Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

I don’t want to, but I do it anyway. Everyday.

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Most mornings I wake up and think I ought to just sleep in. I can skip a day: just this time no one will notice. It’s a pandemic, no one is paying attention, no one really cares.

Then something lifts me up and out of bed and says “Get up, get out, create.” or as I said a long time ago, “Show up. Look up. Translate.”

When I codified my plan to do something daily that made me feel better – created guidelines for my personal creative practice – since I stuck with what I codified my life experienced has changed radically for the better.

Today I realized how my seeing has become so much more alert since I started my daily morning haiku practice. I think even more so since I chose to write sunrise haiku.

This slight change in schedule – on purpose – has allowed me into each day as it begins. It feels like an initiation into a society who are all in on a secret the people who are asleep all around us don’t have a chance to get.

Just as the sunrises at Lake Ming in Bakersfield. Ducks in the lake swim as the sky brightens.

Seriously: today I sat at a table at Lake Ming and had my phone in its tripod and the rays of sunrise made visible through the camera reached to me as I watched and wrote, as if it was saying thank you.

People get caught up – I get caught up – in anger and frustration and a sense of incredulity when I witness even the slightest taste of the horrors swirling around us as of late.

The sunrise reaching out to me – in gratitude – and my “new seeing” is a feeling of communion I haven’t felt since holding my newborns or when I was a little girl in the back seat of our turquoise country squire watching in awe as I believed the stars were actually following me, specifically. That’s what it felt like on that magical evening so long ago.

This simple act of writing haiku every day has helped me to reconnect with everyday miracles and wonder. It wasn’t an instant awareness with the first few haiku, but now – a day doesn’t go by without a surprise.

Julie JordanScott typing a love poem on the edge of a foothill of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Julie JordanScott typing a love poem on the edge of a foothill of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz 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. 

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Join us now in 2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020. Click the graphic below to join the Private Facebook Group to join the conversation!

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‘Tis the Season for Love: How Will You Spend Your February?

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Last year in early February I was approached by Amanda with House of Flowers here in Bakersfield to hang out in her flower shop and type personalized love poetry and donate the money people paid for the poetry to local art organizations.

If you have known me for more than a minute you would say “This has you written all over it!”

This definitely sounded like it would be a fun adventure,  but I wasn’t prepared for the Pop Up Poetry Shoppe experience to include such transforming conversations for the people who asked me to write a poem for their loved one.

Writing personalized poetry isn’t new to me. In the past there have been several times when I crafted various forms of personalized poetry for people. Often times it was connected to a mission or cause and soemtimes it was simple to create distinctive times of connection.

Most notable was writing Soul Poetry with the intention to connect deeply with the subject of the poem and then write what I saw, felt and experienced of their person – their soul – and crafted it into a poem.

I knew this would be different because most of the time the object of the poem wasn’t there, but the love for that person stood in front of me as told via answering questions and sharing snippets of stories. These moments of collaboration helped me to get a poet’s view of the one they love and the relationship they shared.

I sat among flowers and wrote poems for quite an eclectic group of people from couples who had been married for decades to people who were platonic friends – several “Galentine’s” and one for two friends where at least one of them was beginning to hope for more than a platonic friendship.

I’ve often wondered how that one worked out.

I wrote a poem from a Mom to the baby she was pregnant with at the time and an auntie for her niece and nephew. One asked for a poem of love to herself from the Universe – with my voice tuning into what the Universe had to say.

This year I was asked to return to my typewriter at the flower shop to craft more love via poetry. I gladly said YES!

I realized there may be others in my wider, outside of Bakersfield sphere who would be interested in experiencing this time of deep connection and soulfulness crafted into love poetry especially for them or for their loved one. If this describes you, please visit our Pop Up Poetry Page here for complete details.

