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.
We are the mighty mighty nature crew! And other true stories.
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
Round House.
Personal ads. They’re … personal!
Here we are. Week 319 of wishing. Welcome. Let’s do this. ♡
Round House.
I want to live in a round house.
What’s a round house?
When I was nineteen, I was in Wisconsin, and a series of complicated coincidences and connections resulted in a certain lovely Sunday adventure: I ended up taking several elementary school kids on a field trip to a one room round house on a small farm outside of Madison.
A family lived in this house, I can’t remember if one kid or two. The father and I had friends in common in Israel.
They had built the house themselves. One round room. Divided up with curtains.
They sold produce from the farm at the local farmers market.
The house was beautiful, simple, welcoming, comforting, reassuring, playful, alive.
It felt like being in a completely magical space, filled with love.
How do I feel thinking about this?
Wistful. Happy. Full-heart.
What else do I remember about this?
On the way back, in the car, he gestured around us, at the cars heading into the city, and he said:
“We live in BOXES, we don’t even question it, we just go from box to box, in our cages.”
Anything else about this?
I remember thinking that I wanted to live this round house life, but also that I couldn’t live without privacy, that a curtain would never be enough.
But now I could live like this. I mean, I just spent four months on the road in a tiny camper, and it wasn’t even round.
Back then I didn’t know anyone I trusted enough to share space with like that. And anyway, I didn’t feel at home in myself, how could I feel at home in an open circle?
Asking again. What’s a round house?
I love rounded edges.
I love cozy spaces that have roundness.
Like this bus conversion, except a space that is for me, not for me and four kids.
Say more about roundness please….
The first time I walked into the space that was to become the Playground, my center, I saw the impossibly high coved ceilings, the smooth rounding from wall to ceiling, and my whole body said yes.
The Playground was rectangular, but it felt round.
What’s a round house?
When I was in my first yoga teacher training many years ago, we used to do these ridiculously long sessions, maybe four hours of practice including meditation. You’d just conk out at the end, completely empty.
One day I had a vision.
I was in a round room with eight windows that were actually doors to the outside.
There was a yoga mat facing each one. It was a practice space for me. Not a teaching space, not me and students. This was a space for just-me. So why eight mats.
I went closer and they weren’t mats, they were colorful painted rectangles on the floor. Like placeholders.
I did a sun salutation on each one, lazily circling the room like a compass.
Years later, in the playground, when I developed dances of rotating spirals, using all directions of the compass, combining these with sun salutations, this all started to make more sense.
What’s a round house?
When my hypnotist leads me to go deep inside of myself, deep into unexplored places, we begin at a [certain place] and from there a staircase, and from there a door, and from there a room, and from there: all the most marvelous internal adventures.
Entering the room is my favorite part, and it is always different but it is also always the same.
It is either round or heart-shaped, with french doors that open onto a small quiet enclosed garden.
A round house, just for me.
It is the cockpit of my mind, it is the sweet center of my heart, it is the secret sanctuary of deep woman-space, it is each cell in my body. Zoom in, zoom out. I am made of safe rooms, I am made of round houses.
What’s a round house?
My center was very successful and I opened a second, much larger one, and it Flailed Spectacularly and died, there was a two year period when all the barns burned….
We had giant round yoga mats there, like physical representations of force fields.
Richard painted them with the directions so that it was like sitting inside a compass. He attached little plastic sleeves so you could slip new qualities into each direction, surrounding yourself with qualities.
A circle isn’t really a home, but actually everything is a home for something.
What’s a round house?
Back in Wisconsin.
I just remembered that my friend Graham lived in a building called Round House apartments, at least, I think that was what it was called, it was a round tower.
It seems impossible to me now that I did not pick up on the very obvious double clue of that round house combined with my visit to the round house that spoke to me, but back then I was in far too much pain for clues to land.
Anyway, it was a round house and it was named Round House, and Graham and I watched Harold & Maude together, every Saturday afternoon. Our weekly ritual.
Coffee with Dave, followed by a walk, and then Harold & Maude, in the Round House.
Harold: Maude.
Maude: Hmm?
Harold: Do you pray?
Maude: Pray? No. I communicate.
Harold: With God?
Maude: With *life*.
What else about this?
Maude’s house was a Pullman railroad car!!!!!!
Maude’s house was full of round shapes and curves.
Maude’s house was not a place for children, though it was a place for childlike delight and full-body-joy.
