Havi Brooks taught a Shiva Nata class on Friday evening at the new playground, a beauteous space.
Here’s Havi, shiva-nata-ing:

So, the idea to Shiva Nata is that you completely occupy your brain, so you can’t think about whatever you typically think about. You just focus on your arms doing their thing and then epiphanies happen.
If you’re not failing, it’s not hard enough. If you’re doing it perfectly, it means that there is room to think.
What happened to me
Havi asked us to think of a word to support us as we …

I want to talk about sadness today. Many of us are in the sad boat, it seems.  We’re bummed. This bummed-ness feels similar to how I felt after 9/11.  It’s helplessness, hopelessness.The BP oil spill has got me in a state of hopelessness.
I was thinking, Okay, okay, BP is going to clean this up. Obama will take care of this. Okay, we’ll be okay. They’ll get out the Dawn dish soap and clean the birds.
And then I heard that this sort of thing happens in the Niger Delta every year.  …

So, in the car on the way to school today, I mentioned to my tweener, Ike, that we would be stopping at the Humdinger for a milkshake after his haircut, but before family pictures.
Can I just say that I feel a little guilty that my kids had to reach ages 22, 19 and 12 before we did family pictures?  Can I also say that our first family Christmas card is going out this year and I will be 41 when it hits your mailbox?
I am domestically delayed.

Except for my ability …

The weirdo box.
The not-the-same-color-as-me box.
The socio-economic box.
Boom! Get outta that box.

So, I was helping Destiny hang a welcome home banner on the top of the bar. She was laughing the whole time like it was some sort of inside joke.
The bar at the edge of the universe is everywhere, She says.
Ah, I get it.

The Pattern of Destiny
I promised today that we’d talk about the pattern of destiny.
There’s not just one pattern
There’s many patterns, in one person’s life.  These patterns overlay one another, sometimes with beauty, sometimes with cacophony.
Let’s listen to some music, eh?
Paul Simon brought us the amazing sound of Afro-Brazillian …

Destiny Dolphin and I were talking about my new office space. She thinks I should add a swim-up bar(probably not going to happen).
Having a dedicated dreaming and planning and doing space helps me focus my efforts on my work, my goals, my destiny.
I have a print in my office by Leah Piken Kolidas. It reminds me of the deep intelligence that resides within me (and also, of course, you). It’s called “Listening”.
I asked Leah to share some thoughts with us about sanctuary and purpose. She stopped by the bar at …

The pattern loops.
“Skrrik…squeek…ssnnnonk.”
Oh yeah, I hadn’t thought about that…
The pattern loops. The pattern of destiny loops around to bring you back to you.
It’s not like you are one thing at one side of the pattern and another thing at the other. You are changed by the experience, but the fundamental essence of who you are is the same.
That’s weird.
Weird but true. Your destiny just makes you more of who you are.
I know that this sounds very strange. Why have the experience if it doesn’t change you?
I …

So, when we last saw Destiny the purpose porpoise, she had found a jar of herring.

We left the room before she got her snout stuck in it.

Today, she talks with us about the importance of thinking of your destiny as steps in a pattern, not an end state of being….

Maybe I should have started with this one.
When you are not aligned with your destiny, you find it hard to breathe.
It’s like someone turned the world to putty and stretched it sideways.
You may cry a lot.
Does this sound familiar?
 I have this perfectly good job and I hate it. I really feel like I shouldn’t be here, but the job, itself, is fine. Why am I such a baby? I make a good living. I have prestige. But I really want to… (raise goats, translate the Tao Te Ching, work with Doctors Without …