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.
chicken of the glowing orb
Hello, week: we are here.
{a breath for being here when we get here}
Thank you, week!
This is the 390th week in a row we are chickening here together….
What worked this week?
Starting the day with me-first!
No matter how hard a day is, if I can look back at the end of it and remember that I did something beautiful for me, I feel better about things.
Starting each day with a wonderful-something for me instead of neglecting it or letting it hang out at the bottom of the ever-lengthening list, or using it as a treat when feeling miserable. This was really good for me.
Other things that worked this week: remembering that treatments for me need to be on the emotional level, western and eastern medicine will do nothing for my sore throat until I figure out what I’m upset about. People vary, and that’s how I vary, and it is so easy to forget this.
Next time I might…
Avoid the internet.
Not sure why I forget that the only consistently safe space I know about online is here. Clicking rarely leads to good. For me.
Naming the days.
This week was the week of En Route to Bravery, and here were the days:
Colliding wish magic. Boundaries engage. Restoring quiet order. Wild borders. All my powers land. I am a power tool. More powerful than I think!
Huh. Apparently bravery is related to quiet, boundaries, and standing in my power. Good clues, days of the week!
Upcoming biopic if it were based on this week…
Can I Click It. And If So, Ought I To.
8 breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Mysterious illness knocked me out Saturday night and kept me in bed until Wednesday afternoon. A breath for recovery.
- Mysterious illness was set off by (or at least tied up with) BOUNDARY ISSUES, of which there were many. Lots of big processing of pain, rage, grief, despair. A breath for the process being the process.
- Coughing up gunk, short of breath. It’s painful. A breath for sweet healing.
- When you have time, read this very powerful piece of reportage about the lawyer who took on Dupont. Warning: if you are anything like me, you may cry a lot. Well-researched and important. And also, what is this world that we live in, how can people be so deliberately short-sighted about the consequences of their actions. What have we done. A breath for clear seeing.
- The surprising-to-me discovery that just about everyone I know is devastated over the death of David Bowie, and apparently I’m the only one in my world of friends who sees differently. I see someone who got the world (and maybe himself) to fall for his magical sparkle alien performance, whose intense charisma, talent and external beauty were inexplicably enough for people to erase-and-excuse his predatory actions. I am going to stop talking about this now because people have big feelings about it. I wish I could be as gentle and magnanimous as Sam Dylan Finch, who said this: “I am committed to holding space for the queer kids and the weird kids who needed someone as visible as David Bowie to embody a kind of liberation from prescribed gender norms that, otherwise, would have slowly killed them. But I am just as committed to holding space for survivors of rape and abuse for whom David Bowie represents an insidious epidemic of rape culture and rape apologism, the kind of epidemic that has thwarted justice and closure for far too many. […] I’m not celebrating or mourning today. I’m just sitting with the uncomfortable truth that, good god, is humanity just a clusterfuck of contradictions, a heartbreaking mess.” Beautifully said. I think for me I’ve known too many powerful charismatic abusers, and seen them idolized by the people who didn’t know how they really were and sometimes also by the people who did, and the disconnect is too much for me. All I see is how dangerous and wildly unsovereign it is to put anyone on a pedestal. I’m very glad someone else could frame this in a more neutral way, which I imagine is infinitely more helpful than anything I could say on this topic from my bitterness. So, with acknowledgement that probably for many people reading this, Bowie’s death was a painful loss-filled part of this week and I truly am sorry for that loss, the hard of my week was not only experiencing big, complicated, not-fun feelings but a great loneliness in realizing that my perspective is so different than that of the people I love, a very isolating moment. Anyway, here’s to all the superpowers of androgyny, challenging prescriptive gender bullshit, transformative garments, and to the what’s truly important in life: Safety, Sovereignty, Everyone Is Equal. A breath for big healing in the world.
- So many things that had been yes are now no, and dealing with the fallout of that. And not sure yet what the new yes is, or what form it might take. A breath for all things change, and for being intentional about building that knowledge into the infrastructure of everything I do.
- Still having so much trouble with these new dance drills. Wax on, wax off. Try again. A breath for trust that one day it will land in my body and make sense and I will be delighted.
