Generosity, Sychronicity and Just Showing Up

Convo Transcription - Deb Speaking to Matt

Transcribed by Matt, minor edits for clarity, and a few added notes.

This is a little story about S. I walk by her shop on Solano Ave every day, and I have a little two minute conversation with her when she’s not hands full.

So I saw her earlier this week, and I was asking if she was getting any time off, because she works a lot. And she was telling me she’s going to Germany. And I asked her, is it a pleasure trip? And she said, well, no, actually my friend died. A close friend, her age. She said that another friend had died last year and she wasn’t able to go, and it really broke her heart. So when this friend died, she said, I’m going. And I was saying, that’s so good to show up.

And so I wanted to make her a rock for that.

(As part of Deb’s practice of making objects ‘of ceremony and intention’ including ceremonial jewelry, Deb also creates other objects such as small rocks - holdable in one’s hand - beautifully bound with braided natural reeds and bamboo weaving sticks. These - like a custom jewelry object designed to embody and celebrate the unique spirit and stories of an individual or couple - are objects created with a human in mind. They are intended as something tactile and beautiful to connect heart and hand and eye, evoking emotion and intention, through touch and sight and remembrance.)

When I create these rocks for someone, usually I want to know something about them. All I knew was he was 60. So I made the binding reed 60 inches long. But... I didn’t know his name, and I wanted to listen to his music while I was making it - S had said he was a DJ friend - because I like to ‘weave in’ and think about the person as I’m making it, because I think it energizes the project. It infuses into the project.

So, anyway, I gave it to her, and I picked the smallest rock, so if she wanted to bring it with her it would be the least heavy to travel with. I told her that, as I made the rock, I had wanted to listen to his music. The way she spoke about him reminded me of Mike. (Mike was a dear and important person in our lives who we lost two years ago). And so that’s why I wanted to make her the rock.

I was telling her I was going to an Imbolc festival, and I was explaining to her it’s one of the four fire festivals, along with Samhain, Beltane, and “Lughnasadh”. I forget how it’s pronounced. These are the four fire festivals in the pagan calendar between the solstices and the equinoxes. Imbolc celebrates midwinter, honoring St Brigid.

She told me his name, his DJ name, was Belly Cloud. And I said, Oh! oh, that’s amazing, because Imbolc is... “in the belly”. In the belly. So it’s incredible that you’re going to an event for your friend who’s DJ name is Belly Cloud, and the Festival of Inbolc - in the belly. I didn’t know that that’s what Inbolc meant until yesterday morning, even though Rose brought it to me last year. I happened to look it up and see that.

And it’s just… this weaving of the people I choose to bring closer to me in my life.

So you did this - creating the memorial rock and giving it to S - without a clear ‘I’m gonna do this for this reason’. You just felt like it was the right thing to do.

It just shows me, it doesn’t matter if it makes sense to other people. You can’t wait for it to make sense for other people to say yeah, that’s a good idea. You just have to trust this weird idea in your head. If it doesn’t make sense to you entirely, maybe it makes sense to someone else in some other way that you just have to hold and shepherd.

But you’re not just holding, you’re actually spinning this relational web.

Well, it’s funny, because I know about Imbolcl because of Rose last year. But she didn’t tell me that it means ‘in the belly’, and it’s not part of the ceremony - for some reason that detail didn’t come up. And I didn’t know S’s friend’s DJ name, which I had been thinking all week, I wonder what it is, you know. But I didn’t want to bother her and ask her. But these two facts... came together in the same moment - it’s just a real, I don’t know, it’s a beautiful mystery.

But it’s sort of what you’re all about. You bring these connections.

This situation couldn’t come about if one of the three of us wasn’t part of it. All three of us had things to contribute to this little moment of meaning. And S was, she was a little teary, and she was saying, there’s going to be this beautiful event that happens, and now I have something to bring and offer and share - a tangible thing.

It feels like this is the reason I’m trying to do these things that I do, that to some people, they think, what, that doesn’t make sense, or you’re not gonna make money doing that, or this isn’t a business model. This is meaningful to me.

And this is leaping without a net, right?

And it’s very much this thing that I, for whatever reason… this is my fearlessness, my fierceness. I never worry about leaping without the net. Because I trust that these ideas are coming to me for a reason. And I’m trying to shepherd them, in the most honorable, fierce and reverent ways I can. Fierceness and reverence. I think Rose said that last night. Fierceness, with reverence. Not fierceness with anger and retribution, fierceness with reverence.

Like, that’s fucking beautiful.