prelude

Liberation story:

I am a panther
recently liberated (or self-liberated, possibly) from a zoo
it was a very spacious comfortable zoo, I wasn’t mistreated,
I just wasn’t free
now I am free and I don’t entirely know how this works

that is to say:
how am I (who am I) when I am free
how do I remember my way back into my essential panther nature
how do I reclaim my true freedom beyond just being outside of the gates

all good things are wild and free

Thoreau said this
but what does it mean to be wild and free
if Thoreau was right…
what is the good thing that is me

I made my way to the wise woman of the mountain
she wasn’t there
(I suspect this was intentional)
she left me a note in panther markings:

I cannot give you the answers you are looking for
only clues
here they are:
fall in love with oxygen
glow from within

what do I know about this
as a panther
what wisdom, what ancestral knowledge lives in my cells
waiting to be reclaimed

1) fall in love with oxygen, what does this mean?

breathe deep and free, inhale like it is your passion,
breathe your way into lost scent and lost wildness,
become intimately familiar with the passage of life energy
through you

take oxygen like it is your playmate,
your lover,
your new and only drug,
feel your pulsing life force
be breathed
treasure and pleasure in these breaths, each one glowing you alive
breathe like you have nothing better or more enjoyable to do
than pulse with life
because that is the way

2) glow from within, what does this mean?

be lit up
spark
and let every movement come from sparking
understand movement that ignites and is ignited
again, feel-and-be the pulsing life force
the rhythm that pulls you in

glow first, then allow
let the feeling of deliberate desire lead to deliberate deliverance
as wanting to move leads to that first movement beginning
leads to movement expanding leads to movement finishing
and evolving into the next movement

(you have to wait for it)

allowing each movement to reach its natural fullness, its expansiveness

trust this

trust your glow
trust your spark
trust oxygen to do what it needs to do
to soothe and to steady, to fill and to ignite

freedom is actually saying (yes) to life

and to do that you have to fall in love with breath
say yes with your breath
and glow-spark glow-spark glow-spark glow
(kick push coast)
do you remember?

in pursuit of freedom
here we go

how do I panther, how am I free, what do I know about this

free is living yes unhesitatingly (120%)
taking up space unapologetically
glowing harder
full trust
an impeccable awareness of {self} and {space}
both internal and external:
how much energy you have in a given moment
how much desire you feel towards or away from —
positive or negative connection
a reconfiguring of your atomic field
positive/negative charged ions

a panther lives in this shifting field
a panther moves through shifting fields as a
shifting field
of positive/negative charged ions
a force field of glowing
sparks of light

be unhesitating in desire

unhesitating in desire
unhesitating about desire
a panther doesn’t hem and haw about whether it wants or not
it either wants or it does not want, no hesitation necessary
it wants and it acts
it wants and it initiates movement
movement comes from center and expands, ripples out
movement collapses back in on the center like a black hole of desire which then
opens up and expands outward again
with each new breath and new desire

so many things you thought were yes are no

you thought they were yes because that was a yes from within captivity
it was a so-close, an almost, so it became a yes by necessity
you are free now, so you are DONE
with things that are almost and maybe and sort of

you can still enjoy anything that gives you pleasure
because pleasure has power
but you understand the difference between this temporal yes of
edge meeting edge
in the raw sexy touch of edge-play
vs the exhale yes of ahhhhhhhh this is home

(and yes, you can have both)
(and yes, you must have both)
(because you are a panther and you live this)

what else do I know?

plastic must go
panthers don’t like plastic
their golden eyes go indifferent
don’t put plastic near a panther
it’s just a different kind of cage

just let it all go
and then let go some more

a compass for being a panther in the month of Glow More

the month of Glowvember is good timing to be
a newly liberated panther learning about
sparks and ignition
having a wild affair with wildness
oxygen and freedom

here is the golden softly glowing
honeycomb-shaped sun-compass of Glow More
I do not know if panthers care much for compasses
but this one is looking for direction…

