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Creative and Connected #5 – being accountable to ourselves and others

July 14, 2017

Inspiring resources to keep you creative and connected – this week with a focus on being accountable to ourselves and others!

Here’s a round-up of what I’ve enjoyed and shared this week on various social platforms with a focus on being accountable especially for our long haul creative projects like writing a novel.

Podcasts on being accountable

The Secret Library Podcast – Dal Kular on being at the beginning of the writing process

This podcast was such a treat! It’s a chat between host, Caroline Donahue, and Dal Kular about the beginnings and process of writing. Dal is a special Instagram creative buddy and Caroline is a fabulous coach who works with writers who I happen to be working with right now. So just to be able to hear these two special people, who also have a connection between them, riffing on the writing process together was pure joy!

They talk about the novels they are both writing – the initial ideas, the inspiration, the incubation and the getting down to writing. I loved hearing how their novel ideas were conceived and how they evolved.

The key points for me were all about accountability to ourselves in our bigger and longer creative work.

This includes:

how we can often put this accountability to ourselves around long haul creativity last. As Caroline says in the podcast, she is not late for appointments with others but can be late for writing appointments with herself.
remembering our deep work and those special inspirations that we may lose touch with but that are so important to honour and get back to.
that the process of writing something like a novel has its own special joys like travelling to experience details and being able to shape characters based on your experiences, including negative ones.

As a result of listening to the podcast and a coaching session, I am now aiming to get two larger creative projects including a novel, higher up the order of time priorities!

The Creative Penn – Discipline and Practice in Writing and Swordfighting with Guy Windsor

This podcast is an excellent one about writing discipline and practice using links between martial arts and writing as its basis. Guy Windsor is a swordsman, author and entrepreneur. He chats with Joanna about what writing and martial arts have in common including skill building and dealing with fears.

They focus on practices and tools to create accountability in writing. These include:

starting with achievable goals
using tools to create accountability like word count
making mental adjustments about how we are categorising our writing.

The last one is powerful and involves seeing something like writing a novel as play rather than work. I think this sort of flipping the identity and shifting our mindset is a really great strategy for enjoying those longer engagements that can feel a little daunting. Bring them into the arena of fun!!

Books and reading notes

Reading-wise this week, I started David Whyte’s ‘Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity’. This is a special read and one I’ve been savouring. It’s been such a deep pleasure to enjoy David Whyte’s beautiful poetic prose about work and identity, a theme I have been reflecting on:

Taking any step that is courageous, however small, is a way of bringing any gifts we have to the surface, where they can be received. For that we have to come out of hiding, out from behind the insulation. In a way, we have to come to an understanding of ourselves in our work according to where we have established our edge.

I love this book for how it strives for and celebrates finding wholeness in our identity in the workplace. There will be a special focus on this book later in July here on Quiet Writing, so stay tuned!

I also had the pleasure of reading Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership through Solitude by Raymond M. Kethledge and Michael S. Erwin. I absolutely loved this book on solitude and self-leadership as the heart of leadership. It was a rich experience to reflect on its pages whilst reading. I will be writing about this special book further soon.

Blog/Twitter/Instagram posts and interactions:

I’ve been reading Ellen Bard’s post: How to Set Up an Accountability Group and Get Serious Results and thinking about setting up an accountability group.

I connected with Ellen on social media after listening to her great Creative Penn podcast chat with Joanna Penn on ‘Self-care and Productivity for Authors’ last year. Through our connection, we had a conversation about accountability and the role of accountability groups in helping us be more productive. The blog post spells this out in more detail: the how to’s, the advantages, the guidelines, the results.

Ellen has set up and led accountability groups as a form of inspiration to drive accountability and productivity. It’s also a way of ensuring support for both the good days and the bad days as creatives working in isolation.

As Ellen says in her post, Who’s in your corner? 7 ways to connect with kindred spirits:

I ended up with a group of ten amazing people who have inspired and pushed me to much greater efforts than I would have made alone.

