a funny thing happened on the way to the something

let’s see if I can tell you about it
it may have to be a somewhat stilted telling though

I took myself, not too many minutes ago, to a cafe
(whose name I now find myself suddenly unable to tell you)
so that I could…compose this week’s Wishes
except upon beginning to type, I found myself stymied —
a quite vital key on my laptop is not functioning at all,
the one that follows Q

I kind of need that one

an enigma:

on the one hand this could be an amusing thing to mess about with:
what if I attempt to….dictate(?) this week’s wishes without the help of that
specific piece-of-the-alphabet
that is kind of a fascinating challenge

an aspect of me — who has chosen the code name Lucky Honey,
she thinks this is fun, she enjoys all haiku-like things,
these edges that define play

but Doubtful Havi thinks this is one additional example of
all the stupid and annoying things of life,
like how this laptop is so old, at least six,
and has been fixed multiple times,
and no, this does not feel like a fun challenge,
just the next indication of all things being fucked

theme

the intended theme of the this week’s wishes had been
What Do I Know About [thing I can’t type at the moment]

it begins with F, then my missing piece, then two Es, and D, O, M
also the theme of this month

I’m laughing now
because this is not the only time I have found myself avoiding
this concept

synonyms

I lived in tel aviv just on a decade
and managed in time to fake an almost-flawless accent
because passing has big advantages
but always, yes, a few things I could not teach my mouth to convincingly say
and one was the name of…let me attempt to tell you about it…

[it is alive and it flies and is small and you see it…two seasons post-fall]
[it is also the last name of Johnny Depp, in much eye kohl, as Jack _________ ]

in the language spoken in tel aviv
this name I can’t say/type is a common name given to boys
in addition to being this small flying being
that you see once it is not cold
and — get this —
it is also a SYNONYM to [begins-with-F ends-with-DOM]
aka the thing I meant to wish about today

so I am used to speaking about the edges of this
instead of the thing itself
used to avoiding, taking complicated paths to get
to the thing that needs saying

let’s get to know Lucky Honey

I like how she thinks about things
how she finds the luck inside of what looks to be not-luck
this is an ability I would like to have too

what does Lucky Honey know about being Lucky Honey?

1. she is lucky
2. she believes/knows she is lucky, which means she has fully assimilated All Is Well
3. she is full of thankfulness to this [lucky] state, which she has chosen by committing to All Is Well
4. she is sweet, and okay with sweetness
5. she has a steadiness inside, no one can take advantage of this sweetness she has
6. sweetness is also Suiteness, yes, she always has a home, a honeycomb, a hive, a cozy nest
7. she lives at the Wishing Hotel, which is not a hotel at all (thanks, google, you knew what I meant even with bad spelling)
8. she loves the shape of honeycomb, the hexagon that is a wheel and a compass, and if you take half of it, you get a shape you make in the dance that begins with FOX, a dance she and I both love
9. she lives in the tiniest luckiest space
10. she has a hidden studio, a tiny dance space and a clawfoot tub
11. she is wildly lucky, and knows it, and says thank you a thousand times a day
12. she has few possessions (and knows all the names)
13. she seeds wishes
14. she begins each quiet thought inside Lucky Honey headspace with “Luckily…!”
15. she makes wishes and then waits until the [ways of help] show up
16. she acts by way of letting go of that which is not yes

talk to me about luck, Lucky Honey

when my ancient maple toppled and fell in the winds
it left behind a massive tangled mess of stump and wood, immovable,
that the city demands we move within X days
luckily (yes) I live in the top west section of the united states,
a place that is in fact maybe much like you imagine:
full of tall people in plaid jackets who own giant chainsaws and old Dodge pick-ups,
and these people have been slowly coming by and taking away huge slices
to make bowls and such
and still so much is left

then, the day between two-days-ago and today,
an old man came to the house, I think he was an angel
like the man my mom thought was an angel
he spent the whole day, until past dusk,
with the huge stump and all its tangles and pieces