North: glow TRUST more
Northeast: RELAX and glow more
East: SHINE your glow more
Southeast: EXPAND into glowing more
South: ANCHOR the glowing-more of your glow more
Southwest: TREASURE your glow more
West: GLOW your glow more
Northwest: WILD glows more

being a panther

I listen to a recording about releasing fear of flying
(I do not have fear of flying)
(so I replace flying with glowing)

what do I know about the me who is
wholly unafraid
of glowing

Isabel Wild aka Incoming Me,
possibly also the wise woman of the mountain, says

one day you will laugh that you ever thought glowing was anything other than
calming and comforting
something you cannot be without
and truth: you glow already
people who can see do not miss it
so just turn it up
and let the glow be both a beacon to those who need to see you
and a fiery protective field to cloak you from everyone who does not need to see you

and know this:
being free is energizing
so let go of the perception that figuring out panther life is work

more about the me who glows

live this
enter this
we will glow so hard that [people at dance or on the bus] who try to siphon our energy
or express their unsolicited inappropriate thoughts
get BURNT, or at least LIGHTLY TOASTED
by our radiant glowing boundaries,
they immediately feel crispy and back off,
because we are a force to be reckoned with and
no one can plug into our power source anymore, amen

it is effortless
I do not initiate the burning
I am just radiantly present
and the glow holds itself
without needing me to do anything

glow requires of me only that I
rest (into clarity)
and follow the pulse of my beautiful desire
and breathe breathe breathe
my way into freedom

what do I know about my wish this week

it is a proxy,
that is to say, you might know this already but
I am not actually a panther?

or you could say: I am feeling into this panther story which is also my story
to learn what there is to learn about being
deeply involved in aliveness
with passion, intention and a renewed commitment to both
freedom and glowing

other than that,
the rest (ha!) is for me to find out
maybe freedom has to do with stepping outside of the rigging
or this could be about a wish I made in my heart about Not Settling
or a return to shmita life
maybe all of this and more
wishes after all are fractal flowers
and they go deep

so I look forward to discovering not only
my panther essence
and my spark-and-glow
but what else this wish holds for me
I only know that it will be beautiful
and it will glow

now

close to the fire with Agent Carolina Sloan and a compass
a pot of tea
and big magic

last week I said:

glow more glow more glow more
down the unfamiliar path

I think I am here
I think this is the unfamiliar path
freedom

superpower of I do not dim my spark for anyone.

november (on the fluent self calendar) is GLOW MORE, with the superpower of I do not dim my spark for anyone

this is a good superpower for
American Thanksgiving
which I call Hermitsgiving
because it makes me want to run away and hide

I can hide and glow at the same time though
these are not mutually exclusive
contrary to popular belief
in fact often retreating is the fastest way
to activate-and-enhance glow-state

a good way to not dim our spark for people
is to remember that there is enough oxygen for each of us
enough room for everyone’s glow
and that glowing delineates boundaries
and god knows we need more of that this time of year

I am also trying to stay offline (other than here)
because this is the season of Comparison and Scarcity Tactics
and other Wildly Unsovereign Bullshit
not dimming my spark means not engaging with the world where
that is normal and okay

thank you, past-me, for putting my glow
on the calendar

last week’s wishes

I wished a wish about resting into clarity and the wild mysteries…

this was a good week for remembering how vitally important it is
to build in pauses
sometimes I chose them
and sometimes they fell into my lap

I have gone much deeper than I ever imagined
into the wild mysteries
(including, now, the mystery of my panther self)
(and the mystery of who am I when I am free)
and I am in awe of all the treasure here

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

♡

rest into…

this week’s wish involves some of my favorite things
delicious double meanings and puzzling clues from past-me
the pink post-it note from me-of-three-days-ago
holds only the title:

rest into clarity and the wild mysteries

am I to rest into the wild mysteries as well as into clarity?
or is resting into clarity the key to solving said wild mysteries
probably both
let’s find out what is in this wish
and welcome it by saying thank you in advance:

oh wow what a beautiful wish
(the fact that I don’t know what it is yet does not detract from its glow)

the labyrinth

I walked the labyrinth in Taos
asking to understand something about sovereignty
I got to the center
and the word there for me was REST

it wasn’t the word I wanted
but now it is
so let’s fill up on retroactive thank-you-heart of grace
for this treasure

rest is the first duty of the queen

a wise friend said that once
and I didn’t want to hear that either

though at this point in my life
I am 99% convinced that rest is not only
the first and most sacred duty of the queen,
it might even be the only duty of the queen
because really, everything-everything-everything comes from that

rest

when I am not rested, I think I need to make decisions
forgetting that I can get quiet and
receive-and-reveal the decisions that have already been made

this really only works when I am rested
because otherwise I follow the outside culture over the culture of my heart
and choose push more over release more

when I am not rested, I miss big clues
(even while tripping over them)
and forget about Now Is Not Then
I disconnect from myself
and mistake treasure for bad news

but mainly

when I am not rested
I forget how to rest
and when I forget how to rest
I get hijacked by Rebellious Me
who wants to lead the front of the V
and blow shit up
because she thinks that now is then

and how can I tend to my kingdom, my internal worlds,
meet myself and this moment with presence, curiosity and loving-kindness
if I am disconnected from my body,
from that calm steady wisdom that comes from
not being exhausted all the time

the question I asked and didn’t answer

in the deck of stone skipping cards
one card asks
“what do I know about the relationship between rest and sovereignty?”

