Roses all around.

Music stirring, scent wafting, a perfect rainbow slicing through the fountain.

Sweet captivating magic in the air.

Flash Waltz.

It works a bit like a flash mob, but without anything planned or practiced in advance.

The instructions were to show up in the Victorian rose garden: dancers and musicians. The musicians were given the name of a book of waltzes they’d be playing from. That was it. You just show up.

We made our way down the narrow garden paths, surrounded by roses, gathering under the meeting point of four trees.

Eighteen musicians and maybe twenty five dancers.

Magic.

They began playing waltzes.

We began dancing.

No gender rules about who leads and who follows, you just ask for the role you want. Sometimes lead-follow switch in the middle of a dance.

This isn’t fancy ballroom waltz with ramrod posture and flair. This is social waltz, peasant waltz, cross-step revival waltz, the kind people do for the sheer joy of life and aliveness.

There is always a certain magical something that happens when creative play engages. That shiver-moment of shared connection.

It expands.

People felt this and flocked towards us, not in the flash mob way of “hey this weird cool thing is happening” but because it had a pull of meaning. A pull of life.

Life is happening here!

Little kids joined in, because kids all know how to dance even though they don’t, because they do. Some of the waltzers danced with the children too, and showed them how to feel it: one-two-three da-da-da, and we were all in the slow, sweet rhythm of the music.

Full contact laughter.

There was so much laughter, because laughter and magic and joy go together.

The kids were giggling happily, and then so were their parents and the dancers and the onlookers. Not the laugh of hahaha what is happening this is nuts. No, the laugh of oh how beautiful it is to be here in this moment.

I was dancing with a woman whose name I can’t remember, one of the musicians, and next to us was Jorge dancing with someone visiting from North Carolina; he pulled us into their pairing and walked us through an unfamiliar round folk dance that involved lots of turns and bowing.

A melody or two later, Scott and I collided with another pair, which is easy to do on these narrow intersecting paths, where there’s no Line Of Dance the way there is in a ballroom.

He apologized, and the barefoot woman who was probably in her mid-sixties shouted back, “NO WORRIES! Waltz is a full contact sport!”

And we all laughed and laughed and laughed, because it is. And also because that is the most ridiculous thing to say. Ridiculous and improbable and true.

Fountain.

The musicians played for an hour (including an original waltz that one of them had composed!), and then they did a reprise of the first waltz, and then they played Goodnight Irene, which everyone sang as they danced.

It was one of those Moments where you just feel connected. To community, to joyful creative self-expression, to love.

When it was over and we all wandered away, I played and splashed in the fountain, feeling peaceful and happy and abundant in all things. A fountaining-over of joy.

True.

I read this story. The story-teller befriends a couple getting married, by mistake, and it gets increasingly weird and beautiful.

I hope it is true. It fills me with delight.

There is a thing my father says, I can’t remember what it is from: “Not only is this story true, but it also happened.”

Yes.

Joyful activism.

Steve Lambert, a wonderful art-activist and thoughtful human, did this project in 2007.

Here’s what he said about it.

“When I do stuff I arguably ‘shouldn’t’ be doing, I prefer to do it in the light of day. If I get caught, I don’t want to run or hide. I want to say, ‘Hi! Oh this? Yeah, I did this.’ For example, if you wanted to paint over a financially predatory billboard, it’s just a whole lot easier if you do it at noon with a ladder and write “Will You Marry Me?” In fact, everyone loves it. Neighbors come by and get excited. They cheer you on. That’s how I like to work.”

There is so much I could say about this, but for now just this:

Activism and advocacy and bringing our light (and our self-fluency) out into the world in order to make a difference, these are things that can be really challenging in so many different ways, and I like remembering that they can also be joyfully defiant, playfully noncompliant.

So here’s to sparkly dissent, and all the magic (and power) in Unlikely Combinations.

Mighty.

Yesterday Richard and I were walking through the park on the way to a secret op, and there was a summer camp group of kids who looked to be about eight years old, on a field trip with backpacks.