Maude’s house was a place for her to rejoice in vital aliveness and be her most sparkling, effervescent, fully-present Maude-self.
Maude’s house is no more. Everything ends, right?
What’s a round house?
A roundhouse is a type of kick.
What’s a round house?
A roundhouse is where the trains turn around.
What do I know about round houses?
Well, when I was young, I wanted to grow up to be an interior designer.
Still do, except now the spaces I transform are very, very interior. Deep inside of me.
Or when it comes to external spaces, I fill them with qualities and beautiful things and clues, to support other people in figuring out their own internal spaces.
I had a favorite design book, and a favorite page: a round room with a round stone staircase.
What belongs in my round house?
One room. Bathtub. Toilet and sink behind a curtain.
A cozy window seat/writing nook. And a big bed, possibly in a loft.
A small open kitchenette.
Spaciousness.
Oh, and there is a labyrinth behind my round house, made of pebbles. I walk it each day and say thank you.
What is good about a round house?
It encompasses you. It is an actual compass all around you.
It is contained spaciousness and spacious containment.
It is sanctuary that is expansive.
It forces you to re-orient yourself.
What is challenging about a round house?
Well, exactly. You have to re-orient yourself.
What happens to me when I am in a round house?
I am filled with joy and vital aliveness. I am my full Havi-self.
What kind of round house is this round house?
I am not sure.
I have big joy sparks about earthships, yurts, geodesic domes.
Mandalas, kaleidoscopes, compasses.
And boats, of course.
Anything else about a round house?
I really like spaces where you can feel the shape of them.
Like Deb and Mark’s cottage. Or the one room cabin in northern Israel that was surrounded by a garden of lavender.
Or the Playground, which always felt like a boat to me.
My uncle Svevo’s cabin in the woods that he built and lived in for many years is also round.
Round feels very important to me right now.
Oh, and this is not round, but a spark about how a sukkah is a shelter, like a blanket fort, a safe container.
And a round house is another way to be inside of a Canopy of Peace.
What do I want to remember about this?
A round house feels vitally important as a clue and as a direction and as a desire.
I want to live inside of a compass, I want a force field around my force field, I want to be inside of an intentional shape, I want the that holy holiness feeling, like being inside of the sound of om.
That all sounds very intense and kind of nuts but that is how I am feeling about Round House right now.
I am softening into roundness, and this is good.
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 changed the polish color on my toenails because DRASTIC was starting to feel a little “be careful what you wish for”, what with all the upheaval and crumbling foundations.
This new color is Ocean Treasure, it is green-blue and sparkles and is completely unlike something I would choose, and every time I look down at my feet I feel this frisson, and think WHOA THESE FEET BELONG TO ME, which is kind of perfect.
What does Slightly Future Me have to say?
Ze: Isn’t it marvelous that Operation Bolthole suddenly fell through? And so thoroughly that it was almost suspicious? You were directing all that effort into creating a space for you that isn’t what you actually want. The space you want is round.
Me: Hmmmmm. It’s a lot of upheaval, but I guess you’re right. It would feel pretty frustrating to build a space only to realize it isn’t my true yes. But isn’t this all very chaotic and impossible?
Ze: Stay with your desires, and let them show you what they want to show you. All will be revealed. Now you know what your yes is, and you can feel how it is different from a sort-of yes. This is important. And whether you find your way to an actual round house or create one for you in your heart for now, at least you know.
Clues.
Whoa. I looked up the origin of yurts as a name, and read that it is related to homeland.
HOME LAND.
Home + Land.
Landing in a home.
This all feels important right now.
As does the phrase living lightly on the land.
The superpower of Wildly Confident, Wonderfully Tranquil.
June was RELEASE MORE, with the superpower of I am stronger than I think, and July was LOVE MORE, because this is a badass way to live.
Now we are in TRUST MORE, with the superpower of Wildly Confident, Wonderfully Tranquil.
I had half-written wishes again this week, and again, for reasons unknown to me, I didn’t want to publish them, and then the Round House came to me, so I am trusting that.
So here is another opportunity to Trust More (there certainly doesn’t seem to be a shortage of these, thank you abundance and plenty?), and I am going to let this be a fractal flower for a bunch of other situations.
Things I find helpful for intentions and wishes…
Adventure. Rest. Horizons. Security. Passion. Sweetness. Clarity. Presence.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week aka A new foundation..
Can we just have a good belly laugh about this?
Guess what I stumbled upon while flipping through a book looking for something else?
