scribbles & sonnets

Elle. She/Hers/Her. Writer, clown, lover, jewish mystic, intersectional feminist, teacher.

[daniellelevsky]

Nurture Project - Week 2 Reflection (January 8-14)

Week 2 kicked off on the exhausting side - after a weekend of performances of War and Play Monday was filled with the final tech rehearsals and shows for the first night of The Crone Chronicles at PhysFestNYC. Very proud of the work we created, but definitely pushed myself to the edge physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

Luckily, the rest of the week brought a better balance of rejuvenating activities amidst the continued hustle.

For the second day of shows of The Crone Chronicles, I enjoyed a slow morning of journaling with a friend, had a quiet and mostly undisturbed work-from-home day, and then closed PhysFest with two wonderful final performances of The Crone Chronicles. My cup was very filled that day.

On Wednesday, watching the inspiring experimental theater piece Onegin by Krymov Lab NYC recharged me creatively. On Thursday, immersing myself in Judy Chicago's stunning feminist artwork was incredibly nourishing.

The necessary tasks of transporting costumes/props back to Philly and tackling piles of grant applications felt draining. My day job remained uninspiring.

I taught an intro clown workshop in Philly which filled participants with so much joy and silliness - watching them have fun was the best refueling. And being able to dance afterward fueled me, too.

Bobbing my head along at my friend's queer choir concert and catching up with close friends over drinks after brought me the community connection and support I needed.

I ended the week feeling a bit more equilibrium than last. Making space for activities across all the facets of health (physical, creative, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, social) allowed me to bounce back from an exhausting start. But I still haven't cracked the code on finding day-to-day motivation at a job I'm not passionate about. And I tended towards over-exertion with back-to-back intense rehearsals and performances.

This week showed me I have room to build more small restorative practices into each day - whether 5 minutes of meditation, a short walk, or writing in my journal (or Morning Pages?! Yep - I'm doing The Artist's Way again).

I want to continue leaning into inspiration and joy from my creative projects and community. Onward towards more balance!

[par-ton-amour]

Week 2 reflections :)

[daniellelevsky]

Nurture Project - Week 1 Reflection (January 1-7)

Happy 2024, friends! I'm a bit late in posting my first weekly reflection, but I will play catch-up for the last couple weeks.

Here are some thoughts on the first 7 days of the year...

My day job was extremely demanding and stressful this week as I tried to create instructional materials for an incomplete, constantly changing software. It felt neverending and draining - definitely no equilibrium between effort and ease! I was working overtime just to keep up. This area felt very imbalanced, with a lot of output of energy and no input or nurturing to refuel me.

Outside of the day job, highlights of the week included taking a fun, sweaty clown cardio class with teacher Jaymie Parkkinen and chatting with him afterwards about potential future collaborations on workshops. When I got to NYC, I enjoyed dinner with close friends, went to the sauna with another good friend of mine, pet-sat a sweet cat, and got in some movement with yoga and pilates classes. These activities filled me up creatively and socially. But the physically tiring aspects also tapped my energy reserves.

The peak experiences - though utterly exhausting - were the rehearsals and performances of my shows "War & Play" in NYC with my lovely collaborators. After re-rehearsing this piece for a little over a month, finally sharing them with new audiences filled me with so much joy and meaning. I felt immensely proud of these productions and the folks on them... and I was definitely running on fumes by the week's end!

So in summary, this week, I did not find much balance across the different areas of my life. My creative pursuits were deeply fulfilling, but also highly demanding on my time and body. My day job and other responsibilities felt neverending and draining. My social connections were nourishing, but I also think I was not taking enough quiet alone time for true rest.

As I move forward, I want to continue saying "yes" to the art-making that feeds my soul, but also pace myself better so I don't burn out. Finding pockets for rest and renewal, delegating certain tasks, and setting better boundaries with my demanding job will be key. This week tested my equilibrium, but offered many insights on where to improve!

[par-ton-amour]

Week 1 reflections :)

[infinite-contradictions-deactiv]

[tamayurrra]

infinite-contradictions:

untitled by mio-spr on Flickr.

