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.
Wish 316: unlikely combinations
Personal ads. They’re … personal!
♡
This week I am deep in the kaleidoscope of wishes.
With each slight movement of the kaleidoscope, the images and qualities reconfigure. Each variation is intimately connected to the one which preceded it, but also completely new and fully itself.
I want to give myself a container of spaciousness (this is not a contradiction) in which to leisurely observe all I am currently thinking about, without needing to document the connections, just trusting the interrelatedness of it all. Trusting the deep roots of the fractal flowers.
Or maybe I will just follow one thought and see where it goes…
A container of spaciousness.
I spent ninety minutes floating in a sensory deprivation tank the other day, because I am THE BRAVEST PERSON ON EARTH, but mainly because while searching for something else entirely, I happened upon a place that fits and even celebrates the way I am — which, interestingly enough, is exactly last week’s wish.
Suddenly I found myself in this marvelous, sweet, claustrophobe-friendly, permission-filled environment, a place that just glowed acceptance for people like me who feel UNDERSTANDABLY AND LEGITIMATELY hesitant about floating.
For one thing, they don’t need you to be the kind of person who is just ready to go straight into a dark silent tank of water, which frankly sounds kind of terrifying.
People who float always say it is so restful, and I nod, because the combination of deep quiet and weightlessness does sound kind of peaceful…
Except I’m ALSO thinking: Yeah I’m sure being trapped in some horrible coffin-womb while simultaneously feeling lost in outer space is extremely relaxing, how nice for you to be such a fearless person who can just hurl themselves into the abyss for fun, that is not me.
Safety First.
This place felt like it had been designed for someone like me, someone who already has enough trauma from [hard things] in life, and doesn’t need to ever experience anything terrifying again.
Anyone who has been to the Playground (the beautiful center I verb-ed in Portland for nearly five years) knows that I am a big believer in Safety First, and making new experiences comfortable and supportive for you, in the way that you need.
At this place, they think it’s absolutely okay to ease your way into floating.
You can wedge a towel between the door and the frame so soft light comes in. They remind you that it’s fine to exit the tank whenever you want. End the session early, take a break and have a hot shower, pause when you need to pause.
They talk about all the things I am passionate about: PLAY and CURIOSITY and taking time to explore your surroundings so you get a sense of where your body is in space, so you can feel safe letting go.
They let you know your time is up by piping relaxing music into the water, but they are also happy to knock on the door if you like that better.
And it worked.
I stood in the tank with the door open and then settled into the water with the door slightly ajar, with enough light to see my surroundings.
I let myself have as much time as I needed (which turned out to be maybe five minutes) establishing a clear sense of where my body was located in relation to the walls and the door, the space above me and below me and around me. I reassured my monsters and Tiny Me that we know exactly where the door is and how to open it.
We practiced closing our eyes and feeling what it would be like to be suspended in this state of darkness.
And I talked to the space, quietly, in my heart, and told it what I needed in terms of easing and releasing. I breathed qualities all around me. I asked the water and the salt to share with me their secrets of transmitting and of washing away.
And then I let the door close all the way, and allowed myself to sink into the darkness, using my fingers and toes to remind my body that we know exactly where we are, deep breaths, letting go.
What is a container of spaciousness.
It is something that is both cozy and expansive at the same time.
I came to floating with two fears — well, other than the fear of panic attacks, existential agony, getting trapped, giving up after five minutes, and a variety of flavors of Ludicrous Fear Popcorn related to truly ridiculous and impossible scenarios which I will not share with you because I don’t want you to have to add these fears to your list!
Mainly though I felt worried that I might feel trapped in an enclosed space, while simultaneously worrying about what if I feel lost and disoriented and unable to find the door.
I was delighted to discover that the tank had a wonderful coziness to it — I could float in the center, but I could also extend a limb in any direction and touch the steadiness of the edges. And it had a high sloping ceiling which gave a lovely sensation of plenty and spaciousness.
A container of spaciousness is river and banks of the river, it is voyage and ship, it is dreamland and cozy bed, it is being free and being held in loving arms, it is secret op and safe-house, it is liberty and sanctuary, it is adventure and home.
It is knowing that there is no contradiction: you are allowed to have both at once.
No contradiction.
When I was little, my father used to ask me if I would rather be a bird or a tree.
I wanted BOTH, I didn’t want to choose, but that wasn’t allowed.
It was worse than that, actually, because this was secretly a trick question. The correct answer was tree, and he frowned if you chose bird, and told you why you were wrong. I always chose bird anyway.
You weren’t allowed to be a Flying Tree either, it had to be one or the other.
I didn’t want to have to choose between freedom and safety, soaring or grounding, adventure versus steadiness, between discovering new places or always knowing that you are home.
And gradually I acquiesced to this false belief that you can only have one, or that you can only have one at a time.
Each of us learns or acquires this untruth in our own unique ways but somehow we all end up thinking that we are only allowed to have X and not Y, that the elements of our desires cannot ever co-exist, that we have to choose, we have to give up on what we want in order to have what we want.
Flowers for Tiny Me, flowers for my father, flowers for the courageous process of decolonizing and deprogramming, flowers for everyone who has ever had to make a choice, flowers for refusing to choose.
Circling.
I have spent my whole life circling around this and inside of this, resisting and succumbing to the familiar melody, to borrow that perfect image from the poet Natan Alterman:
“That melody still returns again, the one you tried in vain to neglect, and the road is still splayed open to its full length…”
That is my very inexact translation of an impossibly beautiful sentence. When he describes the road as open, he uses a word that is specifically used to describe eyes opening. The road is expanding, awakening, like a person.
It’s a poem about the intense passionate call of the road that pulls you to move and explore and experience things, and at the same time you miss the sweetness of the green grove of trees, a woman in her laughter, the place of belonging and love. And how whenever you have one, you long for the other, but you cannot stay because you need to be free, but oh how you miss your lover and so you return, but then the melody comes for you again.
