Writing Challenges & Play – Creative Life Midwife

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

May 16, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

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.

What Does Gratitude have to Do with It? #ThankfulThursday & Beyond

April 26, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

This morning I was playing with my art journal and gratitude. I gave myself a five minute chunk of time and Emma needed my attention to get to her Philosophy of Religion class. I held her impatience by incorporating her into my art journal page on this Thankful Thursday.

“What are you grateful for?” I asked her.

True to form, Emma was able to start lobbing out gratitudes. Friends, Family, TV shows and the like. “What TV shows?” I asked. “Lots,” she answered, and I interjected, “I’m grateful for Law and Order SVU and even though it wasn’t on last night, there is a trending GIF from last week’s episode. That makes me happy and grateful.”

A sanitary napkin popped out of my purse. “I’m grateful for pads,” I said, “That I have one if I need it.” She countered back with, “I’m grateful I don’t live in a third world country where I couldn’t go to school if I was on my period, I’m grateful I’m not homeless, think of what homeless women have to go through when they’re on their period!”

My kid is smart and liberal and still relentlessly optimistic not unlike her mother albeit she is a bit more cynical.
Gratitude, combined with love, is truly among the highest forces for good on the planet.

Share gratitude for people individually or corporately and watch them blush and shine and continue to be inspired to take action, positive action.

Gratitude doesn’t cost anything.

Gratitude feels good.

My five minutes of writing are up as my timer starts to ring.

What does Gratitude have to do with it?

You tell me. What are you grateful for? Share in the comments – and check out my Instagram Feed and story – which are both filled with Gratitude on Thankful Thursday and beyond.

*This blog post was written #5for5BrainDump style. 5 minutes of free writing – no editing, no forethought, no judgement and prompted only by the title.*

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.

What Will You Do to Make a Positive Impact in Your World?

April 12, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

I just started the same sentence several different ways because the first few attempts just didn’t feel good, didn’t feel right, didn’t feel like me – so here I will say it again, this time like this:

I feel a deep satisfaction from being constructive, making an impact, showing up and being a light in my corner of the world. If I can say something or do something or share something and a light goes on for someone my heart reaches out and sings –

Today I was doing a livestream broadcast and it seemed like when I made important points the light from the window – the sunrays, shone down on my heart. It was like Divinity was saying “Yes, listen!” This is important, you will feel happy when you cultivate this!”

Trying again.

What will you do to make a positive impact in your part of the world today?

I type those words and wait, hoping some lightning bolt will rise through the ends of my fingers on the keyboard. I look out my window and I think, “There is something here I know it!” and the leaves dance in response. The wind says “You are here, Julie. You are HERE!” and I think…

That’s it. I am here. I am writing. I am showing up at the page, I am sharing with you. I am present.

I think about Emma whose class got cancelled, Emma who is in her room, quiet, and I think she wanted to run an errand and when I am done with this 5 minute writing spree I will ask her when she wants to go – because my positive difference is oftentimes with my children.

I think of Samuel’s carefully crafted birthday wish list, complete with arguments and possible rebuttals covered and all started with “Please stick within your budget, Mom” and “Since it is my birthday and you’re only buying for one person, maybe you can spend a little more than for Christmas.”

I laugh, what a kid, and am so grateful he knows he can ask for things.

I never wanted to and still feel anxious about asking sometimes.

What will I do to make a positive impact?

I am sharing here with you. Perhaps these words will touch you in some way, some way I don’t even have an idea about right now, perhaps you will write and tell me later. I would like that.

Please, comment or send me a note to tell me, “What will you do to make a positive impact in your part of the world today?”
When you respond, I suggest you go more deeply into what you will do, with a specific, absolutely non-generic response. I want to know the goods – the excellence within the goods.

What will you do to make a positive impact in your world today?

As you are writing, repeat the prompt.

I wonder for a moment why the timer hasn’t gone off yet?

Because I neglected to set it – and I suppose you were best served by repetition.

Let’s get those pencils moving, those fingers on the keyboard dancing. Share with me. What will you do to make a positive impact in your part of the world today?”

