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.
I feel a Congruencing
I feel a Congruencing brewing
I feel it wanting to come in like a sweet dusting of rain
not a storm
A sea change, a new season of whooshing away any stale or stagant energy
in small ways, tiny sweet shifts
This is me demonstrating both to myself and my space that I am
inhabiting my life more fully —
taking up space and saying I am here
Congruencing means
All the small moments of noticing that something is disharmonious
in my life or in my space
and then making small adjustments
I am laughing a little right now to myself because
past me put Fearless Intentional Choosing on the calendar —
literally, that’s what she chose for this year’s Fluent Self calendar,
a September superpower to help us stand in our strength more
and this is also the superpower of Congruencing
Congruencing time is not for big overhauls
No dismantling necessary, no taking things apart
though you might hear whisper-hints of future movement
Any point in the process might be a moment of conception for newness
a launching or a gestating of seeds
Little shiva-seeds of the pulsing kaleidoscopic destruction-creation cycle
which comes in its own time with its own unlikely rhythm
I think of Congruencing less as big shifting and more as lovingly clearing cobwebs
When I start congruencing, I go gently
Starting with the little things, often from the physical, the things I can see:
dead flowers
empty water glass
forgotten leftovers whose time has passed
haha whoops I never folded the laundry from last week
Amnesty
Forgiveness forgiveness forgiveness absolution always, internally directed
Last-week me and all versions of past-me were doing the best they could
with the tools and skills they had at the time
in the conditions they had to work with
probably functioning under too little sleep and way too much stress
and neglecting their crown, forgetting truth, totally understandably,
they wanted what was best for me-now, and sometimes made choices that
me-now might choose differently, and it’s okay
Remembering this (or trying to)
is an integral part of the culture of Congruencing
And of course I am not talking about laundry here
though yes, I am also talking about laundry
Congruencing happens in tiny deletions
It isn’t about inbox zero or whatever
just noticing: oh okay these three things need to go
the easier ones
making space for more pauses and breaths of sweetness
Iguanas
If I meet an iguana (a thing I really don’t want to do)
I choose Safety First and put the iguana in a safe house for later
To avoid ambushing future me, I might put the iguana in a folder or box
with a metaphorical comfy blanket so it doesn’t get cold
and a note on top:
hey my love, there is an iguana in here,
I trust that all timing is right timing and that you now have the superpowers
to know what is best here, and to meet it with tenderness, presence and a strong force field, thank you for letting me trust you with this
Clearing cobwebs is both good and hard, like so many things
It stirs up dust
Metaphorical dust and energy dust are just as uncomfortable as the physical kind
if not more so
Sometimes while sweeping and clearing out
it seems like I’m generating more mess than there was to begin with
all that stagnation and guilt-residue give me a headache and make me cough
but that is just the process of exiting
it will get better
An endless fountaining of sparklepoints for us
for even thinking about interacting with things that have gone stale
Things that help (for me!)
Scent: sage or incense or diffusing oil
If you don’t have sage, internet sage works surprisingly well
I am lighting some right now, can you feel it
you just have to pause for a moment and feel how your spine naturally gets longer and wider
as you breathe in expansiveness
If you land on a website with sticky energy (ha, okay, most websites),
internet sage is useful
though so is exiting as swiftly as possible
whoosh goodbye goodbye
shaking it off with your body
What else?
Chamomile extract and Headache Ease potion from Sundial Medicinals
(if you order some, say hi to Emily from me! I like her a lot)
If things get stuck or I find myself deep in self-recrimination
I reach for the monster coloring book and spend ten minutes coloring
You can also deposit monsters at daycare for a while
Getting down on the floor for ten minutes and closing my eyes and breathing
is a form of internal Congruencing
as is breathing eight breaths, one in each direction
and naming qualities
A secret.
Internal congruencing supports external congruencing and vice versa
This truth is really at the very core of self-fluency:
We can change internal space through consciously lovingly adjusting
our relationship to external space
or the other way around
(Whichever feels most accessible in a given moment is where I start)
Today I might play with Congruencing
Through ordering a new checkbook
though that actually might be an iguana
(maybe I just ask you guys where you acquired checks that you love)
And through closing tabs
Oh and making notes about small changes I want to make on the website
You guys, I missed the birthday of my site
This beautiful space is TEN YEARS OLD as of the last weekend of August!