The American version of this theme is the cowboy, I think.
Eventually I realized that my dilemma is not in fact a dilemma.
Eighteen years ago Meirav asked me:
“What if it is actually a continuum? What if you don’t have to choose?”
That was a helpful starting point. I played with exploring roads and with building a home. I swung this way and that. I tested out different recipes, different combinations of freedom and shelter. I pushed edges and then retreated.
Later I realized that of course this is about Qualities, and qualities, being aspects of the divine, not only can co-exist, they must. They just do.
There is no Freedom without Safety, there is no such thing as Adventure without Sanctuary.
And then from there I began to work with permission to Want What I Want, in this very practice of weekly wishing, which helped me see that there is no dilemma, there is only the appearance of a dilemma, a mystery to explore.
And lately I have been combining qualities like ingredients, and noticing how the flavors enhance each other: what at first might seem an unlikely combination can be intensely powerful, deeply healing.
Sweet savory contradictions that aren’t contradictions at all.
Last week I talked about the superpower of FIERCE GRATITUDE (thank you, Carrie Ann Moss), which is a perfect example of a unique and unlikely flavor combination.
Then I mixed more ingredients to come up with SWEET COURAGE, which is how I ended up at the most loving and supportive place to experiment with floating, which takes place in CONTAINED SPACIOUSNESS.
I want to be a beautifully anchored wanderer: roaming and stable, rooted and free.
I want LANGUID ADVENTURING and JOYFUL STILLNESS, and glorious permission to be so many things at once.
What am I noticing about my wishes?
I can feel so many previous wishes in this. Like the theme of adding being to doing: Ha and Tha, sun and moon. Accommodating my sensitivities (and my sometimes snail-like pace of learning) with kindness.
Making room for the seemingly-contradictory experience of being both high sensation seeking (the thrill of newness!) and off-the-charts highly sensitive (extreme levels of Must Hide Immediately).
This is about loving all of me, and taking care of all of me, as I am. This is about advocating for myself, being intentional about how care for myself, choosing supportive environments.
Also big passion for social justice, passion that begins in my cells and expands outward: starting with being more present in my own space and then glowing these qualities into the world.
And appreciation for everything that got me here: flowers for everyone.
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.
Thinking about the Alterman poem made me think of the song version of it that Berry Sacharof did, which made me think of his collaboration with Fortis — Fortisacharof, which has to be the most Israeli album of all time, for me at least.
I am sitting in my living room on the couch, listening to the song Nitzotzot, and in my mind I am behind the bar, it’s Friday evening in Tel Aviv, I can feel the sun setting over the Mediterranean a few blocks away, the bar is mostly empty, everything is quiet.
I look up from my memory, back in my living room in Portland, and my friend who is dead is perched on top of the couch, the cigarette in his mouth is unlit because I don’t let him smoke in the house. He takes it out and smiles at me and says, “You are a vessel of light, and a vessel of light contains everything”, and then he wanders outside to smoke.
What does Slightly Future Me have to say?
Ze: You can combine ANYTHING you want, my love! You are the queen of tree-birds and bird-trees, you build entire worlds where things can co-exist!
Me: Sometimes I wonder if it’s good for me though, maybe I’m just oscillating.
Ze: You are an explorer and a Grand Adventuress, and you are also deeply committed to taking exquisite care of yourself. That’s not oscillating, that’s exploring and claiming your kingdom of wholeness.
Me: Sometimes it seems like people just want me to be one thing: sweet and spiritual, or wild and fun, or whatever. Like they can’t handle it that I am all of it.
Ze: Who cares what they want or what you think they might want. Your explorations are treasure, for everyone, whether they or you know it or not. Trust.
Clues.
This week has overflowed with clues for me, but what I want to remember is hearing a woman saying to someone, “Take special care”, her voice glowing warmth and presence, as if this was the most important thing she could possibly say.
The superpower of this is a badass way to live.
June was RELEASE MORE, with the superpower of I am stronger than I think, and July is LOVE MORE, because this is a badass way to live.
This is a badass way to live.
Giving myself permission to be all of me, in beautiful and seemingly-contradictory ways, to ease into new places, to grant myself extra safety, to take off and come back and give myself what I need. What if wild self-love and radical self-acceptance and meeting myself where I am is actually more badass than I think?!
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 As I am…
I made many wishes and they were all useful. This week I practiced asking people to teach me things in a way that suits how I learn, and they were so happy to have extra information about what I need, instead of thinking it was annoying that I asked.
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
Chicken 365: the circus is not a viable backup plan
It is Friday and we are here.
{a breath for Friday, for this space, for being here when we get here.}
Three hundred and sixty five weeks of chickening!
Thank you, everyone who reads: you are the reason I am still doing this.
What worked this week?
Having good self-care instincts.
Or maybe I always have good self-care instincts and the trick is listening to them. Ooh.
Anyway, past-me wisely scheduled a session of bodywork magic with Wally for the day after my trapeze class.
And I took myself to old lady aerobics immediately after trapeze so that I could wave my arms around so they wouldn’t seize up. Also because it seemed important to remind my body that yes, there are things we can do together that don’t result in feeling helpless and incompetent.
Oh, and this wasn’t intentional at all, but I packed an easy-on easy-off sweatshirt, which turns out to be a very handy thing when your shoulders give up working.
Next time I might…
Talk to the monsters sooner.
My monsters were saying very mean things about my plan to try trapeze.
On the one hand, they thought I would be terrible at it (spoiler alert: I am!) and shouldn’t humiliate myself, and on the other hand, they thought it was shameful to sign up for the baby-steps remedial class, because that’s not adventurous. As they put it, “Either real adventure or get out of town!”
So of course I was avoiding talking to them, but once I did, I got so much useful intel.
They just love me so much and want to protect me from being laughed at, which is a reasonable desire, and they remember situations where keeping me away from mean people was important. Once we talked, things got a lot better.
