Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

She didn’t simply come back to life, she came back to being fully alive.

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While texting is convenient and as much a part of our lives these days as breathing, lately I have found myself “forgetting” my phone at home when I go out.

This wasn’t the case when I was texting my friend Parker the other day. He was bordering on lecturing me via text, at least that is how it appeared to me from my screen. He thought I was roaming about in unsafe zones near my home where unsavory people might venture in the early morning.

 I declared this in my text response “I refuse to be afraid. I’ve been afraid for too long when I stopped doing what I love to do most. If I die, I die. Not a big deal. We’ve had the dress rehearsal already. I won’t live by being afraid, I would be dead-while-alive. I won’t have it anymore.”

He thinks I am having some sort of post-near-death experience break down but actually, I am having a post-near-death experience breakthrough, one day at a time.

Alongside the Kern River as it runs through Bakersfield, new trees have sprouted in the last few years.

This morning I was walking alongside the Kern River in the same space where I went when I lost my brother. I went there before to howl with – and befriend coyotes with my friend Coryn. It was the place I found the courage to love the darkness. Today it was barely light as I took photos in newly minted day. No one else was around.

It is much less quiet these days: a new freeway buzzes over it to the east and from the last couple rainy years new, spindly trees have remarkably taken root. I am not sure if there are as many kit foxes and coyotes as there once were.

I didn’t spend much time there this morning, but each moment was precious. The top of my lungs felt tender and achy as they do when I overextend myself. That’s simply a component of healing and one I am more comfortable with – and can’t solve until my next pulmonology appointment.

This park is part of the Kern River Parkway - a lovely bike path experience stretches wide across the town - and makes getting from CSUB to Oildale and Bakersfield remarkably quick!

I laughed to myself because there was no one else there to hear. How marvelous to be this alone in such rich, poignant solitude.

Mary Oliver sprang to mind. She would know this feeling. Her words whisper-shout

“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable, beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.”

She has been ever present in my mind as we are coming up on the anniversary of her death. What an honor to hold onto her words.

I looked into the sun, rising up above the trees and imagined wings sprouting from my back.

This is what it feels like to be alive in the early morning.

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Now Begin: Your Journey Back to Where You Were Always Meant to Be

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We’re being called to refresh our lives: to begin again, to realize and become who we were meant to become since even before we were born.

Our life coaching and personal growth series, “Now Begin, Again” will help you as you discover how to open, wake up, stop the negative self-talk and destructive habits and  replace them with all that is good, right, sacred and true. .

For the next few weeks I’ll be livestreaming the poem, “Now Begin” – sharing it’s transformative power with you. Along the way we will scoop up writing prompts, some stories and a lot of fresh new insights so that you may lead a better life.

I’ll be scattering the goodness on Facebook Live, Periscope and IGLive before I meander over to YouTube with it.

And Now, the Poem and the Introduction as shared on Instagram TV and Twitter:

The Poem that Started the Series: Written in 1999.

Take away the degrees, titles and accomplishments –


What is discovered at your core?\


What is your unique, special spark?


Buried deep, neglected, that you’ve chosen to ignore?

Seeking to please whomever.

Drowning out the pure longings of your heart

Struggling, freezing, suffocating –

Until finally, you choose to start. 

Whispers from the spirit.

Soul’s song from deep within.

After dancing, stranger among strangers –

Claim it. Your life. Now Begin – 

Take the poem more deeply with these prompts focused on the first line. Throughout the series more prompts will be offered for you to explore more deeply and begin again, better and better and better.

Writing prompts for a efreshed beginning from Julie JordanScott. Gain personal discovery while enjoying poetry from the Creative Life Midwife.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, and a Mother of three. One of her
greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here.

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Take Delight in a Daily Practice

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It was fairly recently I realized my writing practice isn’t what it once was, which lead me to recognize my other art practices had somehow fallen away and in fact, my quest for a before-bed practice lit up the fact I, who knew inside and out the significance of daily practices had somehow fallen asleep at the wheel of what was most important at driving both the quality and the quantity of my work.