I feel — unexpectedly — intensely guilty for not marking this,
like a mother who forgot her child’s birthday
Which is why amnesty and absolution are so vital to congruencing
because it’s very easy to get sucked into remorse
when you start to really look at what is, and you see just how much dust has piled up
So we activate the superpower of Nothing Is Wrong
And All Timing Is Right Timing
and I Am Okay
all the good things
And we move towards harmony in tiny steps, breathing with intention
Because congruencing is really about steps towards, not about achieving or
accomplishing or finishing, whatever that even means
Small changes and updates made with love, from love
sweet reconfigurings, may it be so

Would you like to join me? Or keep me company while I play…
Join me in congruencing small things of your own or just naming them in the comments, or you can share appreciation or anything sparked for you here…
Companionship helps and we are all in this together
So here is a space for that, if we want
We don’t tell anyone what to do, we meet each other (and ourselves) with love
And if now is not the right moment for Congruencing for you, and you just want to take some brisk fall breaths with me — or if you are in the southern hemisphere, warm sunshine breaths, that works too
Come share in this feeling of fresh and movement and time for newness
there is enough to go around
xox
wishes at the foot of the mountain

the point isn’t getting my wish (though cool things have emerged from wishing), the point is learning about my relationship with what I want, 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 323rd consecutive week of wishing, come play!

playing in a new form
I am writing these wishes in woem form
not because they are filled with woe —
just the opposite
this week’s wishes fill me with great joy
I am writing these wishes in woem form
(here is another example)
(of what I mean by that)
because sometimes it is useful to
activate a different part of the mind
to access the powers of form, creative play
and fearless
intentional choosing
and also
truth be told, in this moment I feel
intensely unmotivated
to write in any other form
so that’s how it is
right now
and really, what is the practice of wishing if not being deeply present
with WHAT IS
in order to hear the desires emerging in my
thank-you heart
at the foot/head
sunday night was erev rosh hashana (new year’s eve)
literally the eve of the head of the year
I feel strongly about erev, as a concept, as you know
erev, the eve of X, is that breath of entry,
everything that leads to a moment, heightened
anticipation
I wrote in my notebook:
mish’alot b’margelot ha’har
(wishes at the foot of the mountain)
(or really, in the foothills of the mountain)
(a foot pun)
from the ground to the head
friends of friends, in spain, have a sort of nickname for this day
they call it erev rosh: head eve! eve of the head!
feet is a theme lately for me
(grounding, standing in my strength, new foundations)
so if we have reached the eve of the head, and
the year is a cycle, then I must have been just
finishing up the feet
this is how
I decided to wish my wishes for the new year
from the foot of the mountain
a metaphorical mountain, prettier in hebrew
margelot are like
foothills
such a lovely word
wishes for a suite new year
so I already have
this internal joke about quarters/quarters
with each section of the year being like a home
and now the sweet new year sounds
like a suite new year (delight!)
I invited qualities and superpowers for this
new year — this head of a new year —
to come in from where I sat
at the foot
come in, come in!
come in….
beautifully anchored
relaxed panther grace
I love my edges
luscious minimalism
okay, luscious EVERYTHING
what else is seeded with these seeds of light?
I take exquisite care of myself and cherish
myself and the people and objects in my life
practicing fearless intentional choosing —
anything incongruent and disharmonious exits my life quickly and easily,
so that my cherishing powers stay strong….
with beautiful, glowingly powerful boundaries that I
don’t need to enforce because they just are
I radiate presence, inhabit my life
TAKING UP SPACE UNAPOLOGETICALLY
enjoying being
wild and free * joyful and free
grounded and free * passionate and free
loving and free * conscious and free
intentional and free * alive and free
I guess FREEDOM is kind of a big deal this year for me huh
in the wish field
erev rosh felt like an extra powerful wish-field of support
in which to whisper
oh wow what beautiful wishes
I wrote fifty two wishes for the new year
no, I liberated them
from my heart
into a notebook of secret red balloons
and in the wish streams
monday was tashlich
my favorite ritual
both communal (everyone descends to the river)
and solitudinal (you, alone, with your thoughts)
you cast breadcrumbs into the water for
anything you regret or
anything asking to be release
you let go of the year so that there is space for incoming you
compass
a bread crumb landing in water is like skipping a stone
it makes a compass around itself
echoing out in circles
this year
I didn’t have so much to release
this year of easing & releasing
has been so intense
my time by the river this year
felt much lighter
there have been times
I’ve neglected myself
or the beautiful container of my body
forgotten sovereignty and stirred
many unnecessary stew pots
said thoughtless things
mostly though
I feel peaceful with this year
with these feet, with this ground
with this rippling out
welcome, welcome, new beautiful year, I love you already
and thank you, past year for
everything, from the very hard to the
very sweet, each moment of you was treasure
in its own way, and I am so grateful
to be alive
thank you for teaching me some hard things, and as
Claire of the Mysteries says, also
thanking me for being receptive to learning them
anything else about this?
sometimes I have conflicted thoughts
about every aspect of
wishing
and even this weekly ritual
(which I love)
and then I remember: my whole life is a Wishery
that is, space for getting quiet
enough
to hear my true yes desires
and release
all that needs releasing
amen
now
I am emptying my house, preparing
to move somewhere
much smaller
that might not exist
(yet)
and found a lovely copper colored vase
if you put a tea light inside
it flickers in the
most remarkable pattern
I’d been storing pencils in it
not even knowing
how it glows
superpower of fearless intentional choosing.
now I am ready to stand in my strength more,
as september brings fearless intentional choosing
these three words are also the
true elements of turning inward
to reveal wishes or
(woe-less) woems
last week’s wishes
aka majestic and wild and so very alive…
I wanted the superpower of “don’t fuck with me” grace — like a powerful horse,
and I received this, or moments of it
and loved it and want more
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 Goodbye, Things That Are Not Mine
It is Friday Saturday, and we are here.
