Under a Big Top?

I mean, I could live anywhere, right? Why the hell not live in a circus tent?!?

At least that’s the notion that crept up on me today. Another day of Mondo Beyondo dreaming sprinkled with a dose of Empire Building. And up pops the realization that a home (my home) can take any of many shapes. How about a circus tent?

Well, why not?

In her book, The Wishing Year: A House, a Man, My Soul A Memoir of Fulfilled Desire Noelle Oxenhandler examines the role we play in making our wishes (dreams) come true. There is the belief that (and I am paraphrasing) our job as humans is to show up and do what is within our humanely powers to do. And Noelle shows us that acts such as building shrines are a very real and valid part of this. She says

. . . when I wish in the mode of the ancestors, I adopt an attitude that is both confident and humble. I commit to doing everything within my human power to make something happen—while also recognizing that my human power is limited.

And it is there, on that boundary, that I place my shrine.

My overarching wish/dream is for a home that suits me. A home that is a launch pad for whatever it is that my life is to be, whatever it is that I have to shine on the world. I realized a few weeks ago the wisdom of re-phrasing my search from “I want a house” to, “I want a home” so as not to limit the possibilities. Perhaps my home doesn’t involve a house at all; I don’t know yet. But, I do want to keep the doors open for whatever Opportunity & The Universe might present for me.

This morning I completed the Mondo Beyondo exercise that asked me to imagine my life 5 years hence. And as I wrote my uncensored vision of April, 12, 2015, the experience of being inside the Teatro ZinZanni spiegeltent kept slipping into my sights. And I was silly happy about this.

Okay, so whatever. It’s a grand and fabulous notion. It’s glitter and glitz and really, where’s the practicality? But I don’t think that’s for me to figure out right now. It’s just for me to be clear and bold about my dreams.

Oxenhandler says,

When we consciously articulate a wish, then we also give ourselves a kind of permission to receive the thing we desire. We thus remove some of the false obstacles that may stand between us and the thing we desire . . .

So, I built a “shrine”, an object that encapsulates elements of my dream of my home, that reflects the spirit of what sings to my heart.

In this close-up, you can see that’s me, sitting there inside the tent—in a puddle of glitter. Sweet!

Photo of me in the tent is part of John Cornicello’s Friends project and my Circus Porn project.

And thank-yous to both Beth and Elizabeth, who passed along to me their copies of the circus-themed Anthropologie catalogs. I still want those red & white striped shoes!

Tagged as: circus, dreams, empire building kit, love, mondo beyondo