I reminded them that it’s a very early class, so all the mean people will still be asleep, and that it’s a class specifically designed to be welcoming to people who feel anxious and uncomfortable about trying trapeze, so of course everyone there will be warm and accepting.
It was much easier to get through the experience of class having the monsters on my side. Next time we talk sooner!
And the title of my upcoming Biopic if it were based on this week…
She loves adventure almost as much as she loves hiding. The Havi Brooks Story.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- You guys, I am terrible at trapeze. I spent fifty minutes of the ninety minute class just crying my eyes out because I couldn’t do any of the things. I don’t mean that I couldn’t do the tricks they were trying to teach us. I mean that I couldn’t figure out how to get up onto the trapeze. Not even because of fear. My body just couldn’t figure out the mechanics of how to do it, even after it was explained to me about twenty times. A breath for intense frustration, for all the challenges of my not-so-secret-op of figuring out how to love my unique pace of learning, and a million trillion sparklepoints to me for signing up, for showing up, for staying until the end.
- You know how you always kind of think, way in the back of your mind, that if you can’t figure out your life, you will have to run away and join the circus? It turns out that is not even a good back-up plan. If the circus was recruiting, and not sure why they’d be doing that in the remedial trapeze class for people who are freaked out by the regular beginner class, but if they were looking to sign someone up, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t take the only person in the entire class who couldn’t get up onto the trapeze. I guess I could be an exhibit, maybe, but it would be a pretty boring one. “BEHOLD the woman with the surprisingly high IQ who can’t figure out how to do a somersault until the instructor shows her twenty times in a row and breaks down every single component of a simple movement that all toddlers do for fun! OBSERVE as someone who spent a decade of her life teaching coordination techniques is unable to figure out how to wrap her foot in the silks, even though it was just demonstrated for her multiple times very slowly! GAZE UPON THE SIGHT of her as she stirs comparison stew while watching people who are six inches shorter than she is just hoist themselves onto the trapeze while she can’t even get her feet high enough to do more than brush it with her toes, because she does not understand the mechanics of how this works!” I need a new backup plan, because the circus is not interested in me. A breath of protection, trust, forgiveness, safety and shelter, for me and for anyone else who needs it.
- My entire body hurts. There are lots of reasons for this, and, thankfully, this week they are not related to chronic pain but to trying new things, so hey, at least that’s fun and new. A breath for healing and recovery.
- I took a beginning jazz dance class and it was even more challenging/humbling than remedial trapeze. A breath for the me who wants so badly to thrive and to excel, may she be held in love and sweetness and know that there is so much appreciation for her. Oh, man. This whole loving yourself as you are stuff is not for the faint of heart.
- So much change. I went with my lover and my housemate to drop off a bunch of furniture for consignment and did not want to let anything go, except I have nowhere to store it, and it is time for it to go, and I was not feeling expansive or gracious about any of these changes, and I cried a little bit about letting go of the mahogany table, and then it felt strange and uncomfortable to be in my bedroom without it, and I didn’t want to go to bed. A breath for remembering that Now Is Not Then, and this is not The Beginning of The Bad Times, and that it is safe to let go of everything that is not my joy right now, and to trust that there will be other beautiful tables in my life, this is not the last beautiful table.
- So many projects. So many moving parts. How am I busy all the time? A breath for taking care of myself.
- I had been so looking forward to Waltz Brunch, my favorite thing about Portland. It only happens once a month, and I’ve been on the road for six months this year and also I had a knee injury, so finally I am here and I can waltz, yay, except then I discovered that my dress doesn’t fit anymore, and neither does my back-up dress. Also I didn’t want to go out and take buses in hundred degree weather. But oh the monsters about my dresses not zipping up. A breath for remembering that all these new, strong, powerful back muscles that get in the way of zippers are just contributing to my general LUSCIOUSNESS, and that any dress that doesn’t look amazing on me is the wrong dress, and that all sizes of Havi are good, and also that waltz will happen when it happens, and it will be just right.
- 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 the bravest person in the entire world! I signed up for TRAPEZE! And stayed for the whole class even though I couldn’t do it! I went to Jazz Dance! And stayed for the whole class even though it was hard! I went to burlesque and had to give up on the routine because I couldn’t be on my knees, but I went and tried! I did things this week that I have been dreaming and wishing about for years, and this was the week that I felt courageous enough to try them! A breath for this, and for many thousands of sparklepoints.
- Oh the FIERCE GRATITUDE (thank you, Carrie Ann Moss, for this perfect term) that I feel about my knee being able to move again, and the relief from chronic pelvic pain, and for having a strong, healthy, curious body that wants to move and learn and try things. Thank you, body! Thank you, bones and muscles and ligaments and tendons! Thank you, life and aliveness! Thank you, desire! A breath for joy, play, courage, wonder.
- So much sweetness and intensity and spilling-over-of-joy with my lover. A breath for this full and happy heart of sweetness.
- I took BIG SCARY WONDERFUL STEPS towards a variety of dreams and wishes this week. Giant progress on so many ops! A breath for magic, especially the magic of fractal flowers. And a breath for feeling ready.
- I did lovely Shmita things like skipping stones, walking in the park, taking long delicious naps, eating cheese, not worrying. A breath for how fun it is in those moments when you do actually just trust the process.
- One of my favorite dance teachers, who is not exactly lavish with praise, said “hey, good work today!” to me, on the day I finally nailed both turns. I feel incredibly excited about this, about the part where I perceive that my skills are visibly improving, about the part where someone else can see it too, about relinquishing the need for external legitimacy and still delighting in being appreciated. A breath for forward movement.
- This was just a beautiful week for me. I felt light, bubbly, joyful, hopeful, full of life and aliveness. A breath for THANK YOU.
- Thankfulness. So much is good. Second breakfast. Third breakfast. My brother is the best. Flowers from the garden. The Secret Sword Society is amazing. 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!