Being held and holding others to be accountable for their actions is powerful and inspiring, and is another way to build connections.

So do read Ellen’s post on setting up an accountability group. And I would love to hear of any of your experiences with accountability groups or partners or if anyone is interested in exploring this further with me! Let me know via the comments or social media. Or you can email me at terri@quietwriting.com

Through Twitter, I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with Content Creator and Social Media Strategist, Bree. A fellow INTJ, she is just awesome with blogging tips. Wait til you see 3 of the best tips for the most successful blog post ever is fabulous is excellent, especially the headline tips and tools that she shares, available free via CoSchedule. I followed her tips and – yes, I had the most successful blog post ever in the past week with 10 Amazing Life Lessons from Swimming in the Sea. Thanks, Bree and a recommended follow on Twitter for you all.

In 7 ways to identify your uniqueness, Business and Life Coach, Naomi Arnold, reminds us that identifying our uniqueness is an important part of our accountability to ourselves in living a wholehearted life. This is a theme that is woven into the heart of Quiet Writing and something I love to write about and work on in my Life Coaching with women.

There’s been some awesome transformational energy around this week. Have you felt it? I wrote about it in my post, Transforming into the new with my Capricorn Full Moon tarot reading. The energies this week have been about embracing our uniqueness as a springboard at this time, especially the threads that tie our unique story together and give it coherence.

My Tarot Narratives on Instagram have been a rich source of inspiration and insight for me and I hope they are connecting with you too. This has been a consistent daily intuitive practice since 1 June now and I haven’t missed a day! It’s so true that as Danielle LaPorte says in White Hot Truth:

And you can keep flexing your intuition (because it’s like a muscle) to feel into the next right step.

Each day deepens my creative connection with tarot and spirit. The messages this week have been around creative order, organising principles things coming together and making sense. And today, there was a beautiful message about manifesting and finding a form for creative inspirations. Love to hear what’s happening for you in finding the form for your creativity!

Tarot narrative for 14 July: finding form You’re finding the form for your creative desires and inspirations now. Whether it be the new business that coalesces your heart or finally bringing that long-held dream to fruition or practically starting the book you’ve been writing in your head, or all three, it’s about manifesting now and finding a shape that’s real. It’s a time of fertility, sculpting, connecting the pieces, working out the organising principles and unearthing the treasure that’s there and bringing it into the light. And sharing the wealth of our discovery so others can also be inspired. #tarotnarrative #eachdayajourney Reading notes: Cards: The Empress and the Ace of Earth (Pentacles) from The Good Tarot deck and #9 Treasure Island from Wisdom of the Oracle. Book notes: Today is about writing your life, creating your story, whatever its form. Find the way to start, continue or shape the form that works for you to help you find the treasure that is uniquely you: “Our stories create us. Our stories tell us and others what is significant and valuable about us. Our stories validate who we are; they are our personal myths.” How are you finding form?Writing Your Life, Patti Miller #quietwriting #intuitivefriday

A post shared by Terri Connellan (@writingquietly) on Jul 13, 2017 at 3:59pm PDT

There was also a fabulously fun chat on Instagram based on this picture about sleep rituals and Sleepytime Tea. This tea is a nightly habit of mine, combined with Rescue Remedy Sleep Spray. Both work wonders for restful sleep! Anyway, pop onto IG to learn more and share your story about restful sleep solutions or chat in the comments.

Response to guest posting on Quiet Writing

I want to thank everyone for their fabulous responses to the opportunity to guest post on Quiet Writing in last week’s Creative and Connected!

I am excited to say we have five very special confirmed guest bloggers lined up for the next months. I can’t wait to share the voices of the Quiet Writing community here to celebrate wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity.

There is one special spot for 18 December left if there is anyone called to write for Quiet Writing just in time for Christmas. I’d love to hear from you, special person!!

I am hoping that we can also consider a regular or one-off publication or online magazine as well.

