A few months ago I discovered The Moth and I’ve been addicted every since. The Moth is all about storytelling, not by famous writers but mostly, everyday people—true stories. The venues come via live events, radio and podcasts: stories about life circumstances, discoveries and lessons. At turns, the tales are funny, informative, poignant, uplifting, surprising. Sometimes the storyteller’s voice cracks with emotion. For every one I’ve thus far heard I’ve been touched in some way. Better yet, I’m not listening to or watching some kind of drivel that’s so prevalent these days on TV or radio. The narratives mean something. It’s about our humanity.
George Dawes Green is the Founder of The Moth. It says this on the website: “George wanted to recreate, in New York, the feeling of sultry summer evenings in his native Georgia, where he and his friends would gather on his friend Wanda’s porch to share spellbinding tales. There was a hole in the screen which let in moths that were attracted to the light, and the group started calling themselves The Moths.”
For me, it takes me back to my childhood when we lived in France during the time there was no TV. (Yes, it was that long ago.) I used to lay on the floor next to the radio—riveted—taking in the old shows, imagining pictures in my head.
I’ve opted to subscribe to the podcast so they’re automatically available on my iPad when it’s convenient for me. So they’ve entertained me on long road trips and kept me awake, when I’m cooking or other activities where I don’t need focused attention. Best of all when I’m relaxing after a long day.
Here are just some I’ve listened to lately and thoroughly enjoyed…
Go here to peruse the archives, see if there’s a live event near you or subscribe to the podcast. And…if you have a story and want to tell it, contact them. That’s how The Moth fills their shows.
Prophet Series: My Magdalen Heart Oil with gold leaf on canvas. by Carla Woody
Today is Mary Magdalene’s Feast Day. A few years ago I created My Magdalen Heart as one of my Prophet Series, an oil with gold leaf on canvas. This artwork pays respect to Mary Magdalen who has been denied recognition for her true role by the traditional church, and honors all teachers who go quietly about their service with humility.
The original artwork now lives in Albuquerque with a woman who’d had a relationship with The Magdalen since childhood. She came into The Gallery in Williams where I show my work and fell in love. I happened to be in The Gallery that day. She told me her stories with misty eyes and left very happy. It was emotional for us both. I later received a note from her thanking me again and said, “We put her in the place of honor over the fireplace. I was afraid the painting would get lost because of the size of the fireplace, which is huge. But she commands the room and her eyes follow me everywhere.”
I felt so blessed to received this communication, just as blessed as when I was painting the piece…because it felt that Mary spoke to me as I was doing so.
In Sophia’s Children Jamie Walters writes: Who was Mary Magdalene, really?
And why is this question important at all given that we’re talking about a woman who lived 2,000 years ago, and about whom we have only slender references?
When I’m especially taken with a book, I greatly anticipate the author’s next one. This was the case with one of my favorite novelists, Jim Fergus. Visits to his website had promised one for several years, even with a specific title and subject matter that is of interest to me. But each time I checked … nothing … and I’d log off disappointed. A few weeks ago I checked, this time discovering he had a new one out. I promptly ordered it. Yet again he’d produced a story that touched me in tender places, as much as it informed. I did something I don’t normally do: I emailed him to express my gratitude that he’s writing again.
He responded. It started a conversation.
Jim told me the book had been published in France and done quite well. But when he went searching for a US publisher, no one was interested. Unbelievable, I thought. This is a writer whose two previous books—One Thousand White Women and The Wild Girl—were bestsellers! But with this new one? He’d stepped out of his genre of The West and Native Americans. He was no longer in the neat slot US publishers had placed him—therefore, a risk.
He went on to say the specific title he’d named on his website, Marie-Blanche, was published in France in 2011, currently in development for a mini-series there. Same problem with US publishers. Jim finally decided to self-publish The Memory of Love, the novel I’d most recently read … just to have a new book in print in my own country.*
This goes to show that even widely celebrated writers—and any such artists really—don’t necessarily have it made, as our fantasies tell us. They’re subject to the same tight restrictions and imperious whims if they depend upon the old-school bureaucracies and structures.