I emptied the basement, got everything ready for the sale of YARD, and did I mention that I am the bravest person in the world and went to a trapeze class, even though I was afraid I’d be terrible at it?! Yes! Calling that a successful mission, and I now award myself a hundred billion sparklepoints. Wham Boom.
Superpowers I had this week…
Last week I asked for the superpower of Wildly Appreciating Myself, and I had that!
I also had the superpowers of Being Comfortable Around People Who Are Feeling Temporarily Uncomfortable Being Around Me, and Following My Instincts.
Powers I want.
I want the superpower of Releasing In Love Because I Do Everything From Love.
The Salve of Endless Sparklepoints.
Sparklepoints are a thing I made up because they are better than regular points. They glow. And they have a wonderful cascading effect — delivering all the visual joy of fireworks without the terrifying war zone sounds.
When I put this salve on my skin, I begin to give myself credit for all I do.
Instead of thinking (monsters!) that I have to finish something or accomplish something or be “good” at it, whatever that means, in order for it to be meaningful, suddenly I am able to believe deep in my body that it’s okay to celebrate all the steps in between.
This salve dissolves beautifully, and before you know it, you’re feeling joyful and appreciative about having wanted to do something, thrilled that you’re even considering taking an initial step towards something that might bring you delight.
In addition to being a very playful salve, this is also a secret sovereignty salve, and it restores all lost crowns.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band is called Some Good Compasses. Their latest album is Resting Towards The Horizon. They play fiddle music, but without a fiddle, and it’s just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I am recommending the Emergency Get Calm, Quiet And Steady techniques, aka the thing that keeps me from falling apart. This is how I get through life.
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.
p.s. 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!
Wish 315: as I am
Personal ads. They’re … personal!
♡
Oh, my friends.
Oh, my friends, I have missed you and this space of ours.
And if you are reading here, then I count you among my friends, because something about this space feels full of trust and comfort, and if you want to be here, then I think we would probably be friends, and so we are.
Maybe that’s weird. And maybe it’s not weird at all.
What beautiful wishes.
I love the peacefulness in coming here, the treasure I find in reading everyone’s wishes in the comments, the way we whisper (and sometimes shout) in joy and recognition, “Oh wow, what beautiful wishes!”
And this week I have felt hesitant.
So many beautiful wishes — beautiful and wonderfully terrifying wishes — have been bubbling up inside of me, and I have been dancing around them, not ready to meet them and give voice to them.
The words inside of my words.
It is so funny what I just said, the words which came to me to describe my current situation…
Dancing around my wishes. In fact, many of my wishes are related to dancing.
Not ready to give voice to them. As someone who doesn’t speak, writing is the way I give voice to wishes. Writing and dancing, actually. Waltzing the words into the light.
Bubbling up inside of me. My wishes are also about buoyancy, effervescence, that tingling rising sensation of joyful possibility, and staying connected to that.
Okay, let’s where this goes.
What if we make a list.
I am just going to list all the things bubbling up that I am currently wishing for, including qualities and aspects of the wishes.
And then I would like to investigate my wishes, to ask questions about them, whether here or on my own. For example, “Is this really what I want?” from the OOD caper. Or the very useful question “What’s true and what’s also true?”
What else is needed here in addition to questions?
Spaciousness and permission for all my wishes to exist.
Acknowledgment and legitimacy for all these sweet, beautiful wishes in all of their vulnerability and raw wanting.
Protection and shelter for each tiny, sweet thing.
Yes, those are wishes too. Wishes for the wishes! Wishing for my wishes to be received and welcomed with love and graciousness.
My wishes, right now.
- I want to be okay with my pace of learning. No, more than okay. I want to celebrate my uniquely Havi way of learning, even — especially! — when sometimes in some situations how I learn seems to be much slower than [other people’s expectations or my perception of their expectations]. I want to delight in being a person who learns in the particular way that I learn.
- I want to LOVE spinning. The kind you do in dance, though I am also receptive to loving spinning in the sense of stories, or in the sense of (metaphorically) weaving.
- New dance shoes that feel like home to my feet. Maybe dance boots. And a salve of calm for my monsters who think investing in anything related to dance is very dangerous and will lead to Regret and Doom.
- I want to study with Kemba Shannon!
- I want to release the need to compare myself to other people. To remember that People Vary. To scoop up Tiny Me and whisper to her that she is good.
- I want to let release pain, shame, distress and judgment from all the memories and stories related to Everyone Else Can Figure This Out and for whatever reasons it takes me so much longer to get it. Learning how to swim, to ride a bicycle, to drive, even to blow bubbles with bubblegum. I was sixteen when a bubble-blowing lesson finally got through, and for the next several years I would still sometimes forget how to do it, and have to re-remember. Or the things I never figured out and still can’t do and may never do, like how to do a cartwheel, or how to whistle, or read music, or [things I think I should be able to do].
- There is a project, a secret mission, a thing I dearly want to do, and it costs [not insignificant sum of money that I do not currently have], and I want to discover that I do have the means to do this and didn’t know it, or maybe to discover a creative way to generate this sum, which seems challenging since I am intentionally not working the fields at the moment, but I would like to be surprised with good surprises on this one.
- Easing my way into things instead of either pushing or running away.
- To be the eye of the storm and calmly survey all that I have set into motion.
- The superpower of FIERCE GRATITUDE (I currently feel Fierce Gratitude for this concept, which I got from a Rally friend who got it from Carrie Ann Moss), and a companion superpower to this which I just invented, and I am naming it SWEET COURAGE.
- I want the just-right place to stay in Seattle next weekend while I am on a secret op, and a lovely calm and quiet person who can drive me to my dance workshops and not need anything from me other than gas money and a smile.
- I want to enjoy the hell out of the absolutely terrifying class I just signed up for, and to award myself ten billion sparklepoints for being brave and trying it.
