can work with this. A breath for not at all falling apart even in the face of uprooting.
6. Letting go of everything that doesn’t support sanctuary, inside and out. A breath for this beautiful ease of clarity.
7. I said this last week and I will say it again: I AM A SPECIAL OCCASION. A breath for what it means to understand this, Adrianna says this is a first step, for me, to understanding what freedom is, since she thinks I don’t get how freedom works in a very fundamental way. A breath of jubilation for the transgressive work of self-treasuring!
8. Thankfulness. Treasure in the form of outrageous bus luck, being in the right place at the right time (for others and for myself), delicious food made for me with so much love. Such grace and such good fortune, each day this week was a rewriting of past trauma. Everything is okay and so much is good. 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 I had this week…

Last week I asked for the powers of Gleefully Following My Joy and Doing Everything With A Different Attitude Which Makes It New And Fabulous. What beautiful wishes, and all received.

I also had the powers of knowing exactly where to go and when, and oh wow did last week’s salve of Clues Everywhere shake things up!

Powers I want.

More of the same please and also the powers of wild magic, freedom in all things, and what if there is enough and more of everything I need.

The Salve of What If There Is Enough And More Of Everything I Need.

This, like last week’s salve, is an awareness salve because it is about new seeing, new relationship with desires. This salve doesn’t need to deliver Abundance and Plenty and sweet opportunity, because they just are, this salve doesn’t even need to open the right doors to these things. This salve shifts perspective, and slows things beautifully (like breath) and seems to speed other things, so that you see what is miraculous and already coming towards you.

Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!

This week’s band is from Richard who took one look at the secret basement studio that Adrianna had just destroyed, blankets and cushions everywhere, and said, “it looks like there was a wonderful explosion of softness here”. Yes.

Explosions of Softness

Their latest album is I Have A Weird Soft Spot For This, and this band is just one guy.

Announcement time….

More to come soon, but I left the monster manual in the place that used to be the the shop. So if you missed the closing of the shop, there is still something beautiful for you!

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!

{preface}

I wrote these wishes a few days ago and didn’t publish
maybe because there are so many other, different words brewing in me
which on the surface might seem
to be in conflict with these wishes here
(they aren’t, but the explaining might take a while)
so I just want to say this:

there is pain in the world and justifiable anger
we need to glow strong and be in our glowing strength
in the face of all the things that are not right, and say

This Is Not Right

the things that are not right are not right

and this is not in conflict with the practice of
Nothing Is Wrong
which is about meeting internal and external worlds
with wisdom, presence and grounded grace in our full power

while wishing can shift focus inward
we don’t hide from reality: gathering strength to glow strength
we can use our internal trust in Nothing Is Wrong
to stand in powerful protest to what is not right

okay let’s release these beautiful wishes into the world

trust, listen (repeat, repeat, repeat)

the great mystery of this week
can be quite easily summed up:
lately I been trying to logic things when they aren’t in fact
logic-based things but rather trust-your-yes things

as bryan says
(about the body)
(but true for everything)
you don’t make the decisions here
there are no decisions to make here
just get quiet enough to hear and respect
the decisions that have already been made

you listen-and-reveal the decisions
you receive them
that is the only way decisions work
the body has its yes and its no

distortions

and yet our whole culture is like,
oh let’s make a prose and cons list here
(ha that was Pros and Cons but Prose and Cons is better, thanks autocorrect!)
let’s get tactical and strategic and analyze
until we know What Is The Right Decision To Decide
because we’re the deciders

no one ever told us about the option of
feeling what has already been decided
what if the internal compass is already pointing towards true yes
or at the very least all the useful beacons of no are
doing their work of clear shining
elegantly redirecting us
towards the new yes

my back hurts

my back never hurts but it hurts now and
it hurts now because I didn’t listen-and-receive my yes
I forced a decision instead of letting
my decision show itself to me

twenty four hours ago my back felt better than it ever has in my life
all of me felt that way, actually
I gave myself Birthday Do-Overs for my terrible birthday
(do-overs forever!)
in the form of an absolutely luscious day of lusciousness
alive with all the superpowers of the salve of healing through lusciousness
by way of a two hour massage delivered by Darcy
who is probably an angel or at least was in the moment I needed one
and I understood something about a superpower I want

glow

there are people I admire greatly
who possess superpowers I desire to experience for myself
as I imagine they experience it, as intrinsic, a given,
something they own, unquestioningly theirs,
we all have these
more than we think or know
but it is easier to see the powers we are on the verge of integrating
because they glow like signs

though we think these are still far in the distance
because, again, they glow like signs
and there is an optical illusion of distance
we couldn’t see them though unless they were in our blueprints too
waiting to be activated

all plans are illusory / wild peacefulness

Svevo, my uncle, is the most
at-ease-in-the-world person I have ever met
all gentleness and sparkle
befriending everyone he meets and laughing conspiratorially at life
(or really, with life)
and he has two secrets that are not secrets at all
one is that he genuinely does not care what anyone thinks about him
and the other is that he has forgotten how to worry

it’s not that he doesn’t have things to worry about
because he does, he just doesn’t worry about them
he doesn’t even worry about death
the thing that, as far as I’m concerned, most of us worry about all the time
I mean, I do, both consciously and unconsciously
the worry that fuels all the other worries
both existential and mundane

a good spot

he already has his gravesite
on a sweet quiet hill in eugene with beautiful trees
he goes and naps there, on his grave, on lazy afternoons
so that it will feel like home,
to practice
for when that will be his full time gig