I loved that question when I wrote it
and then hated it every single time I drew the card

which is fine

there are two schools of thought when it comes to pulling cards
one is “hey, you picked the card so it’s your card”
mine is “if it doesn’t spark something good, it’s not your card,
so maybe you picked someone else’s card or it’s a card for future you,
no worries, pick another card”

one day it was my card though
and I knew
rest is the prerequisite
rest is the door (or at least: one really good possible door)
rest is how you uncover

what do I know about [REST + CLARITY]

rest into clarity
rest leads to clarity
resting is a form of clarity
rested-me has clarity
resting through clarity
resting from clarity
resting for clarity
resting is clearing
resting makes things clear
resting clears things up
resting clears things out
resting clears things away
resting is clear
rest is the door to clarity
the rest can be solved by clarity (double meaning)

release and reset, release and rest, release and be clear
clear like a bell

clues

I received some good clues on this in the form of
musical sparks from a wise Rally friend:

Rests are spaces in a sequence of musical beats.
Rests allow the pattern of beats to be clearly heard and felt.

Notes and rests on a page are like the Tao that can be described; tales we tell each other about the True Music, which is not in written form.

rest and reset

what Sue said about rests and pauses and bells
translates well to dance
in west coast swing it is the anchor that is the pause between
form and form, pattern and pattern,
the anchor is the sweet exhale and the waiting for the inhale
we call this moment kumbaka in yoga
the moment of blank mind, tabula rasa, detach, reset

anchor might be even better because it says:
GET GROUNDED, BE STEADY, BREATHE DOWN TO THE ROOT
and then the sexy part of swing of course is the way you
drift casually away from and back into that stopping point
swaying into the pause, softening into the connection

what do I know about the wild mysteries

the wild mysteries have to do with glowing boldly
and the superpower of
I DO NOT DIM MY SPARK FOR ANYONE

the wild sisters are versions of Incoming Me
there are three of them, each more wild than the next
their superpowers include wild confidence,
not caring what anyone else thinks,
choosing towards pleasure
unapologetically taking up space
filling up on joy and life
and overflowing with gratitude
because they never forget that this moment is treasure

what’s the mystery then

well, there is mystery in the sense of awe
mystery of immersion in qualities of spirit

and of course the mystery
of how do I soften into this Becoming
allowing their powers to become mine
meeting them on the bridge

and the mystery of not dimming my spark
when The Game Is Rigged
and we have been trained to dim consistently
and readily

a tiny example

yesterday in waltz class
there were more leads than follows
I wanted to lead but people kept
expecting me to jump in and follow to even things out

and I almost did

I had to bring so much consciousness into the moment
in order to realize
HEY WAIT, I WANT TO LEAD
I want to be learning to lead this cool move!
and I paid $14 to learn this!
and who cares what other people think or what I perceive they might think

but there it is
I almost caved on what I wanted
because of all the accumulated cultural good-girl programming
that tells me “helpful” and “compliant” are my job

anything else about not dimming my spark?

cultural agreements want us to dim
so every act of not-dimming is a tiny beautiful revolution

dictation from one of the wild sisters:

1. Anyone in your life who says things like “did you do thing X that you were supposed to do” does not understand about All Timing Is Right Timing, and and needs to know that this is always the wrong question. A more helpful question is “Hey, just checking in, is thing X still important to you, and if so, how can I help?”

   You can train the people in your life in the helpful way to ask questions, or you can invite new people into your life to replace the current ones. Either of these is absolutely valid as an option, follow your yes, as in all things.

