Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Now Begin Again: The Poem That Started this Adventure of an Unconventional Life

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This month of remembering how close I came to death alongside the reality that my time is no longer as expansive as it was when I wrote this poem 25 years ago.

Its message is timeless and I am choosing, now, to begin again. Again.

Now Begin, the Poem –

Take away the degrees, titles accomplishments –

What is discovered at your core?

What is that unique, special spark

You’ve buried deep, neglected, chosen to ignore?

Seeking to please whomever

Drowning out pure longings from your heart

Struggling, freezing, suffocating

Until finally, you choose to start –

Whispers from the spirit –

Souls song from deep within

After dancing, stranger among strangers

Claim it. Your life. Now begin.

Thank you for following along as the healing has continued. May you be blessed as you claim your life and begin…. once again.

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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Lessons Learned & Fires Ignited

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The biggest change after I almost died was creating projects that kept me deeply connected to life as it unfolded around me.

I started three different 377 consecutive day projects that helped see me through the Covid19 pandemic, the death of both my parents and my youngest brother, multiple family crises and an attempted move and finally a move to the East Coast to finally try to live out my life dreams.

I haven’t quite accomplished that yet, but I am much closer now than I was in 2019.

Considering how much happened in the interim, I am proud of myself for learning to go more slowly and revel in making my work sparkle instead of hustling and pushing.

My projects included: 377 Haiku in 377 days; 377 Tree hugs (or more) in 377 days (and it is still continuing – not every day but I have hugged trees in 20 different states in the United States and have learned all about champion trees, celebrity trees and more. The last project has continued beyond 377 – writing “Good Morning, Love” and homage to my mother who used to greet me like that every day.

I have found I love living alone but I wish I had someone to say “Good Morning” to every day. Now I say “Good Morning, Love” to my facebook friends and others. I may move it to substack in the future – we will see. For now, showing up and continuing to move forward with love is the very best I can do.

Julie Jordan Scott, writer, creativity coach, award winning actor walking in the woods
Julie Jordan Scott, walking in the woods

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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Life After: My Vulnerable Sharing Five Years Ago leads to more Self-Compassion Now

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One of the most important aspects of this blog series is rediscovering the experiences from five years ago from a space of deep compassion. I’ve realized how detached I have been from this experience, perhaps because it is frightening to remember and so many other “more important” things have happened since then. More on that tomorrow.

For now, this is what I said to my friends near and far on October 29, 2019 –

I’m recovering at home, slowly and surely. The most inconsistent part of this process is my mood.

Vulnerability alert: Since I’ve been home, I’ve been afraid of a lot of random things. Lately I’ve been afraid when my hands are cold. When Sepsis descended and death came close, that was what I felt, so very cold – and the nurse (at least how I remember it) wrapped my hands in heated sheets.

Sometimes I’m afraid of falling asleep.

I’m sometimes afraid of eating and even get worried about my medicines. And yes, I talked to my doctor about this.

My senses have also become really acute. My sense of smell is what I imagine is animal like, my hearing fine tuned.

Five years ago, I was recovering from a near death experience. This is how I looked - not horrible, but I can see the sadness and worry in my eyes.

Today I wrote using my computer for the first time. I don’t know what was scaring me about that, but my resistance is high. I think a part of me has another part of me convinced if I start writing some of what happened, the emotions will be too much. Considering I have an irrational fear of choking that got worse in the hospital, it makes sense because when I cry hard I often choke or vomit.

Nonetheless, I am grateful:

I am grateful I spoke with Samuel last night. We talked mostly about his Japanese class. I miss that kid. He’s the best. I’m also excited the UNLV esports team is doing a mental health fund raiser. They get it.

I am grateful Emma is doing well in her first run as a director. Her work is a part of the Bakersfield College One Act festival this Friday & Saturday. She cast her play thoughtfully and the actors are working hard. I love hearing all about it. I’ll be there Friday! It’s only $5! Show your support!

I am grateful for naps.

I am grateful for lemonade and cranberry juice.

I am grateful for fluffy textures and soft pillows.

I am grateful for people who think critically and read facts.

I am grateful for Greta Gerwig. Can’t wait for “Little Women”!!

I am grateful for prayers…. so grateful.

I am grateful for my daughter Queenta Atem on her birthday – God bless this woman!

I am grateful for Moth storytelling videos.

Most importantly, five-years-later me adds: I am so grateful I chose to survive and have experienced so much wonder and joy since I earnestly wrote the words above.

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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October 28: Moving Forward Towards Love’s Infinite Harvest

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How can I look into the eyes of myself, five years ago, and remind her to reach into the question we started asking yesterday – “How can I be love’s infinite harvest?”

On August 19 of this year I posted a Welsh proverb on instagram: “A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an invisible orchard.”

When I look into my five year’s ago eyes, I think “I see you yearning for something. Is it simply feeling better?”