They were marching in a line, chanting at the top of their lungs, with POWER:

Everywhere we go! People want to know!
Who we are! So we tell them!
We! Are! The Mighty Mighty Nature Crew!

We Are The Mighty Mighty Nature Crew!
WE ARE THE MIGHTY MIGHTY NATURE CREW!
And we’re going to win at camp! BECAUSE WE’RE AWESOME!

And this repeated.

Such delight.

Joy for mighty things.

Every single person walking in the park was smiling from ear to ear, partly because it was so adorable, and partly because, while tiny and sweet, they did seem mighty.

They were so loud, and so impassioned about being the Mighty Mighty Nature Crew

And even though no one had any idea what a nature crew is, or what they do, we were all thoroughly convinced of their mightiness.

I want to walk around with my crew of selves, all yelling WE ARE THE MIGHTY MIGHTY HAVI CREW!

With Wise Me at the front of course, and then all my selves. Writer Me and Dancer Me. Scared me and Tender Me. Some of my selves might need to be carried by stronger selves, on processional thrones or elegant litter vehicles with hidden compartments, and some might be resting in their safe rooms, but we are all marching in spirit.

WE ARE THE MIGHTY MIGHTY HAVI CREW! WE ARE THE MIGHTY MIGHTY WHOLENESS CREW! WE ARE THE MIGHTY MIGHTY TRUST MORE CREW! WE ARE THE MIGHTY MIGHTY RELEASING CREW!

Enthusiastic.

I feel Enthusiastic about small life-affirming connection moments between people.

I feel Enthusiastic about rejoicing in other people’s expressions of what they feel moved to express.

I feel Enthusiastic about magic and about truth.

And also I feel Enthusiastic about feeling Enthusiastic!

So I am convening an Enthusiastic in this post and in the comments so that we may enthuse here together! Yay!

Come enthuse with me!

You are invited to enthuse in any way you like.

It can be Calmly Enthusiastic, Quietly Enthusiastic. Wildly and Ecstatically Enthusiastic. Sweetly Enthusiastic. Powerful Steady Grounded Enthusiasm. Dragonly Enthusiasm. Mighty Mighty Nature Crew Enthusiasm.

Choose your flavor or flavors, they are all welcome. Including the most unlikely combinations.

Mainly, the invitation is this:

I am feeling joyful about surprise moments of human connection and shared joyfulness, about smiles with strangers that don’t have to mean anything other than delight in shared aliveness, about powerful self-expression, about conscious interaction and presence, about moments.

And I want to share this and bubble enthusiasm together!

And maybe collect some more moments, some more true stories that also may have happened.

You can add your own. You can just delight with me about how special it is that we are human and we can connect and feel and know. You can say yay and huzzah! You can share anything that sparked for you.

And even in those (very legitimate) moments when we get disconnected from ourselves and from aliveness, we can take a breath or eight breaths and slowly remember. There is beauty in the world. There are growing beings who feel their mightiness and haven’t forgotten yet. There are real changes that we can make here.

A big glowing of love from my thank-you heart for everyone who reads,
Havi

It is Friday and we are here.

{a breath for being here when we get here.}

Thank you, week.

This is the 368th week in a row that we are chickening here together.

What worked this week?

Following Elgin’s rule.

I really wanted to go to a lecture on a subject that fascinates me.

Except I also didn’t, because sitting for two hours is unappealing (understatement!), and I never enjoy the awkward energy dynamic of being talked at in an auditorium — a friend of mine used to call this the Blanketing Effect, and that’s pretty much how it feels for me. And really, I wanted to be doing the thing the lecture was about instead of contemplating it.

But also I was having such intense joy sparks about the topic, and feeling a pull to go and be around people who also feel this, and hoping this excitement combined with Useful Intel from the lecture would launch me into the doing.

I was heading towards a compromise of going for half, or staying until I received a useful insight, and then taking that spark home to figure out my next step.

Then I remembered what Suzette Elgin says about lectures, that they should never go over twenty minutes. And my body felt this deep sigh of YES.

