Creative Living with Jamie with Amy Palko

This podcast is 27:45.

This week's guest: Amy Palko, writer, academic and spiritual seeker

Website: Amy Palko Website
Community Site: Bloom by Moon
Twitter: @amypalko

Amy is a writer, photographer, academic, teacher, spiritual seeker, wife and home-educating mother of 3. She plays many roles in her life, but the thread that runs through each is the sacred feminine. Whether she is photographing close-up images of flowers, facilitating a goddess workshop, teaching her students new ways to approach narrative, or providing a nurturing learning environment for her own children, She does so from a place of love and compassion. She creates and holds spaces for illumination to occur. She has recently launched an new online community/flexible course called Bloom by Moon which explores the different cycles of the moon as a way of honouring and celebrating the sacred feminine.

Show Notes...

• Jamie mentions that Amy is an alumni of Circe’s Circle: Your Creative Dream Team. If you’d love this small group program to support your creative dreams, sign up to receive information about our next session here.
• Amy mentions the book Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives.
• Amy refers to Barbara Sher’s book What Do I Do When I Want to Do Everything?. In North America, I believe that book is I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was. Refuse to Choose! is also a Barbara Sher book designed for scanners.
• Amy shares that her mom writes morning pages, referring to the process by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way of writing 3 pages of long-hand free-form writing every morning.
• Jamie mentions the book I’m currently reading, The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters.

Subscribe to Creative Living with Jamie...

• You can subscribe to Creative Living with Jamie here and also on iTunes here (Note: this link will ask to access your iTunes and then take you to the podcast. You can also simply open iTunes and search for "Creative Living with Jamie)

Creative Living with Jamie with guest Helen Yee

This podcast is 28:35

This week's guest: Helen Yee, improvising violinist, multi-instrumentalist, composer

Website: Helen Yee.com
Blog: first a glimmer
Twitter: @helyee
Facebook: Helen Yee on Facebook
CD and Music Downloads: Trio Tritticali and CD Baby


Helen Yee is an improvising violinist, multi-instrumentalist, composer with experience in a broad range of music genres. Currently violinist for the eclectic string trio, Trio Tritticali she also performs on yangqin, a Chinese hammer dulcimer, with Music From China. A multicreative adventurer at heart, she also loves exploring and collaborating in other forms of improvisation including vocal work, movement and text improv. She considers the practice of improvisation a profound teacher, in art and in life.

Show Notes...

• Jamie talks about using FreeTranslation.com.
• Jamie shares some wisdom she picked up from Chaz of Yogamazing.
• Helen mentions Artists Way.

Subscribe to Creative Living with Jamie...

• You can subscribe to Creative Living with Jamie here and also on iTunes here (Note: this link will ask to access your iTunes and then take you to the podcast. You can also simply open iTunes and search for "Creative Living with Jamie)

Bizarre and Flawed, by Julie Gibbons

“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you." Frida Kahlo

---oooOooo---

Hello, you out there.

I am so pleased to meet you!

I see your bizarre flaws and I love you for them.

Will you be my {strange} friend?

With love,
Julie xo

---oooOooo---

Julie Gibbons is an artful self-help guide. What that really means is that she shares personal stories and artful techniques to help women invoke the creative magic they need to discover their whole, true and best self. Artful self help is a combination of art and journal therapy and the psychology of self, which allows you to tap into soul wisdom and experience personal growth, healing and transformation.

Blog & Website | Facebook Page

Creative Living with Jamie - with guest Jodi Crane

This podcast is 25:00.

This week's guest: Jodi Crane, play therapist

Blog: Playcrane

Twitter: @playcrane

Instagram: Playcrane

Twitter: Playcrane


Jodi Crane wears many hats and she likes it that way. She is a wife, a mom of two, and a counseling professor in the School of Professional Counseling at Lindsey Wilson College where she directs the Appalachian Play Therapy Center. As a play therapist she is very active in the Association for Play Therapy where she serves on many committees and is its Mining Report Editor.