On this day five years ago after almost a month of silence I filled in my instagram audience on what was happening to me. I was explaining my silence.

I imagine I lightened it up for them. I know I didn’t say I had Valley Fever because at that time I still hadn’t gotten a definitive diagnosis. I may have written something about moving forward, about healing, something outwardly very optimistic while inside I was weary and discouraged.

The person I have become would be much more factual, much more “this is where I am,” much like the person I am now doesn’t speak up as quickly to share my side of the story if it may cause harm or damage or take up more space for the person I am talking to than necessary.

This is different than unconsciously burying emotions, this is being in the present and opting to hold the emotions I have gently while honoring myself and whomever I am in conversation with – to allow that person to hold their emotions gently, too, without my fully fleshed out thoughts and opinions overshadow their emerging discovery.

I think I am getting it more clearly now.

The me of 2024 hasn’t allowed the 2019 me to share her emerging story – perhaps this is what the love’s infinite harvest.

A collaborative harvest cannot rise up and appear if we don’t allow each voice, each chapter, each stanza, each season – it’s due time.

For today, I will sit with this and return tomorrow morning to see what she has to say.

If you didn’t read yesterday’s blog post, here is a review of the closing section:

On this Sunday or next Sunday, will you please take a moment to reflect upon where you have been for the last five years.

What do you remember?

What can you imagine for the next five years?

How will you invest your precious time and energy?

I don’t mean the big mountain top stuff, I mean the everyday moments in time where the truest, most infinite love lives. 

In October, 2021, I wrote this question to consider in my own life: “How can I be love’s infinite harvest?”

This was around the time I was new to the manse and manse life, still in early recovery from Valley Fever, sepsis and trying so hard to move on with my life and complete some of my best projects.

I had no idea what I was in for – the good, the horrifying, the dull and the dull ache moments.


For the rest of the month, I will be asking it again, myself, on repeat.

Perhaps you will join me in asking this question for yourself, too. Please let me know if you do –

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🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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Choosing to Be Love’s Infinite Harvest

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It is Sunday. I came home from the hospital on a Sunday. Typically a day of rest.

Now five years later, I am writing ahead of time because I will be away from my computer and every single day this month I have posted.

I have a request of you which you may or may not choose to honor.

On this Sunday or next Sunday, will you please take a moment to reflect upon where you have been for the last five years.

What do you remember of your last five years? Take your time with this gleaning from your memory. Look at photos you or others have in their phones, pull out your calendar, see where you were and who you were with – be granular, be general. Allow the memories to find their way back to you.

What can you imagine for the next five years?

How will you invest your precious time and energy?

I don’t mean the big mountain top stuff, I mean the everyday moments in time where the truest, most infinite love lives. 

In October 2021, I wrote this question to consider in my own life: “How can I be love’s infinite harvest?”

This was around the time I was new to the manse and manse life.

I had no idea what I was in for – the good, the horrifying, the dull and the dull ache moments.

When I think of the question now I think, “How may I be love’s infinite harvest?” or “How WILL I be love’s infinite harvest?”

For the rest of the month, I will be asking it again, myself, on repeat.

Perhaps you will join me in asking this question for yourself.

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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When Tomorrow’s Vision is Nowhere in Sight

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Five years ago today, I didn’t take any photos, but I did share a memory of walking in Walden Woods in 2011. 

I was clearly leaning into memories of love drenched experiences, reminding myself I was alive and would be able to return again. 

In my current life, I write a daily message on Facebook I call, “Good Morning, Love” where I share my thoughts of the day, often sharing one or more of my recent adventures. It was originally homage to my mother who used to greet me with that phrase, but it has turned into a celebration of the life I have created for myself.

I have found people really enjoy reading it – which still surprises me and yet – I am grateful to know because I believe when we share from a space of love and joy – it magnetizes and expands the love and joy for my future selves and others.

It is definitely a highlight reel. 

This week has been FULL of highlights, ironic that looking back, I was struggling to even begin to imagine the life I have now.

I felt trapped into a corner of my living room. I had no idea I would someday hike on the Appalachian trail several times a week, live in a manse, return to New Jersey, fall in love with the expansiveness of this Tri-State area, have a Granddaughter named after my daughter who was stillborn, continue to make new friends, bake even more pumpkin recipes. 🙂

I am grateful that somewhere, deep within me, I knew there would be more.

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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The Bridge to Continued Healing: Unexpected Gratitude & Delight

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Five years ago today I went to the home of Tanya, a neighborhood friend, to meet with some other ladies to have a deep discussion and watch a Ted talk.

I met Tanya from a neighborhood book club and didn’t know her very well and was surprised and delighted when she visited me in the hospital. 

I think this is why I trusted her and went to her home: she lived close to me (so this felt safe). The other women I didn’t know were fellow Moms with children close to my children’s age (so this felt safe.) Deep conversations are among my favorite activity so I knew it wouldn’t be taxing and I knew I could talk at the level of my own current abilities (and this felt safe.)