{a breath for being here when we get here.}
Thank you, week.
This is the 372nd week in a row that we are chickening here together. Pretty great.

What worked this week?
Asking the right question.
Yesterday I was in the grumpiest, cloudiest mood. It’s why I didn’t write the Chicken, I didn’t want to write it from a state of hating everything.
Mid-afternoon, it suddenly occurred to me that this moodiness didn’t feel like it belonged to me, so I asked:
Whose doldrums are these?
Immediately it was clear that, of course, it was September 11th, the country is steeping in gloomy memory-fog energy. And I am a Highly Sensitive empath, and when not careful about boundaries, I just feel whatever is in the air.
Next time I might…
Check the Anthology. And plan ahead!
Funny story. A few minutes after separating out from the Collective Cloud Of Gloom, I picked up the Anthology of Being A Bell, which is my version of the Book of You.
Sure enough, there was a very useful note about September 11:
Please note the zappy energy in the country on this day. Avoid internet, and be generally aware that there is a reason for things feeling off. If you’re experiencing sadness or distress, these feelings do not belong to you. You’re just picking up on it in the air and wearing it like a cape. Set your own energy, babe.
The book knows! I’d like to spend more time looking at my notes for a given month in advance.
And ideally, this would actually be a great time to just be somewhere that is not North America if possible, someplace quiet. Anyway, good to know. Thanks, past-me!
Upcoming Biopic if it were based on this week…
Always More To Let Go Of. The Havi Brooks Story.

Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- I thought maybe I would be done being sick, but nope. Finally stopped coughing up goo on Thursday afternoon, just in time for some especially evil moon retreat cramps. So my weeks in bed continue. A breath for this being what it is and me not liking it.
- Still waking up mysteriously early, though at least I’m back to napping. A breath for process, and trusting my body.
- I miss doing fun things! I want to be doing fun things! A breath for this, and all the in-between places that are part of healing.
- My lover has been gone for two weeks, and now that I’m not in the pheromone haze, I have these moments when I can’t really remember why we like each other or what the point of any of it is. Down in the dumps about that. A breath of love for love, and for remembering that this has actually been true for me my entire life — two weeks just is the amount of time it takes for me to lose interest in something that isn’t present in my life. It’s not that I get interested in other things. It’s more like, I lose interest in being interested? That’s a useful piece of intel for me to remember, and maybe it will change, and for now, I can at least remember that this phenomenon is not necessarily related to the actual situation at hand. May ease come soon.
- Oh my god, the theme of this week was It’s Always Something Isn’t It, with a side of If It’s Not One Damn Thing It’s Another. And a drizzling of Everything Breaks. Many, many things spontaneously volunteered to leave my life this week, including the water heater in my house. A breath for remembering that passage is movement, and everything is temporary anyway, and I am okay, and also it is both safe and very understandable to get a little panicky when everything breaks, my love. Yes, that is a good reminder for me.
- There is a lot of pain in the world, and I am trying to maintain steady ground without diving in and taking it all on. A breath for separations and distinctions, which allow me to make choices from grounded presence.
- A project I was very excited about just got alarmingly expensive. A breath for trust, hope, perfect simple solutions, and the superpower of Oh This Turned Out Hilariously Beautifully Just Right In The Most Unexpected Ways.
- Inhale, exhale. May all misunderstandings and distortions, internal and external, dissolve in love if not in laughter. Goodbye (and thank you), mysteries and hard moments of this week. May I choose to trust-more love-more release-more receive-more.
Eight breaths of good, reassuring, delight-filled.
- So much releasing. And then things start to move. A breath of fountaining sparklepoints for me, and for all the wild epiphanies that are landing as a result.
- Had a long talk with the far-off beautiful boy about our wishes and desires, in life and related to NARBAR (Not A Relationship: Better Than a Relationship!), and these past thirteen months of delicious heart-time together. It is so easy to talk with him about absolutely anything, in part because of this special form of connection that we have invented for ourselves, and our exchange was so full of sweetness, clarity, tenderness, appreciation, all the good things. A breath for perceiving that I am heard and understood, loved and known.
- Something I thought was a ludicrous pipe dream that maybe in twenty years could come to fruition is actually starting to look like a very real possibility for this coming year. A breath for brave me who set off on the financially terrifying adventure of Shmita, and is now receiving the most wonderful ideas, information, connections and possibilities as a result.
