Happy Friday, Wild Ones!
Wow. What a busy time of year, huh? It’s always like this— Halloween to New Years is always a blur. Speaking only for myself here, most of the reason is because I’m already focused on Christmas. My favorite holiday of all— a big homecoming and birthday party for everyone! The holidays involve travel planning, gathering up treasures to give as gifts to my niece and nephews, coordinating lots of schedules, and preparing for my show— the Holiday Hootenanny is my gift to the world! Performing is what I love most in the world and it’s the gift I like to give.
This year, my show is more focused on the music— all live music being arranged by someone I worked with last year, who has come on board in a much bigger role this year. I’m stretching myself quite a bit by preparing to sing 2-3 songs. I’ve been doing Youtube voice lessons 5 days a week in preparation. I’m not a singer or a musician, despite how deeply I love music. So, this is very scary territory for me. But that edge of fear is where I know the treasures will be found! That’s how it goes.
I’ve been a performer / human being long enough to know that the authenticity and freedom that I’m trying to express through performance hinges on my own vulnerability, ability to take risks and find courage in the face of my own fear.
I’ve been showing up every day to grind down that mountain of “impossibility” into sand. That’s where discipline comes in.
You may also recall that I decided to use this sweet pocket of astrological energy in November to lay the foundations for projects that could take me several years to complete. I’m aggressively showing up every day to chip away at these projects I’ve been sitting on for years. Projects that I was waiting for some opportunity or offer to initiate or for conditions to be perfect— which I already knew it was a trap to think that way! And yet, life seemed too sticky to even try.
I was finally like— fuck it. No matter what is going on in my personal life or the world, I’m prioritizing my creative projects.
WHAT IS THE WORLD THAT WE ACTUALLY WANT TO LIVE IN?
You have to use your imagination, your heart and your hands.
Some days the discipline of showing up is just muscle memory. Yoga taught me how to show up on my mat whether I “want” to or not. Whether there’s rain or shine. You show up because that’s DEVOTION. And 9 times out of 10 you enjoy it despite yourself and your crappy attitude.
WHAT ARE YOU DEVOTED TO?
WHAT GOD ARE YOU SERVING WITH YOUR LIFE?
This month I hopped on board for a friend’s month long writing challenge as a way to make progress on a book about my favorite art— cabaret performance. I started working on it in LA and set it aside for the plandemic years. But books don’t write themselves and I am on a mission to increase America’s (and the world’s) appreciation and understanding of cabaret. It’s going to need a book.
Honestly, this has been so challenging because the writing times for the challenge are different every day— it really is hard to schedule around. I kind of have to drop everything and immediately shift into creative mode. It’s hard to do that at the drop of a hat! Though it’s a good muscle to develop— being able to write any where no matter what is going on around me means I can get a lot more done.
I don’t have to be precious about it, I just have to show up.
So, some days it’s like I’m rushing to check the box off on my daily self care checklist. Did I write for an hour? Did I sleep well? Did I exercise? Yep. Yep. Yep. Wash, rinse, repeat.
You don’t notice your progress until it’s accumulated over time. It felt like crap forcing myself to write, I thought my words were shit, just barfed out of my head onto my computer…but now I’ve got three chapters roughed out of a book I’ve been thinking about at least for five years. Boom. Hard to argue with that.
I’m going to talk more about this over on the premium side of the fence now.
Join any time for a master class in cultivating your own wildness and harnessing the power of your creativity! I’m also going to talk about how to use tarot, divination and all spiritual teachings without giving your power away.
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