 Every living thing has desire running through it. The desire for life. The desire to create. The desire to become, grow, and thrive. It is a powerful force that can manifest into rich creativity in all areas of our life, art, business, and relationships. It is an instinctual, natural force, rooted in our innocence of being, and from our soul's yearning. Desire is the seed spark for all creative ideas, stories, art, projects, adventures, and together with commitment (see 'C is for Commitment': https://youtu.be/YMo7dOcMeGI :-)), creates a magnetic force that attracts life towards us! Healthy desire helps us to grow, and feels satisfying, and has a fullness, and embodiment, about it. It is instinctual, literally arising from our belly, body, bones, breath, blood, and our heart. It is our truth desiring to be expressed into form! We can hold many beliefs around desire though, and this can cause us to shrink or squash or ignore our natural desires through fear, judgement and shame. It is worth exploring your relationship with desire in your life. Is it an honouring one? An approving one? Are you able to give full reign and permission to allow desire to flow through you? As part of the 'An A to Z guide to being a creative genius', I have created this week's video on 'D is for Desire'. Check it out my lovelies! :-) If you enjoyed this video then do please like it, subscribe to my channel as i intend to post a new one each week, and do share with your fellow creative geniuses! :-)
So much creative rock 'n soul love to you. HH, The Creative Genius xx
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How to support your life, art and creative business.
Below are some resources for you lovely, that may be of help for you in supporting your creative life. Enjoy, and let me know if you found any of these helpful! :-) And if you haven't done so already, at the bottom of this article is a link to watch the video 'S is for Support!', from my 'An A to Z guide to being a creative genius' for more juicy tips! XX Heidi Hinda *Articles: Do you have the psyche to live as an artist? (Written by my wonderful creativity coaching teacher Eric Maisel :-)): https://medium.com/@RoweCenter/the-psyche-of-the-artist-seven-tips-for-living-the-artists-life-9331c650e722 How to get out of your own way/Julia Cameron's 'The Artist's Way': https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/07/04/the-artists-way-julia-cameron/ How to make a living from your art: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/oct/30/how-to-make-a-living-from-your-art-young-artists-share-their-stories A poignant and powerful article on what does it take to survive as an artist: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-artists-survice_b_2966184 Need a little motivation?: https://www.bustle.com/articles/21916-9-steps-to-staying-motivated-for-artists-makers-and-creative-freelancers On how essential it is to separate one's sesne of worth with one's creativity!: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/02/28/creative-block-krysa/ A tongue in cheek guide to marketing yourself as an artist: https://www.sketchbook.com/blog/10-ways-to-unsuccessfully-market-yourself-as-an-artist/
*Books:
To support the wild artist within you with myths, folktales, and Jungian analogy. An absolute classic book!
To inspire you to change your perspective and attitude towards your creativity, from being an amateur to a professional!
One of my favourites by the musician, performance artist, and writer, Amanda Palmer on the value of asking for help as an artist :-)
*S is for Support:
 Hurrah hurrah hurrah! 🎉🎊🎁 It's finally here! I am absolutely delighted to announce that...drum roll please!...I have gone and launched 'The Creative Genius' on YouTube! 😘 Each week I will post a video as part of the series 'An A to Z guide to being a creative genius' xxx Today, and because of my own faffing over the last month or so to actually DO IT, the episode is 'R for Resistance'. Or, how to approach those creative blocks, procrastination and doubts, that show up over and over again as we live our creative life. No matter if you're an artist of any description, a company boss, a solo creative entrepreneur, or just often have this sense of malaise or 'meh!' as a background hum to your day to day life, you might find this video a lil inspiring. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel and let me know what you think to this lil creative genius' first foray into videoland! 😊 And if sharing feels apt, then share away my lovelies 😘🙏 So much love, wonderment and creative magic xx HH  D is for doubt.