- 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.
- While I was too sick to leave the house, I was not too sick to slowly put myself through the paces with my dance drills, and while doing so had a massive epiphany that is hard to explain, because it is a known phenomenon that epiphanies all sound stupid and obvious when we try to put them into words, but the idea was basically something like this: “If I engage what Esther Gokhale calls the inner corset muscles, this is what that teacher from New Zealand meant when she talked about imagining a glowing orb in my heart and contracting around it to protect it while still standing tall, and OHMYGOD OF COURSE, the more I protect my glow and my glow-source, the more I can glow! And then, from that, the more I glow, the more protected I am, because now the orb and the protective case/cloak are in harmonious relationship, so they support each other.” A breath for how unbelievably happy I was when I understood this, and for the life practice of Glow More. I love when dance training shines a light on exactly what I need in my life.
- My favorite person is in town, earlier than anticipated and staying longer than planned. Did we not just recently invoke the superpower of receptive to incoming good surprises? Yes, on the December calendar. Thank you for that. A breath for glowing smiles and humming happy heart.
- Did all the hard, brave things this week, even though they scared me. Initiated difficult conversations. Looked at things I didn’t want to see. Investigated cobweb-covered territories in my life and business, and examined things that I have neglected. Received tough decisions. Filled out a bunch of ridiculous forms (not a proxy). A breath for this toughness, and for being en route to bravery.
- I have been wishing hard for the just-right-for-me sweater, and not finding it, and being convinced that what I want is an impossible holy grail, and then a wonderful friend gave me the perfect sweater, which he had made for himself and didn’t fit and was looking for the right person to fall in love with the sweater, and we were both so delighted with how this worked out. A breath for Colliding Wish Magic, and how great that is, and how sometimes an impossible quest can turn out to be ridiculously simple.
- Feeling weirdly calm and at ease about everything. Didn’t even mind being sick, and I usually hate being sick. A breath for how good this feels to not be fighting anything.
- Dance training at home, every day, putting in the time, feeling things change. A breath of presence.
- Heart full of love. A breath of joy.
- Thankfulness. Treasure in the form of spicy mushroom salad, playing on the balance board, advanced levels of snuggling. 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!
Still obsessing over the Wild Montage op. Made some behind-the-scenes progress on The Namer Names and The Studio Op, and the first baby step towards relaunching 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 power of fierce wild panther grace, and it is here, at least in my dance practice. Now to apply it to everything else, please! I also had the power of Wonderfully Unfazed.
Powers I want.
I want the powers of Easy Clarity, Colliding Wish Magic Everywhere, and I Glow So Hard.
The Salve of Protected Glowing, of course….
This salve makes navigating our way in the world (outside world and internal worlds) so much easier, like a force field and a safety cloak and a light source all at once. As it touches your skin, you begin to feel radiant and powerful and steady. It brings this clear, easy grace to things.
It has a bit of a spicy kick, as its properties release into the bloodstream and begin to mix and reconfigure beautifully inside of you, like a wonderfully orchestrated internal dance:
Strength. Radiance. Ease. Sweetness. Grounding. Wonder. Shine. Protection.
This salve straight up works miracles, and I am going to apply some right now.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band is:
Muppet Dance
Their latest album is What The Hell Just Come To The Wedding, 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!
The to-make (or not-to-make) list
Less doing, more being…
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past year and a bit pondering the transition from DOING to BEING, and how unbelievably challenging it is.
Especially from inside of a culture that celebrates the former and doesn’t really see the point of the latter.
So, in an attempt to bridge the gap between two aspects of me…
That is, we have workaholic-me who has been brainwashed by the Rigged Game, and wants to push-push-push to Do All The Things even though all evidence shows that the list will always expand at a faster rate than she can knock things off of it, and even trying to do half the things is a goal that is unachievable to the point of being laughable, and yet she keeps pushing.
And then, on the other end of the bridge, we have wise quiet me who treasures herself always, and unquestioningly chooses rest and body first — and actually often does get a surprising number of things done (usually through napping) but just doesn’t prioritize doing, she prioritizes being a clear bell and listening to yes…
What is the path between doing and being?
