There are several people I know who are extraordinarily wise about time.
And about how there is always more of it.
One of these people is my marvelous uncle Svevo. One is my dear friend Hiro. One is Douglas Buchanan. One is Janet Bailey. One is Waverly Fitzgerald. And another is Cairene, one of my partners-in-crime.
Janet, Waverly and Cairene have all come to play with me at Rally (Rally!). Come to Rally. You will seriously meet the most amazing people.
Goodbye, October.
I am appreciating the good.
I am learning from the hard.
Thank you for this month. And for zombie Thriller.
Fair Winds, October! I will see you in one year when you are new and I am new and we are both new versions of ourselves.
Last month we didn’t say hello to September until the 8th. This time we’re closer to the entrance — I haven’t landed yet on the timing that feels right but will keep playing/experimenting.
Ideally I think I’d want a two-part ritual. Maybe a tentative wish-filled and welcoming hello to the month before it started, and then to check in and make proper introductions once it had begun.
Anyway, October! You’re here. Hello.
Alright. I have all sorts of things to get done today, and I imagine you do too.
So I’m officially declaring today to be a Day of Chickening!
How it works:
You state the thing you want to do.
That’s basically it.
Temporarily naming this moon the Moon of the Groove. Because that kind of sums up my mood.
This is what I will call you until you tell me otherwise.
And you can call me by a secret name and I won’t tell anyone at all.
Today I’m letting you peek at my journal.
Here’s some of what I scribbled yesterday morning.
Noticing.
What am I noticing? What am I feeling this morning?
I am feeling very discouraged this morning. Discouraged and bleak.
The OOD is pronounced Oooooood — rhymes with food — and it is the not especially secret code for:
Object Of Desire.
That’s the OOD. Oooooooooooood!
There are about fifteen steps to it, though of course you can do a much shorter version. Or pick and choose. Or adapt and adjust. Whatever works for you.
But I’ll share the full version so you get a sense of it:
Background.
- I am a fan of entry and exit.
- I like rituals. You may have noticed.
- Waving hi to the month of July is a variation on my daily Hello, Day practice.
- Gwishes: what I call those things that are not goals or wishes but kind of both.
That should be enough. Let’s do this.
Me: Ohmygod I’m a perfectionist. A perfectionist! How is that even possible.
All my friends: Yawn. Bored. Tell us something we don’t know.
Me: What are you talking about? I have seriously done nothing but sit on a couch and drink beer for the last decade. And you know that, because you were there. You brought the beer! And when I’m not at work behind the bar, I’m sitting at the bar or we’re here.
All my friends: But it was always obvious that you only do nothing because of the paralyzing fear that doing something might involve not getting it right.
Me: I hate you all, you perceptive sons of bitches.
Actually, I called them sons of whores because that’s how you say it in Hebrew. But the rest is pretty much how it happened.
I never do these exercises.
Not that I don’t get the appeal, because I do.
The essence of the spying practice is all about things I like:
Observation, play, mindfulness, curiosity, wonder, sneaking around the stuck and accessing possibility.
And pattern-finding, which is my greatest love.
But I don’t ever feel like spying on myself.