- Took a private dance lesson after two weeks of ZERO practice, and magically-mysteriously was noticeably better at everything, to the point that both my teacher and I were in this total jaw-drop state of shock and awe. A breath for changing internal space, and how that changes everything else, and for joy.
- Sweet naps. Long, slow stretches. Staring into space. A breath for the many magical forms of rest, and for how they support Sovereignty.
- So many things in the category of “I Don’t Know What To Decide (because on the one hand, A, B, and C! But on the other hand, X, Y and Z…” have just resolved themselves so easily. I know exactly what I want, why I want it, how I want it, next steps. The mysteries are no longer mysterious! A breath for this.
- I am enjoying every inch of my beautiful home, and cherishing my space, and learning about what this means and how it works, and it is the most wonderful feeling. A breath for bubbling over with love.
- Thankfulness. So much is good. Everything is okay. Nothing is wrong, even when I think 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.

Wham booms, wisdom, superpowers, salve and FBOTW!
Operations completed. Wham boom!
Progress was made on all the ops this week, using fractal flowers to great effect. Wham Boom. I now bestow upon myself a hundred fritzillion sparklepoints, and you are welcome to do the same.
Superpowers I had this week…
I had the superpower of Steady And Grounded, and Hey: Respect My Space, I Am A Panther. Both of those were incredible to experience, more please!
Powers I want.
The powers of a) Fearless Intentional Choosing, and b) noticing that I’m doing that.
The Salve of Goodbye, Things That Are Not Mine.
This salve eases all exits. It makes for clean, clear separations.
It has a freshness to it, as if the air is more alive, oxygen is more oxygenated, from the moment it touches your skin.
This salve transforms internal and external space (and the relationship between the two), and suddenly you know what belongs and what doesn’t, what is congruence and harmonious with how you want to live, and what needs to leave.
You open the door, and things just find their way out.
You take a breath in, and fill up on sparkliness until you feel it in your toes.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band comes via Agent Annabelle, it’s called Investigation: Closed. Their latest album is Good Game, Buddy. And, of course, it’s just one guy.
And the photo was taken just for us in Lubbock, TX by Jesse — thank you!

How was your week?
Come play in the comments. Share something from your week, take a breath, or just say hi! No rules, my format doesn’t have to be yours, we’ve been doing this every week for years now and there still isn’t a right way.
Everyone belongs. We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. We lovingly refrain from giving advice.
And of course it’s always okay to comment under a made-up name, whether for play and delight, or in the interest of Safety First.
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — jump in whenever you like. Blowing kisses to the Beloved Lurkers too!

p.s. If you want to express appreciation and/or go deeper into Self-Fluency…
Come practice Agency and be a secret agent (ha, agency pun!) of self-fluency, and support this blog and Shmita.
The marvelous Monster Manual gives you the sneaky ways I use to get my self-criticism to take a nap or join the circus or become my ally, so I can stay calm and take care of myself. - If you’d just like to express appreciation for concepts and qualities that live here, you can always contribute to Barrington’s Discretionary. (Explanation!)
- And of course, love and support in the form of smiles, hearts, warmth, sharing posts, practicing what we do here: any and all of that is always appreciated!
A deep breath of love from my thank-you heart for everyone who reads. ❦
Twenty minutes on elephants.
Twenty?
My monsters say that there are far too many things about elephants to be able to say anything even slightly meaningful in twenty minutes.
That may be true, and yet, here I am with twenty minutes and with words bubbling up, words about elephants, so let’s find out.
Let’s liberate the words and liberate the elephants, in twenty minutes of tiny liberations.
Twenty minutes on elephants!
I just realized that Twenty Minutes On Elephants sounds like I mean riding an elephant for twenty minutes, which is not what I mean at all.
That is a very striking image though, and it just brought up a long-forgotten and very startling memory. What I actually meant here originally was twenty minutes on the topic of elephants.
Or possibly not on the topic, or possibly on the topic of Not On The Topic…

The elephant in the room.
No one talks about it because it seems somehow awkward to mention the obvious.
Sometimes the Not-Talking-About-It becomes deafeningly loud, and then you avoid the room, and sometimes you don’t remember why you don’t visit that room anymore.
Sometimes the Not-Talking-About-It silences the elephant’s essential elephant-ness to such an extent that it goes and hides behind the curtains, and you genuinely forget that it’s there. A trick of the mind, a trick of culture.
Sometimes the issue of the elephant becomes a broken step, a missing stair. Oh, hey, don’t trip over the giant semi-invisible elephant.
The elephant in the room in my dream.
There were elephants in my room.
Not my real room, a dream room: a small elongated rectangle of a space.
Not real elephants, representations of elephants.
An absolutely humongous stuffed animal toy elephant, grey and plush, on its back. A pewter Ganesh, the size of my hand. Two colorful wooden decorated elephants that looked like India, one large and one small; I have seen them before but I can’t remember where.