“Your life is a house. Abundance is the roof. The foundation that holds it all up is daily practice.”
And daily practice had been the wish I’d been writing but wasn’t ready to publish, and then this wish about a round home showed up.
So I have my new foundation. And I have my new home, at least in wish form. And now I am going to let the edges of everything round and just see what happens.
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
The Chicken of All Things Change
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- [Silent Retreat] A breath for compassionate witnessing of all the things that have not found their way into words yet.
- Okay, and maybe another breath for that.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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!
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. ❦
Week 318 of Wishing: a new foundation
Personal ads. They’re … personal!
♡
Asking.
The past twenty four hours have been — for me — tumultuous, messy and full of upheaval, both internal and external.
I am feeling fragile, vulnerable, raw, unsure.
So, I am scrapping the post I’d been writing, and coming back to the grounding ritual (yes, it is a ritual that is grounding, and also a grounding-ritual) of coming here to find out what I want.
I need something more stable, more contained than free-form exploring, so I am just going to ask and keep asking the following questions:
- What do I want?
- What do I know about what I want?
Ask and keep asking. Here we go.
What do I want.
A new foundation.
What do I know about a new foundation?
I love double-meanings, and foundation is full of possible meanings.
A new foundation could be the literal foundation to a building, to a particular building I know of whose foundation is crumbling.
A new foundation could be metaphorical/symbolic grounding for me, a new way of being deeply connected and beautifully anchored.
A new foundation could be about being luminous. I don’t wear foundation, and I hardly ever wear makeup at all, but something about glowing, about a protective layer of light, yes, this speaks to me.
A new foundation could be an organization. Maybe it’s my new cover story: I oversee a foundation, yes.
A new foundation is kind of the best way to describe the work I’m currently doing with my hypnotist, healing backwards, both horizontally and vertically, through time and space. Destruction and Uncreation. Retroactive rebuilding. Replacing my foundation of trauma with a fountain of light.
Maybe my new foundation is being able to dance in particles of light, letting the ground reconfigure beneath me, who cares, I am always grounded in light.
What do I want.
Relief.
What do I know about relief?
Yesterday I went to a place that I no longer visit, and while I was there, a spider bit me on the inside of the wrist, exactly in the place where my lover kisses me.
The bite is huge, swollen, distracting, uncomfortable.
Relief is whatever is the most soothing, the most comforting, the most predictable in the sense of steady and reassuring.
I want relief in the form of loving and tender words whispered in my ear, spells cast in the form of beloved fingers writing words down my back.
I want relief in the form of healing. I want a sweet subsiding.
Relief can also mean financial relief. Relief can also mean someone taking over your duties so that you can rest. Relief is that wonderful exhale when you realize (or, sometimes: remember) that you are okay, that the people you love are okay.
There is relief in sculpture, the way something projects out from the flat surface, and there is relief in baseball when a new pitcher — the reliever — comes in. A reliever. I’ll take one of those please.
What do I want.
Home base.
What do I know about home base?
It’s part of my new foundation.
What do I want.
Clear-eyed trust.
What do I know about clear-eyed trust?
Let’s remember, my love, let’s remember:
Whenever we find something that looks like a pattern but it makes us feel bad, that’s a story we are creating (with the help of Scared Tiny Havi and maybe some monsters) about the intel at hand, and not the actual useful patterns.
Let’s look at the information without needing it to form a narrative about how I always get hurt.
What do I want.
New foundations made of light.
What do I know about new foundations made of light?
New foundations are made of light, because the earth ones just crumble away anyway, and light can take any form we want it to.
What do I want.
To take exquisite care of myself right now.
And always. But mainly right now.
What do I know about taking exquisite care of myself right now?
In grief as it is in grief:
Intense loving self-care. Asking for what is needed. Letting yourself be cared for. Letting other people figure out the details. Getting close to the floor.
Being the best possible mother to me. Being the best possible mother to tiny me. New foundations of that.
Crying as much as is needed. Naming things. Being grounded.
Coming back to this moment. Letting go of more in each exhale: knowing that exhaling is treasure. Taking in more light and love in the inhale, because each inhalation is treasure.
And: one fucking step at a time. That’s how trust works, right?
Though sometimes it also works in leaps and bounds, soaring like a trapeze artist, landing like a panther, all grace.
What do I want.
New forms of grounded. New forms of flying.
New ways to be tree and bird.
What do I know about new forms of grounded and flying?