- I want to remember that as someone who is both High Sensation Seeking and Highly Sensitive, it makes sense that I am constantly in a pattern of doing something scary (because it gives me a high, and connects me to FREEDOM!), and then needing to hide for a week (hello, quiet and sweetness and SAFETY). The hiding isn’t a sign that something is wrong with me, and it doesn’t mean I screwed up. It’s just a natural part of the creative process for a Havi. I am feeding both aspects of my being, living the HA and the THA of my life. May I remember this please, and meet myself with love.
- It is okay to want novelty and sparkliness on the one hand, and ease and security on the other. May all the superpowers of Languid Adventuring find their way to me, so that I can be the queen of the slow, beautiful, deliberate crossing of the seas, a wild adventuress who loves a good healing nap, amen.
Anything I’m noticing about my wishes?
They are about permission and love, and permission to deeply love, to be deeply loved.
Once upon a time, back when I was in a relationship with The Spy, I was having a really rough day, a really tough time being me, and I texted him that I had spent the entire day on the couch eating potato chips, failing at life.
And he texted back, “Well, I love you. I love you when you eat potato chips. I love you BECAUSE you eat potato chips.”
And there was this moment of a deeper understanding about what unconditional actually means.
Up until that point it hadn’t occurred to me that there could be something better than someone loving me in this potato chip moment despite the crumbs all over my face, despite my total current lack of ability to interact with the world in any way other than mediating it with salt and tears. But what if I can be fully loved and accepted in that moment. I know, right?
Since then, I have learned about other astonishing forms of love and self-love, and also I learned that sometimes a person can offer unconditional love in some forms or moments and not in others, this is all part of the learning-and-loving of life.
The reason I am telling you about this though is that I wish to be this kind of love-spilling-over person towards myself — towards myself in all (potato-chip-covered) moments, towards all aspects of myself. This is what these wishes are about.
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.
My housemate and I have been releasing furniture from our beautiful home as we move towards getting it ready to rent out. I thought that selling the lovely table by the window nook would make the nook less inviting, but today it was the only place I could write, even though I never write here.
The light is fading. I am thinking about Australia, about rumba, about Paula Abdul, about languid adventuring, and how Fiercely Grateful I am to have this online home where I can bring all my words and share them with you.
What does Slightly Future Me have to say?
Ze: I feel FIERCELY GRATEFUL about everything, and especially about you getting to this point where you are ready to love how you learn.
Me: Well, I feel FIERCELY GRATEFUL about you, and having you as my ally and companion in all of this.
Ze: I wouldn’t do this adventure with anyone else, babe.
Clues.
I was starting to feel anxious about all these big changes going on with the house, and then my lover started asking very technical questions in his calm, grounded way, and suddenly I could really feel what it would be like for me once these changes happened.
I felt bubbly and hopeful, and then the song Bring Me Sunshine came on.
The superpower of this is a badass way to live.
June was RELEASE MORE, with the superpower of I am stronger than I think, and now July is LOVE MORE, because this is a badass way to live.
This is a badass way to live.
Meeting myself as I am, in this moment, with as much love as I can stand. And if in a certain moment it is too hard for me to love myself or even like myself, then meeting that with love and with presence.
There is nothing more badass than that.
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 Quarters…
I made a wish about new quarters for me and this is happening, and also I made a wish about looking at time in a new way, and now I have the best secret op ever for the next quarter, assuming I figure out how to finance it, but I feel very hopeful about it, even though there is no reason that I am aware of to feel hopeful about it, I just do.
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
Chicken 364: Seven Years of THIS!
It is Friday Saturday and we are here.
{a breath for today, for this space, for being here when we get here.}
We have reached SEVEN YEARS of this Chickening ritual! Sure, occasionally we chicken on a Saturday instead of Friday, but the chicken always happens. Past-me would not have been able to imagine this.
Thank you, everyone who reads: you are the reason I am still doing this.
What worked this week?
Reconnaissance!
There’s this burlesque dance class I’ve been eyeing for a few years but too scared to try.
This week I decided to go on RECONNAISSANCE. Reconnaissance is awesome because all you have to do is check out the situation.
So if all I do is find the studio and go straight home, I still win. Or if I just observe the class, I still win. And if I walk through the moves and make ten thousand mistakes and fall on my face, which is what I ended up doing, I win. It’s reconnaissance!
Imagining that I was gathering intel on potentially scary things instead of making myself do them made it easier to gently sneak my way into doing.
Renaming.
I scheduled a photo shoot, and I was very nervous about it.
Then I remembered that the reason I was doing it was to document Shmita.
And the process of documenting my Shmita experiment seems vitally important, and also very natural, like, of course, why would I not want to have photographic documentation of this undertaking.
Names. Names are everything. Once I stopped thinking “photo shoot”, it was easy and light-hearted.
We drank tea. We teetered on teeter-totters and laughed, and it was the most relaxed I have ever been in front of a camera, so there.
Next time I might…
Talk things over with the internal scientists.
I had this idea this week that if I just brought enough bubbling positive energy to places I don’t like, this would transform the experience.
However my internal scientists have shown me all the data which indicates that these places drain energy, no matter how much joy and confidence I bring.
Not everything can be or needs to be transformed. Some places just need to be off the list, and I am slowly learning to be okay with that.
And the title of my upcoming Biopic if it were based on this week…
What Just Happened.. The Havi Brooks Story.
Eight breaths for the hard, challenging and mysterious.
- I thought being offline would be hard, but it was so completely pleasurable that now I don’t really want to go back. Like, oh hey remember when I used to walk through that giant field of dog poop every day just because there were some pretty flowers there and I like flowers? Why would I want to do that. It’s not like there’s a shortage of flowers in the world. So now my monsters are terrified that I will not have a community for my business if I’m not out and about wandering in the shit fields every day. A breath for remembering that however this turns out, it’s going to be fine, and there are lots of ways this can go that won’t involve an either/or choice between destroying my business or being knee-deep in metaphorical excrement. Yes, a breath for remembering that, and for enjoying the quiet right now.