cake

I wanted to give him cake but I did not have cake
(note to self: always have cake in case of angels)
so I came out with a glass of something, and listened to him talk instead
at the end of the day it was all gone
he saved us at least $300
it’s kind of amazing
the luck of this

now all I have to do is plant a new [living being that is not a maple]
and put in new sidewalk because it all got pulled up
but maybe, who knows, I will find luck in this too

maybe, who knows, I will find luck in this too

I wish to inhabit this aspect of myself
I wish to become the me who believes in this luckiness
who sees good and potential-of-good, who delights in seeds
and unexpected openings

I wish to see fantastic unanticipated luckiness
in the unlikeliest of places
(a missing typing key becomes a game)
(a fallen maple invites an angel)

without making myself say thank you
if/when I don’t feel like saying thank you
just opening eyes and letting all of me open
opening in unison like unfolding petals to take in light
let me see what is good
let me find again the lost path of “ah yes all is well”

what else do I know about this?

hmm this bit may be challenging
you know how a BELL makes a sound that goes out
in waves…
it hums in space, and this hum is steady but also shakes
it shakes things up and moves between them
until the space above and below you and on all sides
the essence of this space changes

I believe, now, in this moment,
that choosing to think I have a kind of luckiness
(even if I don’t, just thinking I do)
can act as a bell inside of me and outside of me

the tool you use to open a bottle of wine

imagine it, holding it in hand, with love and intention,
poised above the bottle
it has a shape
a shape not unlike the sound of a bell doing its bell thing
in space

now imagine this is not made of metal
but is made of light
tightly packed glowing gems of light,
and imagine that instead of putting it into the top of a wine bottle
and following the action of the shape…
imagine that this light, this bell-sound is cycling in you,
down down down down
into the place below us, the place out of which a maple might come

I think choosing thankfulness
(because what is naming something luck if not acknowledgment-meets-thankfulness)
is a way to be a bell making sound inside of space and changing that space,
a way to feel this steady light cycling inside
changing the homes that house me:
my body, my home, my mind, all places that let love in (and out)

what do I know about my wish this week

this is not a wish about luck
this is a wish about knowing and deep faith,
about playing with what is
instead of attempting to make it be something else

I could fight with the keys of my laptop to get a solution I think
is the one needed
and I can also find a way to say all that needs saying in this moment
in my own quiet not-as-planned way
and find it lucky instead of limiting

okay, it is also possible that maybe I don’t find it lucky
but even then I can still make myself a bell
and hum my wishes into the space between us
and welcome what I want
by wanting it, by listening, waiting, humming, letting openings open
I want to call this devotion
but I could also call it hope

now

chamomile tea
(how lucky that they didn’t have any left
of the kind whose name begins with not-Q and not-S,
that would have made it difficult to tell you about)

the chainsaw-owning plaid-clad people can be seen at the cafe as well,
some in utilikilts, all in hats

plants on shelves
and a wall full of thank-you notes
it must be a theme, not just mine
let us say thank you again then as this is a gift too

superpower of I am here and ready.

january on the 2016 fluent self calendar is the door FREEDOM, and the superpower is I am here and ready

LUCKILY, this above bit was in the template and so all these difficult-to-say things have been said by past-me

last week’s wishes

I wished a wish about a SHAPE, a shape that I now cannot say, and this is funny, I can’t tell you the name of the wish but it had to do with safe glowing…

an amazing wish that came with its own luck
a wish about occupying the space of my life unapologetically
and being inside a hoop, like the sound of a bell,
and this was lucky too

invitation: come play with me…

(ah good past-me left this in the template too)

and, obviously, YOU can totally use the Between-Q-and-S
actually it’s Between E-and-T if we think laptop instead of alphabet
anyway, if you wish to leave a comment, you do not have to emit the thing
that I am omitting
unless you want to!