Doubt has taken up residence and invited the fraudulent one for tea. They’re eating rock cakes which are causing all their teeth to fall out, and they’re pissing ‘tea’ outta their orifices! Quite frankly, they stink. It’s no irony in the grand scheme of things, of how life is the careful navigation between and betwixt the dualities that those yogic dudes once spouted about. Yeh. It’s taken me twenty years, including one year of yoga teaching retirement, to finally get it. Tis all the dance of the opposites that causes so much trouble, tremble and thorny-ouched days as we pirouette the best we can through our creative lives. You see, one of the diamonds of absolute clarity that has arisen since beginning a journey with the, (as I call her), ‘business shaman’, Kat Byles, is in finding my core message that fuels and runs through the intention of what ‘The Creative Genius’ (my creativity coaching business, keep up in the back loves!! ;-)) is about. It’s a ‘Fuck, YES!’ to one’s creativity, sexuality and life force. It’s a no brainer for me and as anyone of you knows who has worked with me (or just simply live in my heart as my friend), making your life art, and your art life, is what I have breathed with conviction all of my life. It’s me basically. And this ‘Fuck, YES!’ is a soft, heart fuelled, passionate, pleasurable, delicious, juicy, affirmation of your life. Of your self. Of your heart, and of your art. Now, in standing at the edge of the unknown, at a new level of visibility, that involves all of me showing up, exposed, present, embodied, engaged, I have run straight into, the wall of resistance. That is, I have come up against my ‘NO!’. Obviously. Of course. Sigh. I understand enough now that what we call in and ask for, which is always and already available to us, what we receive is everything that is in the way of that. You want love? Guaranteed all the ways you seek to hide from, repel, and/or dishonour love will show up. You want clarity? Here’s a ginormous bundle of confusion for you to unravel! Asking for faith to show up? Well then let’s count the ways suspicion, and turning away from miracles, plays out in your life!! Fun hey!!??? :-/. And so on, and so on. So here’s my ‘NO!’. Oh let me count the ways: Distraction. Check. Procrastination. Check. Perfectionism. Check. Avoidance. Double check. Comparison. Yuk, and Check. Judge. Check check check. Total an utter turning away in a kinda drugged sleep walking. Check mate. Oh. Shit. :-( If you resonate with any of the above then now would be a great time to holler ‘me too’ and send thumbs up my way. It ain’t pretty but tis the truth. The one who doubts is loving this. The bitch! And the fraudulent one. Well, she’s gnashing her bleeding gums and looks simply delighted in the pointing out of how can I, the one who is saying ‘No!’ with such bells and whistles, hold space for others to find their ‘YES!’. How ridiculous. As she says ‘ridiculous’ bright red spittle splays out. As you can imagine this isn’t a terribly charming sight!!! Part of me doesn’t want to hear her and desires to sleep a thousand years and wait for Disney’s sickly sweet and sugar coated Prince Charming to show up, kiss me whilst I sleep (which is well dodgy!!), and wake me from a life of slumber and responsibility! You see doubt, judge, and the fraudulent one (Fraulein Fraudulent!?? :-)), are bullies. And in believing their bullshit I become their victim. Victim. Damn. It just keeps getting better n better!! (Not!) Let’s see what’s going on here shall we!? Time to face these miserable uncouth wretches spoiling my afternoon tea partying. Am I a fraud? Nope. I’m not. Though it may feel like it because I don’t have my Americanised ultra smile and glossy hair on right now. Or ever for that matter. I’m a normal woman. Sensitive. Shy. Sweet. Who needs lots of stillness, space and silence otherwise she gets overwhelmed. And who often has a soupcon of tremor in her thigh, and a quiver of terror in the pit of her belly. Fine. These are familiars, and after a lifetime of letting them curtail my ‘Yeses’, they no longer pose a threat nor a roadblock to the excitement of the muse! :-) Am I a fraud? Nope. Guaranteed that whenever we stand at a gateway into the next steps of our true becoming any number of our old resistance mechanisms will kick in. It’s scary. It’s unknown and new. It’s exciting but involves letting go of what we know. It’s a surrender into. It’s about trust. It’s a game. It’s growth. And if it’s truly aligned with who we are, there’s a level of uncertainty and thus vulnerability, that rises up to meet us. All of this equals a madcap rush of possible chaos and resistance. (And cake. Very possibly cake.) If I’m to stand besides you, clear, strong, open, receptive, and trustworthy, then I’ll have to have gone through this too. Not just once, but over and over and over again. Am I a fraud? Nope. What I’m stepping up to do is challenging that part that feels safer hiding away and behind. And yet this call feels oh so right. Alive. Exciting. Playful. And me. Because it feels so clear I am completely naked and raw, exposed and vulnerable. I choose this. I choose to step forwards deeper and wider and into the limitless possibility of the creative void. I choose to say yes to that which makes me feel joy. I choose to walk my talk, and shimmy my lithe limbs, and say ‘here I am, here I am!’ Doubt and its annoying friends come in to meet us when we are on to something. When we no longer desire to live in a smallness that devalues and denies who we are. I believe more and more that the force of this resistance is in direct equal power to the force of our greatness. The dance between ‘yes’ and ‘no’, between ‘life’ and ‘death’, is an eternal waltz until our very last step! As they say on many a show: Who wins? You decide :-) Here are some practical tools (from the creative genius warriors rock ‘n soul toolbox), to assist you if you find doubt, fraud and friends have come to tea unexpectedly! Tools: *If you find that you have been gripped by the vice of ‘NO!’: Name it. Claim it. Voice it. So that it can no longer hide and rob you of your light and life. Most of the ‘no’ thoughts are designed to keep us small, and shame us. Shame’s role is to hide us away, and keep us imprisoned. Say ‘no way’ to your captors. Turn to face them. Question their voice. *Ask for help and support. No wo(man) is an island. The ego thinks so. The ego believes it doesn’t need others. That’s not the case. Our strength is in our togetherness. That’s my new motto. It’s very new for this lone wolf. Reach out to: Peers. Friends. Loved ones. Tribe. Professionals. Nature. Trees. Mountains. The sea. Your dog. Your cat. A terrific and fabulously real creativity coach! :-) *Make a choice. A conscious choice. Do I desire to live in and from this ‘no’? Would I like to learn to move in and from my ‘yes’? You don’t have to know how. Just keep affirming your choice. *Accept that life is lived in the uncertainty. In the vulnerability. In the ‘not knowing’. Learn how to tread water in this place. Learn how to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. A ship is safe in the harbour but that’s not what ships were made for. It’s not what you were made for. *Acceptance. Of all the ways the ‘no’ moves in. Of all its seductive callings. Of each and every time you cannot resist, are blind to its crafty manoeuvres. Get familiar with these characters: the doubt, the fraud, the judge. The more we choose to pull up a seat and join them at their (by now a complete shambolic!) table, the more they lose their power over us. And listen carefully too, as there may be snippets and whippets of truth amongst their scaremongering. It takes a great discernment to know what’s truth and what’s lies. *Make friends with the possibility of failing, of fucking up, of making mahoosive mistakes! Make friends with imperfection. *Take a deep breath and just go for it. Wobble away. Shake rattle ‘n roll. Fall down. Get ya knickers in a twist and your tail feathers caught in the elastic of ya pants. *Show up anyways in all your glorious humanness. You see, if what calls to come forth lights a rocket in ya pants so that you purr with life and pulse with the yes of Eros, of manifestation, of what turns you on, of what brings you joy, then that’s what is being asked of you to bring to life. It’s none of your business how to do so perfectly. It’s not possible to wait until you’re ready otherwise they’ll be burying us at sea and our bones will still be rattling in anticipation mode waiting, waiting, waiting. *Oh yeah. And celebrate the steps. Each one. No matter how small. If what you’ve done is huge for you then celebrate :-) *Then, rest. *And when the next wave comes to carry you (which it will my darling, oh yes it will), rinse and repeat. Strap yourself in and say ‘Fuck, YES!’ all over again! With each battle, each surf, our muscle of becoming and navigating this ride, gets stronger. It has to. It will do. It is. Thank you for your time and attention, Aho xxx ‘Beauty and the Beast’, liminal times, and holding the fullness of living a creative life.11/16/2018  Anyone who knows me well, is aware that I am currently working on crafting a selection of retellings of fairy tales. Adult tales with an erotic flavour. At some point (though I am so blessedly aware of how long it takes me to do anything, my uber slow wondrous pace! ;-)), I hope to publish them as a book. I’ll keep you posted upon said progress. (Though head over here if you’d like to read one of my tales my love :-))
‘Beauty and the Beast’ has been sitting with me lately, both sides whispering in my ears, pulling my arms this way and that. Asking me to choose between them. As if i ever could. For is not this time of the year the liminal time, not quite deep winter’s cave, and yet not entirely the fire lit action lands that we have enjoyed over the summer? The bridge between light and dark, creation and destruction, life and death. In response to my last foray into the realm of intimate romantic love are not all relationships, including the ones with our own selves, an ever flowing dance with these pairings? And is not the perennial and seasonal cycles of our creativity and sexuality a continuous merry go round of perpetual change and movement up and down, round and round, and forever in ebb and flow? Do we dare to offer our ‘ugly’ to the world, our shame and unworthiness? Can we have the courage to drop the censorship and bow to the fullness of every part of what we say, in whatever language we desire to sculpt it in? Are we able to dig deeper, deeper than a pleasing aesthetic, in search of bones and grit, blood and guts, heartache and fear, and offer all of these as a prayer to the divine? Can we say yes to both ‘Beauty and the Beast’? To hold both in the palms of our hands, allowing them to beat with wings of blood and magic, neither one ‘better than’ the other? Both a part of the fullness of everything we may hold dear. Neither one nor the other. Not summer nor winter. In the land of enchantment, and the liminal. Liminal spaces. Such a delicious word. It means threshold my darling :-) Transition times. One foot in one place and the other in another. Not quite having stepped over. Holding the space for all to be, to be, to be. No rush. No rush. No rush. The balance between worlds. The ‘upper worlds’, all day to day, routine and ‘Father Time’, work and schedules, the to-do list and all of the myriad moments of a full life; and the ‘lower worlds’, the pull and draw inwards and downwards, dreaming time, rest, shadowlands and Persephone’s seduction, essentially the call to the sovereignty of the soul. How do we keep them both fed and nourished? How