Use this question as a writing prompt, a meditation or a reflection question. Please be in touch and let me know how this prompt served you.

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

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

March 19, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 4 Comments

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.

Soften: A Word that Earths (And Opens the Heart to Transformation) #7MagicWords

March 17, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

This word rose from my chest. I was compelled to find a quote because that is often a part of my process – perhaps it is the community builder I am, reaching into collaboration. I knew when the quote I first found was from Mary Oliver and it was about writers – that soften was indeed the word. And then my heart fluttered toward Flagstaff and the Frozen Labyrinth experience I had there several Christmases ago.

Enjoy – My Day 2 flow into the #7MagicWords challenge from Marisa Goudy :

“Writers sometimes give up what is most strange and wonderful about their writing – soften their roughest edges – to accommodate themselves toward a group response.”

Mary Oliver

What follows is free flow writing for 5 minutes… no corrections, no fixes, no forethought. It isn’t concerned with appearances… isn’t toughened up by the editorial eye. It is soft and getting softer as the insights open. I’m grateful you are here, reading.

= * = * =

I’m not sure if this was meant to be something… I don’t know if my family meant to have me believe. I don’t remember ever hearing this but…

I have believed for my whole life that it is wrong to be weird, that nerds or freaks or anyone “out there” was wrong and above all, I needed to avoid wrong or different.

This is sort of in direct opposition to the family member most revered and treasured (or so it felt) my brother John who had down’s syndrome – and ironically squared, as a child never spoke about his down’s syndrome.

Things would be talked about like institutionalizing him and people would stare when we came into a setting but none of that different-ness that so many others saw as wrong was ever spoken. The first time someone actually spoke to me about having a brother with down’s syndrome was when I was seventeen and a co-worker asked me what it was like having a brother “like that” and on a playground a child asked my daughter, “Why is your uncle such a freak?”

My daughter shrugged and kept playing. I smiled, thinking how great it was that she didn’t get upset.

I talked to her about it – to see how she translated what the other child said.

I am comfortable calling myself eccentric. I don’t like being called a freak, though. Freak connotes cast out. Eccentric softens the freak, even though “Fly your freak flag” is something people say –

I pull my hands from the keyboard and hold my chin and my face in them, trying to make some sense of the curvy direction these words are going, sort of labyrinthean like the image I chose to go with “a word that earths.”

With age, my skin feels more dough-like. Softer.

I do not need to be afraid of softening, being a freak, or getting older.

My writing is strange and wonderful in its Labyrinthean shape. Having a freak for a brother was a huge blessing in my life. He paved the way for me being a mommy to a child with autism and another child who has bi-polar disorder.

The primary difference between John’s different-ness and my children’s is we can see John’s. It was obvious. There wasn’t any hiding of it behind a “I’m just like every other person here” look.

John’s down syndrome softened his proclamation of different-ness. My babies and I look “normal” and surprise! We are not.

Rewriting the Narrative: We are much better than normal as was my brother. Strange, wonderful, freak, unconventional, eccentric, darling dear lovely soft… me.

Note to self: challenge of all challenges is to move this from words on the page into deeply rooted belief. PS We can do this!

I do not need to toughen up, another urge I was offered when I was young. I am choosing, electing, embracing etc my softness, my softening.

This is an exploration of self via free flowing personal narrative. 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.

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

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

February 27, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

“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.

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.

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

Writing Beyond Showing Vs. Telling: Wisdom from Ursula K. Le Guin & Laura Ingalls Wilder

February 11, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

One of the best ways I have found to improve my writing is to study the lives of writers who went before me.

I’m not sure when I became blissfully obsessed by the lack of women writers who were quotes and looked toward by the literary establishment, but this passion has brought me countless hours of joy and pleasure in its pursuit. Today, two women writers I revere. I spoke about some of this on a recent FacebookLive broadcast. At the bottom of the information is a link to watch this and more videos that are a part of the #WordLoveYourself project I am working on with Writer and Blogger, Christine Anderson.