One of my favorite romantic poets, Robert Browning, married a woman who was eight years older than he (uncommon in the 19th Century). Her name was Elizabeth Barrett, another romantic British Poet whose name became Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

One of his famous lines of poetry was one he wrote as he woo’ed Elizabeth Barrett. It goes like this, “Grow old with me. The best is yet to be.”

The best poem for your loved one has yet to be written. This Valentine’s Day, take a moment to write one or if you would rather collaborate to bring your words of love to life I would be delighted.

If you have questions, please leave a comment below or send me an email at juliejs at creativelifemidwife.com

I can hear your poem in the future right now.

Can you hear it, too?

Julie JordanScott is a multi-creative who lives in Bakersfield with her daughter, Emma, in an eighty-year-old house with two palm trees in her yard. She loves writing and reading poetry, sitting by the Kern River and learning new quirky facts about literary grannies and what makes people tick. Her current project is finding ways to end the secret epidemic facing the US – with 60% of Americans affected by it. This love poetry project is another way she is working to eradicate loneliness – more information may be found on how you may be involved in the cause at EradicateLoneliness.com

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Ta-Da! Celebrate What Gets Done

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In December we offered the Bridge to the New Year experience and one of the big a-ha’s was my evening writing practice that evolved into Bullet Journal for Beginners starting with writing a To-Do List Daily and during the day, taking notes in a “Ta-Da” list, Rumi style.

As a creative, it is important to never stop growing.

How do you want to grow creatively in your work life?

Yes – not only in your art life, in your Business or Work or Education life! .

I have this idea to take my Beginner Bullet Journaling and add it with the pleasure of a simple evening writing practice that can make it not only fun for me, but for you, too. Have you watched the video yet?

It will inspire you!

Let’s try it out, together, I’m thinking in a 5 Day Mini-Challenge starting next week. What do you think? If I get enough interest, I’ll put together a few PDF’s and some simple quick hands-on methods and we’ll do some quicky daily method of check in from Monday – Friday and see what happens.

Please comment to let me know your interest.

As I mention on the video, below are some links of places to find me talking about this new practice on social media. It’s genesis was in the Bridge to the New Year: I will link up to that post last.

On Instagram I have Photos, Videos and Lots of InstaStories and Highlights with numerous tips surrounding To-Do’s and Ta-Da’s and all sorts of writing.

On YouTube, you will find writing and video and over a decade’s worth of stream of consciousness me being me and even some ancient “Mommy and Samuel” show and my children when they were little. At the top though there are Journal and Writing playlists to explore along with Poetry and Writing Prompts and some Video/Livestream How-to’s.

I also have a Word Love Writing Community on Facebook you may want to join. It is less formal, a place to “hang out and be” without the need to put on a fancy face… I like to say “Sweat pants and eating pizza straight from the box” is perfectly acceptable here.

Here’s the post where we got started in Bridge to the New Year.

Take Delight in a Daily Practice

Julie JordanScott is a creative life coach, writer, poet, Mama extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose 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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Move Forward: Endings, Letting Go and New Beginnings

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What Ended?

This has been a year of loss. January dawned with a full slate of cool activities here in Bakersfield for me and some opportunities reaching beyond. It felt like I was back: showing up in the media, in public speaking, in gigs, in so many activities that enriched me.

It felt like the fogginess of 2017 was lifting, all that struggle and fear about getting everything perfectly together and helping Emma readjust and all of that was behind me and this would finally be my shot to be back to who I used to be, just a better revised version.

December 2017 had a couple glitches – one notable one I believe is almost a year old to the day from now but I lived through that, primarily unknown to others around me as it was too horrible to share the “what happened” so, as is often my practice, I didn’t.

I just realized it was also my second round of chemo. I tend to edit those episodes out as somehow irrelevant. Interesting. It was only on my forehead so I changed my hairstyle so as not to alarm people with what happens to skin when it is subjected to chemo lotion and moved along into January, 2018 with a well rehearsed smile on my face.