- I saw someone on the street, someone who used to be a close friend, and she gave the “I don’t want to do this” look and put on sunglasses and walked past me briskly. Which is a completely okay choice for her to make, obviously. Nothing is more important (in my mind) than self-care, and if her self-care in that moment was avoiding an awkward interaction with me, then I fully support that. It was also a moment of sadness, for me, and it also reminded me of leaving Tel Aviv. When you get to a point that a place has more people you’d rather not run into than people you’d love to surprise you, time to leave. A breath for love, trust, and safety, for everyone involved and everyone who needs it.
- I am under this weird curse or something right now, and every time my fingers touch a glass of water, it spills, and it doesn’t just spill, it goes everywhere, immediately, and soaks everything in sight. I guess that could be a metaphor for something, but it’s just my current reality. A breath for pausing, for getting centered, for taking this reminder to get steady, as well as the reminder that things spill and it’s okay.
- My passion for dance is back (“Ugh, finally“, say the monsters, forgetting that they actually used to be AGAINST both dance and passion), and there is a big gap between the activities/classes/training my heart is excited about versus what my body can actually do. Sometimes because of pain, injury, fatigue, HSP stuff, trauma and just not having the energy/spoons to do as much as I would like. Sometimes because of my OLD LADY KNEES that can’t do floor work, even with knee pads. Sometimes because I have to just be in bed. A breath for staying in a state of love, taking care of my body, cultivating the flame of desire while not pushing myself to do more than is good for me.
- Is there a name for this phenomenon? You know you will need something later — really, really, really need it — so you lovingly put it aside for future you so they’ll have it in that moment of need. And you are very intentional about this, you think: I AM GOING TO REMEMBER THIS. And then the moment of need comes and the only thing you can remember is that past-you very intentionally hid something for you, but you have no idea where, and you can’t find it or re-create the thought process of past-you, and you only remember the determination to remember the place, and not the place itself. A breath for needing something and not having it, and for This Is Why You Always Leave A Note.
- I have been on a mission to retire from being a Stew Maker, and it is unbelievable how often I find myself stirring a pot of stew. Very often it was a Comparison Stew, which is the least tasty stew there is. I’m back to dancing and suddenly I’m in the kitchen stirring the stew of Everyone Is Better Than You. Or the related stew of Seriously They’re Twenty Years Younger And Have At Least A Decade More Training So Why Don’t You Just Give Up. A breath for remembering that I quit this job, and I am no longer a stewmaker, and any time I want, in any moment, I can put down that wooden spoon and turn off the flame and exit the kitchen.
- Went to the local westie dance for the first time in ages, and had an absolutely miserable time, and had to work very hard to not stir the stew of Why Is It Like This. I think if I want to maintain my passion for my favorite dance, maybe it’s better to focus on other dances for a while until I find the kind of dance community that I want to be a part of. A breath for may this hard moment turn out to be beautiful.
- 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.
- The end of the heat wave. Temperature makes such a difference in mood, energy, ability to function, and somehow I always forget this. Cool air. Light drizzle. Walking in the park in the middle of the day. Doing some Star Training (the thing that used to be spirals) outdoors at 10am? UNHEARD OF. So much opens up when it isn’t too hot to do anything more than limply exist. Lazily teetering on a teeter-totter on a peaceful afternoon: heaven. A breath for this, and for a return to all-night snuggling.
- Dance and being motivated to dance and having energy to dance, oh this is so good, you guys. Such delight after these long months of knee injury and mysterious chronic pain. I signed up for a four hour blues-connection technique workshop, assuming I’d only be able to handle an hour, and then — astonishingly — lasted three hours and twenty minutes. Plus I enjoyed some absolutely transcendent dances just during the warm-up songs in between workshop sessions. My lover dragged me to the Portland Dance Festival and I danced my feet off until 4am, before we fell asleep in a sweaty, sticky, happy heap in the parking lot. Mainly though I just feel JOYFUL about feeling joyful about dance again, if that makes sense. I watched this video of a contra dance flash mob, and it had me in tears just thinking about the magical moments of people coming together, and seeing dancer friends I know. Even though what they’re doing is not even really related to any of the kinds of dance I do, I don’t know, just feeling this intense tenderness about how dance does something, how movement changes energy. A breath for this welling up.
- I did brave and scary things this week Marlena (Incoming Me) took me to burlesque class and hip hop, and we didn’t die. A breath for play and discovery and trying new things.
- Feeling fortunate to such many sweet and supportive people in my life right now. Whether it’s big life stuff like letting go of my home, or taking steps towards something challenging that I want. My sweet lover, my wonderful housemate, my wise uncle and my far-away friend Annabelle all cheered me on this week with encouraging words and endless warmth and love for me. I’m not really used to this, but I want to be. A breath for appreciating how special this is.
- I slept a lot. I mean, a lot. One of my big wishes for my Shmita experiment is to be someone who can do lots of nothing without worrying about something being wrong. Like, maybe I’m doing nothing because I literally can’t do anything else, and maybe I’m choosing to do nothing, but either way, I am able to experience it as a desirable place to be. That’s happening. Lots of staring into space. Lots of delicious percolating and puttering, and not calling it names. Our culture is big on name-calling, we like to call this procrastination or avoidance, when actually the labels just add guilt and make an otherwise useful process sticky. It is good to give things time and space to ripen. I’ve always felt strongly about this, but this is the first time I’ve been able to just be intentionally slow and meandering with life. It’s switching little connectors on for me, and big fractal flower magic. A breath for deep healing, for patience, and for naps.
- I am slowly getting better at remembering that I am not a stew-maker. A thousand sparklepoints for me for each and every time I choose not to make stew, start a stew, stir stew, or do anything related to stewing, and for each time I notice that I’m doing it and call a timeout. And another breath for love, because it really is all love.
