Archives for July 2020

What Writing Poetry Every Morning at Sunrise Taught Me

July 31, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Before the end of 2019, I created a goal uniquely mine with one goal: to “have something to do every day that would help me feel better.” I remembered the past, when I would write haiku and post them on facebook before the start of the workday, one friend of mine enjoyed reading them and I enjoyed writing them. The number 377 ties me to writing one haiku – a Japanese form of poetry noted for being short and to the point.

I knew if I made it a difficult goal, I might run the risk of not completing it. I gave myself space to fail AND I knew if I paid attention and made sure I had a guideline to write before a certain time of day, I would have a greater likelihood of success.

In early July I had the idea to do a “sub” goal or a micro-goal. I created a specific intention within the initial one. This time, I was going to write a haiku poem every day at sunrise for a month.

I didn’t expect the potent impact this simple practice had on my life, especially since I had already been writing daily haiku for more than six months, everyday. This new tweak to the goal definitely put the entire project onto a higher playing field.

Micro-goals rock: Small, short-term and do-able goals build confidence and make the process of accomplishment even more fun.
Having accountability via public proclamation is both slightly intimidating and brings about an extra zap of love, hope and optimism. I used my facebook page initially. Now I share on other social media platforms and text to specific friends. During the last week of the month, I also share daily gratitude lists and invite others to share their gratitude lists, too.

Haiku 192 – July 2, 2020

Sunrise at the Panorama Bluffs in Bakersfield, California.

trees hold a secret

golden laces weave their leaves

lone bunny watches

Watching the first light of day is one of the most optimistic acts I can imagine during this particular point of our history. It is something I can trust.
Falling in love with sunrise is akin to falling in love with life, falling in love with the place I live, and falling in love with the people who show up and engage with my posts.

July 14, 2020 Haiku 204/377

A mallard duck family swims in the canal off Brundage Lane in Bakersfield at Sunrise

Urban pastoral

Mallard mama quacks fiercely

distant palm stands tall

Grace is a dear friend who embraces me, everytime
Doing unconventional things will attract attention and odd conversations.
Standing on a creative ledge is inspiring even if we are simply doing it for fun

Haiku 208/377 July 18, 2020

Loco Weed (moonblossoms) blooming at Sunrise beside the Calloway bridge in Southwest Bakersfield

poison loco weed

feels the magnetic charm’s call

time for you to sleep

When there is no boss to create goals or tasks for you, you may become the best task master you ever imagined.
My senses are improved because of daily attention and fine tuning.

Haiku 213/377 – July 23, 2020

A pumpjack (oil well) in North Bakersfield at sunrise.

silent old pump jack

sees another day begin

Skoal can on gravel

When we are prone to documenting how terrible things are don’t get up and witness the sunrise every day.
Witnessing sunrise is a potent non-chemical anti-depressant. Because I am well aware of the current news cycle in order to be an informed citizen, this sunrise haiku practice has kept me grounded and present as an optimistic realist.

Haiku 220/377 July 30, 2020

Organic citrus

north of Edison Highway

proud palm trees stand guard

There are two days left for this micro-goal, even though July is almost over. After this, I will be writing seven days of Coffee Haiku, inspired by a friend I made on Instagram. After that, I may return to sunrise because it feels so good to be outside when it is still cool during a hot Bakersfield summer.

Which of these photos and haiku poems resonates with you most?

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 mid-2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020.

Art-Making: Is Creativity “Just for the Joy” enough?

July 29, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

I have a body of work that is rather unique. I have been working on it since 2013 in a quasi-secret manner.

From time to time I think of doing something with it because I find it deeply interesting on a variety of levels: it has elements of visual storytelling, it is a commentary on the current state of our country and world and in a way, it shines a light on the strength of the human spirit.

Some of you know what I am about to say.

My name is Julie and I love taking photos of shopping carts, abandoned in places other than grocery store parking lots.

Today I was on my morning walk on a path near my home in an urban series of parkways surrounding the Kern River. This particular section of it is mostly unknown to others. I have for years thought of it as an “underbelly place”.

