invitation to conversation

[alex]

At our next living room picnic, we’ll explore when is it ok to ask for help?

As always, our discussion will go where it goes, but for me this topic began as part of continuing to explore our ideas about our bodies, our world(s) as we did at last week’s picnic…

Inspired primarily by the Peer-to-Peer Health Support episode of the AGAINST THE GRAIN podcast where artist and researcher, Cassie Thornton, explored: how can we take health and care back into our hands? in an interview about Cassie’s experiments with a semi-system of interdependent care, known as, The Hologram.

I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes

Picnic planning is a little like makin’ a mixtape

The mixtape of questions and assertions to picnic on goes something like —

• is asking for help weak?
• asking for help creates the opportunity to be rejected
• everyone around us is very taxed and this is not a total emergency
• they don’t deserve help
• I don’t deserve help
• when is it ok to describe our needs and vulnerabilities?
• there’s more
• what would you add?

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Also…
For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

[alex]

At our next living room picnic, I’d like to open a conversation about core needs, to invoke a different theory of them (than the usual reference to the Maslow hierarchy) and to explore our individual and varying core needs in the context of

• procrastination
• things we dread doing or get low energy about dealing with them

We’re not gonna problem-solve procrastination, and this is not about increasing productivity. It’s about self-care and self-expression.

It’s about how our minds work, work differently and the possibility that there is a thought-process behind your feelings, actions and inaction around certain activities and scenarios, that you haven’t languaged and explored yet — that you might like to.

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UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

Also,

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

[alex]

UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

Here, in this Topic, you’ll find a brief introduction to the ideas we’ll explore at the next living room picnic.

Invitations basically begin the conversation.

• They may include links to where the inspiration for the topic arose, questions to consider, stories, science, current events, health and wellbeing and artwork…kind of collage coming together in your mind.

• They provide you with picnic specifics (sometimes we listen to part of a talk, often we journal to collect our thoughts before sharing them) and the discussion prompts.

There’s never anything you need to do beforehand in order to attend, except maybe prepare something to write with, and to set yourself up to be comfortable.

Some women have asked to be kept on the list for invitations, even if they never attend, because they like the experience of reading them. You can always create your own conversation space, reflect on your own, or hit reply to share your thoughts.

Also,

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

[alex]

Our last picnic (yeh, I forgot to post!), was an exploration of personal threshold crossings, moments that changed us, or marked us, or planted a seed — or acted as mirrors.

Regardless of how big the change, how deep the mark, or profound the realization., this kind of thing happens all the time when the world inside us meets the world around us.

Though, I think we often miss it, pass by it fast, (maybe it feels small because it’s so personal to us, but I don’t think it is small, or even measurable), and we don’t get to notice, acknowledge the change, the work involved in getting here, the joy or pain or both and more, the mystery and dimensionality of becoming who we are and who we might be next.

The inspiration for this picnic was “leave the castle”, a moment of awareness that scooped me up one day at a birthday brunch and gave me a view of the world around from a stone tower, built to avoid…to avoid what exactly?

---

UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

Also, some more info is available here —

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

[alex]

Our next living room picnic, we’ll open a conversation exploring things that move you beyond words.

It doesn’t have to be really big the way awe is BIG. It could be small moments. It could be something you experience often, or rare and gem-like —experiences, places, objects, moments. people, anything. Heartbreakingly sad or magically transforming. Not that any of these are mutually exclusive. I’m already wondering how many variations of vibe and meaning we might find if we take the time.

And maybe it’s not that we’re being moved beyond words, maybe words aren’t the reference point and we are just being where we are and the words recede leaving un-worded space where it always was?

I want to take some time to talk about (hehe, with words!) the visceral, tactile, emotional, swirling inside, tingling, cellular happenings…and hang around the threshold, where things become barely language-able, the region in our mind-experiences where we’re losing words and, and, and…can’t quite…put words to what’s happening inside us.