EDIT: ha, omit/emit, I can’t spell but that’s a lovely image

you are invited to share many !!!!!! about what is here,
or share 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

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

♡

Hello, week: we are here.

It is a Sunday chicken today, because I disappeared to the coast and didn’t have internet, and, yes, All Timing Is Right Timing, no matter how many times a day I forget that.

{a breath for being here when we get here}

Thank you, week!

This is the 391st week in a row we are chickening here together….

What worked this week?

Being literal with concepts and experiments.

My dance teacher likes to say, “Pretend you have a hundred dollar bill between your thighs, don’t let it hit the ground!” I get it, as an image, as a concept, it gives you a visual and sensory perception beyond just thinking, oh right I need to keep my thighs closer together so they help power this turn.

But this week I decided to use an actual bill. I didn’t have a hundred, but I had a twenty, and while Andrew Jackson is pretty much the last person I want between my thighs, I made it work.

It was both harder and easier than I’d imagined, and after several minutes I was able to remove the bill and still really feel the right-for-me amount of thigh-on-thigh pressure needed to execute a flawless spiral or curl, or even just to do panther walks.

Sometimes it helps me to feel the idea, and I sense many applications of this…

The other thing that worked was arranging for provisions for slightly future me, like bringing extra socks to the coast (smart move!), and prepping ingredients for soup.

Next time I might…

Allow for more time.

It’s an especially tricksy part of the rigged game, somehow I persist in thinking — despite all life experience to the contrary — that the things of life (the ones that just have to be done whether I want to do them or not — laundry, dishes, taking out the compost, getting ready to go out) can all be done in one day.

Naming the days.

This week was the week of Protected Glow, and here were the days:

Freedom glows. Beautifully here. Protected and glowing. Wild entry. Jubilation. Ease ease ease. Calm steady glow.

Upcoming biopic if it were based on this week…

Excuse Me I Need To Go Hide Now: The Havi Brooks Story.

8 breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.

1. The house is in such a state of commotion and upheaval as we go through this emptying process. A breath for breathing my way back to clarity.
2. I am completely unable to focus when my surroundings are messy and unattractive-to-me. I thrive in beautiful creative chaos, sure, but when it’s not aesthetically pleasing to me, it’s like kryptonite. There are so many things that need my attention, my doing, my decision-receiving, my presence, and I am just not there for it at all. A breath for this.
3. My housemate of ten years and a month moved out. It feels bizarre and surreal and I don’t even know how to understand the space without him. A breath for this is right, and for trust.
4. I got lots of intel on my yes and my no while at the coast, and this means now I have to be honest with people and say things they may not want to hear, and that’s no fun. No wonder I didn’t want to know what was true for me. A breath for being present with what is, and trusting that what is in my good is in the good of the whole.
5. My dance teacher gave me her next round of fixes for our dance drills, and this is all really good, but my brain is breaking, and this is the hard part of the slow-motion montage. A breath for deep trust.
6. I got upset with someone I love for being how they are. And then upset with myself for being upset. And then this whole week was filled with clues that were very clearly about [frogs and scorpions], and it was not fun. Let’s have a breath for love, a breath for Things Can Change, and a breath for I Am Okay.
7. 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. This week was full of Colliding Wish Magic, which was almost the topic of this week’s Wishes. But I got my wish anyway, without even writing it. For example, I had put aside a couple of the Fluent Self calendars for friends, without having a sense of for whom, because I had a wish to delight someone with a surprise. Incoming Me pointed me in the right direction, and without having any backstory, I wound up sending calendars to a friend who just went through this intense baptism experience of realizing that this year is about Freedom (the theme of my calendar), and another friend who had just made a wish for a beautiful calendar and didn’t know where she’d find it. I love so much when wishes collide. A breath of joy.
2. The beautiful boy turned forty and we ran off together to the coast and walked under the most astonishing star-filled sky of wild iridescent sailing cloud formations and a glorious full moon. A breath for glow and sweetness.
3. The moon whispered a secret to me about staying anchored in turbulent times through steady quiet trust in both gravity and my own power, and it told me to say, “I AM OF THE EARTH”, so I did, and there was some big magic there. A breath for being able to listen.
4. The plus side of my housemate moving out is that it is now much easier to sense what in my home sparks joy, and what needs to exit. A breath for sweet clarity.
5. I am doing a super scary-for-me thing and not freaking out about it, and this is kind of amazing. A breath for this.
6. Fourteen and a half hours of dance training and practice in two days! I am so hardcore, you guys. Learning new things, practicing being a panther, it’s fun and exhilarating and slightly terrifying, but I feel so excited about this. A breath for process.
7. This may be a time of big upheaval and transitions, but it’s all things that really need to be happening, and I am at previously unknown levels of Yes This Is Right, which helps a lot. A breath of I Can Do This Even Though It’s Hard.
8. Thankfulness. Treasure in the form of mexican food with Richard, returning all the keys to the ballroom and getting our deposit back, soup stock simmering on the stove, surprisingly calm lovely winter weather at the Oregon coast, extra socks. 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.

