Pavini Moray's Blog, page 4

How to live a life in the water

The edge of a pool, just before you dive in, is a scary place!

I was waiting to be seated at a South Indian hipster restaurant on a Friday night.

When they give me the last seat at the last table, I find myself directly across from another white person.

He’s handsome, that’s what I notice first.

Tall and lanky, dark hair, black denim vest with a big amber necklace.

He smiles, I avert my eyes in nervousness.

Which land on the empty wheelchair trike just next to him.

I order. Try not to look at the hot man across from me.

I should just ask him, I think.

Then freak out.

Because you don’t ask a total stranger if they want to be your Watsu demo person.

Even though your aquatic bodywork teacher has told you you have until tomorrow to find someone, and you know no one in this town.

It’s just not done. Not socially acceptable.

Especially if they are in a wheelchair, and you are new to training in this water modality and don’t know how to work with whatever his body might need.

Especially if they’re the kind of handsome that makes you breathless and panicky, to be honest.

But what if I just asked?

Isn't it fascinating how the things we judge the hardest often turn out to be the medicine we denied ourselves?

So it was for me with Watsu.

If you aren't from California, you may not have heard of this aquatic bodywork developed in the 1980s by Harold Dull at Harbin Hot Springs.

In Watsu, both client and practitioner are in warm water.

The client is cradled and moved in flowing sequences that allow deep softening.

Having lived in California and visited Harbin, I carried heavy judgment: hippies, man-buns, tantra-eyegazing, blurred boundaries, sleazy exchanges.

I saw vulnerability and thought: no thank you.

Too many messy emotions and feelings. Too touchy-feely.

But in India, I kept receiving a message—put your body in warm water.

I wanted to visit Auroville, the intentional city in Puducherry, and a friend said the best entry point was to attend an offering.

And they offered Watsu trainings—held right on the warm, salty Bay of Bengal.

I signed up reluctantly.

I wouldn’t tell anyone.

To my surprise, the training was profound.

My body loved receiving aquatic bodywork—and offering it.

There’s something about being held in warm water—your body stops bracing.

Your mind stops strategizing.

The peace and beauty I experience while practicing are ecstatic.

Not always, of course.

And the giving—moving another’s body through water while staying rooted in my own. It takes great focus.

But no one asked me to eyegaze!

And the water, oh, the water.

The first time my blood sugar dropped into my ideal range, I didn’t connect it to the pool.

A month later, the same thing happened at a different Watsu pool.

The only constant was spending significant time in warm water.

I connected the dots: I was partially in India to learn how to work with diabetes, and the answer was so simple.

What if the medicine isn’t complicated?

What if it’s warm, wet, and already surrounding us? I’m holding T’s body in the warm pool.

This is the first time in 12 years the former ocean swimmer has been submerged in water.

His ALS made it almost impossible to climb down the ladder into the warm pool, but we went took our time, went slow.

On the bottom step he collapsed into the water, and I had to haul him back up to the surface to breathe.

“My body won’t behave like a normal body. It will seize up, and I’ll sink,” he’d told me the night before at the restaurant when I had finally worked up the courage to ask if he’d come.

“I’ll hold you the entire time, and make sure you are well-floated,” I’d replied.

His eyes had gleamed, and now here we were.

I moved gently through the pool with his body

Sometimes, being a beginner is an advantage.

I don’t know all the right moves.

I don’t know how to work with a body with ALS.

I’m learning with T’s tender body, and I feel a strong sense of responsibility to make the experience safe, tender, unforgettable.

So I do what my teacher taught: I make my hands like water.

I hold softly, let water do the work. Release all effort.

From the water, the world looks different.

If the conditions are just right, you can sink up to your nose, and the water and the horizon blend together.

Your brain perceives a quiet vastness.

While in India, immersing in warm water became a miracle of healing.

Just by returning to my aquatic roots, human ailments were soothed.

The near-weightlessness of water grants freedom, balance, grace, ease.

My inner six-year-old ballerina leaped and twirled joyfully.

Joints hurt less. Flexibility returns. Mental overworking dissolves.

In water, flow states arrive effortlessly.

Stillness is always near.

It feels like a miracle that the best medicine for my diabetes is something I love.

The question became: how can I live more of my life in the water?

And what if everyone could feel this un-gripping?

What if we could be like water?

We come from water.

The slippery dolphin-seal part of the brain remembers gliding, surfacing, diving.

It remembers sensing loved ones through means other than sight, or Share Live Location.

In water, we remember who we are at our core: fluid, alive, in motion.

Identities dissolve.

Mental chatter sloshes away.

We become children again, dancing through a dense medium that holds and uplifts.

Two of my water teachers have spent so much time in the water they’ve lessened bone density!

Especially for those with larger bodies, fat becomes a gift: warmth, flotation, and liberation.

Gravity loses its grip.

In the water, I feel the freest.

I want to be like water.

I recently drove along the South Toe River in Yancey County, North Carolina.

During Hurricane Helene, when the devastating storm hit my hometown, water rose 26 feet—about three stories—above the riverbank.

What had been a riverside stretch of homes, studios, and trailers was now bare scarland, littered with splintered trees.

Even the small white church across the road from my favorite swimming hole had floated away, empty foundations marking where it had once held the sacred every Sunday.

The river takes what the river takes.
What the river takes, let it go.

Even as I grieved, I celebrated.

Be it calcium from bone or a community church, water’s power is undeniable.

It carves canyons, drowns cities, wears down mountains—and inside us, it moves emotion, memory, and our very blood.

Water can destroy—but it can also heal. Our bodies, our spirits, our grief.

I want to be like water.

Lacking a Watsu pool or a hot spring (my longest-held dream), how can I still live a water life?

Once we know the environment our body thrives in, how do we move toward it?

I can’t live as my Watsu teachers do, submerged daily—but I can focus on water’s power.

How often do I touch water each day?

Constantly: the toilet, the shower, the tea kettle.

The sink, the bathtub, the water bottle.

Washing dishes, misting plants, distilling rosewater, watering the garden.