Feel free to provide any thoughts on the concept of ‘My Wholehearted Story’ – see the previous Creative and Connected post – in the comments or via email. I’d love to hear your thoughts and can’t wait to receive your responses!

Creative and Connected is a regular post each Friday – previous posts below. I hope you enjoy it. I would love any feedback via social media or comments and let me know what you are enjoying too.

Have a fabulous creative weekend!

Writing pic via pexels.com

Keep in touch

Subscribe via email (see the link at the top and below) to make sure you receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions in 2017. This includes MBTI developments, coaching, creativity and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world. My free ebook on the books that have shaped my story is coming soon for subscribers only – so sign up to be the first to receive it!

Quiet Writing is on Facebook – Please visit here and ‘Like’ to keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on tarot, intuition, influence, passion, creativity, productivity, writing, voice, introversion and personality including Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

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creativity inspiration & influence transition

Transforming into the new – Capricorn Full Moon tarot reading

July 10, 2017

“We surrender our old snakeskin, old forms and institutions and await our transformation and expansion into the ‘new’.”

Pat Liles, from The Power Path

The Capricorn Full Moon invites a practical transforming of our lives. This tarot reading reflects on how we can enact and be comfortable with this change.

Here are some thoughts on this Full Moon in Capricorn from Mystic Mamma to set the scene for the energies available to us:

FULL MOON* coming into bloom in Capricorn brings core issues to the forefront of our consciousness. This is a time to strengthen personal boundaries and time to honor our feelings as we carefully navigate the delicate shores of our relationships.

This Full Moon has powerful energies for valuable insights about transforming ourselves. It’s time to tap into our personal story to find the way forward.

Chad Woodward says:

Distance and solitude may be your best tactic in dealing with these energies. In fact, this is a good time to step away from any developing, external drama to assess your own life position to gain insight into the changes that need to be made at this time..”

It’s a big picture shift. There’s an emphasis on understanding our story and the threads that connect it at a deep level. This Capricorn New Moon provides an opportunity to set intentions around creative and life practices that will help us break through, especially self-discipline.

It’s a time to ground ourselves through supports such as community. This practical restructuring is an opportunity to move into new ways of being and feeling less hamstrung. In this way, we can be more comfortable and authentic in new levels of work, service and creativity. It signals the opportunity to shed what no longer serves us in a dramatic way.

Full Moon in Capricorn tarot reading tools:

For my reading for the Capricorn Full Moon, I worked with:

This FULL Moon tarot spread by Sam Roberts aka @escapingstars on Instagram:

And I worked with the Sakki Sakki Tarot deck by Monicka Clio Sakki which is my favourite tarot deck especially for questions around creativity.

Tarot reading:

So here’s the reading:

There was definitely a big smile of recognition as the Three of Coins (Pentacles) arrived first up in the “Where are you in life right now?” position. I had already pulled this card earlier the same day as part of my daily Tarot Narrative reading and linked it with creative solitude. And it’s the card that featured in my launch of Quiet Writing Coaching as the beautiful Three of Air. Remember the butterfly glasses? It was linked to building a solid foundation and co-creation. ‘The architecture of my dreams is becoming tangible, taking shape before me’ as The Good Tarot puts it.

STRENGTH has also popped up a lot lately, three times in a row the week before. So strength, and how we recognise it in our lives, jumps out as a key theme.

Then there are the big cards of DEATH and THE WORLD – some huge transformational energies and directions there! The NINE of COINS and KNIGHT of CUPS also provide clues around realising dreams and recognising gains already made. They provide guidance about being comfortable and pragmatic with these next steps of change.

Tarot reading – card by card:

So here are some deeper thoughts, card by card, in relation to the questions. I worked intuitively with some key supporting words from the Mystic Mamma post, the Sakki Sakki tarot guidebook Playing with Symbols, Jessa Crispin’s fabulous book The Creative Tarot and Rachel Pollack’s Tarot Wisdom.