Sparklepoints, superpowers, salve, fake band of the week!

Current ops and forward movement!

Took two days off (rest days) from the Wild Montage op, and that shifted something for me. It’s still super hard, but feeling good about it. Day 31! Still working on The Namer Names and The Studio Op, and getting ready for the Fountaining op. Thank you, fractal flowers.

I am bestowing vast quantities of sparklepoints upon myself like a fairground stripper, and you are welcome to do the same for you.

Superpowers I had this week…

Last week I asked for the powers of Easy Clarity, Colliding Wish Magic Everywhere, and I Glow So Hard. I’m kind of amazed to report that yes, all of things were part of my week. Another reminder that this practice is deceptive — it seems so simple and even silly, and yet, there it is.

Powers I want.

I want the powers of I Am So Good At Easing & Releasing, New Ways Of Seeing Freedom, unfettered joy, and a thing that is like colliding wish magic but specifically for when I have a No to something, other people feel relieved that this is my no, or maybe I am okay with them not liking it, or some form of It All Works Out So Well and There Was Nothing To Worry About, Of Course!

The Salve of Nothing To Worry About…

My wonderful uncle, Svevo, likes to say that there’s a pretty low ROI on worry. And this is so true, but it doesn’t always make it easier to not-worry, especially when worrying is such a big part of your genetic and cultural heritage like it is mine.

This salve brings so much ease, and sweet steady calm into the picture. As you massage it into your skin, you feel this bubbly lightness, and for some reason, it just doesn’t occur to you to worry.

This salve is made of equal parts Grace, Presence, Warmth, Trust, Devotion, Self-Treasuring and [All Is And Will Be Well].

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

This week’s band is:

The Good-Mood Chippers

Their latest album is They Charge By The Inch, and it turns out this band is just one guy.

TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS!

We are doing some reconfiguring and Congruencing, and the shop will disappear soon, so if there was something you wanted to buy, go ahead and do that before it’s gone. More explanations about [reasons] to come, but it’s all good stuff, and if something is speaking to you, this is a good time.

Also! We sold out of all the Playground Care Packages, but I was able to put together one more box! The theme is Joyful Play, it’s $25 plus shipping, contact the First Mate if you want it.

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!

tetris

lately I’ve had the sensation that I’m
playing three games of tetris at once:
with the objects in my house,
with dates and times on the calendar,
with changes in the business

seemingly endless congruencing and
reconfiguring, everything moving,
until it’s too much and my head starts to ache
and it’s back to bed

right now overwhelmed-me wants
two things: [safety/sanctuary/protection/shelter]
and access to my glow
and I want these things in combination
glowing protection
protected glowing

protected glow

not only do I want to protect
the quiet glow of my headspace
and the glowing orb in my heart
I have been flashing on an image
a delineated circle around me
not just my force field that I invoke/conjure/imagine
but a thick stripe of color (red!)
that rotates around my space like a
multi-directional hula hoop
made of concentrated points of light

wait, actually this is perfect
hold on
okay

the true secret project

when I said earlier that I wanted protected glow
I had this sudden exciting thought that it would be so good
to hold a rally this week for myself
to figure that out!

