invitation to conversation

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…


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.


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…



Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary p.233

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…

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.


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…

setbacks happen; bring them with you


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.


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…


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.


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…


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 :rowing_woman: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…


neighborhood stories


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.


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…


resistance in place


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…


the commute to work in your mindbody


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…


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…


2021-12-20 the long way home UNDERMININGnormal — Instagram Square

collective grief ceremonies


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 :notebook:

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


:notebook: 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.

how are you? how do you know?


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!


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.


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!

the purpose of fractals


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).


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.


2022-01-10 the purpose of fractals UNDERMININGnormal — Instagram Square

Many of us walk around (or sit in front of computers, counters, conveyor belts of one kind or another), trying to manage everything. It’s what we do: we take care of things, work, people we care about, committed to, ourselves and our homes. We do our best to stay on track with it all, but it can be hard, and when it’s hard, it takes a toll.

I’ve been thinking about those times when you feel off, whether it’s originating internally: you don’t feel strong or present or interested, or externally when a situation, and encounter, a relationship, a business meeting shows up like door smack-clicking shut just as you arrive.

I think it happens a lot.

(but wouldn’t it?)

I mean, if there is such a thing as on-track, you have to expect that you’ll find yourself off-track, unprepared, misunderstanding what’s needed, unsure or mistaken about how to proceed, bored, dissatisfied, feeling something, at some point, that doesn’t feel like an unequivocal yes!

Actually most feelings are a mix, I mean — people are complex, life, work, relationships, social life, family, healthcare are complicated; what are the odds that you’re in one of those pure joy moments? and is purity a goal?

So, most of the time, we’re modulating, moving among emotions, ideas and experiences, passing through and settling in our bodies, becoming the backdrop, the context, habits, beliefs, expectations and ultimately projections that appear as the world around us, and our places in it.

on-track — off-track
on-track — off-track — off-track

There being one of you and so many others of us (and them— if I’m honest about my feelings), it’s a naturally-occurring phenomenon that off-track moments are common. And maybe you learn to shrug it off, the slights, the snubs, the missteps, but what if we integrated them vs expelling them?

What do you do when you feel off, stuck, unable to decide, to start, to keep going, to remember what it was you were trying to do? When you feel insulted, othered, misunderstood, overshadowed, hindered, unseen, unheard***…what do you do?***

We all do something, whether it’s consciously chosen, in the moment or afterwards, or on an ongoing basis —to remedy the feeling of off-ness.

Can we talk about it?

Not from a perspective of fixing because you’re not broken, you’re being.

I believe in you and your path. No one knows what you know about you.

More from the perspective of cultivating resilience, fostering wellbeing (what do you need?) because I think we can work with these in-between spaces intentionally, creatively.

I’m inviting you to a living room picnic exploring the space between on-track and off. Where they become each other, and where we might make something new of them.

As always, there is 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).


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.


what is easy is sustainable


Probably the first time I formally thought about how to make things easier — not that they should be easier! I’ve had and held that thought often enough over the years — in a range of incarnations/versions of me, all kinds of scenarios where you just know this does not need to be this hard, or you just wish it wasn’t regardless of shoulds, you just wish it was easier.

That experience is deeply familiar and for me, generally begins with a internal growl of WTF?! I own that. But that’s something else, it’s a reaction, intense and verbose at times, for sure, but it’s not formally thinking about how to make things easier. That it was even possible, or you were allowed! - to plan for, prep for ease - that didn’t show up for me until late 2007 when out of the blue I decided to quit smoking —after 26 years of, not just smoking a pack to two packs a day, but feeling quite fine about it.

How I came to want to quit is probably worth exploring too, but for today, for our next living room picnic, what I’d like to explore with you: is how to make things easier. How to cultivate ease for ourselves and for others.

I made it through the experience of quit smoking - which ranged from full-body mindbreakingly hard to endlessly aching and confusing (I was 15 when I started smoking so basically I had been controlling my brain chemistry my entire adult life, so unmoored and foggy barely covers how lost I was inside myself) to almost, almost feeling ok enough to exhale, really exhale and be in my body for a solid two years (no joke, I was broken) —I got through it because I had made it easier on myself going into it.

I know, it doesn’t sound easy and it didn’t feel anything like what I typically imagine when I think of ease. But it was a lesson in how to make things easier.