I have hypothesized a silly hypothesis.
Namely that the bridge between doing and being might be making.
Not making like producing, that’s a form of doing. I mean the kind of making that is more in the sense of, say, a really good sandwich. I could make a sandwich.
Making things comfortable? Making things congruent. Bringing things into harmony through making, for example, the bed.
The far-away boy and I have a list of things we might like to make. It’s the To-Make list.
At least until we can get to the point where there is only a To-Be List. And after that, no lists at all, because there is only ever one thing on that list anyway:
Take exquisite care of myself, because that is what is right, that is how I want to live and that is the door to being a clear conduit for my beautiful ringing bell-truth which is how I follow my yes.
In the meantime though, since I’m not there yet, let’s make stuff but not really make stuff. Like this…
Things on the To-Make List that we could we could make, in theory.
We could make…
- out
- out like bandits
- things up
- tracks
- love, not war
- up our minds
- a face
- a good guess
- up a cover story
- popcorn
- a great escape
- our way out of here
- sexy times
- lists (!!!)
- fun of things
- sense of things
- it all the way to the top
- a habit of this
- way for ducklings
- room to grow
- ourselves wildly happy
- it big (on BROADWAY!)
- someone smile
- a bit hullaballoo or, as we say in yiddish, a big tzimmes
- something into something else (alchemy!)
- me breakfast
It’s not a bad list.
I mean, it beats the hell out of a to-do list.
And I could probably play with one of the items on this list today, and see what I learn.
Or not, because the fun thing about this list is that I don’t have to do anything on it, which in a way makes it a lot like a to-be list, which is actually a not-list, because when you practice being there is nothing to do and nothing to try to be.
Nothing needs to be done in order to be.
That’s why it is so tricky. We have to let go of nearly everything we’ve been taught in life, the entire consciousness behind the mindset of trying, pushing, striving, reaching, making shit happen.
We have to find out what the opposite of that is like, and trust that it is not, as we have been told, giving up, but something entirely new and radiantly beautiful.
So come play….
In the meantime, while I’m undoing rigging by learning about not doing, let’s make some things up and add to the list. Anything you can think of that might go on the To Make list is welcome.
Or just make a sandwich. That works too.
As always, play requires safe space, so we refrain from caretaking and giving advice, we let people play how they want, we take care of ourselves, we meet ourselves and each other with warmth and grace to the best of our abilities.
♡
en route to bravery
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 340th consecutive week of wishing, come play!
the best clues
I find that fairly often autocorrect knows better than I do
what I need in a given moment
and — if I’m not paying attention
to what’s actually important in life,
some combination of my fingertips and predictive keyboard algorithms
will come together to send me in the right direction
and so it happened while on my way
to Beaverton — well, actually, as it turned out, to Hillsdale
(but all suburbs occupy the same place in my mind)
I tried to share my whereabouts with a fellow agent
but “Beaverton” got scrambled and here is what was transmitted instead:
en route to Bravery!
is that not marvelous
what a perfect destination
what do I know about this
who is the me who is en route to bravery?
bon courage
what do I (not) have the courage to ask for?
that was the next question
not mine
somewhere online I ran into one of those depressing memes
that is supposedly motivational
but really just makes you want to crawl into bed for a year
— “you get in life what you have the courage to ask for” —
for the record let me just state the probably-obvious,
I don’t believe this statement is necessarily true at all
but it does make an interesting question to explore…
especially for someone whose job is releasing wishes and letting things be named
what am I not asking for right now due to courage issues?
this following the heels of my accidental announcement
that I am EN ROUTE TO BRAVERY
well, it seemed important
then of course I went into avoidance and did everything in my power
not to answer these questions
especially when [boundary issues] started popping up all over the place
and then became very ill and have been in bed
which is a good place to listen to my courageous heart
and hide out and maybe skip some stones
let’s skip some stones
what do I know about en route to bravery
this is the year of doors, and so
en route to bravery is clearly a passage,
a series of doors
and the first door is freedom,
god knows that might be the door that requires the most courage
the freedom to let go
let things go
experience what I am like on the other side
obviously letting go of my beautiful home
is wild intense bravery
even if I had a plan, which I don’t,
it would still be the bravest door
especially for me, with my history
and all my pain about belonging and space and place
I like that this is en route to bravery,
and not the monster-version — en route to hardship, despair and doom!
who is the me who is brave?