It was a beautiful moment of relief and full-body releasing (which is funny, because the latter was also basically the topic of the lecture) at having that simple truth acknowledged: my body doesn’t want to sit for more than twenty minutes.

So, Elgin’s rule of thumb ended up being a good parallel to my PROTOCOL of “when in doubt, apply urgent self-care”, and I didn’t have the protocol in mind because I wasn’t reading this situation as a moment of doubt. But then my body felt so relieved and happy when I said no to sitting.

Next time I might…

Do the most grounding thing I can think of.

Yesterday morning my lover texted me and asked how I’m doing, and I said I didn’t know.

He asked if that meant I’m in my head and not grounded, if I’m going to do any body stuff to help. Because he knows this very basic thing about me that I know too, but I forget.

Getting on the floor, breathing, stretching, naming things as a way to counter loss, touching in: I am here.

And the title of my upcoming Biopic if it were based on this week…

Everything Changes. The Havi Brooks Story.

Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.

1. There is a sign in my kitchen. It says All Things Change. Sometimes I find this enormously reassuring, and sometimes I find it downright terrifying. This was a week of really living the truth of this sentence, in all the beauty of it but also the pain of it, and oh it hurt in my heart. A breath for All Things Change.
2. I received a piece of news on Monday that I couldn’t possibly have anticipated, and this means Operation Bolthole (the main focus of my life for the past several months) can’t actually happen after all. I need to regroup and reconfigure while the foundation crumbles, find my new foundation. And I need an alternative escape plan, and soon. A breath for the thoroughly unexpected, and for trust. May the treasure in this reveal itself soon.
3. On the same day, I received more news, foundational news, in a similar vein, except from my lover. Two pieces of news, actually. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the foundation was crumbling, then to have the rug pulled out from under me, twice in a row, immediately after. It wasn’t intentional. My lover is kind, thoughtful, endlessly sweet and loving. And that didn’t change the fact that I was blindsided, shellshocked, completely taken apart. Not even so much by the news itself or the possible changes, but by the fact that I wasn’t included in them. A breath for things that fall apart, and the unexpected ways they fall apart, and for sobbing in my lover’s arms. May I find my way back to my yes.
4. I went to a new hip hop class because I had to give my brain and body something to do other than react to all these changes. It was a million degrees (approximately), and the studio was hot and tiny and cramped, the electric fans so loud that I couldn’t hear the instructions. Eventually I just sat down. Waiting for the bus home, I felt disjointed and disoriented, as if I could pass out at any moment. It felt so familiar, this awful sensation of uprooted, ungrounded, exhausted and unprotected, and I remembered that once upon a time this used to be my baseline. A breath for me, and for these moments.
5. All my projects and secret ops stalled this week, what with the various crumblings. I didn’t dance and I didn’t write. I’m not even entirely sure what happened this week. I think it involved a lot of staring into space, completely bewildered. And yet I’m pretty sure that this was the best thing for me, the best way to take care of myself, and not get overloaded. A breath for deep trust in All Timing Is Right Timing, here in the month of Trust, in the year of Easing & Releasing.
6. [Silent Retreat] A breath for compassionate witnessing of all the things that have not found their way into words yet.
7. Okay, and maybe another breath for that.
8. 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.