[headspace-hotel]

In the future the way we treat different sleep schedules is going to be thought of as just as weird and barbaric as beating kids for being left-handed. People will read about how we thought certain circadian rhythms were bad and made people take melatonin and use special lights to make their circadian rhythms different, and they will think, "So sad and ignorant...everybody is just afraid of difference."

[headspace-hotel]

Like honestly I think the whole 9-5 capitalistic schedule thing will be hard to explain in the future because everybody will be like "???? But didn't they have loads of 24-hour shops that needed people to work around the clock?? And they had truck drivers driving all night? And wouldn't all the cars getting on the road every single day at specific times cause the roads to get clogged? And wouldn't it make it hard for people to get both work and other things done if everything is always only functioning at these specific hours?" Like yes, yes, and yes, and finally yes. Just because a society expects its people to do something, doesn't mean that thing makes sense.

[beepboopiloveyou]

I was put on a homebound plan at my high school because my school's schedule was literally making me vomit and have panic attacks. It required me to wake up at 6:15am and get to homeroom by 7:15am or there was a strict lateness policy that could end up with detentions, or worse being held back. They tried to heavily medicate me to get me complacent with being so unstable and sleep disrupted. We had to threaten legal action before an IEP and homebound plan was drafted. All of this effort because my goddamn AuDHD circadian rhythm wanted me to go to sleep at 2am and wake up at 10am. That's it. I don't even do that now, but I know that that is my natural schedule. It was such a waste. I suffered so, so much. All because my brain is different from those suburban picket fence shitheads.

[flightyquinn]

This has honestly always been so baffling to me. Like, is there really a legit good reason to keep things on a standardized diurnal pattern in the modern world? Back in the day when people relied on the sun and short-lived flames, it made sense, but over time, we've gotten better and better at providing ways to function regardless of time of day. We're well past the point where we need to stop doing things because the sun is down, now, and there are plenty of people who could benefit from being able to use the other half of the day. Why are we still forcing all of civilization to shut down every other 12 or so hours?

[foldingfittedsheets]

There’s a pack of feral children that roam the complex I live in. It’s genuinely fucking annoying, they stand unmoving in the face of cars, harass my cats in the sliding glass door, get into our patio bins, and wreak general havoc. Also snoop on my betrothed and I making out, over which I’m the saltiest.

But one aspect of summertime is all the little chalk drawings they leave everywhere. As this is not any of the aforementioned acts of mischief I thoroughly approve of chalk time.

Each day my betrothed and I would sally forth on what they called, “our government mandated walk” and stroll through a gallery of chalk creations.

I think we noticed about the same time as we walked through the complex to the road that amidst the rainbows and nuclear families there was a disturbing repeated phrase.

“Not a lie.”

Over and over, not a lie, not a lie; in various colors and sizes, the same phrase. It looked like a pastel cult. Or like someone trying to escape Aperture Science.

All summer the rains would wash the concrete clean and each new wave of chalk would be accompanied by a new peal of “not a lie”s. We speculated wildly for months over the “not a lie” phrase. What wasn’t a lie? Why weren’t parents concerned about this bizarre obsessive repetition?

Then one day, coming home from our walk, we heard a parent call, “Natalie!”

Simultaneously our eyes widened and we whipped our heads toward each other to say in rapt tones, “Not a lie!”

We still like to creepily whisper “not a lie” in discordant tones like cult followers, but it’s funny knowing it’s just a kids name.

[thefullerview]

[homeshell]

now THIS is jewish culture

[mysharona1987]

[utwo]

Switzerland Cabin

© Destination Gstaad 

[badmedicine1467]

[cruelsummer-blog]

Buongiorno

[romancerepulsed]

i keep seeing misinformation about this, so: queerplatonic relationships do not have a set definition. the name comes from the idea that it's "queering" the platonic relationship, tailoring it to the individual relationships' own desires. it isn't necessarily romance lite, but it also isn't necessarily whatever definition you want to impose on it. the point of queering the platonic relationship is to break away from strict allonormative views on friendship, romance, and sex, not to make a new categorical box to fit in.

the answer to "what is a qpr?" is "whatever you want it to be." sometimes that is romance lite. sometimes it's a deeply committed friendship. sometimes it's friends who have a sexual relationship. sometimes it's based on an entirely different mode of attraction. sometimes it's fluid and impossible to put into words. it's whatever you want it to be. it's queer.