Yesterday when I was looking for photos to illustrate one of my (delayed) Bridge to the New Year Blog post I found this snippet of a Rumi poem along with some writing I did around it nearly ten years ago and I was stunned speechless.

“Submit to a daily practice.

Your loyalty to that

is a ring on the door.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside

will eventually open a window

and look out to see who’s there.”

There goes the universe conspiring again, inviting me to play – to show up with my gifts and talents at the forefront. My only job is to remember and move my pencil (or fingers on the keyboard or paintbrush or glue and scissors or whatever it might be.

In 2019, I am devoted to returning to my morning pages practice in the morning and a To-Do/Ta-Da daily practice as a part of an evening practice I devised during ArtBlock yesterday.

I am going to borrow Rumi, also, one of my most loyal and patient collaborators from the past:

“Submit to a daily practice”

               Morning Pages + Strategic Soul Journaling of To-Do’s and Ta-Da’s/ + Movement & Collage

“Your loyalty to that”

               Moving my pencil, pen, body, paintbrush, glue or scissors

“Is a ring on the door –“

               As is an equally significant energy of forgiveness and gratitude, abundantly offered, given and received.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside

               Begins to stir, as the raspberry tea turns water pink, as the boiling water becomes steam and

will eventually open a window

               spirit in breath, in wind, in sunshine rain cold heat fog

and look out to see who’s there.”

               her smile will cross her face, laughter gurgling up from her belly.

               Restored in radical grace, intentional abundance and love.

That feels so good, as does practice. As does the rewards of practice: a clear mind, a refreshed body and a sacred remembering of all that is pure, holy, good and right and heal the harms that inevitably turn up.

Thank you for reading! Watch for life changing programs right on the horizon!

Julie JordanScott is the CreativeLifeMidwife who loves creating life changing content to inspire you into passionate action.

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At long last, Poems are Finding Their Way Home

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After a long period of poem-less time, art every day month brought about the invitation my poetry muse needed. It has been making a welcome reappearance.


This is, perhaps, one of the most delightful realities I’ve faced in the past two years. The last poem I considered worthy of posting was about an Aubergine Turtleneck sweater and was written in late October, 2015.

When I was driving for a ride share company I jotted poetry in notebooks while I waited. I have a collection in process to share those poems. It wasn’t the same, though, as the poems that rise up from my gut like these have, simply because they must.


Today’s Offering:

One of the few photos that include the now stolen chair.


Poem Prayer for a Thief


May whomever drove off with my red porch rocker find joy in it.
May they feel blessed and comforted and shielded from outside harm
May they know the pleasures of early morning, facing the sunrise
Day in and day out, bringing optimism with a touch of sacred holiness
May they erase guilt from their brow and heal pain left behind by whatever
happened in their lives that made them decide to take
it off my porch last night while I was sleeping.

Sometimes bliss comes from reading poetry and after this long drought, I am definitely feeling the bliss about writing poetry once again.

Poems don’t have to be lengthy to be satisfying, they simply seem to be – exactly as they were meant to be, like this one.

This is my third of the month – I will post others here in the next few days.

Julie Jordan Scott (the one who wrote this blog post) says: This is what I crave for you: soulful creativity, aliveness in your passionate productivity, and a deeper sense of knowing how you belong in the world so that together we will be able to create a context for the rest of your life via your next book or your next workshop or simply your next day, week, month or year.

The people who named me “Creative Life Midwife” found words and paint and laughter and flexed their courage muscles on the way to a deeper satisfaction in their daily lives via new blogs, books, webinars and friendships – just to name a few. Contact me now for your complimentary Transformational coaching conversation.  Click here to complete the request form now.  

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Oh, to Write a Decent Poem (and other Conundrums)

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This is the place where the seemingly heavy business of rewriting one’s narrative and being immersed in the present moment via stream of consciousness, free flow writing a la #5for5BrainDump intersect. What follows is the actual writing I just completed in a spell of five minutes on May 16, 2018.

All I want to do is write a decent poem. That’s it right now.

I just want to write a decent poem. And nothing is flowing.