2. All timing is right timing, and I know you have trouble believing this, so I need you to channel the part of you who knows this. This moment is a fucking miracle, and what you think is late is right on time. You can’t see any of the goings on backstage, or above/below/all-around you, just know that everything is configuring and reconfiguring beautifully around you. You know how when you waltz with Uwe if you are even a fraction off on a turn he adjusts himself almost invisibly so that you end up exactly back in his arms, and the only reason you notice him doing this is that you are also a marvelous dancer? Well, there are energies that are marvelous dancers, and they are all integrating and moving and interacting, and they can recalibrate seamlessly according to where you are, so BE WHERE YOU ARE, and rejoice: where I am is just right. And know that all the changes and shifts that need to be made are already happening, it all is already becoming, it all already is, so just breathe and say thank you, that is your only mission.
3. All of this inherited guilt/shame/late, the idea that you are behind, the idea that you owe people things, that people wanting your time is more important than what you are called to be doing (or not doing!) with your time, it is all Rigging. It is all Culture. And it isn’t there to serve you. It’s there to serve the hierarchies and the forces that be. So every time you refuse to participate, you’re dismantling the patriarchy. Bam.

what do I know about my wish this week

it is a wish about adventure
both internal and external
and resting into adventure
and letting rest be the adventure
and the door into other adventures

it is a wish about glowing clarity and
clear glowing

and it is a wish about restoring my crown
so that the wild mysteries become fascinating
rather than frustrating

so that I can say
“oh wow, what an interesting challenge to my glow!”
instead of hiding in bed
and if I do choose hiding in bed
I can delight in the hiding
and in the choosing to hide,
knowing that this is just another sweet way
to rest into clarity
and what could possibly be better than that

now

I’m sitting at Slow Bar, appropriately enough
today has very much been about slowness
and trusting this slowness, trusting the All Is Well of slowness
is part of the mission of rest into clarity
and also part of the wild mysteries

it is marvelously dark in here
the booths are tall and deep red, making their own little world
I hardly ever drink and when I do, only whiskey
but today I ordered a pomegranate margarita made with peppercorn tequila

partly to satisfy my ongoing obsession with pomegranate
partly because my mouth liked the taste of the word peppercorn
especially in combination
(pomegranate-peppercorn pomegranate-peppercorn!)

they call this drink the Zerkpatrick, a marvelous name
and the wild sisters wanted newness and adventure
the unfamiliar path

glow more glow more glow more
down the unfamiliar path

this week I have said yes to many new things
so yes: glow more down the unfamiliar path

superpower of I do not dim my spark for anyone.

november (on the fluent self calendar) is GLOW MORE, with the superpower of I do not dim my spark for anyone

november has been giving me all kinds of
glow challenges
and I am pausing/anchoring/exhaling
to say THANK YOU for the extra training

and for the reminder

thank you, past-me, for choosing this for me

last week’s wishes

I wished a wish about cornbread vs the iditarod…

this wish helped me realize that dance
is not just something I love
or a way to ease the ongoing heartache of [he is gone]
but a container for me to learn the things I need to learn
in the rest of my life

and giving dance its own container
so that I can say yes to things that are [butter]
and no to [cornbread]
this is a more important mission than I’d realized when wishing the wish

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

♡

Hello, chicken: we are here.

{a breath for being here when we get here}

Thank you, week!

This is the 381st week in a row we are chickening here together….

What worked this week?

The Iguana Liberation Front

Iguana is code for anything I don’t feel like doing — usually iguanas are things I’ve been avoiding, they often lurk inside of piles which is why piles are not fun.

I realized this week that the iguanas and I have a shared mission: to be liberated from fear-dread-guilt shackles. And so I joined the Iguana Liberation Front, an imaginary organization that supports iguanas in leaving their current hideouts in my workspace and procuring safe passage back to iguanaland where they may roam free forever, amen.

Turns out I am much more motivated to give twenty-three minute segments of my time to [things that have been stuck] if I imagine I am part of a quiet revolution, dismantling the hierarchies-that-be through releasing guilt and helping iguanas find their way to freedom.

Next time I might…

Remember November.

It’s not just the November Glums at the beginning of the month, and the early darkness. It’s what happens energetically when North America goes into holiday mode, and everyone is girding themselves for travel and wildly unsovereign family gatherings.

The collective cultural energy of this time of year is very heavy and exhausting, for me, and I need to remember that this is a thing so that I can be extra-conscious to separate out and not carry any of it.

Upcoming biopic if it were based on this week…

Oh Okay Fine, My Clothing Is Leopard-Print Everything: A Woman In Her Late 30s

8 breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.