Now he’s writing a sequel to One Thousand White Women, the genre he’s known for, accepted by US publishers. There’s no doubt I’m wildly anticipating its publication. And I’m quite sure it will be a commercial success.
However, the unconventional part of me automatically made an appearance. I shared that I’d written three books and had chosen to self-publish specifically to avoid all the nonsense traditional publishers try to lay on you. I don’t have the time or energy to deal with it. Those who have found my books receive them quite well. **
I also mentioned that it’s the same with most art galleries. To accept an artist’s work, they want to make sure you’re consistent, no matter your talent level. Consistent in this definition means same general subject matter and media, same slotting as above. I’m fortunate to have found two galleries who are happy to show my work, no matter how much I experiment. And I do. I’m not a production line.
All aspects of my work—mentoring, spiritual travel programs, writing or art—appeal to a particular small niche, not the mainstream. And I’ve got much gratitude to those who engage with any of it. It means we’re part of the same tribe.
I often listen to Krista Tippett’s On Being interviews when I’m painting. I find them inspiring, and they sometimes inform the piece I’m working on in the moment. Right on the heels of the conversation I relate above, I listened to her interview with Seth Godin on The Art of Noticing, and Then Creating. No coincidence. Here are some relevant take-aways … ***
The assembly line is going away. The things that used to make you feel safe are now risky.
Putting something new into the world? The industrial order doesn’t want us to do that.
Change comes from the margins.
When you do something out of the box, you’re not going to be picked by the old regime.
Bottom-up change is the future, not top down.
One person can make a difference. You matter.
Find people who agree with you and lead them to greater depth.
You’re an echo of your art if you’re not making new art.
Do it as the gods would do it: with intent, no holding back.
Mystery School currently in process on the easel.
This is the time of year—as we’re on the threshold of the next one—when I remind myself of these truths by viewing Sean Connery’s rendition of Ithaca by C.P. Cavafy, featured in this blog before.
It reinforces my intent.
Engage your passion. Fine tune. Put it out there.
***
*My conversation with Jim Fergus was relayed here with his complete permission. This is the review for The Memory of Love I uploaded to Amazon and originally sent to Jim with my first email:
Truly, Jim Fergus is one of my favorite novelists having also read ONE THOUSAND WHITE WOMEN and THE WILD GIRL. This book is indeed a departure but at least equal to the others. I was personally touched by Chrysis’ striving against convention and evolution as an artist, and Bogey was portrayed as though the writer had lived inside those very emotions. The foreword shared why a man could write this way about love, and only at the end did I realize the characters had actually lived. I’d been waiting a long time since THE WILD GIRL for Jim Fergus’ next novel. I’m very glad he’s writing again. Now I’m looking forward to MARIE-BLANCHE.
**To view my books and readers’ reviews on Amazon, go here. To view artwork online, go here.
***I recommend listening to the unedited versions of On Being interviews with Krista Tippett. They’re much longer but without the fine polish that editing brings. They’re real.
Listening to singer-guitarist Kathy Marshall’s latest release, I wanted to curl up in front of a fire with a cup of tea, close my eyes and let her words and music wash over me. I became nostalgic for those traditional folk ballads from times past…and yet found them in the songs contained in Standing on Sacred Ground.
The lyrics are deeply personal and introspective, reflecting values of the musician: respect for Mother Earth, an urging to slow down and find truth within yourself, gratitude for blackberries. She tells stories about elements of life that are familiar to most of us and led me to reflect on my own life where there may be a similar thread of love or loss, and largely…celebration of what is. The guitar and other instruments are a beautiful accompaniment to stories she shares.
From Secrets to Life: Met a grey-haired woman laughing in her rocking chair. ‘Come sit down beside me,’ she crooned, ‘I got secrets to share.’
I particularly love this line from Dreamcatcher: …I dream a song and I sing a dream. Nothing there is impossible to me…
All lyrics and music written by Kathy Marshall. CD available to purchase or download via her website and CD Baby where you may also listen to individual songs.