I think of myself as a not-particularly courageous person
and there is ample monster-collected evidence to support this,
and yet, when we just look at things:
yes, okay, I am someone who
1) moved countries three times, alone, with no support
2) ended an unhealthy marriage
3) got through many months of Operation Resilience (no home or place to stay)
4) went back to work the day after a suicide bomber blew up the neighboring bar
5) started a business from nothing, and eleven years later it’s still going strong
6) took off on a five month road trip on her 39th birthday…
as much as the monsters want to replace “brave”
with words they like better
(“foolhardy”, “reckless”, “stupid”, for starters),
and as much as I think of myself as
timid, highly-sensitive, fearful, anxious, traumatized,
in need of scandalous (say the monsters) amounts of
alone time, recovery time, quiet time, hiding in bed…
I am brave
so why don’t I know this
[we interrupt for a monstering message]
monster representative: this is bullshit, you are not a brave person, and not only are you not brave, but it is unethical for you to try to portray yourself this way on the blog, you aren’t supposed to be putting up a facade, you’re supposed to be sharing who you actually are, and who you are is a very scared person
me: uh that actually seems like a pretty good point, need some help here!
wisest-me: I’ll take over from here, babe, how about we all keep in mind that bravery doesn’t mean not having fear, bravery is the ability to recognize and acknowledge fear, staying centered and clear, able to appreciate the wisdom-seeds stored inside of the fear, all without letting fear run the whole show
monster representative: ugh, whatever, Havi is not brave and she will never be brave, end of story
wisest-me: I understand that your mission is to keep Havi safe, and I am committed to that mission as well, so help me understand what you’re trying to protect her from so that I can be supportive….
risk analysis…
monster rep: if she thinks she’s brave, she’ll take risks that will hurt her
wisest-me: okay, I can see why you wouldn’t want that, what kind of risks?
monster rep: oh god, who knows, she could enter a dance competition and get her spirits crushed and stop dancing, she could do the [project], she could start saying what she thinks…
wisest-me: so you’d rather she not think of herself as courageous so that she doesn’t try things and then get hurt if they don’t work, am I getting this right…?
monster rep: yup, let’s keep her focus on her weaknesses and fearful nature so that she doesn’t start testing any limits…
wisest-me: you know, I’m wondering, in the past it seems like any time Havi has been separated from some aspect of her identity, that’s when the painful stuff has happened, so, what if we allowed Havi to embody this quality so that it’s another part of who she is (because it is!), and then we have a more whole, unified, stable, powerful Havi, whose bravery is just one aspect that lives in harmonious relationship with all of her other qualities
monster-rep: I would say that sounds like hippie nonsense, but I see your point, cutting her off from herself never goes well, I guess we can try it your way…
what am I not asking for right now because of courage issues?
whether that’s asking of myself or of other people or just
asking like wishing
asking source to provide for me
asking myself to remember that I am provided for
even when I forget
asking for things like…
- boundaries
- freedom
- respect
- time, money, resources for [important projects]
- more rest
what do I know about brave me?
bravery is a quality of incoming me
she says what she thinks
asks for what she wants
does not take shit from anyone
which is important
I am practically a professional shit-taker
but this has not always been the case
when I was a bartender I was very good
at being clear with people
once I threw a stack of coasters at a client
hit him in the forehead so hard he stumbled off his barstool
he deserved it and he knew it
okay so maybe not my proudest moment in life
but actually right now kind of wishing I had
some of that back
wouldn’t mind the assertiveness or the good aim
my cousin Anat in tel aviv would say
if you don’t want to take shit
don’t put your hands out
something like that
anyway, what I want is the superpowers of past-me
(standing up for myself, pushing back, determination)
combined with the superpowers of incoming-me
(calm easy grace, radiant boundaries, fierce panther aliveness, steady ground)
what else about this?