What do I know about the elephants in the room in my dream.
I didn’t want them there.
They had just ended up in my space.
They had been left or forgotten, and then I had mistakenly thought it was unkind to remove them, when in fact it is unkind to my space to keep things in it that don’t belong there.
An understandable lapse in sovereignty; we want so badly to be kind, and we forget this essential truth about what Kindness really is and how it works.
I realized this in my dream.
I realized that I had neglected not just the elephants, but my space and myself and my needs and desires, due to this misguided idea that it is not nice to ask things to leave.
So I began the task of liberating elephants from this mysterious dream-room, and discovered that the elephants had…what is the word for this, the thing fruit does when it gets overripe in the fruit bowl because no one has eaten it…
I don’t know how to describe this with elephants, because you can’t say that elephants have become spoiled.
That makes it sound as if they’ve been given too many sweets at a party and have become whiny and demanding, little tantrum-ey elephants who probably need a hug and some quiet time to chill.
And you can’t say elephants have gone off, like you’d say to describe food, because that sounds as if the elephants have exited, possibly in a stampede.
Elephants aren’t rotten, that sounds wrong too. And yet.
And yet.
There was a big hole in the belly of the stuffed-animal toy elephant, so I couldn’t give it away as a gift like I’d wanted to.
I asked Richard to take it away for me, and he told me afterwards that he had found another elephant inside of it.
Me: Like a baby?!
Richard: No! Another toy elephant, but a different kind. A wooden statue elephant. But, here is sad news, there was also a dead mouse inside of your elephant. It must have burrowed in there to make a nest, but then it died.
And then Richard and I cried a little, for the mouse, and for the elephant. In the dream.
And I cried for my room, which I had neglected so deeply, out of this false sense of obligation to a false understanding of kindness, that I hadn’t even noticed that the elephant I didn’t want to hold onto to begin with was holding this mouse grave.
We moved all the elephants out.
We moved all the elephants out, and the room said thank you.
I said THANK YOU, ELEPHANTS. And: I’M SO SORRY, ELEPHANTS.
And a circle glowed in the window where Ganesh had been.
What else about elephants?
Long memory…that’s the story-myth at least.
Is that long memory like grudge-holding? Is that what needs to be liberated? Are the elephants a form of stew-stirring…
Or is that long memory like soul memory?
Like the vision I received about my mother — she was dancing with Miriam and the women, celebrating. They were all dancing in the desert, in a line-circle: singing, beating their tambourines and laughing. She looked to be maybe thirty years old with long flowing black hair, but I recognized her. It was her.
She was so happy because that was where she wanted to be, back in soul space, in her pure-Ruth form, celebrating life, moving energy.
Memory like that.
Like remembering yourself.
And that was the bell, for twenty minutes.
Do we want another bell, twenty more minutes?
Is the elephant a bell?
What else about elephants?
Something about luck, not sure, a talisman.
Something about…oh, of course, this is the month of Stand In My Strength More.
Elephants do that.
What else?
I’m not sure. Let’s ask Wikipedia for clues.
Ah, such beautiful clues.
They have pillar-like legs. That is a clue.
They are “highly recognisable”, that makes me laugh, maybe because we ignore them when they are in rooms.
Oh! They are led by matriarchs. See, I knew somehow my vision of Miriam and the women from my lineage, dancing after the parting of the Red Sea, I knew that wasn’t a departure from elephants even though it seemed to be when I wrote it. I felt that it was connected.
Elephants have a fission-fusion society in which multiple family groups come together to socialise, I like the feeling I get from reading this sentence, and the way fission-fusion tastes in my mouth.
Males and females live separately or in separate groups, that is intriguing.
A big spark about this:
They communicate by touch, sight, smell and sound; elephants use infrasound, and seismic communication over long distances.
And apparently, says wikipedia, the trunk can be used for delicate tasks, such as wiping an eye , and can crack a peanut shell without breaking the seed.
That is a lovely, gentle image. I am wiping my own eye right now.
Thank you, Wikipedia. Thank you, elephants.
Elephants have thick skin.
Literally. An inch thick.
This is something I have been wanting metaphorically. Not the thickness, but the boundaries.
Boundaries are a big part of standing in my strength more, as is liberating things that need liberating, be they words or elephants or dreams or understandings or things that don’t need to be in my space anymore.
Like misunderstandings about the truth of Kindness.
And one more story.
I forgot to tell you the elephant-story-that-I-mysteriously-forgot! How do I tell this.
When I was nineteen and living in Tel Aviv, I was intensely lonely. I didn’t know yet about my internal worlds and all the fascinating aspects of being me. I wanted people.
So whenever someone wanted to be my friend, I was like, OKAY YES BE MY FRIEND, without any discernment about whether I liked them or not, because I just craved connection so deeply.
This is how a girl I met in line at university befriended me. I thought she wanted to date me, but she wanted endless small talk. We had nothing in common and I found her unbelievably boring to converse with, but she kept inviting me places and I kept going, because it seemed better than staring out the window.