Changing the cat’s fountain, filling the water filter. Cleaning the floors.

Pouring libations. Praying over ritual water. Dumping the mop bucket.

Hosing the car.

For now, living a water life means attending to water.

Making a temple of daily tasks.

After six months of cold bucket baths, hot water spraying from the wall feels miraculous.

I try to remember—not to take the waters of my life for granted.

Water touches every living being daily.

"If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water," wrote scientist and philosopher Loren Eiseley.

Across world religions, water is sacred—medium of communion between human and divine.

It purifies body and soul. It symbolizes birth, death, transformation.

Rituals across traditions: pouring, sipping, blessing, bathing, infusing.

Tea ceremonies. Libations. Rivers. Tubs.

Hands cupped in reverence, spilling water back to the Ocean.

A life in the water is not always about where you are.

It’s about what you pay attention to.

It takes T. 15 minutes to climb out of the Watsu pool.

The bathroom is not accessible, so he has to pee in the public shower.

I hover, not knowing my role on land now the session is over.

Once he is dressed, we sit and sip tea, he in his trike chair, and me on a stone bench in the garden.

I wait for him to speak, as I’ve been taught.

“As soon as I got into the water, I felt completely free.”

Neither of us mentions the salt water that leaked from our eyes during the gorgeous hour we’d spent in silence together.

Nor do we discuss the collaborative elegance of moving in flow and rhythm within the range of his body and my skill level.

Something more intimate than sex had passed between us: Surrender.

Our wet goodbye hug lasts far longer than you’d expect between two strangers who met over dinner.

I recently wrote about Camp LightHeart, the adult online summer camp I am holding as an anti-capitalist experiment.

Can I offer guidance and hold space for content I love, like water, and simultaneously meet your needs and mine, while making all classes have no financial barrier to access?

You can read more about Camp LightHeart here.

In these times, I hear it may not feel very serious to focus on feeling good.

But as many wise teachers say, feeling good in this moment is an act of revolution.

Sure, you can attend all the trauma rituals you need to, but feeling good deliberately? That’s radical!

I’ll be writing a post to introduce each week of Camp LightHeart.

We start this coming Monday 5/19.

So, if you're craving more pleasure and flow in your life… and if you are tired of the constant exhaustion and heaviness…

Join me for the first week of Camp LightHeartHow to Be Like Water I remember the immense feeling of freedom, swimming with wild dolphins last year!

Come, feeling too heavy to float. Swim away with more access to movement and joy!

Can water teach us how to soften, play and move again? I think so.

During this week, we will engage with the mystery of water.

We will explore flow states, make potions, and use hydration as a magick spell.

We will play ritually like dolphins and manatees.

We will remember to notice the sunlight sparkling on water, and fill our cup with light.

And you’ll be doing it in the company of others, each one remembering their own wild, shimmering water body.

Your water pod!

Sometimes, finding your way back to yourself is easier when you’re held—by water, by others, by rhythm and ritual.

Note: There is no need to have access to a pool or tub to participate.

We will explore vessels for water, and how containment gives our watery nature permission to be!

Using magick, somatics, fun, and experimentation, you will deepen your connection with water, perhaps becoming or reviving your water mystic along the way.

This week’s vibe: "Let me be like water" by Lo Wolf.

Live gatherings on Zoom: Monday 5/19 7 PM ET & Saturday, 5/24, 12 PM ET.

Cost: GAYBAGS (Give as you are able, but always give something.) Suggested donation $75-125.

Let's float together! Let your body be held. Let your spirit dissolve into joy.

Ready to come to camp?

Fill out the registration form.

Make payment via Venmo: @pavini-moray

You'll receive a welcome packet, supply list, and instructions.

How to Have a Fun, Anti-Capitalist Summer

Recently, I gathered with a small coven of Glitter Joyriders to trade spells of economic rebellion, laughter, and lightness in a world heavy with capitalism.

Together, we practiced turning toward the internalized narratives about money and capitalism, feeling their weight, and then lifting our hearts toward freedom and lightness.

I keep noticing that the people I love most in the US are struggling right now.

And many of them believe, deep down, that they’re somehow to blame for their unhappiness.

I don’t buy it.

I’m not buying much these days—neither the grim stories of despair around me, nor the stuff on Amazon that I used to try and fill a hole inside me.

Instead, I’m practicing lightheartedness in the face of oppression, as countless ancestors and forebears have done before me.

How do I stay alive, keep my flame burning bright, when horror surrounds me?

I’ve started doing spiritual practice in unusual spaces: the dump, the crematorium, the mall.

Can I find freedom here? And here? What about here?

The most radical way I can think of to live with a light heart inside of capitalism is to radically orient my days around what delights me most.

Like Poetry. Magick & Ritual. Perfume. Play. Somatics. WATER!

Out of this conversation with readers, a spark lit in me—what if we gathered again, more intentionally, to practice joy as resistance?

What if I made a summer camp for adults?

Welcome to Camp LightHeart! No lie—it’s heavy out there. And that’s exactly why we need more levity.

Camp Lightheart is a five-week joyful rebellion against burnout and boredom—join for one week or all, pay what you can, and spritz rosewater on our revolution.

Think crafts, games, potions, silly songs.

But also reverence, depth and care.

Camp Lightheart is my answer (or maybe question?) as to how we can thrive in atypical times that require the best of us: our hearts, our creative minds, and our capacity for evolution.

Camp is an experiment for grown-ups tired of the heaviness of being we experience in late capitalism.

Camp LightHeart is uplifting, but with teeth: playful, potent, and made for these times.

The throughline is joy.

Each week, we’ll explore a new theme — from sacred clowning to perfume as a portal — designed to reignite your silliness, playfulness, and aliveness.

This isn’t toxic positivity or spiritual bypass.

This is actual lightheartedness: like a phoenix rising from the depths of grief, bathing in glitter, and then spritzing itself with rosewater before reemerging to fight like hell!

We’ll meet twice a week on Zoom with a joyful, friendly crew.

Cuz community and friends are one of the most necessary ingredients for revolution.

Mondays for playful practices, Saturdays for embodied integration.