Emma keeps looking at my fingers moving. I am able to converse with her and stare into her sure-of-herself twenty-year-old eyes as I type.

It is a talent, I suppose, which doesn’t translate into anything significant (yet) I still have more than three minutes left on the timer to write which reminds me.

“There is never enough time” is a belief I sometimes carry – oh, be real, I often carry, in the space between what I want and what I tell myself, over and over again, is unreachable.

My Pollyanna tendencies try to hush my inner pessimist who I also don’t let show very often. She is, instead cloaked in the darkness.

Don’t want to be blamed for bringing the energy down, so I just keep typing. I just keep typing and focusing and attempting to focus.

This morning I got some good intentional time stretching practice when I cleared up Monday’s whirlwind with startling efficiency and didn’t waste my time being angry at the unchangeable stuff I have no control over. Instead I got down to business and sorted what could be sorted and trashed what belonged in the trash and checked off the to-do’s with efficiency that would have made my once fifty-two-year-old mother smile.

“There is enough time, always.” The real-me says.

I’m writing, right? It may not be brilliant as is (and maybe someday in the future I will see it as so.)

The timer sounds and as I re-read what I wrote, I feel the unmistakeable lump of a teen-aged complexion. Fabulous. 

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via #5for5BrainDump, livestream broadcasts, creativity playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session or to request she speak at your next event, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

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D is for Diane Di Prima: Beat Poet & Extraordinary Human – Literary Grannies from A to Z 2018

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It was Spring, 2015 when I last talked about Diane di Prima. I was at the Beat Museum in San Francisco and the gentleman working there told me her health wasn’t doing so well. I have no other update than that.

Diane di Prima broke into the “Boys club” of the beat poets and although many don’t know her name nor her influence, she remains one of my favorites. I found an eloquently written article from “The Heroine Collection” and can’t imagine saying it better.  Please check it out here.

From my 2012 Series:

‘I think the poet is the last person who is still speaking the truth when no one else dares to. I think the poet is the first person to begin the shaping and visioning of the new forms and the new consciousness when no one else has begun to sense it; I think these are two of the most essential human functions’ -Diane Di Prima

I recently fell in love with the Women of the Beat Generation. I was curious, after hearing so much about Jack Kerouac, Allan Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski and the rest, I wondered, “Where is the news about the women who were with them? It couldn’t have been completely a Men’s Word-Love Club!”

I discovered while the still best known Beat Poets are men, there are a number of women who not only wrote and lived that era, but women who are still actively creating today.

Diane Di Prima is one of those women. She has been dubbed “Poet Priestess” and “Poet Activist” and “Beat Babe” but those feel condescending to me. After all, her creativity has been present for her entire lifetime. She founded New York Poets Theatre & the Poets Press, she has written plays and poetry and is now the Poet Laureate of San Francisco.

 

Julie has participated in the A to Z Blog Challenge for several years and is thrilled to be back, once again with Literary Grannies. Follow here throughout April for blog posts featuring women of literary history along with a daily writing prompt that reflects each featured writer.

Julie Jordan Scott is the Creative Life Midwife: a writing coach who specializes in inspiring artistic rebirth for those who may have forgotten the pure joy of the creative process. She offers individual creativity coaching as well as creating individualized programs for businesses and groups in the form of workshops, webinars and more. Contact her at 661.444.2735 for immediate assistance with facilitation, speaking or experiencing an enriched life no

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A is for Ada: Literary Grannies from A to Z/2018 #atozchallenge

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Please welcome Ada Lovelace, the first purely STEM writer to grace the Literary Grannies canon.

Ironically she is the daughter of 19th Century rockstar poet, Lord Byron, who she never met. She was entranced by the man whose portrait hung covered in her mother’s home, but her mother was so consumed with not wanting her daughter to be a fanciful poet, she hired tutors in mathematics in order to distract her daughter’s possibly poetic mind.

Ada instead created a fanciful flying machine, meticulously designed with her brilliant mathematical (and my best guess also lyrical mind).