Nonetheless, I can walk there and oftentimes feel as immersed in nature as if I was far from home. I certainly wasn’t expecting to come upon this glorious shopping cart in the midst of vines, moonblossoms and sunflower patches.

I sent the four shots I took to one of my “real artist” friends. Naturally he exclaimed his admiration.

“But which has the best composition, in your opinion?” I asked him. “You’re always telling me to feature the photo has the best composition.”

One of my rules for this body of work is to not move anything I come upon, but that I may circle around and move however I see fit. In this case, I quietly looked around for the owner of this particular cart. When I see them in places like this, it is usually in a “doorway” to a make shift shelter.

There was nothing like that here.

I didn’t want to anger the owner.

I took four photos in total and the one above is my favorite.

Once again, I fully enjoyed and immersed myself in an underbelly place, a space many people would be afraid to visit much less use as a subject of art.

I first discovered this space when I was unschooling Samuel in the first grade. I had discovered his behavior problems were actually caused by autism. At that time, I didn’t know a child with autism could also teach himself to read and be very intelligent.

School became a torture chamber of an experience and I believed because autism has a strong social element, he needed to be in a conventional school setting for his life long success and set the district to work to on a plan for his education that was suitable for his unique needs – maybe this video was the genesis of my interest in “underbelly” places. Interesting, because this was a “blind” self-portrait. I couldn’t see myself as I took the video unlike the videos of today.

I doubt anyone else beside me will ever care about my shopping cart/underbelly obsession.

I’m currently re-reading “Letters to a Young Poet” a collection of responses from Rainer Rilke in a correspondence where a young man pondered a similar question:

“Will anyone besides me ever care about my poetry?” he wondered. Rainer Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young poet in the military academy he once attended. That earnest young poet, Frank Xaver Kappus, sent poems for Rilke to peruse. Most notably, he sought approval and commentary.

In his first letter back to Mr. Kappus, Rainer Rilke suggests he stop asking for opinions from other people. He wrote,

“Nobody can advise and help you, nobody. There’s only one way to proceed. Go inside yourself. Explore the reason that compels you to write; test whether it stretches your roots into the deepest part of your heart, admit to yourself whether you would have to die if the opportunity to write were withheld from you. Above all, ask yourself at your most silent hour, must I write? Dig inside yourself for a deep answer. And if the answer is yes, if it is possible for you to respond to this serious question with a strong and simple I must, then build your life on the basis of this necessity.”

I decided long ago it doesn’t matter if anyone cares or doesn’t care about these photos. What matters is I care. What matters is I enjoy the process. What matters is I grow as a writer and observer of life as well as growing as a photographer.

If my necessity of life is to enjoy my life as a creative – and allow the space for my heart to dance with glee when I come upon a seen like a shopping cart on a walking path like this – that is enough. Any other recognition is a bonus.

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

Portland Treasures: Beverly Cleary & Powell Books

July 29, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Julie JordanScott standing with the sculpture of Ramona Quimby, beloved character created by Beverly Cleary who lived near Grant Park in Portland when she was a child.

Five years ago I spent an afternoon out with Ramona Quimby and a bunch of other (human and sculpture garden) friends in Grant Park in Portland. I managed to gather people from online friendships and Bakersfield Ex-Pats to this park to enjoy a bit of Literary Granny history.

Sometimes I am amazed people are willing to follow my whims and other times I say “Naturally they do!”

Why wouldn’t they? I tend to seek out quirky places other people hadn’t thought to explore yet, especially the artists and adventurers I am most attracted to. Little known secret: I had a conversation with Beverly Cleary more than thirty-five years ago at a convention for English teachers when I was working for a textbook publisher.

She was sitting at a table and no one else was there. She appeared to be fabulously ordinary which I found incredible inspiring. I wish I knew she had said this, “I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.”