1 Where are you in life right now? THREE OF COINS (PENTACLES)

This signals a level of reaching a special place whilst still building the foundations and working out the creative architecture. I have written about this card in my Tarot Narrative series as like building a cathedral, an image drawn from both Jessa Crispin’s commentary in Creative Tarot and Sage Cohen’s book, Fierce on the Page.

There’s a sense of laying the foundations, connecting the critical pieces and combining the essential ingredients to do our big work in the world. It’s about restructuring our practices and priorities to achieve what we want. We’re investing time and solitude to work out the collaborators, the values and the skills. As Rachel Pollack reinforces in Tarot Wisdom:

Thus, practical knowledge and spiritual awareness help to produce work of the highest level.

So, this card reminds me that I’m in a good place and working on my deep work in the world.

2 How do you project yourself to the world? What is the truth of your relationships in your life? STRENGTH

My sense of this card is around realising our own brand of strength. Strength flows from so many places: our inner resources, our family, our friends, our community, our online connections, the kindred souls we connect with each day, our ancestors, our guides, our mentors, our teachers. All of these resources combine to help us forge our way. We can focus on the lack of strength we occasionally feel, but we can also draw on these immense resources and feel strong for the transformation journey.

Part of this is realising and embracing our vulnerabilities as well. They make us authentic and strong in our own way – our learnings, our challenges and our resilience.

As Monicka Clio Sakki reminds us for the Strength card:

Inside our soft spots, where we hold our greatest weaknesses, confusions and fears, we can find hints of how to transform ourselves and manifest our ideals.

So being strong involves being grateful for and marshalling significant support and resources. It also involves embracing vulnerabilities as a source of growth, communication and authenticity.

3 What is blocking your desires and goals? KNIGHT of CUPS

The Knight of Cups arrives with his gorgeous romantic nature to remind me to be grounded and to balance self and service. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in our own work. It’s important to remember the gift of practical service and translating things into the real world. I need to make sure I am connected.

An excellent article, Bridging the online business and humanitarian worlds from life coach and human rights activist, Naomi Arnold, popped into my Twitter feed today to say exactly this:

I hope we can stand firm in our integrity and always be mindful of how we are balancing serving ourselves and others.

And Jessa Crispin reminds us:

Whatever the inspiration or connection the Knight of Cups carries, if he or she cannot translate that into something that can exist in the real world, it loses its power.

4 What do you need to do to overcome these obstacles? NINE of COINS

The Nine of Coins suggests the need to realise gains, celebrate and recognise the riches. It’s important to operate from an environment of abundance not lack and to know our worth.

Ironically perhaps, one of the best ways to overcome the obstacles of being focused on the self is to realise the successes and what comes with that. Having reached a certain point of comfort with strengths realised and foundations built, there’s pride and also a responsibility. And with this comes a sense of moving on with the work and not concentrating on the paths to get there so much.

We can stop the machinations and get on with practical and genuine service, stepping into our power and sharing it. It’s about knowing our true worth in every sense and tapping into that to be of service through our creativity and insights. It’s a higher level view we can now shift to.

5 What can you do within yourself in order to help achieve these desires? DEATH

Finally committing to transforming means looking at what no longer serves to supports this higher purpose. Whether it be old habits, contexts, institutions, self-images or patterns, this is the opportunity to shift up a gear and beyond what might hold us back. If we are moving on, we are moving on. It’s time to get real with that and throw overboard any heavy weights keeping us slowed down.

As Jessa Crispin puts it so beautifully:

Death allows us to bid farewell to the way we were working or living before, and that change can have great inspirational impact on us.

6 What can you learn from the outside world/others to help you manifest your goals/desires? KING of SWORDS

In line with that grounding of being in service and community, it’s important to be disciplined and focused in meeting the needs of others. I need my ideas to coalesce with others, forming a connection in creativity.

There’s so much strength in community and support of all kinds as the STRENGTH card showed. It’s seeing how we can work together to achieve mutual goals. This also might mean opening up our work and platform to others.