well, this is related to the rigged game,
there is this very rational fear
when it comes to standing up to men
because men (yes, some men, not all men, do I really have to say this)
are known for sometimes wanting to hurt you or kill you
at the hint of perceived rejection
or any assertion that you are in fact a sovereign being
who gets to make your own choices
the other day at Doug Fir
I wanted to say NO POKING
to the guy who thought I was deaf and kept poking me
to get my attention
but there is always this part of me that knows
sometimes guys like that take it personally
and wait for you in the parking lot
and my god does a lot of energy go into these absurd
placating procedures where you try to navigate these situations
in such a way that protecting your boundaries doesn’t get you in trouble
I want to be someone whose space is so clean and clear
that it doesn’t even occur to anyone that they could poke me
and if they do, PANTHER ME gives them a look
and nothing more needs to be done
but I also want
I also want to be someone who can just say it
— NO —
— THIS DOESN’T WORK FOR ME —
— I FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE —
— I DON’T LIKE BEING POKED —
— THIS IS NOT OKAY —
— STOP —
with no qualms
no reservations or hesitation
my no is my no is my no
my beautiful no is held by the earth
and the sky
by all my allies
by a thousand panthers
my entourage of brave selves
yes to my yes
no to my no
just like that
taking up space unapologetically
glowing hard
with peaceful powerful presence
no one messes with me
because I am my full wild self
this is what I want the courage to ask for
what do I know about my wish this week
like last week’s wish, and the week before, it’s about
presence and embodiment
and passage
and of course, following the clues
in the order that they reveal themselves
and asking questions without
needing a plan
now
I am sick in bed and this is not a bad thing
it’s a passage and a crucible and its own door
last-week me made excellent vegetable stock
and yesterday-me used it to cook up a pot of
garlicky wild rice with vegetables
maybe en route to bravery isn’t always
a road of adventure
maybe sometimes it happens under a giant duvet
with a notebook
and a few just-right questions
superpower of I am here and ready.
december on the 2015 fluent self calendar was TREASURE MORE, with the superpower of receptive to all incoming good surprises, and now we are in the Year of Doors: january is FREEDOM, and the superpower is I am here and ready
here and ready is about presence
which is what bravery requires
if I am going to have the courage to ask
then this is the way to enter
thank you, past-me, for putting this
on the calendar
thank you, year of doors
last week’s wishes
I wished a wish about being the namer who names…
this wish led me to the realization that my belongings are treasure, and treasure is best counted/named in categories, and this wish also brought me to new levels of releasing, and for that I am very thankful
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
♡
chicken of the secret names
Hello, Friday: we are here.
{a breath for being here when we get here}
Thank you, week!
This is the 389th week in a row we are chickening here together….
What worked this week?
Naming and renaming.
This week my secret ops and important missions required many lists, but I dislike lists (understatement!), so I made up something better.
It’s called a L/I/S/T — Luscious Intrigue of Secret Treasure. Yes. And the L/I/S/T is where I find all the things that are going on, and each one has a quality.
For example, CLARITY in the form of [doing X], and then PRESENCE in the form of [investigating Y].
Usually I either avoid lists (because they stress me out), or use them but then hate how stressed out I am. I did not expect this to work for me, but oh did it ever.
Oh, and another important thing about this (for me) was no more than three or four possible things to play with on a given day. Because hello, the game is rigged, and who knows if we even get to any of them.
Next time I might…
Remember that whatever my problem, someone else has probably already solved it.
I really need to stop assuming that I’m The Only One, because I make so many things complicated while trying to re-invent the wheel.
The internet is terrible for many things, but it is so very good for reminding me that, for example, no, I’m not the only person who can’t drive at night because the lights are too intense.
Naming the days.
New freedom. Wild yes. Naming magic. The powers land. Pleasure is the practice. En route to bravery. Bon courage.
Upcoming biopic if it were based on this week…
My Kingdom For A Good Analogy. The Havi Brooks Story.
8 breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- Entire body is sore from slow motion montage training. A breath for recovery.