If I had known she had said this I could tell her I was the same way when I was a little girl. I loved hearing my mother’s voice when she read aloud. I would close my eyes and wish for once she would read “The Snow Queen” which I loved but was longer than the time my busy mother had for reading aloud. “The Princess and the Pea” was two pages long and I almost memorized it.

Julie JordanScott with a book sculpture outside Portland's Powell Books, a local and national treasure.

Beverly Cleary is a national and Portland treasure, like Powell’s books and a culture that made me feel at home as soon as I arrived. It continues to call to me today. Hearing of the unrest there made me want to road trip there again and lend my body and my voice to the protection of freedom of speech, but pandemic times and my health being what it is – I offer my memory and my love and admiration.

May we continue to honor and praise each other’s voices with an energy like Ramona Quimby’s.

What character from your childhood continues to speak to you today?

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Join us now in 2020 in #Refresh2020 in Bridge to the New Year to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020.

Stop the Writer’s (or any) Block Before It Stops You

July 28, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Block – the brick wall – it shows up for the best of us.

If people insist they don’t know what it feels like to be stuck or blocked or feel resistance, I would question their authenticity.

Maybe I am judging my imperfection or maybe I recognize nature ebbs and flows and as we are a part of nature, block is bound to happen. What matters is what we do as individuals when blocks appear.

Randy Pausch shared this quote which I return to whenever the block starts to feel too big:

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.”

A brick wall with plants on the side including a quote from Julie Jordan Scott "Blocks appear in order to reconnect us with our desires." and the prompt: "When I started this, what was my intention?" BONUS: Restart your writing with a sentence (or more) of gratitude.

1. Leave “the problem” of block where it lives. Walk away and restrict your thought about the block itself, especially if those thoughts are coated in negative self-talk.

2. Do mundane, meaningless activities, especially if they will be of service to others.

3. If you are compelled, research another area of passion in your life.

4. Stay away from the “problem” until you are at peace with “it” and, in fact, are able to not consider it problematic anymore.

5. Remember, it isn’t “the problem” that is the problem, it is your opinion about the problem that creates the lack of movement and the sticky malaise. If you say “Writing block sucks!” it will suck. If you say “This block is giving my opportunity for growth – and in the future I will warmly embrace growth without the block!”

I took my own advice when I was blocked yesterday – and once again my writing flows, proving sometimes the best medicine for what ails you is to step away and focus anywhere except “the block” or “the problem” or “my ridiculous inabilities.”

Julie JordanScott creates content to inspire creative people to lead more satisfying lives even during this pandemic. Walking and sitting at the Panorama Bluffs helps her feel centered.

3 Top Ways to Most Effectively Use Your Journal Writing as a Content Creator

July 27, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

As a blogger with a social media account, there is a constant demand to creator more content, create more content, create more content. I have a secret for you: some of your best content ideas may be found in your journal or everyday notebook you write in "just to braindump or blow off steam" before you get down to your "real writing."

As a blogger with multiple social media accounts, there is a constant demand to creator more content, create more content, create more content. I have a secret for you: some of your best content ideas may be found in your journal or everyday notebook you write in “just to braindump or blow off steam” before you get down to your “real writing.”

Here are the three most important ways to take your notebooks and make them into sizzling content.

Have a separate to-do list or planner next to you to jot notes about content ideas and strategies as they pop up. Immediately, in one fluid motion , do this. Treat your separate list as if it is a part of the same document. Be fluid as you jot items in there without losing your writing momentum.

Either midday or at the end of the afternoon, review your morning journal writing for the day to highlight and capture any particularly interesting turns of phrase or insights you had during the earlier session. Consider the action you may want to take from the insights you had and/or if what you wrote in your free writing may be a source for future blog posts, video scripts, speeches or social media posts.

Set aside a time to review your past journals. Sometimes when we are too close to the writing, we can’t gain from our messages. Once we have lived longer, the voice of our “past self” seems to magically become wiser. Be sure to use a highlighter and/or a separate to-do list (like in #1) to follow up.

