Creativity

Ep. #234: Ex-Catholic Reclamation Magic, Transmuting the Seven Deadly Sins, and Pleasure as Part of the Creative Process with Ex-Catholic Sinfluencer Mary Adelle Walters

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“It feels very powerful to take something that an institution has claimed to be one thing and to be like no, you don’t get to do that. We all get to define these things for ourselves.”

Mary Adelle (she/her) is a creative facilitator, sexuality coach, sensual writer, and hot queer witch. She supports ex-catholic and ex-religious femmes as they reclaim their bodies, sexualities, pleasure, and witchery through creative facilitation and anti-oppressive coaching. She has written two books: Girl Flame, a book of sensual poetry and Nadia: a novella (or sensuella) about an ex-religious femme reclaiming pleasure. Mary lives on unceded Piscataway land on the Appalachian mountains and she currently adores apricot seltzer, the ten of Pentacles card, bergamot, and the mid-summer breeze blowing thru oak trees. <3

“When I said [my queerness] out loud, it was like a spell almost. Like yeah, this is who you are.” 

In this episode, we talk about:

  • Mary’s journey with Catholicism and witchery

  • How Mary’s family relationships have shifted through deconstruction

  • Reclaiming Jesus

  • Reclaiming Catholic mysticism & writing spells in her poems

  • Taking back power from religious institutions

  • Transmuting the seven deadly sins including lust and gluttony

  • Claiming queerness and not feeling queer enough

  • Expressing queerness through creativity

  • Why Mary feels compelled to write

  • Being honest in our journaling

  • Pleasure and sensuality as part of the creative process

  • Attuning to pleasure

  • Mary reads the “Nadia and her vibrator” section from her sensual novella Nadia

  • Aligning with what you need and desire

You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or anywhere else you get podcasts.

Ep. #219: Reclaiming Creativity + Storytelling Magic with Mary Lanham

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Mary Lanham is the editor, writer, and tarot reader behind Bibliomancer Editing. As an editor, she works with speculative fiction and spiritual nonfiction writers, helping them develop and share their most transformational stories. She also helps creatives rediscover their vision with tarot readings that inspire the storytelling process.

“The point that I’m accessing with tarot is the same space creativity comes from.”

In this episode, Eryn and Mary talk about:

  • Mary’s journey with writing and magic

  • Reclaiming creativity

  • Disengaging from limiting creative and spiritual mythos through tarot

  • Growing up Catholic & deconstructing Catholicism

  • Tarot as support for transitioning out of Catholicism

  • How tarot supports her creativity

  • Finding the story in a tarot card or tarot spread

  • Developing somatic awareness

  • The Magician & The Wheel of Fortune

  • Taking ownership of our big and deep stories

  • Stories as an alchemical experience

  • Telling the truth in our stories

  • The vulnerability of sharing stories

  • Mary’s writing process, how she holds structure and space for her creativity

  • Keeping a creative practice going

  • Process as enough

  • Cultivating connection to intuition

“Practices like tarot feel naturally connected to my creative process.”

You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or anywhere else you get podcasts.

Love Notes For Your Creativity: Touching Your Imagination

loves notes for your creativity: touching your imagination

“I believe our imaginations—particularly the parts of our imaginations that hold what we most desire, what brings us pleasure, what makes us scream yes—are where we must seed the future, turn toward justice and liberation, and reprogram ourselves to desire sexually and erotically empowered lives.”
- adrienne maree brown in her book 
pleasure activism

i love this quote on the power & importance of our imaginations. for dreaming up the future, for reprogramming, for healing, for reclamation, for our creativity.

imagination feels like seed space for our creativity, for our healing, for crafting the lives & worlds that we desire. 

for me, daydreaming is a beautiful & super simple way to touch imagination. and it’s interesting how many of us are shamed for daydreaming as we grow up, told to get our head out of the clouds, focus, pay attention, be realistic, etc.

as we get busier and more technology is vying for our attention all the time, i think our ability to daydream (and time to daydream) continues to erode. 

so, a little daydreaming practice invitation for you below.

spend some time daydreaming this week. maybe you try this every day for a week. i recommend setting a timer for however much time you'd like (10 minutes usually feels really good to me) - this helps create some structure so you can hopefully feel more free to be relax and be present.

for the full amount of your timer, just let yourself space out and day dream. let your imagination roam, let your mind wander, let your brain rest and see what happens. 

if any insights or ideas come up, feel free to jot them down in your journal. notice after your time is up: how did it feel to just let yourself daydream with no expectations? what did it shift or inspire?

lots of love for you and your imagination this week & always.

love,
eryn

p.s. i have a free mini course to deepen your relationship with your creativity that starts april 6th! join us to reconnect or deepen your relationship with your creativity over 4 days of email practices where we’ll explore your unique creative blocks and open to more of your innate creativity through journaling, ritual, practice, and breathwork. click here to sign up.