Ursula K. Le Guin– a powerhouse writer and trailblazer in both style and substance – died recently. Le Guin was raised in the shadow of one of the most prestigious intellectual spaces in the Country, University of California, Berkeley. Her father was a faculty member and her mother was also a non-fiction writer.

I’m reading her most recent book, “No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters.” And have also read bits and pieces of what she is best known for, science fiction.

She doesn’t believe in the adage of “Show, Don’t Tell” and believes people have gotten lazy and NEED the exposition of TELLING.

Laura Ingalls Wilder – best known for her series of “Little House” books which became a marketing juggernaut in the 1970’s thanks to a hit television series – learned early how to tell AND show simultaneously when she became the eyes for her sister, Mary, who lost her vision during childhood. The Ingalls Family lived frequently as wanderers, oftentimes poor and moving about regularly trying to keep the family fed and cared for meant giving up “extras” like education and new clothes.

Her descriptions are vivid and crisply written, oftentimes woven in a storytelling style.

What can we learn from these two very different yet similar Literary Grannies?

Telling isn’t all bad: it is the CLUNKY exposition that is horrid. Le Guin sounds as if she gets frustrated by writers who leap into dialogue without any background or explanation so the dialogue doesn’t have anything to “hold onto”.

The worst for me is watching a TV show or movie where a lazy script writer puts dense clunky exposition (telling) into a moment that might have come alive with old fashioned story telling – the WHAT HAPPENED

This is the Berkeley Laura Ingalls Wilder would have seen when traveling there in 1915 to see a theatrical production when she traveled across from San Francisco (where she covered the World’s Fair for the Missouri Ruralist) and then took the Street Car along San Pablo Avenue from Oakland to Berkeley.

approach which is also exposition, just exposition done in a better, more engaging manner.

Another technique is to “project the scene in your minds eye” and then step into the scene. Live it in words via the senses. What do you hear, see, feel against your skin? Work on making the telling a part of the showing. They don’t have to be separate and one good and one bad.

This fits perfectly with my belief AND is always better than either/or.

Make practice into a game. Try showing and telling in different ways. Share what happens by commenting here. You may also join our live streams on our Facebook page and writing community. Livestreams flow directly into Facebook.com/JJSWritingCamp for the Word Love portion of #WordLoveYourself and Facebook.com/MindfulYenta for the Love Yourself Portion where my friend, writer and blogger Christine Anderson hosts. Experience more community conversation in the Word-Love Community group. You are welcome everywhere.

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 soon!

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

3 Simple Steps to Knowing What You Believe & How to Achieve Extraordinary Results

January 5, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

I sat down this morning to write for five minutes. I literally rolled out of bed thinking about the power of rewriting my narrative (after being horrified about rewriting my narrative publicly) and I thought about how to dig deeply into what is actually going on in the day-to-day narrative when I am feeling good and strong and in alignment -rather than triggered.

I had a prompt that was totally simple and yet left me totally stumped because I didn’t want it to be a cliche, I didn’t want it to be a bunch of trite phrases or posters hanging in the hallways of junior high schools.

I don’t know if I succeeded, but I know I went on a journey during my five minute writing that I could not have entered without this prompt – and without sleeping on it and waking up and writing soon after I got out of bed.

(On the way to writing, by the way, I plunged the toilet, cleaned up a mess or two made overnight and made a pot of coffee.)

To discover your beliefs and how they shape your world, follow these simple steps:

Write for 5 minutes a day to simple writing prompts.
Before you go to sleep, review what you wrote when you first woke up as you do an overall review of your day mentally and create a brief t0-do (or I call it a possibility) list.
Repeat, preferably in community so that your transformation may be witnessed by people who believe in your newly rewritten narrative and may support you as you set out to create and live your life accordingly.

Here is the prompt and my response and I wanted also to offer a dare to you to write for your five minutes as well. Your “I believe” may be completely different than mine. Whatever you write is absolutely perfect. There are no rights and no wrongs here and I never ever ever expect other people’s beliefs to match mine. That would make for a very dull, uninteresting world.