Be prepared to instantly become a more productive content creator from writing you once thought was a throw away. Your journal or free writing notebook is where you are most likely your most authentic self. Use it for your good and the use of others.

Julie JordanScott writing poetry at a downtown Bakersfield flower shop.

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!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Revised-Refresh-general-flyer-1.png

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

July 24, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

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.

Better: Everyday in Tiny Yet Impactful Ways

July 23, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

person walking barefoot on the sand, self care improving the world one step at a time.

“I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.”

Anne Frank

A long time ago I wrote an article with the premise being “Self-care is the least selfish act you may choose to take because when you take excellent care of yourself, you will contribute so much better to the lives of others.”

I look at this Anne Frank quote: herself only a teen and caught in the middle of horrific circumstances and somehow, she got it. Somehow she got it and her words were found and have been shared with the world for generations.

With our current pandemic and our cultural climate of dissension in this world of “us and them” we can be blinded by the reality we are in this together.

Americans, who are used to being able to leave our country on a whim, can’t anymore. We complain, when Anne Frank was cramped in an attic with her family, another family and a single man.

How did Anne quiet the sounds of thunder, getting closer and closer and ultimately leading to her death?

She wrote in her diary to feel better and to figure out what her experiences meant for her. She expressed her hope to no one except the pages of her book – her one friend, never imagining the impact her words would have.

Anne Frank quote on wilderness and optimism, despite what she experiences.

What one small self-care step are you willing to take to improve your life?

How might this improvement to your life turn into a positive contribution for the rest of the world?

Julie JordanScott sits among lupine wildflowers. As the Creative Life Midwife, she also loves nature! — Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Coach who loves challenging herself and those she works with to continually seek new methods of inspiration, to allow oneself to be delighted and surprised and to wake up, nurture, encourage and grow your inner artist, genius, explorer and best self daily.

Refresh Your Beliefs: the 2020 Version

July 22, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

A teal tabletop flatlay with a coffee cup, paperclips and pencils. A new Way to Work with Beliefs While Living Your 2020 Pandemic Life

One of the most helpful writing prompts I have used with my students, coaching clients and with myself is “I believe.”

Lately as we have become more fractured and unfortunately too often stuck in the underlying fog of “us versus them” and “If you are one of them” (someone not like me) than I can’t talk (work, play. Collaborate, talk) with you.

This is why in the pop up #refresh2020 group that when I asked people about what they believe I qualified it like this:

Before you hit reply and respond with a lot of what you have said before please spend a few moments (or longer, perhaps write in your journal or go for a walk or listen to music or watch a TV show you love or have a conversation with this question hovering n the background of your mind.)

What do you believe – about what has been going on in your life right now?

What do you believe when you see situations that upset you, that you can’t control or influence?

What do you believe when you have been at the top of your game and the world and the people you love are praising you for no other reason than you showed up in the same space they are in?

What do you believe when you are lying under a canopy of stars or you were just in a car accident or are sitting in a hospital or close to death or just witnessed the birth of a child?

What do you believe when you can’t live like you always have before?

What do you believe when you are sitting in the rubble or are face to face with your greatest fear?

Finally, add any scenarios that will help you to move beyond what you might have written or thought before… allow it to simmer… and when you come back to the questioning space here – share examples from your direct experience about what it is that brings you to that belief.

Feeling back into what we believe is crucial to creating and living out our vision as we finish out this rocky, tumultuous, unexpected, confusing, beautiful, unwanted year of 2020.

Whenever I am invited to share my beliefs, a song by Blessid Union of Souls starts playing in my mind. Today, I would like to share a bit of that song with you. If you would like, watch the video.

Here is a change I made in my beliefs in 2020, a modification that is in alignment for my long standing belief that love is the answer, the quetion and the action plan.