---

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

---

UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

Also, some more info is available here —

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

---

[alex]

Last week I discovered the Picture Collection at the New York Public Library. The Picture Collection is a 106-year-old resource, open to the public. It’s a straightforward idea — visual images, cut from magazines, catalogues, and books, pasted on backings and organized in folders by some of the best librarians in the world.

Apparently, it’s been here and available to us for over a 100 years. There’s an online version these days too, but this is something I want to get my hands on. And anyway, online Search (like Google) doesn’t provide anything like the experience I’m looking for. That I often forget is the one I’m looking for…

“The feeling of fortuitous gratitude at coming across unexpected information is something most of us who’ve done any research, have experienced — that kismet of finding the perfect book, one spine away from the one that was sought. In the field of art and image research, this sparking of transmission, of sequence and connection, happens on a subconscious level….” — Leanne Shapton, In Defense of Browsing

And that’s where I’d like to picnic, right there, where the sparking happens. The connections you make, that the world makes with you, continuing on the non-verbal communication theme of last week’s I feel blue picnic, and the general guiding principle of we’re not solving things here, let’s do some browsing inside out together.

I should get a little more concrete about the picnic plan post-fieldtrip, when I send out the discussion prompts. Maybe. Just come. Let’s spark.

---

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UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

Also, some more info is available here —

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

---

Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary p.233

[alex]

For a while now, I have wanted to create my own set of signs. Small ones on popsicle sticks.
It’s more than one set actually.

There are signs for the subway, and while some overlap with the street signs (hehe— by street signs, I mean the signs I’d like to carry and display when I am on the street) most notably and surprisingly because you’d think a city street would be more than enough room, but there’s the much-needed sign alerting everyone to the unhealthy levels of cologne in the area that shows up in both sets — they are their own sets for sure. On the subway, if the car is medium- or light-full, I might like to ask a question with a sign and there isn’t time for that on a street. Oooh — unless I sit somewhere while people pass — that’s another set of signs!

There are signs for gatherings in a room, around a table and in other cozy places and signs for online gatherings. There are signs for protest – in your window – above your head when marching, accompanied or not by shouting. Or singing.

And there are endless variations within all of these. Not to mention tons more scenarios where signage would come in handy. Ah, also endless reasons for why.

so, at the next living room picnic, let’s make some signs.

​Doesn’t have to be a full set, or even the plan of a set. Maybe it’s just one. Maybe it’s writ large on a sheet you taped up on the wall in your living room. Maybe you will write it in the tiniest font because it’s too precious and fragile to be out in the world. You’ll see…

We can make it a crafty picnic if you like and have a kit ready for sign-making. Or it can be a drawing on paper, or typing…let’s reflect on some of the things we stand for, or that we bring with us, or would like to, that irritate us, spark joy in us, that the world needs to know about us.

O - and you do not have to share it. This experience is for you. We create it together, but there is no pressure to perform, or show up in a particular way.

---

UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

Also, some more info is available here —

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

[alex]

When I talk with you, how will you know that I am listening to you?

---

I think about listening often. After we talk(ed), I probably second-guessed myself: did I really listen? Did I miss opportunities to ask you to say more… ? And that we goes for me and anyone after we talk (that’s usually when I become aware of us as a we, in a thing, a moment, a conversation together, even if it’s brief, or light or between strangers who will never see each other again — I guess I’m a little obsessed with listening) if I have a moment after we talk, I typically do a little second-guessing and almost always notice specific instances where

• I could have paused longer and let what you said settle
• I could have given you a chance to continue (a chance that silence might have led you to if I had co-created some silence with you)
• I chimed in, agreed with you, said supportive things, shared my perspective…

instead of hanging on with all my stuff (not that there is anything wrong with my stuff!), and just breathed out a say more…

I don’t mean to make a big deal out of grading this. (That’s another fixation we could talk about; this time toward lowering the frequency, loosening the grip, forgetting to do it). Critiquing, perfecting or providing a framework for optimizing…n-n-no…what interests me is us having good conversations. And by good, I don’t always mean comfy-easy chats and buoyant exits. Though, these are welcome and for some of us, sorely needed.