Some of the groups and people did not fail me, including VDay and One Billion Rising.

I was the featured poet at an Open Mic early in January and I was startled at the numerous not-so-great amidst that great and then things started to slide. Once again, I’m opting not to share details which I trust you will respect.

One after another, organizations I have respected, raised money for, spoken up passionately about, caused harm or damage to the people I love. I am not even thinking of myself here, I am thinking of my loved ones. Again, because these are organizations I have long supported and still believe in, I remained silent.

So what ended was my naivete. What ended was my belief that just because organizations seemed to share my values and my causes, they may also be tainted by fear and won’t do what’s in alignment with what they purport because of mismanagement or other reasons but worst of all, when a client raises her hand to say “Hey, what about?” they care more about covering themselves than following up with the client.

What am I letting go of this year?

I am letting go of expectations.

I am reminded it is individuals who make the biggest difference. Individuals are less likely to hide behind the type of fear that sits atop board rooms and bureaucracies. I saw this when I worked for local government and in 2018, I saw it very strongly with organizations with mission statements directly in opposition with how I witnessed them carry out their work in practice.

Again, I don’t expect organizations and institutions to be the ones to come forward boldly and in a satisfying manner. I don’t expect individuals to, either.

I do continue to have high expectations for myself, however.

I am late with this posting.

I wrote and rewrote and wrote again.

I am glad now to mark it complete.

I will do my best to not discuss these matters further and do not desire to open these chapters up, again. I am simply choosing more consciously and will continue to steward my time as I move forward, with love.

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Art Every Day Month Creativity Hub

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Beloveds – This is the place where I will have an ongoing list of links for my adventures in Art Every Day Month – a fun exploration of Creativity hosted annually by Leah Piken Kolidas.

I have no idea how this will manifest or take form – so for now, we have pretty much a blank space. The idea of this completely delights me.

Watch here as November is born, lived and then brought to conclusion.

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The Risk of Reliving and Recreating One’s Life Narrative

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I originally wrote this more than six months ago. I thought I had published it but apparently I didn’t AND I didn’t follow through so… now  is the time.

In two-and-a-half weeks I am returning to where my memory of my life narrative began, so I will be consciously prepping for that journey here: out in the open.

My inner-seventh-grader says “ewww. I am an embarrassment.”

What I’m taking on is risky. I keep thinking, “Normal people wouldn’t do this. This is a private thing, possibly embarrassing and ugly.”

Maybe it is because it is risky and has a high possibility of getting ugly that I am doing it.

I have given myself an assignment: to rewrite the narrative that has held me back from expressing my unique gifts and talents so that others may benefit and experienced transformed lives as a result.

I will be writing my way through these experiences using the #5for5BrainDump method for the next few weeks. This morning via text the idea started taking form.

The other night I had a rather distressing moment with one of my daughters and words were said and other words were not said and I could have fallen into a deep muddy mess of well-worn recordings of all my short comings.

Instead I wrote,

“Yes, I am ashamed of my behavior. I said things without thinking and no, I am not proud.”

I took several breaths before I wrote, “I am a mother who makes mistakes some of the time. I am a mother who most of the time does the best she can for her children. I am usually quite conscious with my words and actions and only want the best for not only my children but all children. I fall short from time-to-time.

“I wish I had never said those hurtful words. Unfortunately they were spoken, they were received, and they will be remembered with more electrical charge than more quiet, soft moments of every day love and guidance.

“Today, I am choosing to remember moments of love and focus on creating more of them.”

Later in the night after our argument, I walked into my daughters room and put my hand on her back to feel her breathing. It is a ritual I’ve lived through with each of my children – each of my children who lived.

Today I am choosing to remember moments of love and focus on creating more of them.

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 or to request she speak at your next event, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

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I Know the Letters Are There: The Inner Rumblings of a Writer

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I remembered writing this piece as my mind-heart-spirit took a few deep breaths into the #7MagicWords challenge from Marisa Goudy : I wrote the original poetic essay in 2003. In reviewing Marisa’s prompt now I realize I got it… wrong. Yet it is entirely right.