Her mother worried needlessly about Ada, who teamed up with Charles Babbage who devised the plans for “The Analytical Machine” – a general purpose computer. Ada saw the applications for the Analytical machine could go much further than computation and she published the first algorithm and instructions for how to use it with more depth.

Ada is the first STEM writer to appear among Literary Grannies and the first since I stared CreativeLifeMidwife.com.

Her full name was Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace. She was born December 12, 1815 and died November  27, 1852

Writing Prompt: Think back to what your mother hoped for you when you were a child? How does that differ from who you are now (or how is it the same)? Write about it – take 5 minutes and write, free flow style. 

Julie has participated in the A to Z Blog Challenge for several years and is thrilled to be back, once again with Literary Grannies. Follow here throughout April for blog posts featuring women of literary history along with a daily writing prompt that reflects each featured writer.

Julie Jordan Scott is the Creative Life Midwife: a writing coach who specializes in inspiring artistic rebirth for those who may have forgotten the pure joy of the creative process. She offers individual creativity coaching as well as creating individualized programs for businesses and groups in the form of workshops, webinars and more. Contact her at 661.444.2735 for immediate assistance with facilitation, speaking or experiencing an enriched life now.

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Theme Reveal – #AtoZBlogChallenge – Literary Grannies and You, 2018

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7 years ago I spontaneously participated in a blog challenge.

The second year I decided to try a theme and since I had so much fun in my Women in American History class I took at our local college, I decided to go with a women and literary history theme.

The third year I renamed the rather stuffy “Women in Literary History” with “Literary Grannies” and started with a profile of Aphra Behn (so fitting!).

In the fourth year I wrote specifically about Bold Writers from A to Z which focused on a quality of bold writing – A was Audacious, for example.

I started to incorporate writing prompts. My theme for 2014 was BOLD and I’ve always facilitated writing groups with prompts so it is quite fitting I chose that theme.  (that was my word theme of the year).

In 2018 I am thrilled to announce  I am going to go back to the roots of Literary History: Remembering Literary Grannies 2018 #atozchallenge.

I am amazed to find how much of my life has come to be shaped around literary grannies and some people still don’t know it is a fascination of mine. I think I discovered one of my favorites because I was looking for an “I” writer and found Ina Coolbrith, the

Adelaide Crapsey: Inventor of Cinquain Poetry

first ever poet laureate of California.

When I look back and think, “When was I happiest during these last ten years?” that period oftentimes shows up as a time of deep creativity and happiness. I loved writing and sharing daily.

I was teaching a bit back then, too, and facilitating programs.
It is time to rebirth those moments in a new way.

May you enjoy this time with Literary Grannies: some better known than others and all wildly deserving of our attention.

What would you like to learn about Literary Grannies?

Would you like prompts, quotes, excerpts? I may do a little smattering of different content, but if you specifically say you would like one thing or the other, I would happily craft my posts accordingly.

This is going to be a great year!

Oh, and if you wonder who that is I’m chatting with in the overall image, I am sitting at the grave of poet, memoirist May Sarton. I have visited many literary granny graves since I started this fascination in April 2011. I will share with you as we go.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She created the process #5for5BrainDump that has birthed books, breakthroughs and many more livestream broadcasts. Participate in this process via livestream – to check the current schedule visit #5for5HQ

She is also a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

 

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License to stop and continue, stumble and continue, rant and scream and cry: The Art of Loss

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“Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.”

Elizabeth Bishop  From the poem ONE ART. Click this link to read the entire text of the poem at the Poetry Foundation website.

I can feel annoyance rise up my spine at the thought of losing something every day. Perhaps this is why I have more clutter than I need. The thought of losing is painful, abhorrent even.

Why would I want to lose something every day?

I settle back into my breath and stop debating the poem itself.

This morning I lost some of my usually most valuable time: early in the day, most productive, flowing space of openness and I was busily searching for Instagram challenges for March as it is only days away.

I managed to pull myself out of the rabbit hole of interesting people and images but not before I allowed time that could have been used to make my present and future and (I’m lost now trying to find the just right word) frittered away the moments that might have been the best of my day.

That says it.