Love Notes For Your Creativity: Fear of Being Judged

loves notes for your creativity: fear of being judged

months ago, i asked folks over on instagram: 

what stops you from sharing your creative work with the world? what do you struggle with in this realm?

one of the big answers i received was fear of being judged.

(for me, this often shows up as fear of being judged by people i don't even know! like people i don't talk to anymore from high school!?)

i think we are afraid to be judged because we know the pain of it! we already know how it hurts to be judged. sharing our hearts, our creativity, is vulnerable and it opens us up to the pain of judgement, of rejection, of losing love.

so what do we do? how do we still make when we are afraid of the aftermath? how do we still share when parts of ourselves are aching for love? how do we still share when we are terrified of being judged?

rooting into more nervous system safety can help (what helps you feel more comfortable and safe? is it putting your hands on your body and breathing? is it attuning to something pleasurable? is it petting your animal friend, taking a walk, feeling the sun? what are your glimmers?).

perspective shifts can also help. one perspective shift i like is: do i like what I’m making/doing? 

because it’s true: people may judge you. other people won’t always like your stuff, or you. and if you need them to, you may never make anything. it’s a losing battle.

but when you root into your own joy, your own process, whether YOU actually like what you’re making or not, that’s an anchor to hold you against the judgement and fear of it.

some things i like to offer myself around judgement are —

“i am still worthy of being loved even if other people judge me.”

"other people will judge me, but my job is to be in integrity with myself.”

this quote from sasha tozzi.

and one last thing that can help - deciding whose feedback matters. a practice i learned from luna dietrich. whose feedback is important to you? whose criticism do you want to take? whose feedback matters?

brene brown has a powerful quote about this -  “a lot of cheap seats in the arena are filled with people who never venture onto the floor. they just hurl mean-spirited criticisms and put-downs from a safe distance. the problem is, when we stop caring what people think and stop feeling hurt by cruelty, we lose our ability to connect. but when we’re defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable. therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives. for me, if you’re not in the arena also getting your ass kicked, i’m not interested in your feedback." 

for me, the feedback that matters is that of the people i love, that of the people who are actually engaged with my work (my clients! people in my groups! etc!), and folks from marginalized backgrounds sharing nuance, other perspectives, things i might be missing and need to correct.

so, you might explore a bit: whose feedback matters to me and am i interested in exploring? and can i let go any feedback/judgement/critique from everyone else? 

lots of love as you work through fear of being judged. in it with you!

love,
eryn

p.s. i have a membership called creative support that’s here to help you tap into your innate creativity, cultivate creative bravery, & move through creative blocks (like the ever insidious IMPOSTER SYNDROME. fear of rejection. self-judgement and fear of others judging you. perfectionism. whatever you got!) so you can cultivate a more creative life, make the authentic work you want to make and share it with the world. doors are closed right now but you can find out when they re-open by joining my email list here.

Love Notes For Your Creativity: Crafting Simple Creative Rituals

loves notes for your creativity: crafting simple creative rituals

RITUAL DOESN’T HAVE TO BE COMPLICATED / RITUAL SHOULD SUPPORT THE LIFE YOU ACTUALLY HAVE / SIMPLE RITUALS CAN SUPPORT YOUR CREATIVITY / YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN MAGIC

sometimes i really * want * to do a big, elaborate, long ritual but the truth is i often don’t have the time, don’t have the energy (especially in pandemic), and/or don’t feel like it.

and i think that's okay. the simple rituals, the quiet moments of lighting a candle and taking a breath, the sacredness of an intentional five minute container, can be so powerful.

like i shared above - ritual should support the life you actually have.  

and ritual can support your creative practice!

for me, ritual is in and of itself a creative act. ritual allows me to create a container to touch my creative essence. it helps me fill my creative cup.

maybe it can do that for you, too?

i love sharing rituals you can do but there's nothing like the power (and creative act!) or crafting your own. 

here are some simple questions to ask yourself to create your own daily(ish?) creative ritual if that’s something you’re wanting to do:

  • what makes you feel creative/inspires you? (example: for me, reading poetry inspires me to write my own.)

  • what clears your channel and gets creative energy flowing? (some examples: dancing, breathwork, meditation, taking a walk, etc.)

  • what textures help you drop out of the mundane and into the magical? (some examples: lighting incense, a drop of cacao on my tongue, seeing flame, the smooth roundness of my peach moonstone in my hand, etc.)

  • how can you weave these elements into a simple, doable ritual that helps you touch your creative essence?

if you dig into these questions & craft your own creative ritual, feel free to reply or let me know on instagram! i would love to hear about the magic you make 🖤

love,
eryn

p.s. i have a membership called creative support that’s here to help you tap into your innate creativity, cultivate creative bravery, & move through creative blocks (like the ever insidious IMPOSTER SYNDROME. fear of rejection. self-judgement and fear of others judging you. perfectionism. whatever you got!) so you can cultivate a more creative life, make the authentic work you want to make and share it with the world. doors are closed right now but you can find out when they re-open by joining my email list here.