I’m joining the challenge three days late. On the first day we were to uncover a word that integrates and on day two a word that earths. Mine… integrates. Definitely. I’m sticking with it: LETTERS.

I just completed a modest rewrite on this essay. It is ripe with letters.  I took a joyful classroom memory that integrates my childhood with my now – my passion ever present, continuing.

Here I am, the 7th grade me as seen by the early forties me.

Did a hush fill the dark room as a storm gathered outside or was it in my imagination? I can’t remember exactly.

In the back of the room my fingers dashed steadily across the keyboard, pounding away at the manual typewriter as it spoke clankety clankety clankety ding!

A woosh replaced the clanks as I swiped the typewriter carriage with all the zest of the former girl’s arm wrestling champion from Linden Avenue School, now graduated to the Middle School that sat proudly on top of a circular driveway. The yellow brick walls were sunny with optimism despite the rain drops increased force against the windows providing a counterpoint rhythm to my typing.

Did the ceiling evaporate and a ray of light suddenly connect my hands to heaven?

Something had shifted. It had broken through the physical plane and into my thirteen-year-old being. I had the skill to type without looking at the keyboard thanks to the Tap Tapnick poster on the wall and hours and hours of diligent practice so I was able to scribe the words without looking at my hands. I could close my eyes or stare straight ahead or above the chalk board and continue typing.

I knew the letters were there.

There was never any question.
There were other children in the room tapping away at their machines. I know there was other activity. I remember Mr. Seymour, my English teacher, walking into the room to visit with Mrs. Behrman, the
typing teacher. Right in the midst of the bustle and the buzz of thirty or so typewriters all clanking and dinging and swiping, I was not there at all and I knew the letters were there.

All I had to do was connect my mind, soul and heart to my fingers and words burst forth from knitting the letters together, stitching them into a patchwork of meaning. I was able to translate all the emotion that was rumbling through my early adolescent self onto the page so that the world of the Glen Ridge Middle School and beyond would be able to understand what it felt like to feel so incredibly alive, so
incredibly buoyant.

From reading my words I knew they would be able to understand what it meant to tap into the power of God while writing.

The Topic was simply “Music”. The composer was for the first time a life force greater than my own.

I had tapped into the Zone, the Flow, the Space in the Center where everything is conceived, birthed and buried.

I knew the letters were there. And so was I. And all was well, even if no one ever read those words pumping out of me, the letters were in front of me, within me, surrounding me.

All was well and would be well. I knew the letters were there.

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.Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

Beyond Feeling Stuck: How 5 Minutes of Free Flow Writing Freed the Words

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The next sentence was born from what I wrote yesterday – which after you read this stream of consciousness moment in time, you may see where its roots are.

I can only do “it” in a prescribed way. Follow the rules other people set or die.

I know. This sounds extreme and yet it is how I have oftentimes behaved.

Before I fell into what am I going to call this time?

Before I got lost, I was a great experimenter. I could play and explore and played improve games as a way of life. I continued doing this everywhere except for where it would bring me an income or transform my situation from…

Oh, I am having a hard time finding words.

It is safe, even if I don’t find words.

Even if I can’t unbolt this lock.

When I was in college I was a student manager at a restaurant called The Rathskeller. I worked on weekends when none of the adult management was around and oftentimes I got there and was on my own for at least an hour or so.

One afternoon when I was alone, I got stuck in the elevator. There was no handle from the inside, only from the outside and only accessible through a tiny window I could reach if I stretched really big and maneuvered my body just so and…. On that day, when there was no other option,  freed myself.

Just like right now: the sun came out from behind a cloud just as I wrote that. Just as I said “It is safe even if I don’t find words” I instantly found words.