Today I am thinking and feeling I believe in haiku. I believe in the power of daily creative practice and sharing that practice with a receptive audience. This makes me laugh – but my daily haiku practice….has shifted so much for me… and it was started BECAUSE…

(lyrics from the Blessid Union of Souls single “I Believe…”

Open up your mind and then open up your heart

You will see that you and me aren’t very far apart

Cause I believe love is the answer

I believe love will find a way

Before you leave this blog, I would enjoy hearing your first thoughts – not your final thoughts on this way of looking at what you believe in general, but choose one of the scenarios and make up a first draft response. Clarity, feeling better and healing are right at the end of your keyboard.

Saturday, In the Park: Better than the 4th of July

July 18, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

For writers there is no.... and a writer is using a purple pen on her open notebook to capture thoughts as she waits for a friend to call and go on a walk with her.

This week my friend Kelly and I started walking together even though we live hundreds of miles apart. She calls me and off we go, walking. This morning I felt even more ambitious than usual. I was in a new space for my haiku sunrise photo, so I started the day with an early walking start. The moonblossoms that called out to be photographed in the sunrise were in the distance.

When you are a writer, writing prompts appear out of your free flow writing.

I thought briefly I might call Kelly and say “Never mind, I walked today!” Then I thought, “I’ll go to that other park down the street and write while I am waiting for Kelly’s call.”

Mornings are literally the only cool-ish time in Bakersfield in the Summer. I enjoyed the mid-seventies sunshine and scribbled in my notebook. I was having so much fun in this “waiting” time so I wrote, “When you are a writer there is no….” and I thought “what a great writing prompt!” but my purple pen did not want to stop so I wrote “there is no waiting time. There is observing, listening, sniffing, reflection and awareness. There are toe dips into patience and scratching against buried treasure of thoughts. There is the occasional deep sinking dive bomb of awareness, there are tiny yellow flowers others don’t see. There are animals who get used to you and your stillness so they get closer and funnier so much so you almost hope whatever it is you are waiting for won’t show up after all.

When you are a writer, there is no waiting time: instead quiet moment in between are for discovery.

The phone rang and it was Kelly. Time for my second walk of the day. I included stairs and hills and wider smiles along with the huffing and puffing.

Another rich, rewarding start to my day!

How has your day been so far?

Are you ready to write from the prompt, “For writers there is no….”

Let’s Explore Trust: How to Grow in Trust Every Day

July 17, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

A sunrise photo with flowers and the title "Growing in Trust, one day at a time."

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don’t know how to start talking about trust. How can I talk about something I know so little about, if I am completely honest?

At the root or core of my life experience, no single person has been 100% trustworthy. I have not been able to trust myself. While I trust God in the long run, it seems unreasonable to trust God in some of this day-to-day when so many horrific things take place day after-day-after-day. (please note, this is not written to be a theological discussion and in fact, this is an exercise in vulnerability which I believe God appreciates.)

Perhaps this is why I have been so focused on writing haiku for the last two hundred plus days. I can trust one simple action – and now, since July 2, I have been “writing sunrise haiku” because I trust the sun to rise, each and every day.

I can trust that.

I can look up the time of day it will move above the horizon and every day – whether the clouds cover it or it is clear as a whistle, the light comes.

This I trust.

Light through a tree at sunrise with the Maya Angelou quote, "Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time."

I have trusted myself to scribble seventeen syllables each morning as well: not because my boss told me if I didn’t I would be in trouble. I wrote haiku because I thought it would be fun, not because a doctor told me to do so. I contemplated at least one present moment every day because I knew it was good for my spirit and maybe even for the spirit of others – not because of any oath or promise or contract other than the one I made with myself.

For the last 206 days I have proven to myself in this one instance I am trustworthy.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe reminded me this morning, “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

This morning I shared my sunrise photo and haiku on my facebook page in the same way I have been doing for all these days. Within the first moments, people were enjoying it – and receiving peace simply by looking at the photo and reading the words.

I am slowly gaining trust in myself again and my actions are in alignment with this trust.

When we are open to explore and be authentic with our responses to questions such as these, we will grow in ways unmeasurable. Yes, we will truly know what it is to live.

Note: This essay began as a free-flow writing exercise and as a result has had minimal editing. Sometimes trusting the raw word-flow is what is most important.