can we find the possibility of holding both in our hearts? How do we acknowledge and respect and honour both for their need for nourishment, attention, care and tending? I know in myself I can have a tendency to separate aspects of my life. To compartmentalise if you like. To put into boxes. This can work, up to a point, but unless we have very little of these boxes, with very minimal content, then my guessing is at some point, everything starts to spill out and become chaotic and, well, untameable! The untameable. The wild. The chaos. Aaaah! Here we are, back in the realm of creativity! ;-) Of life. Of Love. Of everything. If we ignore one aspect, one ‘box’, turning away in frustration, in judgement, in a restlessness, we take away its energy, so that it begins to dry out, atrophy, and become a muted grey slab in our vivid technicolour life! We become ‘wonky’ and unbalanced, either living in high fantasy, unreal and ungrounded, avoiding alone and its gifts, and all doing doing doing and full of sugary coated, if unconscious, denial; or we walk through our days in the thunder, deep intensity, a devilish realm with an absence of joy and other. For soul work is solitary my love. It always will be. As we are both human and divine, we need both. Why do we have this propensity to turn towards what we perceive as the ‘Beauty’ in our life, and dismiss with disdain the ‘Beast’? For surely, life is about coming to realise that there is a darkness to this beauty that we so long to hold on to, and conversely, there is sweet exquisite heart and wonder if we dare to stay a while with the beast. In life, in love, in art, and in our own dear dear self. We are all of this, and more. Now, we are, in our essential pure nature, vaster, larger and infinite, in our capacity. Read that again my love. You, dear one, have the ability to stretch far and wide, to bear all of what life demands and beckons off you. It’s just the way of our true nature. The key, I believe, is not in necessarily wondering, organising, nor controlling, all of these parts of ourselves. I mean, hell that bloody well doesn’t work out terribly well does it my fellow recovering control freaks?! But in shifting one’s attention instead, on to the thread that binds all of these parts of one’s life together. The thread? Being in devotion to, in service to, in prayer to, the sacred. The sacred. You see, the sacred threads through everything. Nothing in our lives cannot be held by and in the sacred. If it’s a part of our living and our experience, then it’s a part of everything. And nothing that’s in everything, can be separate from us. You may want to read that line again. When we resist, panic, and try to control, then we are essentially reacting from a place of fear. We all do this. It’s part of our human nature. We want to feel like we have a grip on whatever the lunatic hell is going on!! My advice? Loosen the grip, fall into the madness, surrender into the chaos. But, not blindly dear one, not without sight. But instead, by using our night goggles of seeing through the eyes of the Holy. The whole. Holiness and wholeness. And then even our fear is holy, and part of our wholeness. Endings and beginnings. Is there ever such a thing truly? Sure, on the surface level, in the ‘upper’ world thinking. And this can cause us pain and heartbreak (I’ve been there recently). But in the ‘lower’ world thinking, we can ripen the soul, season it, weather and wizen it with whatever wisdom we can bear to taste and swallow. And then there’s the sacred thread that binds both upper and lower worlds, bigger than all, simply holding, with love, clear, solid and still. Hold all those unanswered questions, that your year may have offered to you as gifts, and that the mind might be feeling like it’s running out of time and gotta sort and figure it out by Dec 31st!! Hold these loose and unfinished questions as prayers, as soul poetics. Offer them now to Hades, to Soul, to the shadowlands, to the soil and worms and dead things. Hold all of life’s uncertainties, tipping points and transition times, as a way to grow towards and into the unknown, the winter, because it’s coming and ready or not it will ask its own demands of us. It takes strength. And resilience. And a steady stance to weather the storms and to let the leaves of us fall, and to sway and blow this way and that way, and yet still feel rooted in trust as our skeleton is revealed, as we dare to risk becoming exposed. Because we have no choice. Not if we are artists of our lives. Not if we are open to life. Not if we desire to live in full and fierce truth and grace. Not if we know that we know nothing and that to control is ultimately futile (though we give it a damn good go! ;-)). Not if we are willing to take life as our lover. For it will strip us down over and over again. It will rip open our hearts over and over again. It will pour medicine thick and thorough, over and thro us over and over again. And it will blast us open to beauty and truth and wonder and miracles and magic over and over again. If we are willing, life lived in this way will always take us straight back to God. But it’s a warriors’ path. And a bloody one. And we will be scared. And I like how the word ‘scared’ is an anagram for ‘sacred’! ;-) Are you scared yet? Good! Rattle your bones beauties. Shake rattle and roll. Soul roll that is. As you may know I’m bowing to and daring to commit deeper and deeper to this way of living. Some days I forget. Some days I fall down. Some days I am driven by the scared and not the sacred. So this my loves, this is also a reminder for me too :-) xx As Shirley Valentine says ‘Are we living such a little and calling it a life?’ Liminal lingerings and lushest longing love to you all xx Thank you for reading xx Aho xx |
Heidi Hinda Chadwick
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