I think she was studying nursing. I literally can’t remember anything about her other than how little I enjoyed her company but couldn’t turn it down.
Fizzling.
Eventually that fizzled because it had to, and later that year I ended up seeing a guy who was basically a moderately upgraded version of the same thing.
He was kind and attractive and quiet, and he rode a scooter, which meant that I rode with him, which now seems incredibly unlike me, given the upredictable and terrifying Tel Aviv traffic, but I didn’t care.
For all that, there was just nothing there. Zero spark. His niceness was his primary characteristic, and I was always bored, but never quite bored enough to want to be alone with my awful thoughts.
He broke up with me, awkwardly, and I didn’t really care, it was just another not-fun thing in a year of not-fun things, and I had already slid so deep inside myself that there wasn’t much of me to reach.
Back to the elephants.
A couple years later, when I had crawled out from the dark places, I was at a concert. It was a Yarona Caspi concert. Yarona. She had short spiky hair then, in a leather jacket, looking gorgeous and mean and full of trouble.
And I ran into them. Together. The boring girl and the boring guy. Alon, his name was Alon. Which is so hilarious and perfect, because it means oak tree, another clue about Standing In Strength that I missed at the time. Her name I forget.
I remember being so astonished that two such incredibly dull people would be at a Yarona Caspi show of all places that it didn’t occur to me to be surprised that they knew each other, or that they were clearly a couple.
They told me how they met. It was not long after he and I split. They each were traveling in India, and they had gone to ride elephants, and they were the only people who showed up to the elephant-riding thing, and they shared an elephant.
They thought it was the best story in the world.
A thing about me at that time in my life…
I had closed myself off to many, maybe even most aspects of myself, so the only part of me that got much airtime was the Bitterness, with a side of dark sarcasm.
It’s not a bad part of me at all. I love and appreciate bitter sarcastic me, she is biting, smart and very funny. I just didn’t know about the other parts.
I said something like “oh, what a small world”.
But I meant: “How fitting that the two most boring people on earth would find each other, in the place all Israelis go on holiday, doing the most cliched touristy thing in the world, riding an elephant, and they think this constitutes an Interesting Story, something they can bore their boring grandchildren with over and over again, to be preserved for future generations of walking cliches.”
Except I was wrong.
It is the best story in the world, because I’m telling it now.
It is a perfect story, about elephants and Standing In Strength, about unlikely coincidences and liberation from the dark places, about fearless intentional choosing what we want in our lives, and about letting go of everthing that isn’t that.
It is about the passage from things that are all bitter to being someone who can see sweetness everywhere and still hasn’t lost her edges.
I know now that people aren’t boring or not-boring, they just don’t fit what I need. I know now that not every person or elephant that comes into my space needs to stay.
Do you think they spent twenty minutes on that elephant together? Because that would be even funnier.

Liberations, liberations.
There is the parable of the monk touching the elephant and trying to describe reality from one part of something vast, and there is sadness and playfulness in the Babar stories, I remember an illustration of colorful cakes. So much elephant to explore.
But this is all I need right now. I ended up setting more bells and more bells, it’s been a couple hours, which is apparently the right amount of time.
Three minutes until the next and maybe-last bell.
Peacefulness wishes.
I am wishing peacefulness for all elephants, for anyone who has loved an elephant, for all forms of [elephant], for all versions of me, dream me, soul me.
Forgiveness-peacefulness for the times I have ignored and forgotten elephants.
Joyful-peacefulness for the times I have delighted in their majestic aliveness.
Peacefulness for everyone who reads. Peacefulness for Tiny Liberations, in all forms.
And there’s the bell.
There’s the bell, just as I landed on one more clue, which is also a peacefulness-wish.
A well of sustenance and healing was given on Miriam’s behalf to travel with the Israelites through the desert.
A traveling well! Traveling well with a traveling well.
Yes, please. Sustenance and healing in travel form, a source that moves with us as we move. May it be so.

Play with me.
You are invited to share anything sparked for you here, about wells, bells, elephants, the sweet, delicious practice of giving twenty minutes to whatever needs to be liberated, or whatever comes up.
I would also happily read any clues/images/stories you might have about elephants.
In case you are wondering, I was not using elephants as an intentional proxy, but of course they are standing in (and standing in their strength as they are stand-ins) for many themes in my life.
That’s why investigating things that don’t necessarily seem to be directly related to our Big Issues is such a good healing — it’s such a safe way to play.
So if this appeals, you might enjoy asking what you know about elephants, or something that is like elephants, or something that is not like elephants.
Comment love.
Everyone is welcome, everyone belongs. We make space for each other.
We meet ourselves and each other with warmth, and we joyfully abstain from giving people advice. We play with Safety First, so of course feel free to make up a name and/or email address, and to make safety for yourself in whatever forms you need.