I believe…love is the question and the answer. I believe the path isn’t paved with good solely good intentions like the common perception may believe, I believe the path is a playground for practice between love, fear and apathy. Love, hate and uncaring.

I don’t believe the opposite of love is hate or fear, I believe the opposite of love is apathy.

The road is paved with love taking form.

The road is paved with our actions which are most fruitful when they begin with the love question and are completed (if there is truly such a thing beyond momentary satisfaction – I have to sit with whether I believe in that whole finality rather than infinite loop de loop later.)

Our actions, projects, plans are the most productive, the most abundant and feel the best when we ask the question with love as the coating, the primary content and is filled with our breath of love inviting your breath of love to join the game.

I believe love is both the question and the answer and I believe that together, we will continue to make things better and better for now and the furute when we bring ourselves to make that belief into something whether it be word on a page or a photo in the book or a business that employs people or a song we sing on street corners or a meal we create to feed whoever happens to be hungry.

Love is the question and the answer.

And when the timer went off, I felt like a few more words would add value for you so I wrote –

So for you, love personified, reading these words, how will you take this reality and create something from it?

Perhaps this one and only day with this date upon it will be your first creation.

Perhaps you will write a thank you note in five minutes, free flow, #5for5BrainDump style like this one was.

Perhaps you will invent something or make a new life or be thoughtful by speaking up for someone (perhaps that someone is yourself) or maybe you will incognito take a task off another person’s overworked schedule.

You, after all, are love. Be the answer. Live the question. Report back what you find in your world. If you would like individual guidance, my phone number is listed below. Text me or call me and we can set a time for a transformational conversation.

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 soon!

Contact Julie now to schedule a Writing or Transformational Conversation Session at 661.444.2735. Please note she is in California in the USA in the Pacific Time Zone.

Blue Lined Conversations: Writing from This/That… Ten Years Later.

November 29, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Over the many years I have used writing practice as a way of life I have found sometimes I need different methods to get deeper, to tune into that soul-voice asking me to listen more carefully.

Today I found this writing from more than ten years ago. I wanted to share with you about the “Infinite Loop de Loop” so I searched my old blog for content and this is one of the pieces I found.

it is a suggestion from Natalie Goldberg, where we write back and forth from two sides of a the same statement.

In our #5for5BrainDump we will write, “I give…. ” and “I don’t give” as well as, “I receive… I don’t receive.”

On this day in February 2007 I wrote from “I am…” and “I am not…” The process took two separate writing sessions and the result was an ongoing deluge of a-ha’s, bubbling up everywhere I look.

The Julie of 2017 had forgotten every moment and now scooped up even more insights.

Here is where it began:

I am hopeful. Well, _begrudgingly_.

I am pondering conditionalism – is that a word? What I mean is I am contemplating my own experience of loving with conditions attached.

I am not so pleased with the discomfort I feel when I surround myself with past happenings of “If you ________, then I will show you love. If you don’t _________ , I will withhold love.”

This is so contrary to my being – and I am open to the discoveries the divine is requesting I make.

I am different.

I am not ordinary. Convention? Pah. I am glad the Dixie Chicks won a lot of awards last night. I am not used to having people be mad at me, so the last few days of people seeming to be mad at me has made me WAYYYY uncomfortable… and again, there are discoveries to be made and growth to happen, all of which is just right.

I am frustrated as I witness stupid stuff causing my nerves to fray (as I am allowing it to do, not that stupid stuff ‘causes it, it is my opinion that causes it so sayeth Epictetus… nothing like ancient Greeks showing up in my 43 things meanderings) I am letting it go now.

I am not prone to tantrums but maybe just maybe if I gave myself space to have one… oh, I don’t know.

I am willing to grow.

I am not amused by meanness and sarcasm. No wonder I don’t fit in with a lot of people.

I am tuned into Sam today. I am so glad, because he seems to be feeling so much better – relief.

I am not concerned about tomorrow.

I am Julie.

I am not anyone else.

I am.

Who are you?

(Something was waiting in the conclusion of the writing earlier today… that something asked…)

Who are you? So I answered my writing –

I am a fledgling collector of crystal doorknobs – these objects of fear, of wonder, of curiosity, of bewilderment.