Love Notes For Your Creativity: Accessing the Aliveness in Each Moment

loves notes for your creativity: accessing the aliveness in each moment

i think it's fair to say that during covid-19, most of us aren’t having some of those experiences that maybe feel like peak aliveness.

they are different for all of us, of course, but some of those for me include things like traveling, going out dancing, meeting strangers, etc. they mostly involve doing new things & being with people.

and by aliveness i mean - the feeling of being alive. a feeling that to me is intricately tied to accessing our creativity, to feeling the desire to create, to letting ideas flow through us. 

so i have been working with attuning much more to the aliveness in each moment, and that practice has been holding me through this pandemic.

because truly, i believe there IS so much aliveness in each moment. but when i’m zoned out, when i’m scrolling, when I’m disassociating i can’t feel it.

(i’ve said this many times, but i don’t think i could survive pandemic without some disassociation! these can be helpful coping skills for sure. but they make me feel less alive & so i want to spend less time doing these things and reach for other coping skills i have available. you might feel differently and that's cool too!) 

the things that tend to help me access more aliveness are generally so simple - breathing, grounding, and tuning into my senses. 

for example, the other day i was washing my hands the other day and noticed i was spacing out a bit. i just asked myself, how might my experience of this moment shift if i was a little more present?

so i took a breath and actually noticed how it felt to have the warm water running over my hands, and my hands touching each other. it was actually a super pleasurable experience, once i became present with it. 

even the most mundane of things like washing our hands can be a source of little moments of feeling more alive when we tune in. and those small things can feed us & our creativity in big ways.

if you'd like to play with this idea of accessing more aliveness (more of the feeling of being alive and engaging with life), here's a little practice: 

  • come into a comfortable space for a short meditation, whatever that means to you.

  • ground in some way that supports you - maybe touching a soft blanket, taking a breath, or conjuring up in your mind's eye something that feels comfortable and safe.

  • tune into one of each of these things that feels pleasurable (or good, or neutral if pleasurable isn't available). they can be in your space or in your mind's eye or your memory.

    • something you see

    • something you hear

    • something you taste

    • something you touch

    • something you smell

  • take a moment to notice how you feel & give yourself some love for prioritizing feeling good

hope this little practice supports!

love,
eryn

p.s. i have a membership called creative support that’s here to help you tap into your innate creativity, cultivate creative bravery, & move through creative blocks (like the ever insidious IMPOSTER SYNDROME. fear of rejection. self-judgement and fear of others judging you. perfectionism. whatever you got!) so you can cultivate a more creative life, make the authentic work you want to make and share it with the world. doors are closed right now but you can find out when they re-open by joining my email list here.

Love Notes For Your Creativity: Cultivating Curiosity

loves notes for your creativity: on cultivating curiosity 

think about the idea of curiosity. what images, scents, textures, sensations, feelings, sounds, colors, etc. come to mind? 

for me, a few things the idea of curiosity evokes — bright yellow, a tingling in my palms, apricot orange, the smell of fresh dirt, an openness in my chest, sound of wind chimes, the feeling of tired feet. 

i have been thinking of curiosity as muse for years. when intuition feels hard to reach for, when creative ideas & inspiration feel hard to find, curiosity is something we can reach for. 

the simple act of being curious about — our lives, what’s going on around us, our internal state of being, who we are, nature, etc. — to me is a creative practice in and of itself. it requires us to listen (to ourselves, to life). it requires us to be in relationship with. it requires us to connect.

and when we follow curiosity, the possibilities are endless. like the fool card in the tarot, we really have no idea where it might take us. 

that's how curiosity creates magic, how it can create new stories, how it can weave more wonder, more awe, more of the unknown that we simultaneously fear & desire into the fabrics of our lives. 

it’s often so simple - we see an instagram post about an idea that piques our interest. we smell something unfamiliar and we wonder what it is. we read a poem and we wonder how the poet chose that format, what it might be like to write in that structure. we’re on a walk and we wonder what’s down this little street we’ve never turned down before. we talk with a friend and we wonder why they have this opinion, we want to know more.

a sweet and simple ritual to honor and play with curiosity is below, enjoy!

  • light a candle.

  • take a few deep breaths.

  • open your journal and write: tell the story of a time you were curious about something and followed the threads. what happened? how did the journey unfold? how did it shape you, change you?

  • read your story to the fire.

  • ask yourself what’s one thing you’re curious about and how you can explore it.

  • ground with a few more deep breaths and/or placing your sweet hands on your body.

let this be the beginning of a journey with your ever unfolding curiosity.

(“a [person] at the beginning of a story has no way of knowing that the story has begun.” - the starless sea by erin morgenstern)

love,
eryn

p.s. i have a membership called creative support that’s here to help you tap into your innate creativity, cultivate creative bravery, & move through creative blocks (like the ever insidious IMPOSTER SYNDROME. fear of rejection. self-judgement and fear of others judging you. perfectionism. whatever you got!) so you can cultivate a more creative life, make the authentic work you want to make and share it with the world. doors are closed right now but you can find out when they re-open by joining my email list here.