- For mysterious reasons, my body has not been wanting sleep, which is fine, except for the giant bags under my eyes and looking like death warmed over. A breath for trusting the process, and for rest.
- Emptying the house after seven years is messy and complicated, and there are feelings. A breath for courage, and exit as you wish to continue.
- Even in this miraculous calm state where I’m fine having no plan and no idea where I’m going to be living in a couple weeks, I would really love some good clues. A breath for new intel.
- I want to start doing a thing I used to do once upon a time before [situation], and I am noticing fear and anxiety about if I will be able to, and how hard it might be, and there’s a problem I need to solve in order to get back to it, and I don’t want to deal with that part. A breath for listening to my yes, and investigating further, with lots of love and Safety First!
- Situations (and people) I thought would be fun turning out to be not-fun. I think I no longer like my favorite Monday ritual, and I think I no longer like taking group classes for dance. A breath for being here, and for remembering that all intel is useful intel, and that everything can change and then change again.
- Dance teacher gave me some very useful and challenging corrections and suggestions that I am struggling to implement, having to use my body in entirely new ways and breaking my brain hard. This is really good for me, and right now it’s also unbelievably frustrating and I am running into my stuff and feeling vulnerable. A breath for wax on and wax off, trust in the process, remember why I’m doing this.
- 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.
- The sun came back. The snow and ice melted. I can stand at the bus stop and not die of frostbite. Everything is significantly less horrible now. A breath for easing.
- Lots of congruencing for the new year, including finally replacing my housemate’s rusted out 1980s goodwill-find made-in-korea falling-apart teakettle with a gorgeous kettle that fills me with joy and appreciation every time I see it. A breath for out with the old, in with the new, in all meanings of that, ripple effect please….
- Everything about dance was good this week. Waltz fusion, west coast, nightclub two step, hustle, improvisational madness. I took classes. I reviewed drills until my brain stopped working. I danced fourteen hours in two days, and my feet hurt, and it was awesome. Everything about this is good. A breath for this.
- Talking about yes and wishes with the far-away Agent Lovemore, and with Agents Aldrich-and-Annabelle, who are also far away, just not that far. This is good. A breath for knowing, and for conspiratorial planning.
- Letting things go. It’s time, and also movement is forward progress. A breath of gratitude for finally understanding what “Easing & Releasing” (my name for 2015) feels like when it is something you know how to do.
- Feeling beautifully clear about so many things. A breath for how great this is.
- Even though this was an intensely busy week, I still found time each day for myself, for breathing and turning inward and taking care of myself, noticing the Rigging of the rigged game, and not being impressed by it. A breath of appreciation.
- Thankfulness. Treasure in the form of wonderful food, deliciously tired legs, sitting by the fireplace wearing all the blankets. 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!
I still have big excitement about this round of projects, especially MONTAGE. Other than that, focusing on The Namer Names and The Studio Op, and remembering to do laundry. Pretty soon will return to 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 power of taking care of myself first and the power of not hiding, and got to experience both of these. I also had the superpower of There’s Always Money In The Banana Stand (a la Arrested Development), and not only did this week deliver surprise banana stand monies, I was also not worrying about things I usually worry about. More of this, please, for all of us.
Powers I want.
The power of fierce wild panther grace.
The Salve of Joyful Multiplying.
My favorite part of the superpower I had this week of There’s Always Money In The Banana Stand, was not just the steady calm and trust, but the sensation of wonder/joy/awe/gladness multiplying. So the plenty wasn’t only in the unexpected resources in the moment, but that feeling of joyful multiplying.
This salve melts into the skin and multiplies joy and wonder. It works its magic and allows you to to feel completely at home in this superpower at all times and in all ways, while still knowing that you would also be equally fine without it.
The pleasurable appreciative feelings begin to MULTIPLY and continue to multiply, as you fill up on:
Possibility. Generous heart. Clear Seeing. Releasing. Receiving. Delight. Glowing. Strength.
This is another good-surprises salve, and a heart-healing salve, and it is not only replenishing but self-replenishing, straight from source.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band is:
Bubble Prep
Their latest album is What Time Is It In Thailand, and it turns out this band is just one guy.