In between, I'll send simple invitations for solo exploration: scent experiments, clown rituals, creative prompts, and subversively silly field trips into your real life.

Weekly Camp ThemesWeek 1: How to Be Like Water

Week of May 19

How can water help you release and be freer, in body and heart?

The theme of this week is Dissolving, Flowing, & Sparkling.
Can water teach us how to soften, dissolve, and move again?
This week, we hydrate like mystics.
We make potions. We put our bodies in water. We play like dolphins and manatees.
A soft return to feeling good.

Especially for those who feel too heavy to float right now.

Vibe for this week: Let me be like water by Lo Wolf

Week 2: Smell This Poem

Week of June 2

How can a living a poetic life nourish you, for now and forever?

The theme of this week is perfume as prayer, and poems as scent!

We perfume prayers and breathe poems.
We write scent-memoirs. We remember ourselves through smell and syllable.
This week, scent and language become altars.

Perfect for writers and non-writers alike—anyone seeking to live more poetically.

Vibe for this week: Slip Away by Perfume Genius

Week 3: School of the Holy Fool

Week of June 16

How can play reset your nervous system, loosen rigidity, and give you deeper access to creativity and fun?

For adults who have forgotten how to play.

The theme of this week is remembering how to be ridiculous.

Clowns have always been holy disruptors.
This week is pure silliness.
We loosen nervous systems and give our inner jokesters airtime.
No red nose required—just a willingness to laugh yourself alive.

Vibe for this week: Freedom by Jon Batiste

Week 4: Practicing Joy as Activism

Week of July 14

How can delight be a consistent element of your world-shaping work?

Coup Clutz Clowns host a hilarious counter-protest

Joy can be a discipline. Delight can be a weapon.
This week, we make joy a daily ritual—for ourselves, and the world we long to build. We’ll build practices and routines that center our purpose, and create embodied pleasure rituals we use to anchor our activism.

For people who crave a daily practice (spiritual or otherwise) but struggle to make it stick.

Vibe for this week: Where is the love? by Black Eyed Peas

Week 5: Rosy Delight

Week of July 28

How can relating to roses soothe, uplift, and inspire you?

Roses I visited in France last year

The theme this week is Roses.

The rose is sultry, silly, ancient, ablaze.
We meet her through rituals of beauty, scent, and bloom.
She becomes our guide to sensuality, softness, and sacred pleasure.

For scent geeks, beauty lovers, and anyone craving more magick.

Vibe for this week: Glorious by Ma Muse

About the Financial Exchange for Camp LightHeart

I'm continually exploring anti-capitalist practices—how can we help each other meet all our collective needs?

I practice trusting that when I share my gifts generously in service of our shared joy and healing, my own needs will be met.

Not only that, but if you come and play with me, your needs will also be met.

This is a FUN-raiser: I'm taking my daughter to her ancestral roots in Bulgaria to celebrate her birthday. We will attend the Rose Festival in Kazanlak! 🌹

Me and my kiddo. The delight fruit don’t fall far from the tree.

All camps are by donation. There are no barriers to access.

The financial model is GAYBAGS: Give as you are able, but always give something.

If you cannot spare any cash, let me know what you’ve got to trade!

Logistics

Live gatherings on Zoom: Mondays 7 PM ET & Saturdays 12 PM ET.

Meetings will not be recorded.

Is Camp Lightheart for you?

You’re welcome if you’re feeling too heavy, tired, or serious even to imagine joy.

You’re welcome if you long to feel good, on purpose, without apology.

You’re welcome if you want to wear a ridiculous hat, sip rose tea from a chipped cup, and remember what it feels like to be a real, live person again.

Camp LightHeart is made for the tender-hearted and the wild ones—queer folks, artists, healers, weirdos.

You know who you are: the too-much ones, too sparkly, too strange.

All genders, all bodies, all backgrounds: come as you are.

Biodegradable glitter encouraged. Capitalist despair not required.

Camp LightHeart Overall Vibe: JOY (Unspeakable) Voices of Fire.

Ready to come to camp?

Fill out the registration form.

Make payment via Venmo: @pavini-moray

You'll receive a welcome packet, supply list, and instructions.

Let’s play like our healing depends on it.

Because maybe it does.

In glitter, in grief, in giggles,

Pavini

Questions? Reach out by messaging me on Substack or hit reply to this email.

I'm a silly goose

Hello dear one,

I got back from India a month ago, and it’s been a swirl of sensations ever since.
I won’t write about it—you already know.

The biggest thing I’ve noticed since returning is the impact of capitalism—on the bodies of my loved ones, on my relationships, on everything.

Capitalism. No way out.

It’s a heady word for something we all live inside. But I’m not writing from my head. I’m writing from my body. From my heart.

What I’m noticing most is the pull to numb out:
social media, substances, news, sugar—pick your poison.

And when I don’t numb, what arises is grief.
Non-specific. Ambient. Thick.

I’d rather feel grief than feel nothing;

But what I long for is to feel lighthearted.

That feeling of buoyancy. Softness. Connected.

It’s hard to access in the U.S. right now.

Yesterday, on a walk, I saw a bumper sticker:
“Who’s a Silly Goose?”

My first response? Judgment.

Then I wondered: What kind of person puts that on their car?

Maybe someone lighthearted!

That’s been my big prayer for months now: Let me be light-hearted. Let me light from within.

So…
I’m coming out:
I’m a silly goose.

And I want to talk with people who get it. You know, other silly geese.

Let’s gather

In the past, I’ve hosted monthly drop-in sessions for paid subscribers—support around creative process, embodiment, relationships.

Right now, I don’t want to hold space. I just want to be in space—with others asking the same big, heavy, silly, aching questions.

So I’m hosting a free, informal Zoom hangout:

Wednesday, April 23 at 4 PM Eastern
No need to be a paid subscriber.

Come and we’ll laugh, cry, play, and strategize.

Register so I can send you a reminder email.

Register Here

Bring a question. Or a story. Or just yourself.

Here’s the question I’m holding close:

How do we stay lighthearted in these times?