Love and peacefulness-wishes to everyone who visits here, and everyone who reads.
Majestic and wild and so very alive.
Personal ads. They’re … personal!
Here we are. 322 consecutive weeks of wishing. Welcome. ♡

Something different.
I have many wishes, bubbling up and away, red balloon wishes.
Over the past few days, I have been watching and waiting, trying to feel into which one I want to write about. And what I received is that I actually want to write about how last week’s wishes have been going.
Not a two-sentence summary of last week’s wish at the end of this week’s, like I usually do. Not a separate follow-up post.
I want — and I don’t know why I want this, but I need to trust it — I want to share with you some of what I have noticed and experienced over this past week since wishing the last wishes.
And I guess through that process the new wish will emerge?
Or maybe it won’t, and for whatever reason, this is the seed-form my wishing wants to take this week. It is planting itself through this process of Noticing the Noticings, and sharing them with you.
This feels weird and new and different, but when I turn inward and ask what I want to write about, that’s what is there.
And since we just exited the month of Trust More, I am going to do just that.
I actually wrote two wishes last week…
I posted my wish about Luscious Minimalism, and I also wrote about the thing I don’t want to let go of, which is actually a wish about ease of releasing.
This is funny and perfect, because this Shmita year is the Year of Easing & Releasing, and somehow I didn’t even make the connection.
Anyway.
Both of these wishes have been my quiet accompaniment to this week, setting off chain reactions of tiny sparks of light in all the dark corners, letting me see things I couldn’t see before, helping me release things I couldn’t release before.
And this is my review of that, and the week that was. Or, as I like to call it, my Revue!
I did very little, because I was sick.
So that was a completely unanticipated form of Luscious Minimalism right there.
I had been thinking about my wish in terms of space: the feelings and sensations I want in both my physical and emotional space. Reducing possessions, in order to revel in being surrounded by only those I absolutely cherish.
Possibly also lovingly disconnecting from other things that are not luscious: habits, patterns, people, assumptions, choices.
But I hadn’t thought in terms of doing less.
All I did this week was lounge around in bed, pet my sweet body with love and kiss it better, and write. The best.
A secret hidden meaning of Operation Luscious Minimalism was apparently “do the most minimal amount of exertion, while being luscious!” This makes me laugh.
I lounged.
I mean, I lounged in style, like I never have before.
I lit candles and wore impossibly extravagant special-occasion underthings and the fluffiest cloud of a robe — even though my lover is far away and my entire plans for this week involved sitting in bed being a Mighty Mighty Snot Machine while feeling sorry for myself.
I drank water from the fanciest wine glass, with a perfect circle slice of lemon snug against the rim, just because.
And massaged my temples with tiger balm from the prettiest jar, while listening to a playlist of songs chosen by Incoming Me for this quarter.
All in all, I did very, very little, but did it with panache. And it was sweet and beautiful and alive with meaning.
I treasured things.
Everything seemed so beautiful this week.
I picked up the pitcher from the dining room table, and marveled over it for the longest time.
The still-fragrant lavender that my friend Luke the Noir Gunslinger brought as a gift over a year ago, the luminous blue-green ceramic pitcher that I bought on New Year’s Eve from a local potter seven years ago, right after we moved into this house, not long after I wrote the wish that brought me both my beautiful home and this beautiful weekly practice of wishing.
The pitcher-lavender combination was suddenly so enthralling to me, I moved it into the kitchen where I spend more time, to enjoy it more fully.
I admired the long elegant line of a spoon. I touched the leaves of my plants, and may have even kissed them when the neighbors weren’t watching…
I glowed with love while sitting in the wooden rocking chair that my uncle went to great lengths to acquire from the other side of the country, just for me, because he wanted me to have one of his favorite things.
I let go of things.
Because anything that doesn’t give me that kind of thrill really doesn’t need to be in my space.
Marie (Kondo) says something wildly mystical that I missed in the first reading, about how the things you own want you to be happy.
More than that. They want you to feel like you are in love. So if you aren’t tingly, blissfully in love when you touch them and see them, then be kind to them and to you, and let them go make someone else that happy, or return to you with that same loving energy but in a new and better form. That’s what she says.
It’s a wondrous and terrifying thought: will I have to let go of everything? Not at all, just the things that obstruct my ability to feel the wonder of the pitcher, the magnificence of the lavender.
Marie is a greatly misunderstood Luscious Minimalist, I think. Her work isn’t actually about tidying and decluttering at all.
It is about becoming someone who glows with love, who consciously chooses to glow with love, and to let your environment support this. And it is about the deepest forms of listening.
I let go of so many things that my space transformed.
My bedroom now feels sparkly and magical, like the playground.
It hums from all the time I’ve spent luscious-ing it up in bed all week! And from all the things I let go of, with love, so that they can go love someone else.
My bedroom is purring like a happy cat right now.