(a rally is a powerful spark-filled form of retreating I invented
where you commune with your projects
and play with them instead of working on them)

and the most important part of rally is that
we use proxies —
we pretend that something else is our project
and investigate that instead
which then leads us down marvelous rabbit holes
until suddenly we know everything we needed to know
about the original project
and also about other forgotten or unknown projects, past and future,
because they’re all interconnected and really because
all projects are one project because anything you work on in life
is part of the bigger project, aka the True Secret Project:

how do we come more fully into ourselves?

what is a hoop that is not a hoop

anyway I just realized that
saying I want to learn how to hoop
and investigating that
instead of trying to figure out this big complicated protected glow stuff
would make an excellent proxy project
because I both want and do not want it,
but don’t especially care about it

and these moderately conflicted feelings about something I’m
not actually planning on doing anytime soon
are much easier to examine than
the real project aka
[how do I learn to be someone who protects their glow?]
[how do I take steps towards yes without getting massive migraines?]
[how do I get comfortable inhabiting space, taking up space unapologetically, owning my circle of me-ness, and being the most clear and resonant bell]

what is a hoop that is not a hoop
what do I know about this
let’s find out

is it like whistling, bubble gum, country two-step?

or: things I know/think/feel/wonder about hooping…

1. I cannot for the life of me keep a hoop moving around me for more than one rotation at most before it clatters to the floor, it is a complete mystery how people do this for fun
2. not sure if this falls into the category of a) whistling — can’t do it, everyone who has tried to teach me has given up, b) blowing bubbles with bubble gum — couldn’t do it for for the longest time but with consistent practice eventually figured it out ten years after all the other kids, or c) country two step — lost and frustrated until I found the kind of teacher who was able to break it down slowly enough for me, and could explain it in a way I could understand
3. this is a familiar theme, getting comfortable with my particular Havi pace of learning, and being okay with it
4. oh an ache in my heart, I feel such intense [longing? envy? passion? wistfulness?] when it comes to people who can just pick this stuff up, the kind of people who given a hoop would have just invented things to do with it, you could leave me in a room with a hoop for fifty years and I’d never figure it out
5. thinking about its history, I feel definite discomfort, first with the cultural appropriation of the word hula, which is really not okay and just one more way that hawaiian culture has been exoticized, taken, erased, and then of course discomfort with more plastic-plastic-plastic, not to mention — something I didn’t realize as a kid — knowing there already was a native american practice of hoop dancing, and this just feels uncomfortable to me, I would be okay with experimenting with a hoop in the privacy of my home for the purposes of movement, play, force field training, but I think this wouldn’t be something I would want to do in public, hmmm interesting…what else do I know about this
6. yeah, I guess I also associate it with show-offy forms of play, and now I’m noticing lots of judgment and monsters about this (both You Shouldn’t Be Seen and You Only Care About Being Seen), lots of cultural stuff in here too about to be safe you have to be invisible, this is interesting and uncomfortable, okay, let’s invoke the power of Safety First, and just make a safe room for this to sit in for now — fear, you are legitimate and understandable, and also you are not mine and not from now, you can show me your truth and let the rest dissolve
7. once at a rally at the Playground, one of the participants told me (very enthusiastically, and enthusiasm is pretty much my favorite thing in the world!) about a hooping convention she’d attended, how unexpectedly meditative, powerful and transformative it was, a story about everyone with their hoops, in the dark, and the sound of them falling to the floor, how you learn that dropping and starting over is okay…there is power in this
8. I like that the hoop I see in my mind is red, like a flash or an outline, this seems related to power and presence, a practice of rootedness
9. roundness is important for me, wheels and compasses and circles and labyrinths and bowls, the unexpectedly sacred feel of that: wholeness, the round vibrating om sensation, yes, that

okay, good intel, what else?