- Last-year-me decided that this year would be the Year of Easing & Releasing, and ohmylord, this is changing everything in my life, and I am finally able to see how this is so very good. A breath for having found the joy and the freedom and sweetness in letting go. It took a long time to get here, but all timing is right timing.
- Thankfulness. So much is good. Epsom salt baths. Shoulders to cry on. Marlena is witchy in the kitchen and blended frozen bananas with pumpkin seed butter, cocoa powder, vanilla, cinnamon and himalayan salt. My lover whispers sweet words to me that happen to be just what I need to hear. 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!
I sorted through even more boxes, made gigantic progress on the BOLTHOLE op, coordinated with other Agents, and only cried ten times. We shall call that a successful mission, and I now award myself a hundred billion sparklepoints. Wham Boom.
Superpowers I had this week…
I had the superpowers of Noticing Useful Things, Annexing New Space Into My Comfort Zone, and being okay with being a High Sensation Seeking adventuress who enjoys very specific types of risk-taking while simultaneously being someone who likes to hide a lot.
And last week I wanted to be able to See Beauty Everywhere, and that happened too!
Powers I want.
I want the superpowers of Wildly Appreciating Myself and I Bring The Fun.
The Salve of Wildly Appreciating Yourself.
One of the things I’ve noticed in thirty eight years of being alive is that the best and most wonderful things about ourselves tend to be invisible to us, along with any magic beans of good fortune.
This salve undoes that effect, smoothly and efficiently, so that suddenly, in quick flashes at first, and then for longer periods, you can see what is magical, beautiful and effortless.
You notice the sweetness of your own smile, the things you are good at, the ways you are unique, and these suddenly seem important.
There is both a boldness and a tenderness to this salve, like a flower, and once you wear it, you see these things (and flowers) each time you turn around.
Playing live at the meme beach house — the Fake Band of the Week!
This week’s band is called Breathing Is The Best Plan. Their latest album is Truth Be Told. They play acoustic emo covers of disco songs, and it’s just one guy.
Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.
I am recommending the Emergency Get Calm, Quiet And Steady techniques, aka the thing that keeps me from falling apart. This is how I get through weeks like this one.
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.
p.s. 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!
Wish 314: quarters
Personal ads. They’re … personal!
♡
March?
On March 12, exactly ten years and five days after this business came into being, I set off on Shmita, my sabbatical experiment, something I have been threatening to do dreaming of for many, many years, not thinking I’d ever be brave enough to go for it.
It has been pretty much exactly as sweet, exhilarating and terrifying as I imagined it would be (okay, maybe more).
It’s intense and unnerving to not have a plan, to intentionally let all my fields lie fallow. To stop working. To have no idea what I’m doing in life. To let myself fall apart and release, over and over again, while trusting that it’s all going to be okay.
And all of this is also beautiful and important and healing.
For the past four months I’ve been on the road with my lover.
A truck and a tiny camper and no plans.
California, Utah, Nevada. We hiked and slept and cooked and held hands and were quiet together under the stars.
It was equal parts recovery time and adventuring time, and then things changed, as they do, and I ended up coming back to Portland, and two weeks later my lover followed suit.
Monsters.
I was feeling anxious and out of sorts about being here, lots of monster-thoughts: it was a mistake, this would break Shmita, I was ruining everything by coming home.
Sure, we hadn’t had plans-plans, but we’d more or less agreed to spend July camping in Colorado, then head to Wyoming, two dance conventions in California in August, followed by finding some quiet, pretty places in South Dakota into mid-September.
And now I was back home and none of that was happening, and my lover was selling the truck and camper, and it was all very surreal.
Being back unexpectedly in this urban environment, doing boring day-to-day things: maintenance, house stuff, errands, laundry…
Everything felt tight and cramped, both inside me and all around me, and my monsters were whispering that I had failed at Shmita, and at adventuring. Just look at yourself slinking back to Regular Life, tail between legs, they said.
They said Shmita was over now, life was just going to quietly turn back into working all the time, or to listless hanging out and hating everything, either way I was doomed to all the usual patterns.
And I worried they were right.
But of course they were wrong.
That’s the thing, right?
The monsters are best at three things: worrying, shaming, being wrong.
Remembering.
Remember back to Wish 296 when I wished for a way to track all of our ever-changing roadtrip plans? And the next week of Wish 297 when I turned “tracking” into Gathering Star Points?
Well, thanks to past-me wishing those beautiful wishes, I now have a google document called Operation True Yes, and every time plans change, the thing I was previously going to do gets put in a section called JOYFULLY SKIPPING!
This makes me smile. I remember skipping (joyfully) with my lover down the dusty path in the Red Hills, which we did right after we decided to (joyfully) skip Salt Lake City and stay in our sweet hidden campsite, back whenever that was, maybe in April.
Anyway, I was updating the document this week, feeling sad about all the adventures we aren’t currently having, conflicted about my/our decision to be in Portland, even though, yes, this is exactly what is indicated right now.
And then I realized something.
Three months.
It is exactly four months since Shmita began, and since my lover and I embarked on our roadtrip.
And four months is exactly one third of the year.
And three months is a quarter of the year. And the first three months of Shmita were incredible, and the last month has been a slog.
If my year is a compass, and of course it is, then the first three months are the progression from North to East.
My eight compass qualities for the year Shmita are as follows:
North: Adventure. Northeast: Rest. East: Horizons. Southeast: Security. South: Passion. Southwest: Sweetness. West: Clarity. Northwest: Presence.
This means the first three months were to have been about ADVENTURE-REST-HORIZONS.
Yes, that’s hilarious. That is exactly what they were about.
And guess what else this means.
Now.
I have been looking at this all wrong.
I’ve been telling this story in my head about how Shmita was this beautiful grand adventure until [I got sick and stuff happened and I had to come back to Portland], and now I’m stuck here getting my house ready to be rented out.