1. Paris. Let us have a breath for Paris. A breath of deeply grounded internally-rooted presence so that we can glow light.
2. It is so hard in these painful times to not take on the pain of the world. And it is vitally important for me to remember that joining in the collective wobbliness does not serve anyone involved, including me. The answer to wobbliness is steadiness and steady love, and the secret to steadiness is permission, acknowledgment and legitimacy for the wobbliness and the pain. A breath for being a tall sturdy oak, and for breathing love through steadiness.
3. Tuesday was just a massive meltdown, and it was not fun. I disconnected and forgot truth and really believed that Everything Was Wrong. A breath of compassion for me who got triggered and forgot. So much love and understanding for her! Shedding isn’t easy, and meltdowns are part of life.
4. I am feeling bittersweet (ha!) about the chocolate shop closing next month. I don’t want to own a chocolate shop anymore but I also feel almost unbearably sad at the thought of this historic chocolate shop becoming a store-room. A breath for trust in my yes, right timing, the truth of Everything Ends.
5. Speaking of everything ends, still/again deep grief-denial about the boy being gone, lost in this loop of knowing he can’t come back but still some part of me who can’t comprehend wants to know when does he back and why isn’t he coming back, and I don’t know what to tell her. Waves of sorrow. A breath for love, which just is. And a breath of thank you for the treasure of our fourteen months of sweetness and all the sweetness that is and will be.
6. All this endless work stuff makes me long for shmita, and not sure how to get back. A breath for new doors.
7. The familiar pain of vastly overestimating how much I am capable of getting done. A breath for remembering that the Game is Rigged, and I have been trained to overestimate.
8. Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. 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 November Glums have not reappeared, it really was just a brief thing, delight! A breath for this.
2. Tonight is the sixth consecutive night going out dancing (mostly blues/fusion with some waltz and west coast), and then more dancing tomorrow. This is part of my November mission/adventure of Glow More, and I am enjoying myself so much more than I’d anticipated, especially given how much this involves Trying New Things. A breath for the healing joy-treasure of dance, movement and connection.
3. A life-changing dance lesson with Jen on the topic of How To Relax (last week’s salve!), and I am so excited about how this connects to my other missions. Oh, and I got to dance with Marjorie again, and she makes me weak in the knees. It is all I can do to maintain minimal gracefulness, especially when I follow something tricky and she says “niiiiiiiiiiiiice” in my ear. Steamy joy breath.
4. I planned twelve days of beautiful running away in December, where there will be sun and sweetness and even more dancing, and could not be happier about this. Everything is easier knowing that this exists for me. A breath of thank you.
5. A laughter-filled evening of urban adventuring that included crashing a wedding that wasn’t a wedding. A breath for play and its magical healing powers.
6. I immediately came up with a possible solution to something that appeared in the form of Very Bad News, and while I don’t know if this is the answer, I like how wonderfully not-worried I am about the seemingly bad news because I feel the truth in my heart, so I know that it’s not bad news at all, even if I don’t know for sure what comes next.
7. Treasure in my life in the form of home-made soup, texting with Marisa, my smiling waltz circle companions, being a grand adventuress in spirit and occasionally in deed, sweet loving words from far away, the best cheesy dance aerobics, happy hour, warm orange sweater, favorite winter scarf. A hand-on-heart breath of wonder for the good in my life
8. Thankfulness. 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!

Operations completed and forward movement!

Working on phase II of the Fountaining op is good to go, Ruby Jewel (not actually a jewel) is good to go except for one thing, and I took three steps towards Sweet Honey and Shed Shed Shed. Panther Time is on the docket. Thank you, fractal flowers.

I now bestow upon myself a quintillion sparklepoints, 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 superpower of total trust in right timing, and oh wow, I had this all week!

Powers I want.

I want even more of last week’s Not Caring What Other People Think, and I want to remember my glow.

The Salve of Remembering My Glow

When I still had the Playground, my retreat center, often just walking in the door was enough to recalibrate my glow-field. I’d sit on the floor, soak up the glow, and then my glow was just there.

It is so easy to forget, and yet, here’s the trick, it is also so easy to remember, and that’s what this salve is for.

This salve comes with an applicator, a slender silver wand with a hand at the end. Dip it into the salve and then write the word GLOW on the palm of each hand. Do it. Feel what happens.

Let the tingly sensation grow and glow and spread. Kiss the palms of your hands and place them on your cheeks, feel the glow develop and envelop you.

