Blaunching into the aster-scape: in defiance of the linear and/or in praise of the party-size bag of barbecue potato chips

A few weeks ago I threw a little brunch in celebration of my blaunch (blog launch!). The gathering fell on Bastille Day—a day of prison-storming and gate-crashing—and on the eve of Mars mashing it up with Uranus. Bold moves! Eating of cake!

Morgan, my stellar daughter, held me fast to the blaunch date even when I wavered. She brought magic-wand-making supplies and a magic-eight ball and party hats. She brought some of her loveliest people. I brought some of mine, and cooked up a storm.

Just when I thought I had everything I needed, one of her people brought homemade crescent rolls and strawberries. And a party-size bag of barbecue potato chips. He said of this last, maybe these aren’t the vibe and I said bust them out and throw some in a bowl. They were perfect.

* * *

I’m a fan of the unexpected. It’s a little bit subversive, that poof of salty, neon-orange powder, that little surprise. In art it can take our breath away. In life it can delight us, shock us, knock the socks off us. It can tilt us sideways just enough to remind us there’s no point in trying to control every little thing.

I am enjoying not knowing exactly how things will turn out. I am enjoying calling bulltinky on whatever is left of my own storylines, my imaginary future arrival points, the half-maps I scribble on my mental screen, as if I know where I’m off to.

As I let go of my storylines–a.k.a., the linear–what moves in is the stellar. With a little imagination you can flesh out the dotted lines of the Big Dipper or Orion into your favorite version of a ladle or a hunter. But imagine floating out into space to orbit the whole actual constellation.

Those sweet, familiar, flat, sky patterns that bolster our sense of order would expand into a crazy-beautiful, 3D web of spatial relationships, each pattern star dancing with a billion other stars: nothing flat about them.

The number of breathtaking views of the unexpected–up close in our lives, and way, way out in clusters of stars–is endless, so long as we are willing to be moved, to move around the object of our attention. To be dimensional, orbital. To find in a splay of idea-stars a burst of pattern of our own making.

* * *

Relax your gaze in the garden, or in front of your canvas, in front of your beloved, in your day-job, in the mirror, to see pattern as it already is. Move to a different spot to take it in fresh. Take some time to admire the incredibly intricate design and depth of your singular consciousness, at play with the whole universe. You are already seeing as no one else can see.

Walk around. Be kind to your singular self. If you’re a golfer, settle and be still, to let your swing find itself. If you’re a writer, do some little drawings, some after-dinner art. If you’re a logician, make a magic wand. If you’re a hermit, head to a cafe where you can be private in a public space, and maybe have an inadvertent, not-unwelcome chat while you’re at it.

If you’re a constant doer, scroller, nail-biter, make a deal with yourself to put it down a while and rest. Try whatever you can think of. If it’s your phone that seems to be hanging up your happiness, put that thing down in the middle of the floor (or better yet a forest or a field–but probably best not a beach). Walk around and around it, until you can make new sense of it. Let the possibility of no-phone be your barbecue potato chip.

Take back your power to move.

Moving around the object of your attention is a way of inviting contrast, a way of getting to know it differently, of appreciating what it is already offering.

I think we’re always just an orbit away from our next aha.

* * *

I found some beautiful flowers for the blaunch. What I reached for first were the “fillers”- the in-betweeners, the non-stars. And then the Gerbera daisies–the asters, the stars. And in that pairing, a little aha. The prima dark matter–the filler, that fabulous field of pure potential, that vast interstellar space in which to turn and see things differently–was as lovely as the lux.

Thanks to all who appeared in the physical field of my blaunch brunch, and who brought MORE beautiful flowers. It was truly delightful. The prevailing mood was LOVE. And to all in the vaster aster field of my whole life. My prevailing great good fortune is LOVE.

In the coming weeks I’ll share some creative constellations–poems, essays, images, posts–that overlay aster orbit aha idea-splay dark matter lux.

Could anything possibly be more FUN than that? Woo and hoo, indeed!

Here’s to getting all up and around whatever it is you’re looking at, until it tips up its underskirt to reveal its more, its aha, its also-ness, its capacity to surprise the hell out of you.

xo Lisa

p.s. I left the flowers sitting out long enough for another aha: on their way out, Gerbera daisies poof!

Et voilà!

Next year’s stars.