if a hoop is a visible reminder of my force field
and if trying to keep it up
is learning about energy and protecting my personal space
through filling my space…
this is about filling my space with me
like an embroidery hoop, in a way,
the frame in which creative play takes place

this then brings me back to the same question
which probably also holds the answer to the headache conundrum:

what enhances my ability to experience my own light? and what diminishes that ability?

how can I be the clearest bell? how can I boldly glow? what needs to be eliminated versus what needs to be illuminated?

in other words…

who is the version of havi bell who knows
how to protect the bell glow

and how can I let a hoop
(or the idea of a hoop)
be my teacher here
how can I make peace with being REALLY TERRIBLE
at the thing I think I want most
which of course is being comfortable taking up space
as opposed to being able to keep a hoop rotating around my
ridiculously narrow practically-non-existent hips
though yes I would like that too

it is interesting that I believe
this can’t be taught
that I am a Hopeless Lost Cause Again (monster-assessment)
when in fact there are so very many things that fall into the category of
“something I perceive that everyone else is able to pick up
way faster than I can but eventually, with patience and good instruction
I can do it too”

what do I think will help?

believing that this is possible
[let “this” = many, many things]
not reinventing the wheel but asking someone to
break things down for me in a way I can understand
tiny steps, nuances, subtleties, wax-on-wax-off, slow motion-montage:
this is how I learn

what else?

trust
release
do more entry
ask for what I want
no more clicking, on anything
no more distractions other than the ones I joyfully choose for myself
remembering that this is brave
even though I think it isn’t
there is nothing more challenging to the rigging of the rigged game
than agreeing to take up space
yes there it is, there’s my wish

agreeing to take up space

in my life
in the world
to occupy the cockpit of my mind
the sanctuary of my heart
the beautiful bowl of my pelvis
my thoughts and feelings and perceptions
my internal and immediately external space
this radiant circle around me that says
this is mine, this is my domain
I am here
beautifully here

what do I know about my wish this week

like all the wishes lately it’s about
presence and embodiment
and passage

I am going to trust my flash of a vision
my love of roundness and
my narrow hips
and the fact that what I lack in natural inclination for [some things? many things?],
I make up in obsessive determination
and in my strong faith in All Timing Is Right Timing

yes
let us trust in all of that
and then some

now

(1) my housemate is moving out
we’ve lived together for ten years and a month
it is the right time and it also feels so surreal and impossible,
he knows me better than just about anyone and
he can tell when I am freaking out even when I appear steady

(2) today on the bus a woman
was yelling angrily at the top of her lungs
at everyone and yet no one in particular
about how kale can stop cancer
it was on the one hand a very urban moment
and on the other hand a specifically portland moment

I am done with this city,
and this knowledge and the theme of glow-protection are related:
follow your yes and when you don’t know your yes
at least listen to the clear ringing no

(3) the trick to
these never-ending games of tetris
is knowing that
however the pieces land
it’s going to be okay
this is hard to remember
but that does not make it any less true

superpower of I am here and ready.

january on the 2016 fluent self calendar is the door FREEDOM, and the superpower is I am here and ready

here and ready is about presence
and glow protection is about being here
and glowing my bell-ness, my such-ness, in my space
what is freedom if not that
thank you, past-me, for putting this
on the calendar
thank you, year of doors

last week’s wishes

I wished a wish about en route to bravery…

and then did an astonishing number of Very Brave Things
all of which surprised me
and all of which were easier than anticipated

invitation: come play with me…

you are invited to share many !!!!!! about what is here,
or share 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

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

♡