Photo by annie pm on Unsplash

With tenderness,
Pavini

A love letter to you from India

Dearest,

When I left the U.S. for an undetermined amount of time of solo traveling in India, I thought it would be easy to write to you each week and keep up with my Glitter Joyride posts.

It has been anything but.

Mainly because I am immersed in meeting my basic needs, processing an endless stream of incoming information, and staying out of the way of don't-give-a-fuck cows, thieving monkeys, and Jaipurian shopkeepers determined to empty my wallet of rupees.

But I miss you. I miss writing to you.

India's been, well, a lot.

There has been so much joy but also much hand-wringing.

I’ve learned some new survival skills and resurrected old ones from when I lived in Bulgaria for a couple of years post-communism.

Like how to keep your pants clean while using the good old squat toilet.

For example, I've gotten obsessive about reading reviews for places I might visit: I can now sniff out a good homestay that will meet my needs: must have an electric kettle!

I won't even consider eating somewhere with less than 50 visits documented by other diners. If there is any mention of cockroaches, it's a hard no.

But how are you??

From here, the wave of fear and panic rising from the U.S. looks like a mushroom cloud.

I am worried, about you and me both, and figuring out how to manage my return.

The distance has kept me buffered: it’s been easy to sidestep terror.

LIke come on, how can you legislate the gender experience of humans? It makes me laugh, but tears are in my eyes.

While I am impacted by our collective nervous system, I also have a perspective from the outside.

When my home in Asheville was hit by a hurricane last fall, just after I arrived in India, I felt similarly.

Watching a tragedy unfold from afar is weird.

It hurts, but I don't always feel like I have the right to the first-order grief of it.

And honestly, there is something welcome in the choice to modulate how big my feelings get. Even if I feel a bit guilty.

Over two months have passed since I've been able to write to you.

I hope you know I’ve thought about you everyday, sent love and prayers and blessings.

During that time, we've both gone through so much I imagine we are both unrecognizable in some ways.

But know this: I miss your face, your voice, the warm hug of your body.

So what, exactly, have I been doing all this time?

It's a fair question; and I’m happy to be able to share some of what I've gathered.

I have practiced every day.

~In every room I stay in (there have been MANY), I cleanse the space.

Then I construct an altar.

~I sit on the floor and breathe, pray, & chant.

~To quote the eternal light, Erykah Badu, ‘I try a little yoga for a minute.’

~I call out to my protectors and guardians. I honor my ancestors.

~I remember my clear intention for my time in India:

The funny thing about intentions is the layers of surprise they can unfurl.

When I wrote the intention for a lighter existence, I thought I was talking about the heaviness I carry in my heart. But much more has been revealed.

Can I share something I wrote in my journal with you?

To have a lighter existence, one must:

Shift one's center of gravity to the heart!

Learn to light from within, glowing the color of candlelight through rose quartz.

Notice the light in all ways it plays: on water, refracting through smog, pouring through one's eyes each morning.

Learn to be light-hearted, even during illness and duress.

Gather light from all the shining places: temples, trees, and bodies of water.

What have I been doing?

When I was little, I loved a book called Frederick.

It was about a mouse who was a poet.

While the other mice gathered seeds and nuts for winter, Frederick gathered colors, scents, and visions.

He gathered the light of the sun.

The other mice scoffed at Frederick for not gathering food with them.

They berated his foolishness.

But once the food ran out, it was his gathered words and memories that nourished them.

His poetry warmed them, and got them through the collective trauma of winter starvation.

Isn't that the situation now? Collective trauma & the winter of starvation?

Isn't your soul famished, I mean like really fucking ravenous?

Isn't your appetite voracious for beauty, meaning, calm, and connection?

Isn't your lifeblood underfed and undernourished despite the abundance around you?

Sweetheart, it's not your fault.

Our culture is dying from malnourishment.

So yeah, I have been Fredericking.

I have been gathering the colors, smells, experiences, conversations, graces, generosities, hardships, tears, and connections.

I have been tasting, smelling, feeling, forgetting, and then remembering how to be me without a rigid identity.

Half the time, I'm perceived as female, and the other half as male. I like it.

I've bought many pretty clothes tailored for my body.

I've developed adornment practices of kohl, perfume, and jewelry as forms of spiritual protection.

I've been gifted a powerful technique for spiritual hygiene.

I'm trying to gather goodness for us both, beloved.

But that's not all I've been doing.

Traveling last week, I spent the night sleeping on the floor of the All Faith chapel at the Delhi airport.

Around 2 AM, a mother with her young adult daughters entered the space.

She smiled at me, and I bowed my head to her.

They were Muslim and began a ritual format that seemed to be a well-practiced rhythm of obeisance and prayer.

After donning their ritual garb, first, the mother would prostrate herself in Sujūd, followed by her daughters.

Beautiful to watch through half-asleep eyes, they prayed me to sleep.

When I woke around 4, they were asleep, curled around each other.

All of us doing this completely human thing of taking rest, in the most secure place we could find.

I felt safe with them, our shoes snuggling together outside the door.

I’ve been remembering how to be human with others.

So what else have I been doing?Rebuilding faith.

Faith that an organizing principle exists.

That all of it, ALL of it, holds meaning beyond my comprehension.

While my life is profoundly personal, so is everyone's; ultimately, we are more the same than different.

I had forgotten how to look at people and let people see me.

I had become afraid of strangers and their eyes.

How about you?

Do you meet the eyes of those around you and trust that you will be welcomed?

Trust they will not harm you, and if they try, do you trust you have your boundaries, guardians, and rituals on lock that ward off that which does not serve?

At a temple last week, I was doing a private ritual with Ari just outside the temple doors.

I could see the Goddess Siddha Bhairavi within, had already visited Her bearing the gifts I had brought.

I had brought my head low to the cool, wet marble floor, stained my knees red with Her vermillion, and received her blessing.

This is not Siddha Bhairavi because no photos were allowed. This is Mangala Maa. But you get the vibe.

As we sat outside the temple doing our private thing, three Indian women approached, curious about what we were up to.