“this is nice”, he says, “I’m thinking of moving here actually, it’s a good spot”

how does this work

I have spent a lot of years studying him
trying to figure out the mechanics
of his miraculous-to-me state of Not Worrying
because there isn’t really anyone who models this

we live in a world of fear and fear-that-begets-fear
(for example, have you ever watched the news or looked at twitter or
god forbid stumbled into the comments section anywhere but here)
and I don’t know about you but I was definitely raised by
Worriers Who Worry About All The Worries, and
it doesn’t make sense not to worry
I mean, logically it does, it’s just like Svevo says,
the ROI on worry is traditionally very low,
but emotionally, I mean, how does that work

and so slowly over the years I have adopted a Svevo attitude on most things
namely that in situations that look like Everything Has Gone Horribly Wrong
very often Nothing Is Wrong
and we are deciding it is wrong through our reactions,
tensing and tightening, which leads to more reactiveness
which leads to more things being wrong or perceived as wrong
and we miss out on the lightness and the treasure
or even just the experience to be present
with our very legitimate grief over What Is

All Plans Are Illusory

this is a favorite Svevo-ism that I use all the time
if I remember this then it doesn’t bother me when they go differently
than (haha) planned
because the very nature of plans is that they don’t

so I make illusory plans to do illusory things
knowing that they may or may not happen
and trusting that whatever happens instead
will be okay
and the moment of “oh no it seems not okay” will play out
as moments do
and all will be well
as it already was
because everything is and was and will be well
it only stops being well when I want the plans to be
what I thought they should be
except their only job is to be illusory
and my only job is to let them

lusciousness

a wise person I love/loved/love fully understands the superpower of
healing through lusciousness
and lives by this, all the time,
and I want to too

and I don’t, yet,
as you can tell from the fact that it took me
four months to schedule do-overs for my disastrous birthday weekend
or from my aching back
which is a direct result of my choice to just sleep on a friend’s floor last night
after my flight was delayed by two hours and I missed my bus

adrianna the italian heiress was having none of this
she delivered an epic 3am smackdown
where she told me that if I’m going to learn about
healing through lusciousness and
plenty of time and
deep wild peacefulness
then I need to treat our body, our space and our time with
much more respect and honor
that I need to respect our queenliness
and that there is no point in living by
Do Less and Choose Ease
if we don’t do it with great love for this body-home that we inhabit

labyrinth

on sunday I walked the labyrinth at grace cathedral
(not the one in san francisco, a different one)
asking for three clues and a healing
related to my themes of Crown On
and Solved By Being A Bell
I walked it three times until everything was tingly

the first clue turned out to be a sign on the wall:
GO CAMPING
the second was my sudden realization that the
labyrinth itself was shaped like a crown
and the third clue came at the center
in the form of the understanding that my crown already is on
— it’s on all the time —
I just act like it isn’t, I act like I am waiting for permission
to treat myself with grace
to expect others to treat me with grace

my new job is head up and shoulders down

and to remember that I am
powerful now
not in the process of becoming
my power is mine right now

and then I exited and there was a bell
so I rang the bell
as a bell
echoing and reverberating

gallery

that night I dreamed I was walking through a gallery of portraits
all of me, at different stages in my life
and in all of them my head was down, my eyes downcast
until the end when
suddenly I got to see myself looking directly towards me
unapologetic
eyes clear
proud and determined and deliberate
in my bell-presence

what do I want

to treat myself like a queen
and to integrate these powers that
I perceive other people have but of course they are mine if I want them
like my crown they are already on
I only have to remember them

and I want hot stone massage
(which I just had and completely erased my back pain)
(and I want more of that)
(and more of that and more of that)
and scalp massage
and beautiful glowing boundaries
and to luxuriate in taking time
for myself
and to trust in plenty
and take more naps
and meet my gaze (and all of me) with enormous love
and yes, witchy grace

what do I know about my wish?

my monsters sometimes say that my Shmita year was
a waste of time because all it did was
unravel everything in my life
without replacing it
but actually I can see the beautiful threads
and how everything in this glowing wish
is a direct result of that time I took for myself
to learn how to treasure myself
and I am filled with deep gratitude for past me who was brave
and future me who showed me what was indicated
and me-right-now who is done with things like sleeping on the floor
and forgetting her crown
and who is ready to remember truth
and let decisions announce themselves
meeting them with clear-eyed presence

now

I have lost three water bottles in as many weeks
but I have the telescoping metal cup that I carry with me
to not use disposable cups
and because a lot of dance venues don’t allow water bottles
and maybe that can be enough for now
maybe just an empty cup is a temporary experiment in
trust in plenty
or maybe it is time for a new bottle
I will let that information be revealed to me instead of
trying to solve this or anything else right now

the superpower of hearing the melody

June was WONDER with the superpower of the next indicated step is revealed, and now we are in HARMONY, with the superpower of hearing the melody

and I think this wish is really about that even though I didn’t realize it was

thank you, past-me, for being such a good namer and calling this into being

last week’s wishes

last-week-me wished a wish called more door to harmony …

about quitting my job and finding harmoniousness, and I learned about these things all week, and am following all the best clues

invitation: come play with me…

you are invited to share many !!!!!! about what is here,
or share appreciation or anything sparked for you while reading, including any stories you wish to let go of, any adventures you wish to welcome

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

here’s how we meet each other’s wishes: oh, wow what beautiful wishes

♡