But that’s not what’s happening at all!
What’s happening is that I am in the second quarter.
Second. Quarter.
The second quarter is the part of the compass that goes from East to South, which means that this is the quarter of HORIZONS-SECURITY-PASSION.
And of course in a quarter anchored by security it makes sense to be in my home.
And of course if I want to focus on passion, what better place to be than in the city where I can go to Waltz Brunch and take Hip Hop Cabaret classes and choose between multiple burlesque classes….
And of course if the next indicated step is getting my house ready to rent out, and possibly find new quarters (yes, quarters) for me, then a QUARTER comprised of three months is a wonderful container for that secret op.
And of course renting out my house is about security, which allows me to pursue both horizons and passion.
Here is what I love about quarters.
One, they’re intentional.
A three month period is a chrysalis, a gestation time for something to come into being.
I don’t need to know what that is. I’m just making space for it. I’m intentionally choosing Portland, because that’s what’s indicated. And I’m naming the qualities.
This feels way different than “ugh I couldn’t make adventuring work and I had a health crisis and I had to deal with the house”.
I can be in a story about Everything Breaks And Nothing Works, or I can be in a story about Voyages Have Segments Or Chapters And I Can Welcome Myself Into This One And It Can Be Beautiful.
The other thing I love, no surprise here, is that QUARTERS is a double meaning. Quarters = time (like a fiscal quarter), and quarters = space (welcome to my quarters!).
I’ve actually written about this before.
Back in December, 2011, in a post called Metaphor Mouse helps me vacate my quarters.
That was about making peace with the calendar, and I allowed the quarters of the seasons to become living quarters! The winter cabin, the spring cottage, the summer gazebo, the fall treehouse. Metaphorical spaces to play.
And this year, on my Shmita year, the quarters are a little different.
There was mid-March to mid-June, which was about adventuring and expansiveness.
Now I am in this new quarter which is about security, foundations, things subterranean. Until mid-September when I will set sail into the next quarter.
Sailing.
My lover and I have already been talking about going to Kentucky in mid-September, which might or might not happen, and I am going to find a way to heal my tent phobia.
And whatever happens, I will be sailing South to West on the compass then, which means it will be a quarter (and quarters!) of PASSION-SWEETNESS-CLARITY.
Then the fourth quarter of Shmita, mid-December to mid-March, circling back around from West to North: CLARITY-PRESENCE-ADVENTURE! This feels so good, my toes are wriggling, and I can’t stop smiling.
I don’t even know what’s going to happen then, but I can feel Incoming Me glowing love from West and from North, waiting for me to join her, waiting for me to become her.
What is my wish about?
This shift in thinking/feeling for me has been so immediate and so all-encompassing. A complete about-face from Everything Sucks to Oh Wow So Much Beautiful Possibility.
It reminds me of when I used to do coaching, and we would have so much fun and my clients would be like, whoa wait what just happened how come everything is good right now. That kind of magic.
I no longer feel stuck in Portland. I feel excited to be here, to be investigating this quarter and these quarters, finding out what is here for me.
So my wish is to bring this outlook, this thrill of anticipation, and this playful intentionality into every aspect of my day, especially into things that feel tight or stuck. My wish is to play.
Invitation.
You are invited to share many !!!!!! about this big realization, to share anything sparked for you about QUARTERS or time or play, to say “oh wow, what beautiful wishes” to me and to each other, to wish your own wishes.
GUESS WHAT ELSE! Fluent Self Care packages!
I made FOUR playful and play-filled Care Packages filled with clues, at least one squooshy companion for whatever you’re working on, and various other inspiring, calming Playground goodies.
One is for anyone who teaches. One is for anyone who needs some SPARKLE. One is for someone ready to set off on an Adventure and in need of some light-hearted, playful energy. And one is if you need sweetness.
And because I am feeling filled up on THANK YOU right now, I will also throw in either the Monster Manual & Coloring Book (basic version) or the Art of Embarking course, whichever you like, if you get one of these.
These care packages are gone. More to come, though! Price: $65 including shipping for one of the care packages and one of the above bonuses. Make your choice and email the First Mate with your preferences!
Now.
My toes are painted in a secret spy color: AFFAIR IN RED SQUARE.
I am drinking my favorite tea because it is finally cool enough to drink tea in the evenings.
I am thinking about snakes shedding skin, about kaleidoscopes, about blues dancing, about my beloved apartment in Florentin (south Tel Aviv) where I lived after my divorce, and about flowers and how they make everything better.
What does Slightly Future Me have to say?
Ze: You are the queen of bolt-holes, and you are an absolute genius to recognize that this is the Quarter for working on your Quarters.
Me: That is hilarious, but I love that you think this.
Ze: Let this story forever be a reminder of the truth of Nothing Is Wrong.
Clues.
I have these pirate cushions from my former retreat center, which I’m planning to bring to my brother’s nautically-themed wedding.
On the one hand they show water and sea and ships and pirates: ADVENTURE, and, on the other hand, they’re cushions. So they are actually about softness, comfort, resting, security.
I put Adventure and Security into this year’s compass, not sure how they’d work together, but actually this is all going to be fine.
The superpower of this is a badass way to live.
June was RELEASE MORE, with the superpower of I am stronger than I think, and now July is LOVE MORE, because this is a badass way to live.
This is a badass way to live.
Choosing safety AND freedom instead of safety OR freedom. Choosing adventure AND security instead of believing in the myth of Either/Or.
Choosing love, and choosing from love, and making change from love. From love, towards more love. Not out of shame or regret or guilt. From love into love. It’s wildly subversive and yes, a badass way to live.
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 Subterranean…
All of this releasing work to get my downstairs quarters ready, and then this week I had a massive understanding about being in a new quarter, how perfect is that.
Also I am now feeling excited about that project rather than overwhelmed and resigned, so that’s a new and beautiful development as well.
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