I looked at them, my heart full of magick and power.

I did not smile.

Neither did they.

I simply let them see me, connected to Her, in my whole, weird, witchy presence.

I looked at them, three women a wee bit strange, on pilgrimage to a temple to a fierce Goddess who is worshipped through wine and blood and meat, way outside of Hindu orthodoxy.

I let the three women see me, and I looked to see them.

What is it to be seen in your full glory?

Who do you let see you that way, without protection, without guarding?

With no false confidence or shields up, not trying to be seen as anything but who you are in that exact moment?

We tried to speak, and did not share a common language.

But yet.

There was something in seeing each other deeply without being friendly, well-socialized, or trying not to be freaky.

Here we all were, five weirdos devoted to Her.

Five devotees who allow our hunger to travel our bodies to far-flung temples in search of… grace? Connection? Magick?

Siddha Bhairavi is said to be She who will convey any blessing you ask for.

What will you request?

But be careful.

Two weeks ago, a tuk-tuk driver got clever with me.

Thought he would charge me an extra 100 rupees for some made-up bullshit reason.

Okay, I said.

I will pay you.

He will never know that I continuously tip far beyond 100 rupees.

But not him.

He got just what he demanded.

So be wise in your prayer, and leave space for Her to give you more than you know you need.

My beloved, so far away: Are you starving?

In this time of immense turmoil, do you lust for more aliveness?

Is something in you emaciated with hunger, longing for all that you know is lost but cannot name: community, belonging, hope?

I know I am.

My hunger is for connection with Her, the active principle of Life and Creation.

By Her I mean, of course, the Goddess, Kali, Time, the Holy Spirit, call it what you will.

My hunger will not abate.

In the hunger, I find something I can hold onto: yearning.

Yearning drives me to give up all of the habits that keep me from being present.

Yearning for Her helps me be with what is as grace.

Helps shed the layers of protection that seek to insulate me from this moment, just as it is, perfect and imperfect simultaneously.

Because if truly all of this is Her, my suffering is Her wanting to experience suffering.

My pleasure is Her wanting to know pleasure.

Once tripping on mushrooms, I realized that all the cells in my body had their own life.

They were part of me, but also individuals.

Whatever I put into my body, they received.

I imagined my cells, high on shrooms, impacted by my decisions, and me, never ever considering them as beings.

This is how I imagine myself with Maa: I am a cell in her body.

My whole life is actually just a part of a bigger system.

Macro and Micro, fractalling ad infinitum.So what I've been doing all this time, beloved, is learning to Trust again.

Learning to trust meeting the eyes of others.

Learning to trust myself, and know I can meet my basic needs.

Trust that my marriage can withstand extended periods of separation while we each do our own work.

Trust that it is okay, more than okay, to follow the breadcrumbs of Spirit; even when they don't seem cohesive, there is usually a greater plan.

I got angry with a taxi driver last week.

I wanted to go to a temple and had it pulled up on Google Maps.

He refused to follow my directions.

I fumed about patriarchy and stupidity for a while, to no avail.

At some point, I just gave in to trust.

Trusted that everything was perfect, just as it was.

Trusted that he was taking me wherever I was supposed to go.

Which, not surprisingly, was the temple where I met the trio of witchy women, saris smeared with sindoor, sparkling in the smoggy yellow sun.

How to be a monkey

In India, the streets are a lesson in attention.

I carefully avoid the cow pies like an obstacle course across the crooked cobblestones, my flip-flops offering weak protection.

You must be able to quickly move out of the way of all the various street denizens.

Bulls with their rack of horns.

Motorscooters incessantly shrieking shrill high-pitched ‘Mmeeep-Mmeeep.’

Babas cloaked fully in orange rags shouting "Hari OM!" in your ears, asking for money.

Bicycles dinging their bells.

Cars full of the wealthy spiritual tourists, insistent to get to their destination.

Frequently, you must press yourself into the wall to make space for decorated trucks lumbering down tiny alleys.

Photo by Olivier Guillard And, of course, watch out for the monkeys.

Monkeys who will grab your sunglasses from your head, or steal whatever you carry in your hands if it looks good to them.

Don't make eye contact. They get aggressive. 

After the dusty assault of the street, I slip into the embrace of the open-air Gange View Cafe.

I'm perched 150 feet above the Ganges river, a chill minimalist space with low-slung couches and Lofi beats thrumming quietly.

I order a salty lime soda, no ice. It arrives, the glass reeking of sulfur from the black salt.

The blue and white paper straw hits my lips, the drink pouring down the sandy desert of my throat like amrita.

I sink into the couch, looking out over the river, and let my eyes drift one thousand miles, ten thousand miles. 

Don't worry; this isn't going to be a piece about me finding a guru in India and reaching enlightenment, even though I just used amrita, the Sanskrit word for nectar, pretentiously.

It won't be a travelog attempting to make sense of the vastness of this experience or give you spiritually inspiring platitudes from my elevated consciousness here in India.

Instead, it's a small, humble story about one monkey. 

The monkeys are everywhere in Rishikesh.

Large grey ones with long eyelashes.

Short brown ones with red rumps.

Tails of every length and color.

I'm enraptured by their faces and how they hold their feet with their hands when sitting—the familiarity of their faces. 

I keep a respectful distance between us, though.

Monkeys are more feral than me and not afraid to fight.

Which they do frequently; the noise is abysmal, like car metal scraping on a guardrail or the wails of the starving ghosts emanating from Hell.

It's chilling, something my bones recognize.

I know the sound in an ancient part of my brain. You'd know it, too. 

From my observations, I know monkeys live in small groups.

Mama monkeys raise their babies together and take turns watching them practice climbing trees and grappling on the grass, but they don't stray far.

Any hint of danger, the mamas grab their babies.

Monkey mamas hold their babies just like I held mine; cradled in their laps. 

At the ashram where I'm staying, the group I watch the most has several large males who guard the perimeter, quickly and with great hostility chasing away interlopers they perceive as threats to their...herd?

Pack?

Tribe?