1. My lover returned after being deep in the mountains with no cell service for a week. Sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness. And joy. I fell asleep in his arms and woke up in his arms, and we were in this breathtakingly beautiful state of intense, vulnerable, fully embodied animal-spiritual aliveness and connection, and I cried because I was overcome with the depth of this. What a healing thing it is to cry with someone who can handle it. That isn’t the right word. Handle implies reacting in some way or making an adjustment. He doesn’t handle. He just is. He didn’t say ohmygod-what’s-wrong-are-you-okay. He didn’t even send that as energy. He just held me the tiniest bit tighter, and exuded that calm, gentle, steady presence, accepting me in my small storm of emotion, not needing anything from me. I was able to just release because I didn’t need to do anything, reassure or explain. It was so special, to sink in this moment, as if we were each giving each other a gift by the act of not giving anything. I cried until I was done, and then he kissed my cheek and smiled, and it was so easy to have just fallen apart, and so easy to be fine. I want my whole life to hold the qualities of THIS. A breath for remembering this always.
2. Two days later, when I was floored by his first piece of news and completely in shock, not able to remember that Now Is Not Then, he came over to comfort me. We cried and slept and cried some more, and it was hard, and yet, it is such treasure, it really is, to have someone with whom I can be that terrifyingly vulnerable and open. And it is treasure for me to experience/remember that I also know how to be the steady rock, the glowing jewel of sanctuary, when someone I love is going through their own storms. I was able to Not Make Shit About Me, and to be present and loving with someone who needed me. A breath for all forms of love and sweetness and steadiness in hard times.
3. The next night, when I lost my ground again, he came and made me tea and tucked me into bed and kissed me better. A breath for this.
4. Oh, I have so many allies and resources I have for getting my ground/foundation back or figuring out a new one. My wise hypnotist. Wally, who does feldenkrais magic with my body and is helping me train to be a panther. The self-fluency tools I have, and the techniques I’ve developed and practiced over the past ten years. My wonderful housemate. My friends. This community, and knowing that you are here, reading, and no matter what my week is like, I can come here and share it with you. A breath of thank you.
5. I was met by so much kindness this week. And I was able to access a deep well of [self-mothering nurturing] that I didn’t know existed for me. And, semi-related to this: I discovered that something I always thought I would hate is actually something I’d be really good at. That doesn’t mean it’s my yes, but it is interesting to have gravitated to a new position. A breath for newness.
6. Taking lovely care of my body, and listening to it, honoring its needs and desires, even when that meant a lot of just being on the floor and crying. A breath for how wildly subversive it can be just to care for ourselves.
7. You know what. I am handling this SO MUCH better than I have all the other big upheavals in my life, thank you past few years of One Barn Burning After Another. I am so much better at weathering storms now, at trusting my instincts, at knowing that there is treasure in everything, and at letting things go. And I didn’t shut down and go into turtle mode, so: points for that. A breath for the completely transformative practice of acknowledgment, legitimacy and radical sweetness, with all the remarkable surprises it is bringing. A breath of gratitude.
8. Thankfulness. So much is good. My housemate makes the best nachos. I did TRE three times and it is helping. Everything is okay. Nothing is wrong, even when I think it is. Now is not then. All Timing Is Right Timing. Thankful 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!

Operation Proxy-Proxied was a success! Operation Banana-Shoe Chicken-Chicken was a success! Operation Trust Release Ease is going really well. Operations Alternative Shed and Calm Island are replacing the Bolthole op. Decisions were received. The anchor is weighed and the sails they are set. Calling this good, I now award myself a hundred billion sparklepoints. Wham Boom.

Superpowers I had this week…

I had the superpower of remembering the glowing jewel in my heart, and knowing that Sanctuary is in me and not outside of me. May I have this superpower always.

I also had the power of Crossing The Street.

Powers I want.

Same as last week, please: the superpowers of Beautifully Anchored, Deeply Trusting, and, of course, I am a Powerful Slinky Very Relaxed Panther

The Salve of Sanctuary Within.

Many years ago, Orna, my teacher in Tel Aviv, said something about how I will never feel at home anywhere until I feel at home in myself. She didn’t actually say it to me, or about me, but her words reverberated in me and it felt as if she were looking right at me, directly into my lost and battered heart.

The idea of feeling at home in myself was so completely foreign to me that I couldn’t even imagine what that could be like.

This salve resolves that, swiftly and gently, and it brings so much calm and sweet stillness. It has all the haven superpowers of comforting shelters, blanket forts, nooks, safe passage.

Come in, put down your rucksack, curl up in a corner with your favorite blanket. You’ve arrived. And it’s only going to get better.

This is a salve of Grounding, Ease, Sovereignty, Security, Glowing and Serenity.

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

This week’s band is from a useful typo in my wishes and it’s called Articles of Light. Their latest album is Your Favorite Climb. And it’s actually just one guy.

And the photo was taken 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 don’t give advice.

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!