In The Energy That Finds Its Source, I shared how I stumbled upon a strategy through meditation that greatly affected my artwork in a positive way. I want to build on that by discussing something a number of us do unconsciously—but brought to consciousness can generalize to different contexts of your life. It increases clarity and mental/emotional flexibility, in addition to creativity. I’ll use writing as a springboard for an example here.
One of the biggest challenges fiction writers have is to breathe life into the characters of their stories, to make them believable. This is particularly true if your book is character-driven. You want readers to connect with the story and those in it: to love or hate them. A reader of my latest book Portals to the Vision Serpent wrote to say how she couldn’t stand Sybilla, who features prominently in the novel—until she really understood her. Then she had great empathy. Even if the book is plot-driven, you want the characters’ actions to make some level of sense from their eyes.
We all have a specialized, individual template we live by. Here’s a quick review on how that happens. Your brain codes experiences you have. The original coding usually takes place early in life. The coding becomes your perceptions…translating to the beliefs you have about yourself, others, the world in general, even what’s possible. This template also becomes the filter through which you experience your life. You develop strategies for thinking and living that further reinforce the original beliefs—those that support and those that get in your way. When something significant happens to disrupt the old beliefs, things can shift dramatically.
Characters in a novel are no different. Here’s a way to uncover their templates by “stepping into” different perspectives.
From your “self” position as the writer, note how you experience different characters: the nonverbal signals, the way they speak, your own response to them.
Now taking each character at a time, imagine you can slide right into their body, look out of their eyes, become them—rather than witnessing them—and answer these questions: What is their family of origin like? Based on what they unconsciously ingested then, how do they experience their own identity, who they are? Note the trickle down effect: What beliefs were generated? What about capabilities? Resulting actions? How they experience their environment? This way you can really get inside the hearts and minds of the characters.
Then step back. By being a detached observer you get additional valuable information. Given what you discovered about your individual characters, now you can really get a bead on important dynamics between the major players and incorporate them into your writing.
By using a method like this, you also invite your reader to tag along through your writing, to undergo the same discovery and identify with different characters. They’re playing out the human condition, no different than the rest of us. We are all who we are based upon where we’ve been. But when something of great enough significance interjects itself, triggering a change in one character…it also affects the others in close proximity. That’s how things get shaken up; the story becomes so much more interesting; the characters can grow in various ways.
I realize in the writing of this piece that, because this strategy is so engrained in me, it’s another way of describing what I wrote about in The Energy That Finds Its Source. I was very much in the “self” when I was meditating. But when I came out of meditation, I became the “observer.” When the artwork communicated with me, I may have been in “other” position…or an unexplainable esoteric element occurred…
Of course, you can use what I’ve written here as a guideline to explore other aspects of your own life, not just your creative outlets. This is a brief primer toward self-discovery and relationship dynamics that I use with clients as a springboard for transformation.
I’ve adapted the content of this post from my mentoring program Navigating Your Lifepath addressing how to live through your deeply held values—and thrive.
Sometimes it’s powerful to change things up in your geography, to experiment and see how you may further engage creativity…and The Muse. In the last several months, I’ve done just that—albeit unknowingly—and have been fairly astounded at what has unfolded.
I meditate first thing in the morning, usually before dawn. Over the last thirty years of doing so, it’s set the stage for my days and provided a consistent segue for insights, higher guidance. But I’d never considered using it as a tool for my artwork. It happened accidentally.
I would undertake my daily ritual in the back room, sitting cross-legged with straight back, always in the same spot for as long as I’d lived in this home, an anchor to the process. One morning for no apparent reason, I chose to meditate in the front room. Whenever I feel complete, I come back with “soft eyes”…slightly defocused…slowly returning, integrating the state with my day ahead. That morning my gaze came to rest on the easel and canvas I’d been painting for a while. And suddenly I experienced the piece in a whole new way. I saw things I hadn’t seen before. I felt a previously undetected presence, perhaps waiting until I’d opened a door and it could reach through and guide me. I’ve continued this change in geography while keeping my long-time meditation ritual. My artwork has more depth and meaning. I feel the intent of pieces is coming across in a way I’d just hoped for before. I had the beautiful feedback from a couple from Canada who approached me—after seeing My Magdalen Heart in person—saying they’d experienced the piece literally speaking to them.