Did I lose my best in search of mediocre?

My hands reach off the keyboard as if I had set fire to it.

How dare I consider such a thing!

Why would I purposefully lose my best in search of mediocrity?

(If I was a biblical sort of person, shouting “Get behind me Satan!” would be appropriate here.)

I rub my hands together, a sort of stimming learned perhaps from my father or brother or from myself. My palms are dry and need lotion. My hair which dried naturally looks completely strange and my eyes… are doing the drowsy difficult to stay open routine.

The timer goes off and I think “Wow, that is five minutes I’m never getting back” but when I peruse what I wrote, I see value. And if I didn’t? I would see loss. So we’re all good. We’re all good.

This is an exploration of self via free flowing personal narrative: this specifically is sharing everyday, in the now. A sort of 5 minute meditation upon that day or the day before…. we’ll see how each day shapes up without insisting it conform to any particular shape beyond writing for 5 minutes… go. write. now.

I’m using the “5for5BrainDump” model which grants a person the gift of 5 minutes of timed writing to dump whatever comes onto the page without editing, forethought or judgment. What appears on the page and out of the rambling mind is remarkable.

These thoughts are posted unedited and will occasionally include an extra session or two to get to the depth the person feels necessary. Sometimes, the person (in many cases myself) backs away from the writing because… it is uncomfortable, she feels like something is about to crack open or she becomes bored and drifts away momentarily.

It is important to give license to stop and continue, stumble and continue, rant and scream and cry… and continue. This continuing is where the transformation happens.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

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Gifts of Forgiveness + Haiku, Breath, Questions & Moving Your Pencil Across the Page

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In revisiting my life narrative, I am revisiting all experiences without weighing in on judgment in the process. I found this from 2011 when seeking writing tips to share via social media. 

Instead, I found this gift to pass along to you, now.

I woke up this morning feeling fear rumbling in the middle of my chest. My heart was racing just enough to tell me “I am afraid. I should be afraid, I should be worried, I should – I should- I should.”

I rolled over to look out the window at the soft morning light.

There was nothing in that light telling me to be afraid.

I got up and poured myself some ice water, some vitamins and stood, quietly, breathing
in the silence as I shusssshhhhed my heart internally.

There was nothing in the coolness of the water telling me to be afraid, to be worried.

I felt my feet as I walked back to lie down for a few more moments before beginning my day.

I allowed the pillows to support my neck and head. I completely felt the sheets against my skin, the soft breeze of the fan offering up refreshment at the beginning of what will be another more than warm day.

This is what forgiveness feels like: support,cool air, hushes like a gentle mommy as she taps our back as we try to sleep, fitfully. She breathes with us, reminding us everything is fine, truly, everything including us is just fine.

I am an expert at forgiving others.

I tend to let go and forgive long before the other person has even thought to ask for it. Sometimes I think I forgive too easily, before I have given the true meaning of grace its due.

The one person I am the least likely to forgive is myself.

This morning, I started understanding self-forgiveness on a deeper level.

My primary teacher/life coach/personal development guru for today’s integration lesson was Louisa
May Alcott. Many of us only know Louisa May Alcott as the author of the classic tale, “Little Women”.
She wrote and lived so much more than this one book that made her a household name.
She wrote, “We all make mistakes. It takes many experiences to shape a life. Try again.”
in her short story, “Transcendentalist Wild Oats”

She knew and lived forgiveness more than a hundred years ago. Reading one short story of hers gave me more insights than any personal development book written in this century or the last has given me.

I thought I had nothing to write today.

I started with haiku:

waiting for coffee ~
book opened to page ninety ~
eye glasses on desk

Re-read an essay I wrote in January and gleaned this sentence to tweet:

“Today I will continue to give space for my heart’s wisdom to rise above the tyranny of the “must do now” list.”

From there I tiptoed to this quote from Miss Alcott I had carefully copied yesterday and remembered my earliest moments from today. I decided they were share-worthy.

“We all make mistakes. It takes many experiences to shape a life. Try again.”

What forgiveness are you waiting to offer yourself?

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

 To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

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