I'm not sure of the right word for monkey groups, but regardless, family dynamics are pretty straightforward.

They cuddle, groom, get pissed off, fight, and make up.

Just like us. 

From my repose sipping my cool bevvy, the Ganges unfolds against the backdrop of the foothills of the Himalayas like a postcard.

The turquoise water is wide across, maybe a kilometer, broad as the Mississippi.

This time of year, not monsoon season, the current is said to be less robust.

But even so, the river rafters float past ever so quickly.

Late afternoon finds the monkeys heading to wherever they go for the night, the trees, I suppose.

I hear them before I can see them, the screeches and howls telling me they are fighting as they scramble along the steel cables running beneath the incomplete pedestrian bridge of Laxman Jhula.

They are so agile, running and swinging beneath the bridge with great ease and dexterity. 

Something glaringly apparent in India is you never know where your day is headed.

Today, for example, I received word there is a cyclone hitting Chennai, the city I am flying to tomorrow.

Well, hopefully flying to.

Being flexible and open to what comes is not just a Shanti vibe, it's a necessary life skill.

Things change, often and quickly.

You're supposed to go to lunch with your friend, but then your guru offers a teaching, and there is no way you would miss it.

Oops, this is not a story about a guru, don't know how she slipped in.

"Look at the monkeys," I say to Livia, who's joined me at the cafe.

We look across the river, where the light softens to early evening, the sun dripping down behind the foothills, casting angelic and blissful golden light.

Yeah, for real, I just used the word angelic to describe a place. I promise I'm not enlightened. 

At first, the light shining between the tiny hand and the bridge is slight. 

The monkey's paw grabs for the wire now inches above its head, just out of reach. 

But with each millisecond, the clear space around the small brown body increases. 

Twisting, the monkey falls, still reaching, trying to regain purchase. 

Slow motion, a body spinning through air, dark against the sky. 

Light in our eyes, it could be a bird disappearing from view beneath the cafe's railing.

We don't see the monkey hit the water.

We are too far away to hear the splash, and wouldn't anyway over the river's roar.

But there is only one place to go: the blue-green bejeweled Goddess Ganga.

Seconds, no more than four, have passed in the cafe. 

"Did you…" Livia's question trails off.

I nod.

Certainly, I've seen things die before, but this, the clear blue of the air, the small brown body with which I share DNA spiraling and tumbling, is nothing like this.

Something aches in my gut. 

One hundred fifty feet above the current, the other monkeys fall silent.

They've lost one of theirs, likely forever.

Livie and I sit quietly, too, private grief or recognition sweeping through us both.

We both know loss like this: sudden, catastrophic, final. 

In bed that night, I will replay the image again and again.

Perhaps monkeys can swim, I think. 

But I think of my body in the river's swift current, anchored by a heavy chain to keep from being swept away as I make a pilgrim's bath, and know the truth. 

Even if somehow the monkey managed to find an edge and cling to a bank, it would be miles from here, from its tribe.

Can a monkey survive without its family group?

Could it find a new family, if their old one is gone, lost to the flow of time, the current of the river?

Some days it's like this.

You are going one way, fighting and fussing.

Maybe your attention is distracted, and you misstep, or the solidity of the bridge is less than you thought.

Or perhaps the Goddess decides this is your moment.

Then you are in the river, sink or swim. FYI, Glitter Joyride will be on vacation until January, 2025.

If you have topics you want to read about, send me a message.

I’ll be dreaming into what I want this space to be in the coming year.

I'd love to hear from you.

And until we meet in the new year, I send you sparkle and pleasure.

May your life be full of magick and surprise, and your heart be open.

All Love, Pavini

How to navigate the "Fuck It" part

This is a follow-up post to "How to Know When Fuck It is Fake Freedom."

Saying “Fuck It” to a thing that matters to you, be it sobriety, a challenging practice, a commitment you've made and now struggle with… well, that sense of freedom is short-lived. 

When we collapse around something important, it is not real liberty.

There are, of course, moments when Fuck It feels great, liberating, like you've just escaped the gaping maw of the control beast. 

But the sense of freedom you get from Fuck It is fleeting and comes at a great cost: faith and trust in oneself and the ability to keep commitments.

I KNOW this.

And yet, like you, I still have a hard time remaining committed to tough things.

Eating to care for my blood sugar, when I'd rather not pay any attention to it.

Making sure I move my body every day when I don't always want to.

It's easier to say "Fuck It" than to do the hard work of showing up for the relationship, that all-important relationship, with myself. 

Maybe you know exactly what I'm talking about. I bet you do. 

So how, then, do you stay committed to long-term plans and goals when, in the moment, all you want to do is feel the rush of relief from NOT having to do whatever hard thing you've promised yourself you will do? 

If you've been reading Glitter Joyride for a while, you probably have realized that the questions I'm exploring in this How to be Human series are not theoretical.

They are the things I'm exploring, discovering, questioning, and figuring out. 

Navigating the Fuck It part is particularly close to my heart.

I'm a lifelong avowed anarchist.

I can't bear authority using power over me.

Tell me to do something, and I'll likely do the opposite. 

This strategy of trusting my own authority has been a lifesaver in many ways.

It kept me going through all the things I will not name here (no need to trauma dump), but you recognize as the extremely hard shit most of us have been through.

Keeping my own counsel and trusting my own knowing have been key, crucial practices over the years. 

But when I hit 50, things started to change in my body. T

his vessel needs a new level of care and tending.

It needs consistency, strategy, follow-through.

My wellness practices had to become more deliberate. Stretching in the morning is no longer optional, but necessary, for example.

At 30, Fuck It had much less impact.

At 50+, Fuck It feels self-destructive, and unloving. 

But the Fuck It part is strong, well-practiced.

It protects what it thinks is my freedom from the oppressive opinions of others. 

And.

I have another part, one that is supremely interested in longevity, and more than that, access.

It wants to be not just alive in 30-40 years, it wants the level of flexibility, balance, health, mental acuity that I see some of my elders enjoy: the ones who have been diligant and serious about self care, and who have excellent genes.

But death is not failure.