When I was young, I used to have dreams about being kidnapped.
Young: as far back as I can remember, all the way until I left home.
In the dream, he was driving down my street, and I hid in my house, but then my mother, or, later on, my grandmother when she was living with us, invited him in.
I wasn’t able to explain that this person was dangerous, or maybe they refused to believe me.
I would duck out the back door, but he would find me, and I would run, but I couldn’t run fast enough, and then, sometimes, my legs would begin to bound, my feet would take off, brushing the ground and, with a few bumpy starts, I was flying above him and he couldn’t get me.
Sometimes he would still follow me, but I got good at flying higher and faster, at hiding until he gave up.
What would it be like to fly not out of fear but with joy, the way a trapeze artist flies.
What would it be like to fly the way my secret panther moves, each movement emerging from powerful embodied grace, the desire to move (not the desire to escape) is what sets me free.
What do I want.
A secret bolthole: a place just for me, a sanctuary.
What do I know about a place just for me?
It is small, compact, glowing, beautiful. Luscious Minimalism.
It is like a very miniature version of the Playground, the center I [verb-ed] in Portland for nearly five years.
Cozy, sweet, quiet, possibly disguised. Like a safe room, come to life. A parallel world version of the one that lives in my mind.
I can come and go as often as I like, and it waits for me, with love.
This is where I seed new foundations, where I practice walking through holograms of light.
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.
Now.
You know how, when everything gets turned upside down, none of the normal bits of life make sense?
Somehow it’s evening now, even though my body is telling me it’s early afternoon. And the thermometer says 90 degrees outside, but the house isn’t acting like that is true.
Everywhere I look in my living room, I suddenly see the color red where I didn’t notice it before.
What does Slightly Future Me have to say?
Ze: Remember the dream where you and Bella were riding carousel horses around the world, and the poles went all the way to the center of the earth, but you could go so fast because they were so stable?
Me: That was a good dream. I didn’t know her name was Bella then. So you’re saying that is an example of a new foundation?
Ze: I’m saying you have good allies, and that there are lots of cool forms that stability can take.
Me: How come I’m so good at being grounded and present for someone I love when they’re in crisis, or for me, when I’m in crisis, but then I lose my grounding so easily just walking down the street.
Ze: Because you’re hyper-aware of people who have erratic or possibly predatory energy, and because you’re still learning how to use your superpowers. Let’s practice remembering what grounded and present feels like.
Clues.
My dance teacher described a step as “digging a trench, but sexy”.
The superpower of Wildly Confident, Wonderfully Tranquil.
June was RELEASE MORE, with the superpower of I am stronger than I think, and July was LOVE MORE, because this is a badass way to live.
Now we are in TRUST MORE, with the superpower of Wildly Confident, Wonderfully Tranquil.
I guess that’s the best possible month for everything falling apart, foundations crumbling, learning about new ones. Trust more, and then trust even more.
I am ready to learn to trust the ground, or at least to trust in my ability to walk on tightly-packed particles of light.
Things I find helpful for intentions and wishes…
Adventure. Rest. Horizons. Security. Passion. Sweetness. Clarity. Presence.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
So. Last week aka Trust Returns..
Trust did in fact return to me in the form of the beautiful boy, who came back from the mountains and into my arms. And in the form of going all the way back to the beginning in my dance studies and starting over. And listening to my body.
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
The 367th Chicken: off the rocker
It is Friday Saturday and we are here.
The Chicken was all ready to go yesterday afternoon, but the collective of tiny squirrels who run the blogging software decided to keep giving me an error message so I couldn’t log in.
So I took that as an invitation to take the day off, and now we are here! Also, happy 150th day of Shmita to me!
{a breath for this space, and for being here when we get here.}
What worked this week?
Intentional naps.
We used to do this at Rally. You get stuck on something, so you ask incoming-you to reveal a clue while you sleep, or go eat pie.
And then you take a break — an INTENTIONAL BREAK, so that the monsters don’t throw a fit about how this is selfish and indulgent and a waste of time. You remind them that this is a technique, and an experiment, and, for scientific purposes, this will only work if they aren’t messing with it.
The subconscious/unconscious delivers. Or possibly the nap fairies.
I did this a lot this week: told myself that I was going to do something restful, asked to have some new information on the other side.
It might have even worked too much? Seriously, I had who is Keyser Soze levels of understandings and insights this week, to the point that I was getting whiplash from the speed of my epiphanies. But it worked.