Ease is a mix of things.

It’s the moment to moment vibe of ooh-nice goodness that makes you want to stay, to continue, to explore and possibly risk.

Ease is the opening that welcomes you.

Ease is relaxation at a cellular level.

It’s others helping you without you even realizing it, much less asking.

Ease is many more things — It’s deep and biologically purposeful.

Ease plays a major role in sanity, integrity, wellbeing and progress.

What is easy is sustainable. And that, my friends, is what I want to picnic on. This aspect of ease as integral to the quality of our lives.

As always, there is 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).

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.


winter love hangouts


On Friday 21-Jan at 5:30-6:15pm EST (and every Friday to the end of Spring) we’ll be hanging out, talking about love.

  • defining love (21-Jan)
  • love ethic: the roots of love (28-Jan)
  • love practice: a way of being (04-Feb)
  • love recipe (11-Feb)
  • boundaries (18-Feb)
  • self-love (25-Feb)
  • radical love (04-Mar)
  • lovingkindness (11-Mar)
  • love for sale (18-Mar)

There is nothing to prepare. I’ll share a brief text at the top, and we’ll talk.

While we start with a text, it’s not a book club, not literary criticism; it’s an entry point into a conversation among friends, (even if this is our first time meeting), about what we think and feel about love.

So far, these dates are inspired and informed by the work of bell hooks, Prentis Hemphill, Sonya Renee Taylor, Loretta J. Ross, Sharon Salzman, Jeff Warren, Barbara Kruger and Cole Porter.

Also, the text could be in any medium.


As a society we are embarrassed by love. We treat it as if it were an obscenity. We reluctantly admit to it. Even saying the word makes us stumble and blush… Love is the most important thing in our lives, a passion for which we might fight or die, and yet we’re reluctant to linger over its names. Without a supple vocabulary, we can’t even talk or think about it directly. —Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of Love


next winter love hangout: Fri 20-Jan at 5:30-6:15pm EST
our topic: defining love

While there is nothing to prepare for us to hangout, you may feel inspired to pull out your favorite texts about love in advance of us getting together, and that’s cool too. Either way, it’ll be great to hang out with you and talk about love.

Register here to attend.

Participating in a winter love hangout 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.


If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal gatherings and programs.

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


2022-01-21 defining love how UNDERMININGnormal — Instagram Square

Both this week’s winter love hangout topic (a love ethic) and Monday’s living room picnic (embrace y/our complexity) in their own ways offer an opportunity to contemplate interconnectedness, in terms of the quality and nature of our connection (possibly love) and the active (vs reactive) experience of interconnection.

love…

  • Is love an experience within you, something passed between us? — an exchange of energy, a kind of feedback loop?
  • Is it a choice, an act of will, a practice? What guides it?

If you’re curious and available to hang out with these questions, on Friday, 28-Jan, 5:30pm-6:15pm EST, register here. I’ll share a brief text, and we’ll let it take us where it does. Introverts and doodlers are welcome, as are bubbly extroverts and code-switching ambiverts.

y/our complexity

On a similar note, on Monday, 31-Jan, 7:30-8:30pm EST, we’ll welcome complexity,

  • internal (you are a universe, everyone is — I don’t expect sameness from you)
  • external (as we humans are endlessly networked with all beings living and non-living, present, past and future in ever-changing ways).

Complexity does not mean difficulty. At least, it doesn’t have to. That’s why I’d like to picnic on it — and why I’m offering a series of four picnics on how to embrace y/our complexity.

backstory

What got me tuned into thinking about y/our complexity was a characterization of interdependence as iterative, that: “being interdependent is a series of small repetitive motions.”

What a surprise! (interdependence is a process?)

[heh]…so, for me, interdependence, while foundational and important to me, was a concept. It lived in the mind.

While it is observable fact: everything, everyone is connected and necessarily so — what functions without relationship or interaction with something other than itself? Interdependent was just how things are. Which is a huge thing if you think about it — basically, interdependence is the algorithm that generates reality. But the way I had it: it was just a recipe written on paper, the unactivated alchemy of life, disconnected from the experience of living.

I’m kind of stunned writing this, that I could have missed the is-ness of my own belief and engaged it only as a mental construct when it is inherently the most living, the most bodied of living truths. It is literally everywhere.

