Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Be Gentle With Yourself

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I smell coffee brewing, or hear it. I hear coffee brewing may be more accurate.

It is Friday morning. There is no school today. I am incredibly grateful to not have to move from my house unless and until I dictate it is so.

My brain immediately clicks into planning mode and my soft, gentle, calming hush mom-of-a-newborn self-steps in to pat my back in circles, “No plans are necessary, love, follow the flow, follow the flow…” so here I am. Staying steady in my chair typing words into my laptop and allowing the feeling of whole, holy satisfaction to leak from my fingers.

I have a creativity date set for later today which I may postpone due to the sweetness that comes from having a free, meandering day. It has been a week of hyper programming that felt very unsatisfying much of the time. I may work tonight – and I may not. I feel the call to that brand of silly satisfaction with the knowledge I don’t HAVE to and I may CHOOSE to.

My heart asked me to write of utopia. That I will do today.

I will write of utopia and love, true narrative and form. I may paint or collage or allow my process to swallow the soles of my feet like just damp enough soil does when you stand there long enough, kissing it, appreciating it, allowing the connection to feel like another dawn.

I hear the coffee has stopped perking.

Time for me to go appreciate differently.

How will you step into your Mom of a Newborn persona today to treat yourself with loving kindness?

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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Happy Day of the Girl – Which Until Today I Didn’t Even Know Existed

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“Remember the dignity of your womanhood. Do not appeal, do not beg, do not grovel. Take courage, join hands, stand beside us.” —Christabel Pankhurst

It is the Day of the Girl: a day I didn’t know existed.

I look at this little tiny girl image of myself and think how sweet and unknowing she was. She didn’t even know her bangs looked sweetly off kilter. She had yet to learn she had a cowlick and therefore bangs were never a good idea, anyway.

I laugh at that now, too – or would that be considered laughing WITH that?

I’m not sure: but Day of the Girl reminds me of my daughter as little girls and the times when I was more optimistic. I was until the last few years inherently I would say almost stridently optimistic. There is a part of me that wishes I still was that way. It made for a much happier overall Julie.

The thing is, I believe we choose the way we experience things.

I may choose optimism by stepping into a practice of gratitude for example.

This Julie-as-Director-Artist-Activist was optimistic to her core, even when she angrily threw her script down due to conflicts at

Julie Jordan Scott, Director VDay Community Campaign Bakersfield 2008

home while she worked to create a meaningful presentation of an important work.
When I look at the most recent image of me, I see the littlest Julie with the sweet bangs and the strident optimistic angry flare up Julie as well.

I have always believed and stood for equality and like Mrs. Pankhurst, don’t believe in groveling or begging.

I think what I need to remember is the courage of joined hands, especially joined hands with other women of all a variety of ages, abilities, ethnicities, persuasions, socioeconomic, faith and activist groups.

Dignity and honor as we rise, separately and together.

It is the Day of the Girl, a day I didn’t know existed. Now that I know, I celebrate the continued path to equality.

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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For the Love of Lists: Gratitude, To-Do’s, Ta-Da’s & Passionate Possibilities

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Yesterday I had a chat with one of my friends about how to use the writing prompts in the Word-Love Writing Community and I thought it might be helpful to many if instead of just throwing writing prompts out here, I would talk about how I use them, then use them, and then use them differently.

We’ll start with lists. I have had a longtime love affair with lists.

On a recent visit to Quora.com a web visitor wanted to know:

How powerful is writing to do lists and gratitude lists every day?

For a long time I worked from “To Do” lists which I called “Passionate Possibility Lists” and often times, in my normal rebellion against the linear, would create attractive looking not-too-listy-lists.

I find lists quite handy, actually, and have come up with a couple methods that serve me well.

Starting and ending the day with gratitude is very potent because of the energy thanksgiving brings with it. When you purposefully take note of the goodness and beauty and happy moments, it shifts your attitude.

When you have a to-do that isn’t as pleasant, if you’ve started the day with gratitude – it lifts the attitude enough (most of the time) to begin to get seemingly unpleasant tasks done.

I have also worked from a “Ta-Da!” list which catalogs my accomplishments throughout the day. As a busy entrepreneurial mom, there are often tasks that pop up and I efficiently get them done, but other priorities are left undone.

If I was legalistic about my progress, I would punish myself or slog myself with negative self talk. If I use a “Ta-Da!” list I am able to celebrate what actually took place. I congratulate instead of criticize myself and I can see patterns in my behavior and use what actually happens as a metric to create my lists differently.

Most recently, I create a list of 5 tasks to complete the next day before my work day is over. I add a bonus item for best wishes and save it for the next day. I often review it as I write my end of the day gratitude list.

What happens as a result is I am getting more done, more efficiently and with a batter attitude.

I’ll take those results anyday!

Take a mini retreat in the canyon, perhaps… or in a local park.

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. Sign up now for her October 5 Day Writing Intensive Program – 

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Darkness: Courage & Being Open to What’s Best

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“In order for the moonflower to completely open, it has to bathe in darkness. I am not a big fan of the dark. It scares me. Still. Yet I cannot walk by this flower without bowing to it, without putting my face close to its opened-by-the-dark heart.”