By good I mean ones where we can be present. In our respective integrities. with just the right-feeling mix of boundaries, consent, intimacy and openness.

Right-feeling? Hehe…that’s a moving not-really-a-target target. That’s the ground. That’s caring about everyone’s place in the room, the moment, the conversation we’re both a part of. There’s no formula for this. It’s a starting place and a general direction. It’s a walk in the woods, down city streets, along a beach, (where do you like to walk?) — it’s a heartbeating. Yeh, not easy to metaphor-packing this one. And that’s perfect for us because that’s where you come in.

When I talk with you, how will you know that I am listening to you?

What would feel right for you? And, of course, it doesn’t have to be about me listening to you, consider anyone you talk with (or would like to): and let’s explore how listening works for you.

Let’s picnic on what it looks like, sounds like, feels like: when you’re being listened to.

There is nothing to prepare.

You will not be put on the spot. When I say let’s explore how listening works for you, I mean to invite to a place where you can do that, and to the extent that you choose to share, we’d love to listen. I know I would: listening is fast-becoming a favorite slowthingtodo.

---

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

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UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

Also, some more info is available here —

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

[alex]

setbacks happen; bring them with you

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This week they began demolishing the East River Park, a swath of the lower east side of Manhattan shoreline that is a lot larger than you might think it is.

It was unthinkable to me that anyone would choose to cut down 1,000 trees and exile the wildlife (animals, birds, bugs and humans) who live and breathe there, but they have chosen, and they are cutting, exiling, taking…

Sometimes the idea of it, when I let it enter me, is so heartbreaking, it fills me with a sadness so thick I can’t move, or tell it to anyone; it’s like the cells of my being go on strike: we cannot live here.

But here we are, my cellbody, yours, theirs, the world. Trying to move forward with our lives the way we dreamed, expected, hoped, worked for…

When things we didn’t expect, never imagined could happen, or that we could bear, that hurt, disappoint, leave us aching, angry, devastated, (and they don’t have to be as physically large as the East River Park to deeply affect us, or socially significant —though, I would say that personal setbacks often weave into, are the threads of any social fabric) it can feel like they are somehow separate from the stream of life. Like you should get over it, through it, accept it — and move on.

I feel that. Do you?

Also, though, I don’t like to rush.

For one thing, I don’t believe it’s real. The rushing. Things take time, and run unmanageable courses, and some things run so deep and wide that really, you’re not getting over it, you’re not moving on because it’s part of everything for you. So, where is the rushing getting us? You can’t outrun how you feel.

So, for this living room picnic, I invite you to bring your setbacks with you.

You can share them with the group or hold them in your mindbodyheart. You will not be put on the spot to say out loud what feels un-sayable.

Venting, ranting, sighing, growling and tears are welcome. So is resilience, joy and laughter. We make our ways through, hold ourselves, and show up differently and unpredictably, and that’s fine. That’s who we are. Knowing is optional.

This is about what matters to you, to your sense of the world, of safety, of love, of fairness, of work, of home, of family, of art, of being human.

As usual, there is nothing to prepare.

---

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

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UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

Also, some more info is available here —

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

---

[alex]

personal quiet is a phrase that came to me when I decided to let myself keep an interstitial journal in the community. It’s a journal about the steps, and especially the thinking, feeling and doing in between the steps, I’ve been taking toward establishing UNDERMININGnormal.

I was worried about the journal being too personal: over-sharing about me vs giving members insight into the inner workings of building a digital coffeehouse. But I realized that I need this.

To do the work that matters to me, to be the person, the woman, the artist, the gatherer, the friend, family member, neighbor, citizen, human being that I aspire to be, I need more personal quiet in my life.

How about you?

This is for women who have a lot going on (work, family, responsibilities, feelings, concerns, grief, dreams) and would like to have more relaxation and a sense of spaciousness supporting them, as they do their thing —their many things.

what conversations might this open?