ANNOUNCEMENT!
We are doing some reconfiguring, and the shop may disappear soon. More about this to come but for now just a heads 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!
the namer names
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 339th consecutive week of wishing, come play!
the ocean
Last March I set off on Shmita, the practice of letting
fields be fallow, intentional not-planting and not-planning,
in all aspects of my life,
and, slightly terrified, embarked on what turned out to be a five month road trip
full of wild adventures
one of the first of which involved
the pacific ocean telling me about the mission of less
devoting my life to my yes
through devoting my life to less
this in turn led me to invent/reveal/discover the practice of
Luscious Minimalism, not to mention many other beautiful things,
all of which have brought me to this moment
right here
now
this is what I want
the process of
[being/becoming a namer who names things]
or, maybe, recognizing that being a namer who names things
is who I am
that’s what I want,
both in work and play and what I do in this world
naming things like it’s my job
it might even be the only job I want
my mission is about NAMING
naming each of my missions
my incoming selves
naming each of my treasures so I know them by name, a la dunbar dynamics
and being a namer who cares about names
an important thing about namers
I don’t make up the names or bestow the names
because I am not the one who knows the names,
I am the one who hears the names
do you feel the distinction
I get as quiet as possible and listen,
until I receive the names that are right
the treasures name themselves
I just listen
naming is an extension of listening
naming is an act of revealing,
allowing something to emerge,
it is taking off rather than putting on
an image:
instead of thinking hard about what garment to wear and
trying them all on at once, obscuring myself,
I create safety for myself to slowly and intentionally
remove and remove
until I get a sense of what my body wants
how I wish to be cloaked
and then my mantle appears
garments, like names, can be
magical transformative sheltering
a chrysalis for identity
a way to embody previously unknown or forgotten
qualities, attributes and desires
sheep
my friend told me he had a wild vision about two sheep and a fence
and now he is pretty sure he needs sheep
I thought the book Ounce Dice Trice has names for sheep
(it does not)
though it has names for elephants, whales, cats,
insects too — Twilliter! Flurr! Summersby! Thrimm!
and even names for houses
but while looking up sheep names and not finding them,
I encountered the most delicious clue:
“It is most important to be a good namer, since it falls to all of us at some time or another to name anything from a canary to a castle, and since names generally have to last a long time.”
that is delightful and guess what
I am a good namer! I forgot this but it is true:
I name (receive the names) of my incomings
my projects
my proxies
the eight directions
the twelve months
each day of the year
I am naming everything all the time and it is
not only important but MOST important
to be a good namer
my favorite book agrees with my mission, and I didn’t even know it
I want to learn about this and why it is most important to be a good namer
this feels like an important path for me
I AM A NAMER, that’s who I am
a good namer
(though really a good listener, because I hear the names that are)
bell
I changed my middle name to bell
several years ago
because I wanted to be a bell
and that worked out well
because now I am a bell
and wherever I go
I reverberate qualities
changing my internal and external space
through resonance
the last time I saw my mother before she died
she told me that she knew about my new name
and pointed out
that the hebrew name for bell
contains all the letters of my previous middle name
as if holding it
except for one, the yud, just a tiny little chupchik of a letter,
but that if you conjure a bell in your mind, made of letters,
then the yud can be the tongue of the bell
the part that makes it ring
ringing and releasing
I had imagined she might be less than thrilled
about the fact that I had released the name she chose for me
even if my releasing was more like a red balloon
than a throwing away
I just wasn’t sure if she’d understand that
she was on a lot of medication though
which, like a well-chosen garment, revealed things that
I had not previously been able to see in her before
this glowing positivity, and ability to transform one thing into another,
to see that change — choosing towards what is new and right —
does not equal rejection of what was
rather just acknowledging the new yes
and it is that understanding which allows us to not be overly attached to what was,
so that we can say,
“oh you took the beautiful name I gave you and turned
its components into something new, how delightful, how pleasing”
how pleasing
my old middle name meant “pleasant” or “pleasing”,
a word I always thought was unbelievably boring