I am intimidated at cataloguing times of darkness because not only am I afraid of the dark, I am afraid of stacking up towers of memory that threaten me. Sometimes I feel like my life has been either a long, disappointing not-happily-ending-lifetime movie or actually series of movies because I have so many dark days it is almost comical.

Like my new-still-in-therapy-probation-therapist said, “You are interested in too many things” maybe it is the unprocessed darkness soup I have on my metaphorical stove. Maybe that is it.

Maybe I have never bathed in the separate flavors of darkness soup so they haven’t been able to turn into stepping stones I may rise above so the suction moves me instead into infinitely hellacious quicksand, which I’ve learned doesn’t actually exist in the way we might think it does.

And I edit myself.

I stop myself thinking “Julie, you want to publish this and right now you are sounding more than a little ridiculous. I know Beth the dog is wandering about and I hear the sweet little chirping bird and you, in this downward spiraling rant, are sounding like…. A fire engine rumbling on your front porch without any specific fire to put out but it can smell the smoke, continually, always looking threatening so it just sits there, rumbling, doesn’t even have the siren on.”

My timer goes off signifying I’ve been attempting to make some semblance of form from this dark amorphous blob and it’s time to stop.

Even in this gobbled gook I see threads I may return to for clarity: the darkness soup turned into stepping stone soup. The fire truck, loudly idling. Lots of smoke, no seemingly productive fire.

Do you see anything else of merit I might write my way into more deeply from what I’ve written here?

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Time Management Tip: The Easiest Way to Make the Most of Tiny Bits of “Leftover” Time

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Start with a question: ask as heartfully as possible in that precise moment. I like to close my eyes and put my hand over my heart, breathe in and ask “What is the most useful way for me to invest this next ___ minutes?”

Just before I started to write for this five minutes, I asked the same question.

My intention was to come to my keyboard and speed write. After all, I need to take Samuel to school in ten minutes so I felt squeezed to begin with but my heart told me differently, “Meditate for five minutes on the question, then write for five minutes.”

Our hearts are constantly ready for us to take note and listen.

We tend to scurry about with our to-do lists ringing in our ears, slightly off kilter or else so lock-step in focus we drown out those longings of our powerful hearts.

So today, I took five to meditate and then this five to write.

My eyes look up and I see a neighbor walking her dog, one I rarely talk to but instead we exchange eye contact, do a half-nod and smile. She takes time every day to walk her dog. She doesn’t walk quickly, but she walks. Picks a foot up and puts it down.

In five minutes I can do a quick sweep of my kitchen, a time of cleaning my counter tops. I can straighten my drawers, clean my bathroom counter, I can put together a sandwich, I can write a thank you note, a blog post, I can schedule social media. I can pick up my phone and write a note to use later, I can edit an image, I can write a few simple “I’m thinking of you texts.” I can scan headlines.

I can mindfully invest five minutes to make the world better because of my devotion to intention.

My timer applause ends, signaling to me this five minute investment is now over.

I took a chunk of time that seemed “unusable” between folding laundry and waiting to take my son that could have gotten lost scrolling my facebook feed or something like that. Instead, I meditated and wrote a blog post that will most surely make a positive difference in someone else’s life: perhaps in yours.

The world is waiting for your words: take five minutes and get them on the page.

 

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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What Brings Light to the Darkness? Daily Writing, Everytime

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I didn’t know for certain whether I would write today. I’ve been feeling lousy – new medicine and adjustments to it have not been smooth – and I just didn’t feel like it.

Yes, that would be me, who knows and has known for years, the value of daily writing practice.

What is up with that?

I sat at my desk for a tiny slice of time and made a writing affirmation image and realized the message was as much for me as it is for anyone else.

Funny how often that happens.

So I will stand hand-in-hand, heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul with the affirmation I just wrote.

Read it, say it, write it with me now:

Daily writing brings light to the darkness. When I write, I feel confident, capable and courageous.

Yes, that statement is true. I have remembered and written into that truth so many times: daily writing does bring light to the darkness. It helps to process what may feel unsayable until it is written. It is silent and you are with it alone – with no one else lobbing judgment at you, you say to yourself what is so and in doing exactly that, you shine the light on it.

When I confess to the page, “I feel lousy, this medicine has been kicking my butt straight into silence” is like a flashlight of clarity. “Wow, it has been keeping me from doing what I love. I haven’t done many livestream broadcasts because I’ve been so tired. I haven’t made many images and beyond my braindumping, I haven’t written at all.”

The light of clarity reminds me I don’t have to stay in this zone of silence, this disempowering slice of experience.

Instead, I realize while it may be the medicine’s side effects at cause, I may now make choices and step into a variety of solutions.

And writing for five minutes, #5for5BrainDump style has power.

Here’s more evidence.

(My timer went off three sentences ago this time. I’ll stop and hit publish, even if the confession itself feels wobbly. That’s part of being courageous.)

 

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

Coming Up: 30 Days of Writing Passionately

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.

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.

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