Write GLOW on your heart. Feel the jewels in the palms of your hands, soles of your feet, diamonds on the soles of your shoes, like in the song but better. Breathe light in your heart now.

This salve makes this happen effortlessly, and when you use it, you not only remember your glow, you remember to pause and to cultivate your glow. You remember that your glow is unique, that being in it is healing for both you and everyone you encounter. Your glow is enough. The salve just reminds you of the truth of that, and lights some sparks that weren’t visible before.

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

This week’s band:

The Wedding Crashers Limited (Unlimited)

Their latest album is Mambo #777, and, of course, it’s just one guy.

ANNOUNCEMENT!

I was supposed to close down the Flash Sale while Richard was in Europe and I forgot! Which means you can stil come to our Flash Sale! The password: sweetdoors

As you know if you’ve hung out here for a while, we offer things pretty rarely, and they are always amazing, so come spark with us!

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!

clues

I love the faith I have in myself
even when wildly unjustified

as evidenced by all the times
words come to me wanting to be written down
but The Game Is Rigged
and does not always allow time for the sitting-and-writing part
so I jot a note for future me,
positive it contains all she could possibly need

and then when it is the time for writing,
I puzzle over the clues in the note
— once a a poem in the form of a grocery list —
with no idea what it means
but filled with so much love towards past-me
who believed in my ability to connect the dots

ginger

cozy with ginger tea
warm orange sweater
and Patsy Cline
ready to write this week’s wishes
holding a wonderfully cryptic note from last-week me:

Cornbread vs the Iditarod

I am almost giddy in love with past me
what a magnificent title
it reads like a lost Richard Brautigan novel
or the title of an especially surreal episode
of a beloved television show I haven’t discovered yet

do I know what it means though
hmmmmmm-maybe?
these are good clues
I can work with these
so let’s explore
maybe I will arrive at the place last-week me had in mind
or somewhere even better

raising my glass to
the superpower of “and maybe even something better…”

cornbread

I had a cup and a half of buttermilk left over
from making luscious life-altering butter
and a bag of organic cornmeal appeared on the shelf
so I baked cornbread
wondering why I never bake cornbread

but then once there was cornbread
I remembered:
cornbread is not a true yes food for me
even when made with love and quality ingredients

the SCENT is joy sparks
slathering BUTTER ON THINGS is joy sparks
but the cornbread experience itself,
meh, I just don’t care about cornbread

I am wondering what else in my life
is cornbread

the yes and the not-yes

for some reason this is something we never talk about,
the combination of joy and not-joy
and how we make choices towards joy
when things are so mixed
and we are so busy

when I was involved with someone not good for me,
once upon a time,
many aspects of our connection were very, very yes:
adoration, treasuring, love, chemistry, pleasure, practice, the desire to be deeply present

and I let those hold so much value
I gave them permission to eclipse
the parts that were very not-yes
the jealousy, the suspicion and accusations, the flashes of blind anger,
the hurtful words

once that lovely enveloping intoxicating freshly baked cornbread scent cleared
and I stopped slathering butter everywhere
it was pretty clear
that you can’t actually receive nourishment or joy
from something that is not what you need

and that I was scared to say no to the no
and lose the parts that were yes

compassion

compassion for past-me who
really needed that experience of being treasured and loved
and didn’t know she could have that
without all the bullshit

compassion for havi of the big heart
who believed that if she just glowed enough love and trust
this person could work on their stuff and figure it out
that is still a very lovely thought even if it turned out not to be true
in this particular case

compassion for being someone who was raised to believe
that being loved means giving up on big parts of who you are,
how could she have known otherwise

compassion for anyone involved
in the constellations and configurations
of that connection and all connections
and for anyone caught in the crossfire
of unsovereign energy sparks

compassion given
as a given

that part is important

I was talking to a dance friend this week
he was deep in self-blame
about the realization that he’d been dating someone
because he was lonely and liked having someone to hold
and not because this person was his yes

so yeah, that’s a thing
we realize we’ve made a choice that isn’t true
to what we want
because part of it was what we wanted

but instead of being able to just say that:
x was yes
y was no
I let x have more weight than y
nothing is wrong

we make it about blame
when blame is so counterproductive and unnecessary
(which is not to say it’s not understandable)
(our culture thrives on the shame-blame game)

so here is what I want to say about that:

if insights about you aren’t kind towards you
they’re not really insights
there might be a beautiful kernel of truth in there
but it’s been seriously distorted in monster-filters

the iditarod

I had the pleasure of hearing Libby Riddles speak once
having no idea how enthralled I would be

my favorite part was not her win
though good lord what an exciting and powerful story
my favorite part was after her first disastrous attempt in 1980,
she took four years to train
like her own personal olympics

think about the faith
with no money, no sponsorship, no training,
in an entirely male-dominated sport
she didn’t have running water or electricity
her village held a bake sale to raise the funds needed for her to enter
the race she won