But I did. miss it.

which brings us to us —

What would it be like, my perception, interactions, energy level, decision-making (experiences and outcomes), peace of mind — if I nudged it forward, if I nudged myself toward living interdependently?

What is your relationship with interdependence? How do they relate to each other? What if we iterated on that?

How would that affect you? us? everyone?

That’s where I’d like to picnic. Right there in that snuggly space of what if….

embrace y/our complexity: be seen is the first in a series of four living room picnics, where we’ll consider iteration, specifically these repetitive motions that lead us toward, and embody, interdependence:

  1. Be seen.
  2. Be wrong.
  3. Accept my [your] inner multitudes.
  4. Ask for and receive what I [you] need.

As always there’s nothing to prepare. I’ll provide our discussion prompts over the weekend and we’ll delve into aspects of being seen, our relationship with being seen, which is naturally complex, and a rich opportunity for connection.


credit & gratitude

The inspiration and source for the love ethic conversation is ALL ABOUT LOVE, by bell hooks (referring here to more than one page but jump to a section on love ethic, go to p.136) and the source of the [*] quote and the four repetitive motions leading toward interdependence is Emergent Strategy, by adrienne maree brown, pp.93-96).


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.


embrace y/our complexity: be wrong


Be wrong . It seemed best to rip off the bandaid with this one . I think we’re headed into counter-intuitive territory here, as we continue the journey into embracing y/our complexity , waving the banner of ‘Be wrong’. Are you up for it?

I’ve reserved us a spot by the fireplace (yes, imaginary, you will not leave your living room) along with a slightly spicy feast of comfort food (maybe we can coordinate a menu — nothing fancy, but I just made myself hungry).

Be wrong.

Not just be ok with it. This isn’t about humility or generosity , this conversation is about embracing and fully expressing your complexity , while I and she and he and they express theirs, which means there will be twists and turns, construction zones and traffic on the way, as we make our way toward and away from each other in an unsynchronized dance number.

It could be fun actually. Like improv. Heh - actually, it is improv.

Life is improv.

The easier “being wrong” is for you (the faster you can release your viewpoint), the quicker you can adapt to changing circumstances. Adapting allows you to know and name current needs and capacity, to be in relationship in real time, as opposed to any cycle of wishing and/or resenting what others do or don’t give you.

Sometimes there isn’t one definitive truth. (My favorite situations).

Sometimes there is one and you can’t see it. (My least favorite. Least.)

Just at least consider that the place where you are wrong might be the most fertile ground for connecting with and receiving others. —adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy, p.94

Connecting with and receiving others . Interdependence. We’re headed in the right direction! Even if we’re being wrong.

embrace y/our complexity: be wrong is the second in a series of four living room picnics, where we’ll consider iteration, specifically these repetitive motions that lead us toward, and embody, interdependence :

  1. Be seen.
  2. Be wrong.
  3. Accept my [your] inner multitudes.
  4. Ask for and receive what I [you] need.

As always there’s nothing to prepare. I’ll provide our discussion prompts over the weekend.
It doesn’t matter if you attended the previous picnic.


credit & gratitude
The inspiration for this picnic, and source of the quote above, as well as the four repetitive motions leading toward interdependence is Emergent Strategy , by adrienne maree brown, pp.93-96). Can’t recommend this book enough!


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.


love recipe (a winter love study hall)
Fri, 11-Feb from 5:30-6:15pm EST.


Until recently, when I thought of love, which was rare, I generally took love to be a feeling. A feeling inside us, inside them for us, or as a thing passed between us —that someone gives you (or takes away from you, or that you might never feel again).

I didn’t think about how I loved, just who I loved, and that I loved them.

What if, as M. Scott Peck explains, in The Road Less Traveled, love is a practice of being, not a challenge of getting and keeping. What if —

“Love is as love does. Love is an act of will—namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.” (p.83)

And if it is a practice, then you can become better at it, you can explore variations of it, you can learn about and expand your experience of it.

In ALL ABOUT LOVE, bell hooks, posits that “To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.” (p.5)

What do you think? Is this the recipe of love?
Can love exist between us in some other configuration?


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

Participating in a winter love study hall 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’d like more of an introduction to UNDERMININGnormal, you can stop by the courtyard; I wrote this for you.

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 gatherings.

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