but have now discovered is actually quite beautiful if you think about it
pleasure is treasure, pleasure is life
and what is that which is pleasant, pleasing, if not a pleasure-delivery-system
yes of course I want to be a pleasure-delivery system
but what I really wanted was to ring ALL the qualities, not just one
which required reconfiguring, morphing into a bell
and the best gift my mother ever gave me
was unexpectedly understanding this
through her new pleasantness filter
why I am naming
I want to be friends with everything in my life
and know each item intimately
and feel WILD INTENSE PASSIONATE JOY about it,
treasuring everything I own
knowing that we have chosen each other for right now
and in order to do this,
I need fewer things
so that I can remember each of their names
I mean, I need fewer things anyway,
because I’m letting go of my gorgeous home
where I have lived for seven years
and taking to the road again
and then possibly living in a very tiny shed
we shall see
dunbar’s number
dunbar being the british anthropologist who came up with the concept
that there’s a cognitive limit to how many people we can have in our lives
before social relationships fall apart
there are different thoughts on what this number is,
somewhere between 100 and 250, with 150 often standing in
as a good number
but basically the number of people you can
reasonably know and keep in contact with,
maintaining a stable relationship,
not including connections that are over
unless they are people you want to reconnect with
the lovely book small giants
talks a lot about companies that have intentionally chosen to remain small
in a variety of ways
and many of them use dunbar’s number as a way to make sure they’re
staying human-sized
this is a business beacon for me for sure
I want big reach,
in the sense of my work having a powerful glow effect in the world
but to maintain smallness and containment in terms of
how I do/share/live the work itself
everything has an owner in spirit
this is something my former mentor used to say
he used to tell the story of how
back in the iron curtain days when yoga was forbidden
because it was seen as religious/spiritual and dangerous,
he hid his yoga book under the floorboards of his house
and kept clothing for practice behind a rock in the woods
each day he’d hike to a clearing and change clothes to practice
and his garments came to embody
the specialness of the quiet time
the rebellion
the internal quiet
his clothing was yoga in spirit
that, he said, was why he didn’t like seeing americans
coming to yoga in their branded clothing
nike shorts and prana tops and little logos everywhere
because then the owner in spirit is a company
that wants you to advertise for them
I think about this a lot
not just with clothing
if everything in my life has an owner in spirit
or, as I think of it, a quality or an essence,
what objects and treasures do I want to surround myself with
what has meaning for me
whether that meaning is beauty, texture, color, a feeling or sensation, memory…
everything contains layers of memories
I recently let go of a perfectly good foam roller
because it belonged to the jealous controlling ex
and why would I want those qualities
even a hint of a memory of those qualities
in my space
I want each thing I own to evoke a giant smile
the smile I would smile if I saw an actual friend
someone I was delighted to see
no more objects or people in my life
whose presence I tolerate
I want to listen and hear the names
that fill me with joy
to well up with thankfulness
for the treasure of being immersed
in what I love
to ring bells
and clear out everything that
no longer needs to be in my life
and then sit in the new quiet space
letting the new names land
what do I know about my wish this week
like last week’s wish, it’s about presence and embodiment
and multiple meanings
and it’s about passages, thresholds and beginnings
as befits a new year
now
wearing my favorite garment,
a wildly glamorous wool coat
in a rich burgundy
and my favorite socks
drinking my favorite tea
and feeling a Congruencing coming on…
superpower of I am here and ready.
december on the 2015 fluent self calendar was TREASURE MORE, with the superpower of receptive to all incoming good surprises, and now we are in the Year of Doors: january is FREEDOM, and the superpower is I am here and ready
here and ready is about presence
and freedom is what this wish is about
the freedom to allow things to change form,
exit and release, take new shapes,
reconfigure into what is new and yes
and it is also about the freedom
to out myself as a namer of names
to share my vulnerable sweet wish that this be my only job
thank you, past-me, for putting this
on the calendar
and for the Year of More
which was exactly what I needed
last week’s wishes
I wished a wish about peaceful resolutions…
and remarkably everything that needed resolving
was resolved (and re-solved)
as peacefully as possible
what a lovely surprise
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
♡