• wellbeing: fostering peace of mind and body
• creativity and care: improving decision-making from a place of grounded presence
• resilience: increasing capacity for hard conversations, annoying situations, people we find difficult (whether it’s a one-off customer service scenario or an ongoing relationship)

This isn’t a promise that you will emerge from our picnic having achieved these as goals. I just think that having these kinds of conversations together is the way, wherever we’re heading. And it helps to distinguish between the concept of personal goals vs your aspirations and values. One fits on a list and the other is how you live your life, day by day, moment by moment. Finding your personal quiet helps with both.

There is nothing to prepare.

---

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

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UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

Also, some more info is available here —

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

---

[alex]

What if when we met, we exchanged stories instead of credentials?

What if I we told each other something about the soil we come from?

I discovered this question over the summer, during a podcast conversation between Nikki Silvestri and Daniel Stillman on the Conversation Factory podcast, during the Facilitating Complexity episode:

what is the soil you come from?

Partly because I struggle with introducing myself (I’ve never had a job title that felt like it was mine or good enough and a wave of performance anxiety would fill my mind — how could I possibly still be struggling with this!) and partly because job title - credentials are often too generic and branded to learn anything about each other, or to invite any questions. I always have questions. Credential exchange often leaves my curiosity in the corner.

This living room picnic is an inquiry into the complexity of who you are, you human being—

• born of,
• cultivated by,
• cared for,
• impacted by

people, places, circumstances, beliefs, ideas, histories, experiences, aspirations, desires.

I want to meet you and when I do, to have a visit, like we would on a fieldtrip to a neighborhood in some other part of the city…

This is for women who would enjoy, find relief in, are curious about more than credential exchanges as a way into the conversations that matter to you — whatever the context or setting, anywhere, anytime that humans are meeting each other.

There is nothing to prepare.

---

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

---

UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

Also, some more info is available here —

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

---

[alex]

neighborhood stories

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Especially, since I’ve been spending more and more time online, working remotely, getting together with friends digitally, on my own at home, and also because I’ve begun taking more walks, slowing down, noticing (likely noticing what has been there all along) where I am, who else is here (that I can see, that I can’t), I’m drawn to thinking about the notion of neighborhood and curious to hear about yours.

I live in a large and loud city and it can be isolating in my apartment. and this leads to mind-wanderings…so, when I head out for my exercise walks, passing people as I go, I wonder: are you local? can you tell that I am? Do we live in the same neighborhood?

So far, there is no way for me to tell— you could be visiting, or on your way to work or shopping…far from home. and eh home is what I would like to talk about at our next living room picnic…

How does your neighborhood extend your home? (does it?)

A neighborhood can be defined and experienced in many different ways.

Who are your neighbors?

• Are you only counting the people, or would you include the trees and wildlife (even if domesticated or transplanted)?
• How about the soil, the land, water and sky?
• Which of the people make it in? Who’s outside looking in?

Where is it that you live?

• it’s not necessarily located in one place (especially with the digital world) so don’t feel limited to one current location
• or to tethered to the current moment because your mind doesn’t really really get the difference between past, present and future (some of us wonder about whether that’s even a useful or true way to think about time)

Let’s open a conversation about our neighborhoods and through noticing and storytelling, explore (or discover, maybe even expand) our concepts of home.

This is for women who may have also begun thinking about the significance of place to the quality of our lives, as we continue to experience waves of what it means to go through a worldwide pandemic, lockdowns and emergences.

There is nothing to prepare.

---

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

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UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

Also, some more info is available here —

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

---

[alex]

resistance in place

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It’s not that I’m anti-normal, UNDERMININGnormal is a refuge from the heavy-handed rule of normal. Or what purports to be normal. Who says so? And why should I care? How does normal dictate value? If you act, believe, need, desire what is outside the norm, what’s the cost of being, well… you?

I have questions (and that doesn’t seem to be normal).

Undermining, for me, isn’t just about displacing or contradicting , it’s also about engaging with what has become the status quo, the usual state of things, the expectations and even the language delimiting what is and what can be —without disintegrating, bracing or ducking.