My friend tells the story of his dear friend I'll call Rhona.

Rhona watched as her mother lived a life of excess, parties, fun, hedonism.

Swearing not to be like her mom, Rhona was rigid about her health practices her whole life.

Not only rigid, demanding and judgmental, of herself and others. There was a right way, a single path, and she did not deviate.

I don’t know what Rhona did with her Fuck It part, maybe she doesn’t have one.

When my friend visits, she only allows him decaf coffee, and gives a stinkeye about that.

But Rhona…she rolled into her 60s, only to be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. 

Having watched my own Grandfather die of Parkinson's, it is a horrible wasting condition.

No self-care Rhona did could have prevented it, at least in what is currently known about the disease. 

Maybe she could have Fucked It a little more.

It’s never too late to Fuck It.

Fuck It for me now looks like disregarding the practices I've come to know from the teaching of my body:

Go real easy on white rice, white flour, and white sugar.

Limit sweets and alcohol.

Caffeine creates inflammation, be easy with your system.

I have to be careful with these guidelines because too much of these substances cause my blood sugar to freak out, and too much limitation of these causes my Fuck Restriction part to freak out.

It's a balance, and I don't have super awesome tools to measure it. 

Having a Fuck It part means I have to go gently.

Many internal conversations happen frequently.

Mostly, Fuck It doesn't want to engage. So I have to get the older, wiser part of me to talk calmly to Fuck It.

They explain why today is not the right day for Fucking It.

“We Fucked It yesterday, so today, we're not going to do that.”

“We will Fuck It again in the future, not to worry. This is not a diet. This is not external authority being imposed.”

Remember what we really, really want? Longevity and Health??

That's how those conversations go, on repeat. 

I don't expect Fuck It to go away.

I don't want it to.

Because it also offers great protection: am I turning toward my inner counsel?

Am I trying to walk someone else's path?

Fuck It to the rescue!

I'm curious about you. Do you have good tools to navigate Fuck It? How do you stay committed to long term self-care, while not feeling overly rebellious? 

This week's practice: Say hi to Fuck It with kindness. Say "Thank You" for whatever Fuck It does for you.

Coaching call reschedule

Hi friend,

The coaching call scheduled for Nov. 29 is cancelled due to no wifi where I am in India. As soon as I have better internet, I will reschedule. Thanks for understanding.

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How to be discontent

The feeling that something is missing, something crucial and whole, something integral.

Morning time, you know the drill.

Stretch, yawn.

There is an ache, and it's not your knee.

The feeling is familiar: a bit adrift, longing for you know not what but something.

Then come the questions, a relentless stream into your groggy brain:

"Where do I want to be?"

"Who do I want to be with?"

"What is my purpose?"

And lastly, perhaps most painfully: "What the fuck do I really want?

The yearning. The hunger.

The felt sense of absence is tangible.

I once did a jigsaw puzzle with 1000 pieces.

Which took a long time.

It wasn't until I snapped the second to last piece into place that I knew the tragic truth: the last piece was missing.

There it sat, my almost-complete montage, minus one bare spot where the table's wood peered through.

You and I both know it. the feeling, and it continues no matter where we go or what we do.

At times more, and others less, it comes and goes.

Like an emergency responder, our brains are early to the scene when the yearning comes on.

This time, surely, will be different.

This time, I'll be able to figure it out with my massive mindpower.

I'll put words to the elusive something, that absence that I've never known how to name.

I will Figure. It. Out. Photo by Kazi MizanYou feel me?

This is not to say I am unhappy.

On the contrary, I am mostly happy, just not content.

A long time ago, I was married to the wrong person.

Getting married at 25 and 21 was a bad idea, but there were extenuating circumstances like borders and immigration that marriage solved.

But try as we might, the marriage was doomed.

Too young, too unskilled, too much cultural distance, not enough glue.

But I stayed for 12 years. I am loyal. I imagined being married forever.

Like final chapters often are, the end was full of tumult and pain. We tore each other apart, not knowing how else to end.

When I had had enough, I took my two babies and moved into my own place, a small house in a small town north of San Francisco.

I had a job, provided for us, and was single parenting full-time.

But I was in my 30s and had boundless energy.

The long weekend of Thanksgiving, I miraculously had a break from childcare. I decided to paint my living room.

There was no one I had to check in with about the paint color, so I got to make all the decisions myself.

I chose a lovely shade of mango.

After a dozen years of contentious decision-making, it was bliss.

The painting took several days.

There were high ceilings with skylights and weird angles.

I brushed many coats of paint over the bare walls, in tune to MIA's album Kala.

The work was slow but gratifying.

One evening, I stepped outside to the front porch for a smoke break. (Yes, that was happening then, oops.)

The air was cool fall, the sky was dark black velvet, and I could see the stars.

The house had a big picture window, and I could see the color of the living room, warm and glowing, lit from within.

Inside of me was a strange feeling.

A feeling I couldn't quite name, as I didn't have the experience or the language to recognize.

Curiosity overcame me.

What was I feeling?

When it dawned on me, I was taken aback:

I was feeling content.

Looking into my living room covered in plastic and masking tape, I saw the home I was creating for my small family.

I was free of a relationship that hadn't fit for years.

I was alone, but the solitude was sweet.

I was going to be all right.

Content felt quiet. Instead of the absence of something, there was the presence of something else: peace.

It felt easy.

The end of the relationship and the move had both been hard.

Returning to full time work was a challenge.

Solo parenting was tough.

My limbs were currently aching from all the time on ladders, reaching and stretching.

But in my being, I felt easy.

So, I know what contentment feels like.

It is ephemeral, and I'm okay with that. I didn't expect that moment to last, and you won't be surprised to hear that it didn't.

But once you know a thing, it can't be taken from you.

In contrast, discontent feels not easy.

Like the shopping cart with the busted wheel, you try to navigate around the store.

The store is fine, you have money for groceries, the store has all the food you could ever want, but you're stuck with that damn squeaking buggy, as they call them in the South.

It drags you off course, embarrasses you as you careen into the oranges.

It's all good, except it's not.

