Align Your Orbit: Tend Your Metaphors
Align Your Orbit is a monthly series of philosophical and somatic experiments to guide you toward intentionality and impact in your daily life. These are games to inspire intuition, so please adapt the offerings to fit you and find delight in how you engage.
Given new virus variants and a lingering holiday haze, it may have taken you longer than usual to recover and start looking forward to spring, but it’s right around the corner. The daffodils are already poking their shoots up, and maybe you also feel the urge to bloom.
Having been in survival mode for so long, it’s easy to let magic go by the wayside. Altars go untended; ceremonies remain unplanned. But, now that February has arrived, let’s turn our tides toward optimism and reestablish the magical routines that give us power. Explore the satisfaction of moving one of your most potent stones to the other side of your living space and experience the shift that creates. Hang artwork that’s been sitting in storage. Make food and add secret ingredients. Reclaim your metaphors and mysticism this month, and share what you discover with anyone who will listen.
Want to experience this month’s offerings as a Spotify playlist?
Experiments for February
1. Embrace Proximity – Rather than seek a perfect match, embrace the fact that humans (as a whole) tend toward connections nearer to them rather than those on the other side of the world. There’s nothing wrong with exploring the resources most available to you. Give yourself permission to stay close to home and develop connections that arise nearby. Don’t make an easy thing difficult without reason.
Challenge Mode: Get curious about what is possible if you work on trade. What skills do you have to offer and what would be a fair and just exchange of labor? Don’t let money determine the directionality of your future. Take charge and explore all types of energetic exchange.
2. Quirks and Quarks – This February, embrace self-love and remind yourself of the quirky skills, preferences, and routines you have that bring you joy. Relish in the ways you depart from norms. Find creative ways to appreciate and treat yourself. Encourage your awkward. Dance to a playlist you made and gave yourself like a gift.
Challenge Mode: If you find that areas of your life feel stagnant—maybe your altar needs an update or a relationship is not experiencing growth—encourage yourself to make new metaphors. What on your altar isn’t ready for change? Talk with an intimate connection and retell the story of what you mean to each other.
3. Breakthroughs and Valleys of Disappointment – If you’ve been cultivating a skill, practice, or connection for the last few months, don’t be discouraged if it hasn’t come to fruition yet. You haven’t gotten to the most satisfying part, and that’s okay. Allow your projects to simmer; they take time. Give yourself the space to learn the systems around you before demanding change—that will make it more likely that you grasp the root of the problem. Familiarize yourself with the Valley of Disappointment—that slump below your expectations just before a crescendo—and prepare for blastoff.
Challenge Mode: Explore the nuances of your leadership style, whether in your family, your friendships, or in professional settings. Where do you accomplish tasks on our own and where do you delegate? Expend energy toward group cohesion. Find opportunities to facilitate group flow states wherever you participate. How do you help others through their own valleys of disappointment?
4. Forward Thrust – Did you know that the pelvis consists of two halves connected by a little piece of cartilage in the front (called the pubic symphysis)? As you dive into your somatic practices this month, see if you can feel the ways the halves of your pelvis function independently. Tilt your pelvis forward and experience how this changes your posture. What does it feel like when you move your legs from that pelvic connection?
Challenge Mode: Write a list of your hidden pleasures, and take special note of desires that embarrass or terrify you. Do a timed free write around where those fears come from. Delve into childhood experiences that might have an effect on the way you experience pleasure. Take a deep breath, be brave, and hold your vibrator close.
Please tell us how these experiments are working for you!
If you like these experiments, please consider donating to our Patreon. If you would like to receive these offerings in your email inbox, sign up here.
Andra’s Recap of January’s Experiments
The theme for January was “Pulsate” and included experiments around opting in or out, curating a bias toward action, exploring new methods of measurement, and getting underneath whatever topic is at hand.
To be honest, I faced a lot of friction to my bias for action this month, often in a professional setting with blurry boundaries of authority. I recognized the ways in which I was trying too hard to change a system I didn’t yet understand but still felt proud of how I evaluated and advocated for my own needs in light of that. That balancing act took a lot of my energy this month, but I’m looking forward to the stability of time.
Opting in and out of cultural battles was an enormous tool in doing all that. I had to sit with what I was willing to tolerate given how much I cared about the situation. I had to decide what was most interesting and nourishing to fight for. Through that, I learned that there’s a ton of things in my life that I care that much about, which is a wonderful feeling. I work at a place whose mission I really believe in; I am crushing on someone hard; I gush about everyone in my living situation; and I am creatively fulfilled. It’s not difficult to say that I like who I am and what I’m doing more now than I ever have, and the euphoria is intense. 😉
In terms of redefining measurements, I thought I might move toward measuring certain areas of my body with a tape measure instead of staring at the scale, but I realized that what I really cared about was that I liked the way I looked in the mirror. And, for me, that’s both a mental health and a physical health indicator. So, hell, I got a lip piercing and shaved one side of my head, and I’m living my best life.
Additionally, now that do a lot of physical labor, am in a burlesque class, ride my bike generator, and walk to my new crush’s house on occasion, I have to accept that I’m going to weigh more because I have more muscle. The number on the scale doesn’t exactly make sense anymore. And, I need to embrace eating more calories. It takes a lot to keep this body going, and that’s okay. It’s okay to sit at a restaurant and be the one who eats the most food. Repeat this like a mantra.
While I did decide to navigate an argument with a family member in a very different cultural landscape (btw, have you seen Encanto?), most of my “getting underneath” this month was more abstract and wide reaching. First, I decided to start officially identifying as gender fluid, which was a big and vulnerable thing for me to do. I had to grapple with why I want to tell my story that way and what that means for the people in my life. In short, I want to have at least two modes of interaction with each of the people I know intimately. I feel most seen when I can flit between those ways of being. To accomplish this, I’ve created a few additional chats with individual friends and have gotten curious about what purpose I want each of those to serve.
And, I’m reminding myself that it’s okay if all that means I’ve created barriers to intimacy as long as I also explore how to surmount them.
On that note, in terms of having multiple chats with the same person, Facebook Messenger is my current favorite, though I’ve heard many good things about Discord. Maybe this month I’ll be brave enough to try it. >< Sounds terrifying.
And then, in the realms of cultural phenomena, there were the sneakers on the green M&M (Ms. Green). Here’s my take: I don’t like the change as a brand flex. It felt like M&M was demonstrating that they had the capacity to dictate our consensus reality. We can change this, so we will, so to speak, without recognizing that a character that visible also belongs to the consumer. We get to write fan-fiction about her, too, M&M. Geez.
And, like, I change my shoes—I get it. But, I don’t really like my shoes changed for me (that’s kinky). M&M, what’s the story? I would have much preferred a commercial where Ms. Green talks about what inspired the change. Where’s that wholesome footage?
What about you? What’s your take on Ms. Green? Send your best fanfic.
But, point being, this completely inconsequential social phenomenon had everyone’s attention for a minute, and as a culture, I feel like we bonded over something. It was fascinating to watch how people reacted and how they explained their feelings around it. I actually understand a lot of people better now having watched arguments over something that doesn’t really matter in the larger scheme of things. And, it was fun!
Anyway, that’s 2022 for you. Next up, alien planets. -crosses fingers-