Undermining normal in my country would be to even talk about it . In my body, to stay in the conversation on my own terms — before I understand it, or know exactly what it is that I want, or how to make it happen, or have the language for it.

Staying in the room when you are outside the norm (are against it or oppressed by it or not sure where you are) is not easy to do.

This is where Jenny Odell’s notion of resistance in place comes in.

To resist in place is to make oneself into a shape that cannot so easily be appropriated by a capitalist value system. To do this means refusing the frame of reference: in this case a frame of reference in which value is determined by productivity, the strength of one’s career, and individual entrepreneurship. It means embracing and trying to inhabit somewhat fuzzier or blobbier ideas of: maintenance as productivity, of the importance of nonverbal communication, and the of the mere experience of life as the highest goal. It means recognizing and celebrating a form of the self that changes over time, exceeds algorithmic description, and whose identity doesn’t always stop at the boundary of the individual . —How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell, Introduction p.xvi

I don’t know if questioning our capitalist value system resonates for you, but if you’re reading along, something about your own sense of being is not served by something in the status quo , and I think exploring this notion of resisting in place (as described above, or as you would take it on) can lead to a nice clearing for a picnic.

As we end out the calendar year, I invite you to consider resistance in place in your world, in your body —because one way or another, the tension between being an individual and the collective as portrayed by, possibly controlled by the government, your family, friends, workplace, business world, social life, the media and news is impacting you .

It’s a constantly shifting relationship, or it could be…

This is for women who who like some camaraderie around their personal pursuits, the questions, ideas, interests, challenges, aspirations, on the way to discovering and creating the paths that will lead you there.

---

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

---

UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

Also, some more info is available here —

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

---

[alex]

the commute to work in your mindbody

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Whether you travel to an office, or a store, factory, farm, boat or someone else’s home — or don’t leave your home at all — to commute to work, there’s a transition that takes place inside you. And there’s a lot that you take with you.

Many of us do more than one kind of work. Some of us have very clear lines between work and play or work and home and do a fair amount of “work” to keep that in place. That can take its toll. That is often overlooked.

Whether you love your work, dread it or have a mix of many feelings about it, and especially with the many ways the pandemic has impacted work life and home life, there’s a conversation rarely had about the spaces in between (or even if you think of it as work life vs home life) that I’d like to open with you.

Let’s consider the notion of commuting, or leaving one space (to be named) and arriving at a work space (to be described), what’s taking place there, emerging, receding, needed, possible.

There is nothing to prepare.

This is for women who could do with some care and attention around the work they do.

---

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

---

UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

Also, some more info is available here —

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

---

[alex]

the long way home

---

This week has slowed down for me, finally…my calendar is still covered with places I need to show up in, but also I’ve had conversation dates with friends I haven’t spoken to in a while, where we just wanderingly talked about whatever came up. I don’t recall where we started, but someone went first and the other followed. And even with my chronic difficulty with goodbyes, we kept to the scheduled time. We didn’t cover everything since last time. It was really nice to connect.

I don’t know what it was like for them, but inside me, I was aware of slowness guiding us, like it was gently holding my hand and gave it the nicest, slightest love-squeeze if some part of me started to doubt that this was exactly where I needed to be.

you don’t need to make a point of catching up. you don’t need to run a gauntlet to connect. you can just show up and be where you are.

For me, at one point, that meant tearing up because we “stopped by” the park being demolished and I can’t describe it without my heartbreaking open. We also stopped by passion projects and upcoming travel plans, and recent family visits, and projects that may not work out… Everywhere we went, it was warm, unhurried, like home.

the invitation

For the last living room picnic of the season, I’d like to honor where you are in your life journey, to be guided by slowness and this poignant-comforting song from my teens that I can’t get out of my head, and just hang out together. Wherever that is for you. Whatever you’re feeling, however much of it you do or don’t want to bring into the room, that’s fine, there, let’s meet there.

As always, there is nothing to prepare.

And just because I’m on the verge of tears lately (and may still be when we meet to picnic), that doesn’t mean that joy, laughter, hope aren’t at home, too. It’s always a mix. That’s why these gatherings mean so much to me. On our own, the world can shrink-wrap around us, and feel so much smaller than it actually is, move much faster than it needs to —to get to where?