Next time I might…
Remember my job title.
I have trouble with decisions whenever I forget these two pieces of truth:
- I know more about what I want than anyone else knows about that topic!
- I am allowed to want what I want! I might not get what I want, but I’m allowed to want it, and to know what I want and not hide that information from myself in an attempt to keep me safe from criticism.
So. From now on, I plan to just walk around thinking about how I am the top researcher in the world in the field of Havi Studies.
Indeed! And therefore I am an EXPERT at Decision-Receiving* because I have invested so many years of training, study, and research. I know better than anyone what Current Havi might want and need.
And the title of my upcoming Biopic if it were based on this week…
You know what? Maybe later. The Havi Brooks Story.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- I have been experimenting with a practice I call Wanting Without Why, which is allowing myself to want something without needing to list the reasons. It is SO HARD. I’m constantly aware of how desperately I want to explain and defend myself! This is a good exercise for the month of Trust More, and it is showing me all my patterns. A breath for easing and releasing, the theme of this year.
- My lover is backpacking in the Sierras for ten days, out of cell range. I haven’t heard from him since Saturday. I miss him terribly. I know he’s okay because I can feel him thinking of me, like a warm flush of heart-glow, but that’s not the same as words. I like words. I was hanging in there with just the warm-glow communication until yesterday evening, and that is when I got to experience entirely new sliding-off-the-rocker levels of missing. A breath for Trust More. Thanks, last-year-me for (literally!) putting that on the calendar.
- Still working on figuring out how to protect, love and tend to my unique pace of learning, and this is not easy stuff. A breath for patience, tenderness, for getting used to being someone who advocates for themselves as a matter of course.
- My body has developed an allergy to trapeze. Not to being on it (or trying to get up on it), but to getting enough sleep to go to class. It just goes on strike the night before. So that’s interesting and useful, and I’m respecting my body and not going, but the allergy part is not fun and the exhaustion is not fun. I don’t feel scared of the class. The instructor is lovely, the pace is good, I feel comfortable just going to part of the class, and advocating for myself as I need, and leaving early. But my body is not having it, and comes up with some sort of crisis that just so happens to be a few hours before the class starts so that I can’t go. Which is fine. Body knows best, body comes first. I am okay with not pushing, I am okay with not going, I am okay with back to bed. But this allergy is exhausting. Come on, babe. Let’s just say what we want without going through this rigamarole. A breath of sweet permission and endless healing.
- Speaking of my trapeze allergy, everyone I talk to about this says something like “oh, well, it’s okay to be scared”, and it is so unbelievably frustrating and I want to punch them. I know I am scared of pretty much everything, but really and truly I’m not scared of this class. This is not trapeze like “she flies through the air with the greatest of ease” or whatever people might be picturing. It’s just a sturdy, round hoop that’s five feet off the ground, with giant mats underneath. It might theoretically be scary if you forget how to get down? I wouldn’t know though, since I can’t pull myself up yet. And, anyway, they also have a practice hoop that is barely off the ground. Fear is not the issue here. And I don’t need to be given permission to be afraid. I give that to myself, all the time, for everything in life. A breath for the part of me who hates perceiving that she is misunderstood, and a breath for getting back to my yes.
- Speaking of exhaustion, my trip to Seattle on Saturday took much longer than anticipated, and I didn’t get back until 3:30am. My body can’t handle stuff like that anymore, and it didn’t like being in a car for eight hours, even if that was broken up by many hours of movement. A breath for me, and for learning this new way of taking care of myself and advocating for myself.
- I have had this idea in my head for the past nearly two years that if I “just took the time” to actually work on dance drills, I’d be able to get certain movements and concepts into my body and see/feel actual progress. Nope. This week I had both the time, energy and commitment to put two hours a day into re-learning the most basic movements, and nothing. I mean, nothing. I’ve been really invested in the fantasy that all I need to do is carve out a few hours here and there, and the slow motion montage will take care of itself. Turns out we are dealing with a much bigger learning curve than I had understood or been able to anticipate, and not feeling ANY change was incredibly frustrating. Oh well. A breath for wax on and wax off, and, yet again, trusting the process.
- 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.
- I am better at taking care of myself and advocating for myself now than I have ever been in my life. A breath for all the healing that is happening, and the superpowers of permission, attentiveness and going back to bed.