I find this very appealing
naming an intentional container of spaciousness
in which to move towards something that matters to you

a form

the jealous ex had a dream/plan to go on
a three year retreat
more specifically:
three years three months three weeks three days
without any contact with anyone in the outside world
just meditation in seclusion

and while that would not be my yes for me
I love the shape of that container
what a beautiful amount of time for
process

a way to be the fields
and the seeds
and the water
and the sun
all together

that is really beautiful to me

what else do I know about this

I like things like this that have a shape,
space for a process
in which to sort out
what is my yes and what is less yes
and to actively choose towards things that support
my true yes joy spark life

my peacefulness
my well-being and bell-being
my ability to glow good things into the world
and inside of my own kingdom

the ingredients (for me)

• designated time
• designated (safe) space
• spaciousness
• ritual
• pleasure
• compassion, of course
• turning inwards
• luscious minimalism

relating differently
to myself
and my wishes
deep listening

joyfully self-granted permission
to never make cornbread
to have my internal iditarod training take place
somewhere sunny and quiet
it might involve lounging in a pool
there are pretty rocks there
basically it’s a lot of resting
and learning/relearning how to be someone who
chooses towards rest, yes and less
pleasure, treasure, and even more quiet

what do I know about my wish this week

It’s a wish about creating sanctuary
for myself / my wishes / my desires
the things I need both in my connection with myself
and in connections and love stories with others

doing this with intention
and playful presence
crown on,
breathing down to the root
true to the glowing jewel in my heart

it is related to a long-ago wish about flowers everywhere
and being someone who studies lights and lightness

what is my wish?

and: what is the relationship between cornbread and the iditarod

I think cornbread is an example of a thing I think
should be yes because aspects of it are yes
but the parts that are no make all of it a no

and the iditarod is an example of a thing I think
would be a huge obvious no for me
but actually holds some appealing elements
in the form of intentionality, training and desire
and so even though the thing itself is not yes
it holds enough yes for me
to invent my own shape

and then I can take elements from each

butter = pleasure, intentionality, joy, making, sustainability, doing things my way
slathering = pleasure, lusciousness, plenty, alchemy, transformation
training = presence, play, repetition, ritual, containers, form, desire, planting, growth

let them combine
into something entirely new
entirely mine
something that is a marvelous surprise

I can drop cornbread and the iditarod
into a compass of qualities
and let their yes-elements ripple out and interact
waiting for the new beautiful something to show itself to me

now

sitting in a dark booth across from agent emdee
she and I are both working on scary projects

I want to be dancing
this is both true right now
and also maybe this is my iditarod
without anything to win
just the training

in a way dancing is an escape
it gives me something to do that is not
sitting on the couch crying because the beautiful boy is not coming back
no matter how much I want to believe he could
he can’t

but if we add compassion
because insight without compassion is not useful and not actually insight
then the truth is this:
dance connects me to my body, to my joy body
it is how I remember joy
and find my way back to being a beacon and a bell
which is how healing works
so nothing is wrong

superpower of I do not dim my spark for anyone.

november (on the fluent self calendar) is GLOW MORE, with the superpower of I do not dim my spark for anyone

how perfect that my question which
answered itself above
just answered itself again with the calendar

the answer is to glow more
nothing that dims my spark (cornbread),
and a big joyful yes to things that support glow
in whatever form that currently takes
and the form is allowed to change because all things change
and glow more is the opposite of stagnation

thank you, past-me, for choosing this for me

last week’s wishes

I wished a wish about the release papers…

this was a wonderful wish
it healed the november glums
and got me dancing again
and helped me understand some things about the
sweet bittersweet of chocolate and being a
(metaphorical) chocolate shop owner

and it reminded me about the importance of clearing things out
for clarity

and you are invited to come by our a FLASH SALE (password: sweetdoors) and you should peek while it’s still happening!

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

♡