An entire page about me.

Havi Brooks.

Hi.

I am hiding behind a rather large potted plant. But I will wave.

Pronunciation guide.

HA-vee.

Sometimes it helps to pretend you’re saying “Harvey” with a British accent.

The humming queen of a hidden humming castle.

One thing that is a bit unusual about me is that I live on silent retreat. That’s kind of what it sounds like: I don’t talk.

So if we meet, I will smile delightedly at you and not have much to say.

And by “not much to say”, I mean: I won’t say anything! I laugh easily, am great with yes-or-no questions, am a marvelous listener and always have post-it notes for scribbling. I like to hum.

Should we both happen to be in a hugging mood, I might hug you.

What we talk about around here.

Presence. But the kind that’s silly and delight-filled. Playful presence. I think we often want to turn “mindfulness” into this heavy, drab, fraught Thing I Should Probably Be Doing. Which is kind of tragic because presence can be hilarious. And fun.

We’re lovingly bringing attention to things that don’t always get enough — or any — attention. We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. And we make it fun:

Your relationship with yourself, your internal world, your stuff, your business (if you have one), creative play, fuzzball monsters who may or may not like cookies. Also time and space, the piles and shhh projects.

Creative self-investigation runs the risk of the usual labels. Blah-self-help-personal-development-time-management-productivity-blah.

So yeah. I’ll admit, reluctantly, that we do stuff that kind of falls into some of those categories, except it’s PLAYFUL and SPARKLY and FUN. Not preachy or motivational. We experiment and we play. No external sources of authority needed.

I have two weekend rituals that I play with here. Fridays I review the week with a Chicken. Sundays there are Very Personal Ads, which are little wishes, hopes, and dreams. Join in if you like.

See also: Whee! The People for what the people who hang out here tend to be like.

Interviews, real and imaginary, with me.

1) You can read this interview with me that Communicatrix did for 50-for-50.

2) A sort-of interview where TJ gets me to reveal 30 Things I Love Right Now.

3) And here’s a list of fewer-than-33-things from a few years ago.

Define yourself.

Trilingual. But silent! On permanent email sabbatical. Obsessed with patterns. Eccentric. Smart-ass.

Things you believe in.

Love. Love is awesome. And it’s inside you which is kind of weird but also really liberating because it’s there whenever you need it.

The generosity of strangers.

The often hard-to-access inner ability to really, truly get to know yourself — with all of your stuck and pain — and like yourself anyway.

Things you don’t believe in.

Mt. Hood.

Things you wish you believed in.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Pastafarianism has a certain appeal.

One thing people might not know about you.

I am extremely passionate about beer.

One thing people probably don’t want to know.

I dislike the word “diphthong” with a passion. In fact, even typing it is creeping me out.

One thing no one should know.

My filing system used to be organized by chakras.

How long have you been doing this?

Oh man. March, 2005. In Berlin. This site went live that August.

I started regularly posting my writing here in June 2008 — see the outrageously packed archives.

In 2010, we opened a secret playground in Portland, and now we’ve expanded into a march larger space called Stompopolis which is the MOST MAGICAL PLACE IN THE WORLD, and that’s where I work/play.

I have no idea what you’re talking about most of the time!

Selma is my business partner. She’s a duck.

The Schmoppet is a schmoppet. He’s purple, charming, and as extroverted as his vocabulary is limited, which is to say: very.See the video of him up at the Frolicsome Bar (Facebook).

Hoppy House is my house. It’s extra-hoppy. Like an IPA. Or a trampoline.

Guns N Rollers is the roller derby team that we’ve sponsored for several years.

Because mindfulness and knocking people down is such a winning combination.

I make up a lot of words. See the glossary for a partial list of Havi-isms.

Life philosophy?*

Napping is good.
So are pretty much all forms of quiet, intentional, guilt-free navel-lint-contemplation.
Use your powers for good. Live by what you teach. When you can’t, forgive yourself.

* Just my personal take on things, not something I expect anyone else to live by.

I want to send you lovely things.

Ohmygod. You are the best. Mailing address at the very bottom of this page and also every page on the site. That’s where I go to look it up too.

That’s all I want to say for now.

Maybe someday we’ll get to meet in real life if you come to one of my programs at The Playground in Portland. That would be amazing.

Or you can find me the Twitter bar. I’m @havi — say kazoo whenever.

Take care and I’ll see you on the blog.
Havi (and Selma)

Photos of Havi by Jillian Kay Photography and Kylie Springman.