I am reminded that next time I visit Bakersfield, I will be more intentional to visit more people who have impacted me with their presence in ways I sometimes overlook. 

This is a simple way to take gratitude deeper and add soulful delight to someone else’s day as they added to my life, perhaps not realizing it.

I will remember this for the last week of this blog series – the perfect bridge to November’s biggest American Holiday – Thanksgiving.

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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The Difference Between Isolation, Solitude & the Impact on Healing

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Today marks another day when I climbed into silence, leaving no trace for future me to know what was going on during the time and space that was the end of October, 2019.

I may have talked to my parents or Samuel or Katherine but more likely I snuggled into the recliner and gazed out the window from across the room.

Knowing my internal struggles, I may have been looking for reasons I was to blame for the circumstances I found myself in. One of my childhood lessons I took very much to heart was taking responsibility without fail.

If I was responsible for almost dying, I was also responsible for choosing to live. 

Unfortunately, in those early days I was slow to pivot into seeing the bright side. 

Instead, I leaned into self-loathing and punishment. I forced myself in a modified solitary confinement. 

I found this quote from Jeanne Marie Laskas which describes it quite well.

“Isolation is aloneness that feels forced upon you, like a punishment. Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace.” 

In the five years since my near-death experience, I have learned to do aloneness and solitude to the point of an art form. 

Perhaps this is part of the calling to this blog series – to see what sort of inner repair work might still be helpful to the now and future me. Self-examination through writing has always been the closest I have to uncover and then shed the layers that hold me back and deter the metamorphosis.

I am being called now to continue the process which translates into being an empowered leader of my own metamorphosis.

During this final week of this blog series, you are invited to witness and learn from what we discover here.

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🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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How Friends Help in Surprising Ways

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“What is an activity that ALWAYS makes Julie feel better afterwards than she felt before?”

Visiting and feeding ducks always makes Julie feel better.

On this day, five years ago, my dear friend Cameron picked me up and shepherded me to Hart Park where together we fed ducks AND we were met by another dear friend who doesn’t like visiting hospitals but was glad to get to meet me “on the outside.”

Cameron and I have a history of duck feeding together and with other people: my children, random other children, friends.

There is an artform to duck feeding, one we created, which includes the entire bird ecosphere at Hart Park.

There are times when I may be completely intent on something else and he will randomly say “Let’s go feed ducks” – which includes, with him, getting bird seed and doing the duck feeding the right way, not my long ago way of getting a cheap loaf of bread and tossing in chunks of bread by the handful.

I mended my ways once I discovered the better way to feed wildlife – though it is probably best to leave them to their own nutritional devices.

On that day five years ago, in addition to feeding ducks and birds I dropped my phone into the pond at Hart Park and was completely bereft but Cameron reached in and grabbed it and nothing bad happened.

I remember in my weakness being terrified because my phone had been and would continue to be a very important connector that kept me balanced and stable while hospitalized. 

It would take me a while before I was willing to use a computer or my notebooks with any level of consistency.

The ducks at Hart Park and communicating with friends who were helping me heal… two important factors in my healing.

Ironically, I have not fed any ducks in my current part-of-the-globe though as a child, I regularly fed ducks with friends.

Maybe the needs haven’t been the same. I will contemplate this for a while, perhaps focusing on observing the birds and ducks instead of creating a dependency for either of us – though maybe a bird feeder in winter?

I will contemplate. 🙂

Julie JordanScott
Julie Jordan Scott

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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Five Years Ago, I Unconsciously Went Silent

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Five years ago, I went silent.

I chose invisibility. I chose to crawl into silence, again, as that was what I believed would bring me the most comfort. Was it? Did it? I don’t know for certain if it did. I didn’t feel lonely or bereft.

I mostly felt disconnected.

I mostly didn’t understand.

I couldn’t answer any semblance of “the why.”

I didn’t feel motivated to do much of anything.

I remember people coming to the door with food I didn’t want. No one asked what I wanted.

No one suggested this or that.

People took the words they liked and pushed them into my mouth, nodding.

“So great that you’re home!”

Yes. So great to be home, sitting in this corner of the living room in a daze. 

I remember pushing my computer aside, pushing my notebooks aside and thinking about this was not how I expected life to be after Samuel left for college.

This was supposed to be my time for freedom, not my time for sitting in a recliner feeling listless and the exact opposite of being alive.

I showed up minimally before returning always to the corner of the living room, returning relieved, to silence.

Until today, I didn’t know it was on October 22 that the curtain on withdrawal rose on my life stage for a season, the season before Covid19 spread itself out around the world.

There is joy, a quiet joy, in making time to see this experience. To listen to my silence. To come to understand, to love, to honor those moments and mindfully bring myself back with compassion, optimism and relentless hope.

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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