She loves all things creative including photography, mixed media art, writing, blogging, and social media.

Show Notes...

• I mentioned getting great business cards at moo.com.
• Jodi Mentioned author Adriana Trigiani author of Big Stone Gap: A Novel (Big Stone Gap Novels).
• She mentioned her mentor, Dr. Garry Landreth.
• Her sister, Cori Berg of Sacred Arts Studio.
• She talked about just completing Liz Lamoreux’s Create Space and going on retreat with Liz, Kelly Barton and Jennifer McGuiggan, the Word Cellar
• Jodi shared her way in to the world of blogging started with Taking Flight Taking Flight: Inspiration And Techniques To Give Your Creative Spirit Wings by Kelly Rae Roberts.

Subscribe to Creative Living with Jamie...

• You can subscribe to Creative Living with Jamie here and also on iTunes here (Note: this link will ask to access your iTunes and then take you to the podcast. You can also simply open iTunes and search for "Creative Living with Jamie)

Connect to Creative Living with Jamie...

• You can email your feedback, questions and suggestions to Jamie.
• You can also call and leave your thoughts on our guest line at (512) 827-0505 ext 8766.

Collaboration (spread the love!) by Angel Young

Where is the line between collaboration and protecting your own work? It's certainly a thing I've been pondering lately.

Italian Street Artist Collaborating with the Highways Department!

Recently I attended a real time class with someone I greatly admired, an artist who's work really has such a great vibe - you know the ones I mean, where something universal runs through their art, regardless of the medium, and you can feel the purity of the universe has been combined into that piece or poem or dance, whatever! 

But the course was a bit of a let down because the artist was reluctant to share those techniques, worried we would copy and undo the considerable body of study they had undertaken.

I can understand the concern, but it seemed to me that was a profound misunderstanding of most artists' intentions. We all are trying to tune into our muse, and let the universe flow through us, and because each of us is unique, the creation is by necessity, altered. What I am trying to create is very different, even though I'd hoped some of the techniques would prove useful. After all we all "stand on the shoulders of giants" and spark off each others' creations.

I'm wary of claiming ownership in this way in my work, I see that I am channeling that universal vibe, which combines the current moment, and all those moments which have lead to that one. It's the nature of the creative act. And I expect those that follow will do the same. Rather than feeling ownership I feel honoured to have inspired others. Imitation opens the door to a revised version that speaks to another generation. To be creative is to be at the cutting edge of life. So for me, share your work and share the love. Don't be fearful, and trust in your version of the vibe. See what comes after as your collaboration with the future, and the atoms that made your work exciting will be reinvented a thousand times into the future. And that is the gift of collaboration, knowingly or otherwise. Let's share the love! It makes the world a better place.

Angel Young is resting in Venice this week, amongst a thousand layers of history and collaboration.

Creative Living with Jamie with guest Meghan Genge

This week’s podcast is 21:31 long

This week's guest: Meghan Genge, writer

Her new website: Creating Wings
Her personal blog: More to Me
She is a partner in: Randomly Challenged, a website that is dedicated to being an antidote to all of the online social networking sites that keep you online. Its aim is to dare you to do something different.

Meghan Genge is a Canadian writer who lives and works in the UK. As part of her journey, she has launched a website called Creating Wings. With this site she hopes to 'become the change that she wants to see in the world' by inspiring people to believe in who they really are and to question the rules that they have imposed on themselves. She believes that we need to stop pretending that we are ordinary and remember that we are truly capable of anything.

Show Notes

Meg refers to Morning Pages, which is a daily practice of writing 3 pages of long-hand stream-of-consciousness writing recommendedby Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way

I mentioned my Full Moon Dreamboard Circle.

By the way...