My timer went off, my five minutes was up about a minute ago and I need to share this, now.

From yesterday’s writing: Just as I am the one who locked myself out of the world and into banishment, I am the one who is now setting myself free. I am the one who is choosing an active trust and then actually taking the steps rather than talking about taking the steps. Read yesterday’s post by clicking here. 

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.Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

The Power of Discernment as Seen Through the Lense of the Just Right Cookie

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Today I was in a conversation when one person used “discernment” and another person confessed not knowing what discernment meant. Considering it was the second day in a row a term I don’t think about much popped into a conversation I knew I needed to spend a few minutes tossing the meaning around.

I couldn’t just offer a trite, under done answer. IN that circumstance, no one gets any better.
The power of discernment is like a vat of wine aging just enough or a batch of chocolate chip cookies straddling the line between just the right amount of gooey and the perfect assemblage of crunchy.

The gooey may be seen as the ability to quiet oneself enough to hear the music accompanying the heartbeat. Sometimes it is just the rhythm or the beat, other times it may be the surprising throughline and other times a lyricist’s sweet contralto floats across the barriers we often raise up between one another.

The crunchy though – in the oven for the tiniest speck of time longer at perhaps the smallest nth of a degree higher brings the cookies of discernment to hearing and then understanding.

Actually eating the cookie and nodding your head in joy at the taste and texture and sharing the cookie – even if one wants the entire thing – that is the fully flowing power of discernment. Hearing and understanding and sharing what we’ve heard and understood and perhaps then seen and deepened and yes, acted upon whether or not it made sense to anyone except for ourselves.

The folks who do this are the inventors, the change makers, the ones others look at with their left eye scrunched up and their ride eye still. “What is she up to now?” the left eye asks, usually with distaste.

The right eye says, “I’m not going to miss a thing because I know the surprise more than likely will taste good.

= – = – =

This blog post was inspired in part to this question from the #SpiritChat Twitter Chat hosted each Sunday morning by Kumud Ajmani (@AjmaniK ‏ on Twitter) . I’ll be responding to the questions throughout the week as a way to “keep up” with the chat I’ve been sleeping through lately because Sunday at 6 am is sometimes just a little bit too early for me.

= – = – =

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books,

Here I am writing by the graveside of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women – a highly successful book that hasn’t been out of print for more than 100 years.

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.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

Connect to a Random Someone & Make the World a Better Place Instantly

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Sometimes we have to have an experience to remind us of what really matters.

Yesterday I met a man named Ehab.

He was a clerk at a convenience store which is undoubtedly not a glamour job nor a job where a clerk is appreciated for simply ringing people up for random items they need in a hurry and his name intrigued me.

“How do you say your name?” I asked. He told me it rhymes with Rehab.

“Where does it come from?” and he responded “Egypt.”

I immediately thought, “Oh, people might be rude to him because of this heritage so I will continue with my curiosity which seems to be pleasing, not annoying.”

“How interesting. We had an Egyptian exchange student named Mansour one school year.”

He smiled and nodded and asked me my name. I told him and he added my name was found in Egypt also. “Really?” I said, smiling, thinking I didn’t know whether or not he was speaking accurately or not but that didn’t even matter at this point.

What really matters is I noticed something unique about a fellow human and commented on it which created an instant connection.

We furthered that connection by going one question deeper.

Both of us were enhanced by this moment in time. It doesn’t matter if it never repeats, like I have never had another random cowboy run across a parking lot in order to hold the door open for me but I will never, ever forget the time I went into a convenience store in Wyoming and a quintessential.” cowboy whose mother probably taught him, “Open doors for the ladies in town,” made sure this particular door was open.

Take a moment today to create a memorable moment with someone you may never see again.

This is a simple way to practice making the world a better place without being attached to any particular outcome.

It is an incredibly freeing soul practice that simultaneously makes the world better for many other people you may never know, including people from Egypt or other places.

Please share your stories with me,

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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