People have puzzled over the creative process for eons. Some ascribe to a belief that the source of creativity rests within the self absolutely, which places enormous pressure if you find not so much coming through. Others are certain it comes from another source, perhaps a higher power. Author Elizabeth Gilbert spoke eloquently on TED regarding this controversy.
I believe it’s a combination of the two. First, I have the choice to say “yes.” Then it’s a matter of showing up consistently, having faith that something will be delivered…and being patient with the process. I recognize that I’m a vehicle. I’ve chosen to develop certain skills. But, for me, there’s no mistaking when I’ve tapped into another realm entirely outside myself that moves beyond the mundane. My senses are heightened and the energy moves—whether through brush on canvas, fingers on keyboard…whatever the art form—to find ground. There’s a distinct collaboration…and it’s something else again when your subject matter starts communicating with you. Strange as it seems, that’s how it’s happening for me these days.
When I was writing Portals to the Vision Serpent my practice was to begin writing after meditation, at least five days a week for at least three hours at a time. Again, I didn’t realize at the time I was accessing my craft through an altered state of being. It was as though I watched a movie and wrote down what unfolded in front of me. One day I reached a point in the book where I needed to get a main character down to the rainforest of Chiapas, Mexico but had no idea how. Within a few days, a completely new character stepped forward to introduce himself from the shadows where he’d been hidden. It turned out that he provided the way; the novel moved on.
The poet Mary Oliver said, “…The part of the psyche that works in concert with consciousness and supplies a necessary part of the poem—the heart of the star as opposed to the shape of a star, let us say—exists in a mysterious, unmapped zone…Say you promise to be at your desk in the evenings, from seven to nine. It waits, it watches. If you are reliably there, it begins to show itself—soon it begins to arrive when you do. But if you are only there sometimes and are frequently late or inattentive, it will appear fleetingly, or it will not appear at all…”
If it hasn’t yet happened for you in the way you desire, I believe it can. It means opening yourself up, stepping outside your comfort zone, changing up your geography. It’s an agreement you make…an intent you hold…and then let go.
Séraphine Louis, also known as Séraphine de Senlis, is the subject of this intense biopic—both inspirational and tragic—of a relatively unknown but brilliant artist who teetered between one reality and another. Her paintings were the product of creative and spiritual rapture, induced by spirits, and her love for nature. She was employed as a housekeeper doing the most menial labor and thought by the people around her to be quite odd and slow. But at night she disappeared into another world and turned out extraordinary works using pigments she made herself from unusual sources.
Her break came when Wilhelm Uhde, German art dealer and critic, saw a painting at his neighbor’s home and was astounded to discover that it had been done by his cleaning lady. At a time when avant garde artists such as Picasso and Rousseau were coming on the scene, Uhde became Séraphine’s sponsor encouraging her and finally including her in a show that he organized of the Sacred Heart Painters. Sadly, his patronage would come to an end with the advent of World War II. Séraphine became increasingly isolated and was finally committed to a hospital for the mentally ill. She passed in 1942.
Few of her paintings survive but some may be viewed here. This is the story of a woman who found deep meaning in life and was unusually resourceful, even in the face of periodic ridicule and little support, save one person who proved to be her angel.
This haunting film was a sleeper when it came out in 2009 but later won seven French Academy Awards. Streaming on Amazon. In French with subtitles. Yolande Moreau stars as Séraphine. Film directed by Martin Provost and co-written with Marc Abdelnour.