I close my eyes to feel with, with the palm of my hand and my fingers. An iced over pond, with a new dusting of snow that stands clear of footprints until I walk across it.

The doorknob has eight perfectly symmetrical indentations – eight, the infinite, standing up. The doorknob – held, turned, let go. Grabbed, tugged on, pushed on, always so momentary.

The doorknob that is never really held,

So I hold the doorknob and sob, feeling like we have this in common.

My fingers wrap around its slick exterior and my palm grips it fully. My cheek rests against it. I wonder for a moment if the little Julie’s cheek ever grazed the old bedroom crystal doorknob, the one that seemed to mock my middle-of-the-night, eight-year-old spiritual musings we assume eight-year-olds don’t muse.

Constance-the-Cat doesn’t quite know what to do. She grazes me until she senses I am ok. The wind chime sings its approval of the moment to which it is witness.

I kiss the doorknob and nuzzle it from the other side.

My smallest finger notices an imperfection inside, a place where a tool pushed too hard and scarred the doorknob. Its scarring makes me delight in the doorknob even more.

Why?

Connection.

We are all scarred. Doorknobs, cats named Constance, outdoor-living-so-weathered-wooden-desks, women named Julie. You. We can choose to bear scars – with dignity, grace and wonder. We can choose to bare scars with vulnerability, unfamiliar to most, yet desired – in truth – by all.

I traced the scar on the doorknob and traced my own scars with a sacred hush… alighting gently from my fingertips directly into my heart.

I look deeply into the soul of the doorknob and see the core, the artistic beginnings, the casings and the laser-like narrowing into oneness as the doorknob offers itself into a lifetime of service only to be passed off as salvage until….

Until one conversation lead to one spark which lead to one man walking through another door to pick the just-right crystal doorknob that is now nestled in my hand in its own, unmoving stand… placed on the outdoor desk of this wildly passionate writer, relentlessly following her divine call and allowing the observations to flow….

And the loop of infinity swoops up and down and back and around, once again….

Who are you?

I’m ready…. to sing with the soul-voice… to create the new choir

November 26, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

“To sing means to use the soul-voice… to breathe soul over the thing that is ailing or in need of restoration.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Before I returned to acting after thirty years, I took a voice class where I got to sing, intentionally and with great heart – and the longing and pure joy was so strong in that first class, I cried.

It was a teen and adult voice class and I was the only participant who was over sixteen-years-old. These young women were in musical theater in their high schools, I never intended to do any theater at all.

If you’re a long time follower of mine, that might make you laugh. Countless plays, awards for acting and directing, music videos and films later I obviously found my acting voice but it wasn’t until I gave myself over to singing, learning an aria, hitting notes I didn’t know I could hit, performing in a recital, that I knew I could indeed sing and dance and be comfortable on stage.

I re-discovered my soul-voice.

For ten years, nothing could take me away from the stage. This year, I intentionally took a respite from theater performance. I made one film – it was an absolute blast and only took a couple weeks of my time and attention.
This week I have been decluttering in earnest, reclaiming lost space, and I have a week left of my self-imposed exile from stage. It is time for me to discern if and when and what circumstances will bring me back to theater.
It has been a lonely year.

It was a year of dynamic self reflection and transformation.

I have read more books. I have cried more tears. I have traveled but not as I had expected or hoped.

I spent a lot of time treading water, much more than is healthy.

I am much more clear about my hopes, dreams, ambitions and where my place in this world is one of mutuality, love and collaboration.

I have heard myself spontaneously singing again, humming, free styling as I work.

The restoration process isn’t complete and it is much closer than when the year started.

I am standing at the edge of the bridge into 2018. There is a misty fog here, rising up.

I have become more courageous and more sure of my footing.

I am ready. Are you?

(Vide0 – during a day of poetry writing I spontaneously went for a walk and sang – lyric free singing, I video taped it… and there is still something speaking to me of that brief 1 minute 18 second video adventure. Watch with me here)