This is for you even if you don’t quite know what you need next.

---

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

---

UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

Also, some more info is available here —

For a proper welcome to UNDERMININGnormal…
To skip to what is a living room picnic…

---

[alex]

collective grief ceremonies

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Last year, I discovered grief ceremonies.

It wasn’t my idea. and, until we were in it, I didn’t know how much I needed it or what it would touch inside me —to make room for grief. Not just because we all experienced so much loss in 2020 and continuing into 2021, but because there should be room for our individual grief whenever and however it shows up for us —as normal, human being.

This grief ceremony takes place online —it’s a mainly quiet gathering, where cameras are off and everyone’s story of grief, sadness and loss is prioritized—something that many of us have a hard time doing, finding the time or giving ourselves permission to do.

For one hour, you will be welcomed to give voice, privately, to what needs to be said, maybe for the first time. We’ll journal and light digital candles, and be with our respective grief (of all kinds), and we will not be alone.

Nothing will be solved. Though solace may be found. And, you will not be asked to share anything.

Even if journaling is not typically your thing, giving yourself an hour like this to feel what you feel may lead to clarity, acceptance, release, and depth and much needed self-care. Sometimes, it’s just hard to give that to ourselves, to stick with yourself long enough to relax away from any need to fix things and sink into the gooey center of who we are, and sometimes, it’s just nice not to be doing a thing alone .

Inspired by teachers, friends and fellow gatherers, I offer us this quiet hour together, where emotions are unquestioned and there is nothing to solve, prove, validate or achieve—where everyone’s story matters and you belong exactly as you are.

As they are part of UNDERMININGnormal, this season’s grief ceremonies are just for women, though of course, everyone grieves (and other times, I hold that space).

how to attend

Register here to attend on Sunday 26-Dec 4:00-5:00pm EST
Register here to attend on Monday 27-Dec 7:30-8:30pm EST

Please note: for this gathering, it’s best to attend via computer (as digital candle-lighting may be tricky via phone).

Participating in grief ceremonies is a way to join the UNDERMININGnormal community.
It costs $7.00 to attend, and comes with a month of membership.

You’ll find more details (and can sign up) here.

#underminingnormal #griefceremony

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I’ve scheduled the second grief ceremony during our weekly living room picnic hour to potentially make it easier for members to fit it into their schedule. This is a new program and there wasn’t much notice, so I thought we’d hold two sessions.

[alex]

how are you? how do you know?

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I got interested in this topic (of how do you know how you are?) initially off a meditation on mood tunnels by Jeff Warren (a meditation teacher I listen to on calm.com, who also offers weekly livestreamed, group meditations as part of the Do Nothing Project). I’m not new to thinking about how my mood colors my perception, sets the tone, possibly the boundaries of what’s possible when we get together. But I hadn’t looked at it in a while, and the notion of affective realism ,

where we confuse our own affect, own inner feelings with how things are in the outside world

—that was new for me: it got me wondering about the experiences, beliefs, emotions swirling inside me and what exactly happens when they meet up with what is .

How exactly am I making the assessment of: How am I?

How about you? Are you well-versed in how to read your inner landscape? Is it something you work on? Has it changed over the years?

These last couple of years in our respective pandemic-lands has jostled all kinds of subtle and strong ideas, assumptions, expectations, narratives, out of their dimly lit familiar places inside us.

Biases, fears, hopes, mental models, love, commitment, loss, anger, longing, grief…What if we gave them a little space to move around, be seen? Would anything change?

I’m curious about this, and invite you to picnic on it. We’ll slow things down to the speed of meaning and see what we see. ​I’ll send discussion prompts over the weekend and you’ll receive reminder emails with the Zoom login info from Luma once you register. There is nothing you need to do to prepare. Just, some of us like to know what to expect.

What do you think? Is this sounding like your kind of conversation space?