Co-authored by Yaqin Lance Sandleben and Carla Woody
Carla speaking here: When I was a young girl I had a vivid inner world but reticent to share it with others, being painfully shy. Strangely, one thing I wasn’t shy about was my singing voice. I sang all the time. The summer I turned fourteen my family moved to a different state, the latest in several moves during childhood. A neighborhood girl and I spent hours recording ourselves singing Mamas and Papas songs just for fun, when we weren’t getting in trouble for one thing or another. That was the late Sixties…and you were expected to push the edges.
But something happened in September. My newfound friend and ally went to a different school. What bit of security and grounding I felt in the new environment was no longer present. Over the next months I made my way tentatively, finally settling in with a handful of girls, cliches being a matter of survival in junior high and high school beyond. But when I’d join in with songs on the radio…or hum under my breath you’d have thought I’d grown two heads, the responses I received from my friends.
Everyone feels out of place and wants to fit in during teenaged years…and at the same time want to be different. A terrible conflict. So, most of us shut down aspects of ourselves. In my case, it was my public voice. My singing voice was silent for decades and so was my ability to express in the most basic ways outside my family.
It was only years later that outer expression began to come again, part of an evolutionary process. By that time though, being so unused, my throat would hurt and my voice was so weak, it refused to emerge fully when I’d attempt it. I even went to India for a short time to study raga, Indian classical vocal music, with Sufi leader Shabda Kahn, in hopes of overcoming the block. I succinctly remember the day in practice when Shabda looked at me in what could only be described as loving irritation and bellowed, “Get your voice out!” Yet, still, I physically couldn’t.
***
Yaqin speaking here: In the path of development, of spiritual and material development, one of our most important tools is the human voice. One can easily see this in how the voice of another affects one. Likewise, as the Sufi Inayat Khan said, the voice is the expression of a person’s spirit. Knowing this one may direct attention and practice towards developing and opening the voice. Further, there is an ancient and sacred teaching on the mysticism of sound, and how it how it can be used. As the Sufis say, through recitation and concentration: “…travelers on the spiritual path can overcome narcissism, resolve their issues of separation from God and from humanity, and awaken to God’s presence…”
***
Carla again: In 1998 I moved to Prescott, Arizona. Strangely enough, I found a small Sufi community there. I’ve always been drawn to the Sufis for their inclusiveness. Yaqin Lance Sandleben held monthly zikr, a Sufi chanting devotional practice. I attended religiously for years until travel and my own work made it difficult to be there. I am indebted to Yaqin for the space he continued to hold those years. My voice had varied little…until one night. We were well into our zikr when suddenly a voice burst forth with a sweetness and power I hadn’t heard before. Surely, it had come from someone else. But I had to acknowledge it as my own…and acknowledge it still.
Giving voice comes in many forms. It’s our birthright to express and sometimes a journey to come back to the place where we began, without fear, to offer to ourselves and the world our own special expression.
The Lifepath Dialogues offer an invitation toward embodiment of all that is life-affirming and the deeper meaning of sustainability. Themes are drawn from books "Calling Our Spirits Home" and "Standing Stark" and 20+ years as a conscious living mentor leading spiritual travel journeys with Indigenous Wisdom Keepers serving their communities, group and individual programs. Carla specializes in working with people who seek to live through their deeply held values. For more info see the “About” tab. The author may be reached via cwoody@kenosis.net. Follow this blog by becoming a fan on the Kenosis Facebook page.
The Lifepath Dialogues Gatherings
Topics here are meant to open conversations and self-reflection. For more information, go to the "About" page.
A few months ago I discovered The Moth and I’ve been addicted every since. The Moth is all about storytelling, not by famous writers but mostly, everyday people—true stories. The venues come via live events, radio and podcasts: stories about life circumstances, discoveries and lessons. At turns, the tales are funny, informative, poignant, uplifting, surprising. Sometimes the storyteller’s voice cracks with emotion. For every one I’ve thus far heard I’ve been touched in some way. Better yet, I’m not listening to or watching some kind of drivel that’s so prevalent these days on TV or radio. The narratives mean something. It’s about our humanity.
The Lifepath Dialogues 