And once that happened, the purr-hum spread to the hallway, and the living room, and this morning I felt it entering the kitchen too…
My uncle came to stay with me for three days.
Long-time readers of this blog know that Svevo is one of my very favorite people in the world, and the person I most admire and wish to emulate.
He is the only person I know who lives exactly how he wants, in all things, and he does this despite not having great means.
If he wants three naps between breakfast and lunch, he will do that, and be completely happy about it, and not say any of the things people usually say like “I don’t know why I’m so tired”. He just follows his body.
If you visit his home, you will not be the least surprised to find that his bed is in his living room, because he felt like that was where he would probably want to sleep.
When Svevo comes to visit, I get to study him. This time I was able to notice all the beauty — and Luscious Minimalism — in delighting in what you have.
Svevo is very into purple lately, and he was wearing a purple sweater under a dark burgundy sweater-jacket, both of which he had picked up at a thrift store and already worn holes into. And he was as happy as a small child with a new toy. The color was filling him up with joy.
Horses.
My housemate and I have been watching Wallander. The BBC series with Kenneth Branagh as the most morose detective, not the Swedish version, though I would like to see that as well.
There was a horse in the last episode, an absolutely stunning horse, and two things struck me at once:
- Horses are so majestic and powerful and present.
- Horses eat carrots, and if carrots are the stand-in for the thing I don’t want to let go of, I can let go by letting the horses have them.
And, something else about that. Horses can be very sweet, and also very strong, sovereign, imposing even. Horses stand in their strength, which was my wish from two weeks ago.
I want these horse-like superpowers! Actually, I think that is my wish.
Mirror.
Svevo and my wonderful cousin Noah and I went to a nearby bakery. It was my one Excursion out of the house, and I put on clothes and everything.
The bakery was very full and we had to sit at the bar area, which sits up right against a mirror, so you are looking right at yourself from only a few inches away.
I have been sick and not sleeping and being a Mighty Mighty Snot Machine, so whatever, grain of salt here, but I looked like death warmed over. And never in my entire life have I more wanted to transform my appearance to reflect my true glow.
What came into my head at the time was that all my wonderful edges have somehow gotten lost, as if I have settled for Boring Safe Pretty instead of allowing the chaotic mystery of me to be visible in my appearance. I wanted my edginess back.
But what I’m realizing now is that I want horse-essence: that kind of sleek, powerful, big presence that is beautiful because it is so very alive, so very there.
That slightly dangerous “don’t fuck with me” grace, that ease of movement, that ability to rear up in the moonlight and be intensely unpredictably alive. I want that.
And I want that in how I look, and I want that in my bedroom, and I want that in my dance, and I want that in my wishes.
There. That’s my wish.
It was here all along and I didn’t know it.
May it be so.
Anything else about this?
I love how surprised I am that wise-me was right, and that following my instinct on this post was right, when of course she was and of course it is.
Invitation.
You are invited to share many !!!!!! about my wishes and realizations here, to share anything sparked for you while reading, to say “oh wow, what beautiful wishes” to me and to each other, to wish your own wishes.
I will also take all forms of EXCITEMENT and GLADNESS for this particular wish, and also clues if you have any, or good wishes if you don’t!
Now.
I have a piece of embroidery that my mother made. I took it when her sister and I were going through her things after she died. My aunt kept trying to get me to take more things to remember her by, and I didn’t want anything except for this.
My mother would be delighted that I wanted it, and also she would kill me if she knew that I framed it. She would say that it’s a practice piece and not any good, and that if I want a framed piece, I should take this other one instead which is better, etc. I don’t care.
I love it.
It is gold and red and orange thread on a dark blue cloth background, and it is a very self-contained shape that is somehow mandala and sun and compass and labyrinth all at the same time.
It is minimal and it is luscious, and it feels protective and special, and I chose well.
The superpower of Fearless Intentional Choosing.
August was TRUST MORE, with the superpower of Wildly Confident, Wonderfully Tranquil.
Now I am ready to Stand In My Strength more, and September comes in with the marvelous superpower of Fearless Intentional Choosing.
And this is what I did all week as I cherished some things through releasing them, and cherished other things through keeping them and appreciating them.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week aka Luscious Minimalism…
I am getting better at trusting that my wishes go so much deeper than I could ever imagine, that they are glowing seeds of light.
My wish was about sanctuary and about glowing, and about choosing what gets to be in my environment, in all meanings of that. I feel deeply, intensely grateful right now for this wish.
Thank you, process of writing about wishes. Thank you, me who asked.
Keep me company! Or just say hi!
You can deposit wishes, gwishes, personal ads, superpowers, qualities, seeds, secret agent code, whatever you’d like, there’s no right way! Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is sharing anything sparked for you.
Comment culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We are on vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play and throw things in the pot! With amnesty. Leave a wish any time you want.
Here’s how we meet each other’s wishes: Oh, wow. What beautiful wishes.
xox