[scrapsofinspiration-deactivated]

florence welch was right, it picks me up puts me down chews me up spits me out a hundred times a day picks me up puts me down i'm always running from something i push it back but it keeps on coming and being clever never got me very far

[radical-revolution]

[par-ton-amour]

Last night my friend told me I fall hard and fall fast in love because my Venus is in Aries

So that's good information

But I also wish my infatuations weren't all so all-consuming

[daniellelevsky]

A Return, Anew: Into Nurturing

Greetings World!

I'm dusting off this old Tumblr after nearly 7 years to start a new project. And the timing feels meaningful - in Judaism, 7 is considered the number of spiritual fullness and completeness.

So here we are, in 2024 - 7 years after I last posted here regularly. It feels like the right time to pursue new depths of self-knowledge and balance. I want to understand how the different pieces of my life puzzle fit together; where my energy flows and where it's blocked.

Each year, I choose a new quote to guide me for the year to come - for 2024, I chose a quote from Buddhist-Vietnamese monk and one of my teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh, to carry me forward:

"Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet."

I look to 2024 as a chance to sink deeper roots into this beautiful, blossoming life I’m building for myself. Thich Nhat Hanh's words will remind me to walk steadily yet lightly upon this precious Earth, embracing each breath as a gift. There is much more love to cultivate, still and despite.

In this coming year, I aim to be more rooted, intentional, and connected - to my new home in Philadelphia, its land and community, my body and spirit, my creative work, my relationships. After so much movement and flux these past few years, my goal for 2024 is to sink in deeply and mindfully, and pour my energy into what serves my raison d’être.

I'm divvying up my time and energy amongst different categories of creative pursuits and personal development goals:

Producing/performing theater and clown

Writing essays, poetry, and fiction

Navigating my day job in instructional design

Opportunities for teaching (clown, Jewish studies, yoga)

Travel and adventure

Building community and relationships in my new home

Nurturing my health and wellbeing

In times past, I have felt energized and focused by what I brought into my life; other times, I felt drained and overwhelmed by it all.

So this year, I'm going to document it - how I spend each week across these different areas. What activities feed me, versus take from me? When do I give too much and have nothing left for myself?

I'm reminded of a teaching from yoga philosophy around sthira and sukha - finding equilibrium between strength and comfort, effort and ease. I want to find that sweet spot, where I can walk the line between sthira and sukha in how I pace myself across all these different pursuits. Grounding down into steady effort when needed, while also cultivating softness and spaciousness.

So, once a week, I'll tally up the previous 7 days - what projects got my time and energy, what didn't, how balanced did I feel, what do I need more or less of, etc.

I'm hopeful this reflection will help me find alignment, purpose, and sustainability across the many beautiful puzzle pieces of my life.

As the Jewish tradition says, 7 is the number sitting at the center of it all, binding together the physical and spiritual worlds.

So, let the journey begin...

[par-ton-amour]

Starting a new project for 2024 - come follow along :)

[spacelazarwolf]

psa for gentiles: “the chosen people” referring to jews doesn’t mean “jews think we’re chosen by god bc we’re just so special and better than everyone else.” it means “god picked us to fulfill the 613 mitzvot and we said ‘ok sure’.” it’s more akin to being a custodian. when we say our duty is to “repair the world” we don’t mean “make everyone like us”, we mean make the world a better place for everyone. judaism is not Christianity LiteTM.

and just so y’all know, “jews think they’re god’s chosen people, they think goyim are subhuman and that they’re superior” is nazi rhetoric. “jewish supremacy” is a white supremacist concept based in antisemitic conspiracy theories abt jewish plans for world domination. please stop uncritically using this rhetoric.

[frommylimitedtravels]

Wandering alone in the deep.