- Last week I mentioned the PROTOCOL — when I can’t get a sense of what I want (and when I pretend to myself that I don’t know, but I feel really vague and I can’t feel my feet), I remember that I’m probably disassociating, or there’s some reason I don’t want to let myself know what I want. Anyway, the protocol in that situation is Apply Emergency Extreme Self-Care Immediately and do something really calming for my body. I usually save the protocol for emergencies, but this week I just applied it to everything. I mean, if that’s not Shmita-mindset, what is? A breath for the completely radical practice of sweetness, with all the beautiful surprises it is bringing.
- Given the circumstances (extreme exhaustion, lover has disappeared, perceived failings, monsters everywhere), you’d think I’d be pellet-pushing (twitter, facebook, instagram) or other forms of modern self-medicating, or following whatever old, familiar not-necessarily-healthy pathways. I’ve been staying offline. I’ve been breathing and walking and checking in with small, scared me. A breath of gratitude.
- I was able to access entirely new levels of Kindness this week, both inwardly and outwardly directed. A breath for how beautiful and sweet this is.
- I followed my instinct and the joy spark trails, and went to TRE (thank you, Leocadia) and Feldenkrais, and took care of my body in a variety of ways, and skipped trapeze again, and made time for dance drills, and had three hour naps and gave myself good food. A breath for all of this.
- The semi-secret Bell of Belltown Op in Seattle was full of inspiration and small miracles, and I got to know a dance acquaintance much better than before, and it turns out that she is a bright, kind, interesting, thoughtful person, so now I have a new dance friend. A breath for treasure.
- I am having a much easier time than usual being an ally and fairy godmother to myself — to current me and to all the versions of Tiny Me and Past Me, and to plant clues and gifts for Incoming Me, and all of this feels so good, and so important. A breath of appreciation for all parts and aspects of this awesome commune of wildly eccentric, sensitive, interesting people who are all me, I’m so glad we all get to play together, and so thankful I live in a time and culture where this is a thing I can talk about, albeit mostly only here.
- Thankfulness. So much is good. Scrambled eggs and avocado. Frozen almonds dipped in Mayan cocoa. Cool breezes. Month of trust. Clues everywhere. 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!
The Seattle op happened. Laundry happened. A hundred tiny little pieces moved in seemingly insignificant ways but it happened. Received two big (and very clear) decisions on things that had been weighing on me. Calling this a successful mission, and I now award myself a hundred billion sparklepoints. Wham Boom.
Superpowers I had this week…
I had the superpower of going back in time and changing memories. I also had, briefly, the superpower of Deep Deep Deep Trust That All Is Well.
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 Beautifully Anchored.
The primary dance I do, west coast swing, is a luscious, creative, playful, improvisational, deliciously gooey dance, and it is very much about anchoring.
My partner me sends me in a direction and I set off in that direction until they stop me, and then I anchor, keeping my energy headed in the original direction, like a boat drifting with the water after the anchor has been set, until I am sent in a new direction. Trusting the process, alive and powerful, delighting in what happens along the way.
This is not about obedience. This is about Agency and Play, within the container or game of “here is the direction of the wind in your sails”.
This salve does the thing that happens in this dance, but to your entire life. You put a dab on your skin (or as much as you want), and then it just happens.
You happily follow a trail, a thread, a scent, a clue, a wish, a desire, a good feeling of YES. You project your energy in this direction until you get redirected by life/source, and instead of an abrupt stop of Uh Oh Something Is Wrong, you just easily and calmly feel into the familiar direction, and then slowly drift your way into this new direction, taking your beautiful sexy time, moving with your breath, shifting course in the most steady and natural way.
This is a salve of Grounding, Magic, Flow, Passion, Creativity, Joy and Safe Passage.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band is from Nomi and it’s called Vicarious Trapeze. Their latest album is Quintessentially Upside Down. 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!
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.
- Fluent Self Care Packages! Each one is completely unique, a work of art and magic.
ADVENTURE is for someone who wants to embark on something new or needs a new approach.EVERYTHING IS OKAY if you need extra steadiness while working through hard things.MYSTERY: wonderful, mysterious and full of clues.AndTRUST is impossible to describe. It is also a giant box and costs a bit more.Included: either the Monster Manual & Coloring Book (basic version) or the Art of Embarking course, your choice. Price: $77 for Care Package and ebook/course. $88 for the TRUST package/course. I’ll cover shipping in the continental United States, otherwise ask the First Mate for an estimate. Either way, email the First Mate and tell him which one you want! These go fast. - 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. ❦