If you're enjoying these interviews, you might like Your Creative Spark. 12 wildly creative women share their stories and strategies for facing creative challenges and releasing your inner artist! This collection features artist & coach Jennifer Lee, domestic diva Suzie Ridler, pet portrait artist Jessie Marianiello, mixed media artist & creativity guide Leah Piken Kolidas, artist & writer Christine Mason Miller, artist & coach Andrea Scher, artist Melanie McMullin, creative goddess Leonie Allan, artist & activist Jen Lemen, photographer & poet Darlene J Kreutzer, writer & coach Sunny Schlenger and writer & artist Laini Taylor. To find out more or to order, click here.

For more episodes of the Creative Living with Jamie podcast, subscribe in iTunes or visit creativelivingwithjamie.ca.

My people: Coming From Crazy by Julie Rorer

Each family has its own difficult scripture - Chinese Proverb

Have you ever had one of those days when your family just makes you want to scream? If I didn't look so much like them I'm sure I’d wonder if I had been adopted. This would explain a lot. Sometimes I seriously just don't get them. Are these people from another planet? These frustrations inevitably lead to a sharp twinge of loneliness. After all, if you don't have your family, who do you have?

Luckily, for a long time now I've been gathering new family members. I call them the family I choose, and they are located all over the world. I’ve even been known to tell these people things like "You know, you are the sister I would have picked if I could have." My chosen family has kept me going through the years. They let me vent, they let me cry, they laugh with me and somehow (even though I am massively flawed) they continue to love me nonetheless all these years later.

The greatest and most amazing person in my chosen family is my husband. I'm still not sure how in the world we were able to find each other, and make it work for so long (coming up on 12 years) and through so much. The twenty-something Julie was not marriage material–not even remotely. Somehow though, he came along, wasn’t repelled by my rough edges, and we ended up married. We get each other. We frequently can tell what the other person is thinking, but not in a creepy way. At least not always in a creepy way. He is a kindred spirit, for sure, and I feel grateful everyday that somehow, someway, it keeps on working.

Everyone needs at least one person (and ideally a whole group) that gets us on that deep level, someone that we can hold close as family no matter whether we share the same blood. It’s far better to share a kindred spirit.

Known in certain circles as Danger Girl, Julie is never afraid to throw caution to the wind and take a chance. She’s been creating things since she was a little girl and shows no signs of stopping. As a grown-up (more or less) she’s created a bath/body products brand, launched the largest indie fashion website (at the time), learned to ride a motorcycle, and done various other things large and small. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and son and a yard full of lizards and is currently writing the book she’s been dreaming about for years.

Influences by Kelly Besecke

I have a thing for singer-songwriters, and lately I've rediscovered my love of crayons (which as a kid, I used to call "crowns"). The other day, these two loves came together when Dan Wilson, who's an artist as well as a songwriter, posted a drawing he made of the names of artists who have influenced him.

Inspired, I got out my crayons and made this list of my creative influences.

Here they are in categories:

Musicians and Artists: Storyhill, The Beatles, The Monkees, David Bowie, Johnny Depp, Claude Monet, Wolf Kahn, and Stuart Davis

Novelists: Jane Austen, E.M. Forster, J.K. Rowling, Ursula LeGuin, Madeleine L'Engle, Ellen Raskin, Lloyd Alexander

Memoirists: Liz Gilbert, Frances Mayes, Dave Barry

Coaches who write: Tama Kieves, Martha Beck, Jamie Ridler

Scholars: Wade Clark Roof, Joseph Campbell, Stephen Prothero, Huston Smith, Paul Ricoeur, Emile Durkheim, Victor Turner, Robert Bellah

I could go on with friends, family, teachers, and organizations that influenced me, but this is the list of people I was drawn to specifically because of their creative work or their creative way of being in the world. But I couldn't resist also including some places that have been important to my creative life:

Places: Nepal, Wisconsin's Devil's Lake Park, and Austin, Texas

Who are the influences that you've chosen?

Kelly Besecke writes about spiritual meaning, progressive religion, and authentic living. Her first book, You Can't Put God in a Box: Thoughtful Spirituality in a Rational Age, will be out November 1. Kelly is a dreamer, a thinker, and an incurable idealist who loves singer-songwriter music, impressionism, and every dog she's ever met.