Sometimes, discontent is helpful. Eventually, I will become clear about something off balance in my life, something causing me to wobble down the aisle.

Eventually.

But that longing is for something otherwordly: an infallible sense of connection with magick and Spirit that feels like home.

Belonging.

Not something tangible, but the effervescent quality of rightness.

Our brains are just trying to be helpful with all its frantic figuring-it-out-ness.

But it never actually works.

The answer lies in feeling, not thinking.

I'm often trying to get away from the longing, but the secret land of welcome is in moving through the portal it offers.

The doorway of poignancy?

To feel desire.

That is the absent puzzle piece outlining the invisible center: clarity about what it is you want or need.

The rawness of that kind of want, the kind that makes you restless and unsettled… it can burn.

How do we have the blessing of these bodies yet long for the boundaryless connection of unity?

I wish I could just get it together enough to love what I have when I have it.

This body. This now.

Being discontent is part of what we as humans have the capacity to feel.

I've learned that it doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong.

Because to be discontent is to crave what is holy.

It’s helpful to reframe discontent as the sacred longing to feel joined with the Divine.

On a good day, I can welcome the embrace of discontent as a yearning for more magick, more ritual, more connection with the animate forces of the universe.

My longing becomes my prayer.

Choice Practice: Discontent is not always discomfort. Try to notice the difference. What do you do when you feel discontent? Drop an answer, please.

How to call your power back

News Flash: I’ve spent the last three years writing a novel.

Hello! It’s a huge accomplishment, to finish that first draft. And second. And well, by now, I’m on #7.

But writing is just the beginning of bringing a book into the world.

Trauma Queer is a darkly funny suspense with supernatural elements. Big tech is inciting and harvesting queer trauma as a source of renewable green energy.

The unsuspecting LGBTQ+ community of San Francisco is the beta test!

With the help of queer ancestors, a haunted house, and the power of their chosen family and community, they must expose the sinister plot before, well, you know what happens if they don’t.

But this post isn’t about my novel. (You can listen to a smidge here if you want.)

It’s about power.

First, a bit of book publishing context:

If you want to traditionally publish a book of fiction with a big five publisher (which I do), you need an agent.

An agent is the person who pitches your book to editors and hopefully sells it for a bunch of money.

In return, they get a 15% cut of your advance.

They are a realtor for your manuscript.

They know the editors, have the connections, and know the ins and outs of the industry to help protect you.

You cannot pitch to a large publishing house if you don't have an agent. 

I'm in the process of trying to get an agent.

First, you do a lot of research about who represents work like yours and has had success selling it.

Like scrolling through online dating profiles to hopefully meet the love of your life. 

Next, you write a query letter which is exactly like writing your own dating profile.

I've probably put 30 hours into writing my query letter.

The goal of querying is to get a request for a full manuscript. Well, that's the first goal anyway.

When querying agents for a full manuscript request, a good response rate typically falls between 5% and 15%.

Let's do some math. 

Because you have to research each agent, their best sellers, their completed deals, and how much they've sold, and then because you have to customize your query for each agent, I'm finding that I spend 2-3 hours per query I send out. 

On average, many authors send between 50 to 100 queries before securing an agent.

So, even if I get lucky, I will spend 150-300 hours to find the agent. 

My writing coach, T. Thorn Coyle, is brilliant.

They are no bullshit, clear seeing, and both very woo, and completely pragmatic.

Recently, in a session with them, I told them about my query process.

I told them I'd received a rejection, and it had me wobbling about the quality of my novel.

They got mad on my behalf.

"Let me remind you, this is a bullshit system. You are not going to agents with your begging bowl out. The thing you are offering has value. And, they work for you! They get paid from YOUR work! You are hiring an employee, not grovelling for 'representation.'"

Whoa.

At that moment, the world spun and reconstituted itself so I could clearly see what is going on.

An agent works for me.

I am hiring an employee.

It’s like sorting through resumes and checking references.

I know how to hire employees!

My coach reminded me that the system is set up to make it SEEM that the agents and publishers are the ones in power.

But they are not the creators, bringing through the work of imagination.

They are not the generators of the work.

Creativity is power.

An entire industry is built on my creativity.

Without me and other writers, they do not exist.

This is another example of capitalism trying to flip the script, claiming power when, in fact, the power is mine. 

As a person whose body has given birth to children, I know this power in my bones.

The power of creativity is beyond what any industry can claim or profess to own.

Remembering where the power lies is crucial.

Thorn said that the energetics of the thing means I need to be in my full power, recognizing the full value of my work, when I'm querying.

If an agent I offer the job to says no, it's because they are not the right employee for me.

The right employee feels like a good fit, an ease, a flow.

When I've hired good employees before, I knew it throughout the entire process.

I was never talking myself into anything because it looked good on paper, or had to convince them I was the best boss for them.

It felt right, to us both.

Ironically, I have a nightly practice calling my power back to me.

I lie in bed and imagine it flowing from wherever it is in reverse, back to me and my body. 

When my writing coach told me to call my power back, I laughed so hard that they asked what I was laughing about. 

"I teach this shit to other people!" I managed to choke out. 

When I walk in the mornings, I listen to Love + Joy's beautiful prayer, "I call my power back."

How easy it is to miss the places we give our power away.

Thank Goddess for coaches.

It took my coach to help me see it.

But as soon as I saw it, BOOM! 

I call my power BACK.

Choice Practice: In last week’s post, I pretended ChatGPT was my best friend. I asked you to consider who you wanted to be more vulnerable with and why. I’m curious what came up.

This week’s practice is to look with gentleness for somewhere you give your power away. Notice, and decide what you want to do about it.

Write it in the comments!

(And if you know an agent who might be right for Trauma Queer, drop me an email!)

Coaching Call Today 10/30

Just a reminder that we meet today at 11 AM Eastern / 8 AM Pacific

AND you have to register to get the link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrcuGqqD0pGNC4mYL0oiGxuu5tbbSzHfrE

Bring anything that you need support around. I’ll offer coaching and ideas for those who want!

See you soon,

Pavini

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