Participating in a living room picnic is a way to join the UNDERMININGnormal community.
It costs $7.00 to attend, and comes with a month of membership.

Members can participate in all UNDERMININGnormal gatherings and programs.

To attend: Just sign up here.

If you’ve never attended a living room picnic and feel like more of an introduction to UNDERMININGnormal and what picnics are like, you can stop by the courtyard; I wrote this for you. To skip to what is a living room picnic…

Got questions? I’d love to hear them!

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If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

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Image credit: This gate was painted by Paul Kostabi. You can view more of his work here. I recently discovered his work and “Can Can Man” is my favorite - so far!

[alex]

the purpose of fractals

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A fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-simiilar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. —Emergent Strategy, by adrienne maree brown, p.51

The purpose of fractals, of the small repeating patterns in our experiences, gestures, truths, moments that happen between us and inside us is to generate meaning.

These seemingly in-between spaces, mundane, habitual, overlooked, or out of our control are where we actually live. Where we forge the meaning in, and quality of, our lives.

In the moment by moment cultivation of our relationships, emergence of experiences and the journeys to our accomplishments and life milestones, fractals is to hold it together, provide structure, connection, direction.

We get pushed to hurry up already. Get to that next major marker. What’s new and exciting? (in the midst of all the noise, how loud, how big does your thing need to be to matter?) When really, what is the rush, or the point actually, when—

Small is good, small is all. (The large is a reflection of the small). —Emergent Strategy, by adrienne maree brown, p.41

I’m not trying to say that it’s only the little things that count. It’s that fractals comprise the large in a way that is powerful, that can be where great change, peace and value can be generated.

…what we practice at the small scale sets the pattern for the whole system. —Emergent Strategy, by adrienne maree brown, p.53

And while at times it may seem like it’s the big things, the headlines that are demanding, even fixating our attention, how that takes place in our lives, our bodies, our work, our families, is also comprised of fractals, of repeating patterns, sustained by us.

Whatever you’re doing, you’re training in something. —I think I’m quoting or paraphrasing Pema Chödrön or Sakyong Mipham circa 2009? (my reading, not their writing)

Physically, mentally, emotionally — neurologically, we’re doing reps, carving grooves, marking paths. Your attention is already there. And, at the top of the year, where many have decided on a list of goals, resolutions, projects, values — maybe boiled it all down to a word, a core theme for the year, I’d like to reflect on direction.

To consider the fractal-makeup of the journey, the work, the living we’re called to this year, this season, this week. When we zoom in, get that personal, does it all hold together?

No pressure to know things about where you’re headed or how you’ll get there. Totally cool if you do, if you have a plan in place.

Either way, we’ll just talk, about whatever you’re ready to talk about. Often, getting together like this can be surprisingly relaxing to ideas that are bracing against being seen or tested — whether you realized it or not.

I’ve only recently noticed the gap between what I say are my values and what I do, how I hold myself, hold space for others. It’s subtle (at this resolution) the difference, but what if I zoomed in? Not just to see if the difference is nontrivial (and definitely not to stand in judgment — I’ve done quite enough of that), but to understand the gap, maybe choose differently going forward — even-just-slightly change things. If it’s a pattern, a feedback loop, a habit, a belief system, a typical response, an expectation of a same-old, an unexamined risk assessment, a routine and I tweaked just so, how large of an impact might that have going forward at scale?

That’s what I’m hoping to explore in this discussion about fractals and purpose.

There’s nothing to prepare. I’ll share the discussion prompts over the weekend when you register (for those who just like to know what to expect).

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What do you think? Is this sounding like your kind of conversation space?

Participating in a living room picnic is a way to join the UNDERMININGnormal community.
It costs $7.00 to attend, and comes with a month of membership.

Members can participate in all UNDERMININGnormal gatherings and programs.

To attend: Just sign up here.

If you’ve never attended a living room picnic and feel like more of an introduction to UNDERMININGnormal and what picnics are like, you can stop by the courtyard; I wrote this for you. To skip to what is a living room picnic…

Got questions? I’d love to hear them!

---

If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.

UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.

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