This is exactly what I started doing last week with offering an opportunity for guest blogging on Quiet Writing via my Creative and Connected post. It’s the first time I have opened up my blog and platform in this way. I have been so excited to make the offer and for the heartfelt responses that have come forward. This shows me that our work is about collaboration in so many ways and our collective voices can strengthen each other.

The whole philosophy of being creative and connected has become a driving force for Quiet Writing. I am so looking forward to this being an ongoing, bigger and transforming part of its focus and service. I hope you’ll be a part of it!

7 The projected outcome? The WORLD

A lot of the messages I’ve received lately via tarot and oracle intuitive tools have been about the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. This card shows a culmination step, a pause in gathering and reflecting, but also one of mastery and self-actualisation. It’s really happening! It’s time to shine!

As Monicka Clio Sakki tells us:

The World represents the last step of the journey – the completion of a full cycle. We have traveled along our worldly path with discipline and devotion, joyously gathering the lessons and gifts given to us. We are now ready to dance our own Dance of Life, understanding that true freedom is commitment to a cause or goal. It is time to be whoever we wish to become.

That balance between self and service arises here again to remind us that we go through cycles of personal growth. We withdraw and skill up, working on our intuition, creativity or other talents. Then comes a time to see how this links with practical service and being of value to others. The learnings from our journey with all its vulnerabilities can be shared to help others likewise shine, share and transform. It becomes a kind of collective transformation that gathers strength from its community and moves in new directions, taking an organic life of its own.

Ways to step into the new

So are your thoughts also around transforming and stepping into the new: comfortably, practically and with a balance between self and service?

Here are some practical questions prompted by the Capricorn Full Moon and reflections on my reading.They are around realising our own brand of strength, our progress and steps into the new. They also focus on being comfortable with this so we can move on and foster increased community and value.

Journal, reflect or brainstorm around these questions to help maximise your personal change management at this time:

Where have you been working to build strong foundations in your work and growth?
What have you achieved?: What skills or products have you developed? Which courses have you finished? Which goals have you reached?
How have you celebrated or marked your achievements?
Where are you potentially focusing on self too much or at the expense of service?
When are you being a little too self-indulgent and it’s maybe not helping?
Where can you extend any significant change and learning processes to others?
What vulnerabilities might you share to help others on their journey and how might you do that?
What are the sources of your strength – people, skills, guides, spiritual support – and how can you strengthen these strengths?
Where can you connect up with others in service? How can you share your platform or skills to support and foster the growth of others?
Where can you choose to feel more comfortable with what you have achieved?
What creative practices can you put in place to lead a more self-disciplined life?
Which negative self-images or associations can you now let go of as you move on?
What can you build? What’s the blueprint for your big plan?
What does this new world look like for you and others?

Wisdom from The World

And here is some final wisdom from The World via the Art of Life Tarot:

May you build your new world on strong foundations with the help of those who can support and strengthen you. And through that, may you be of service to others and have a fun and productive learning experience!

Butterfly feature image from pexels.com and used with permission and thanks.

Keep in touch

Quiet Writing is on Facebook – Please visit here and ‘Like’ to keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on tarot, intuition, influence, passion, creativity, productivity, writing, voice, introversion and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

Subscribe via email (see the link at the top and below) to make sure you receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions in 2017. This includes MBTI developments, coaching, creativity and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world. Free ebook on the books that have shaped my creativity coming soon for subscribers only!

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Finishing on a high note – closure, letting go and moving on

Feelings as paths to artistry: New Moon in Cancer tarot reading

Finding our heart path: Full Moon in Sagittarius tarot reading

creativity inspiration & influence intuition

Feelings as paths to artistry – New Moon in Cancer tarot reading

June 26, 2017

“Emotion like water must be free to move and flow”

Pat Liles, from The Power Path

The New Moon in Cancer invites us to flow with emotions. This tarot reading for the New Moon reflects on ways that feelings can be paths to artistry.

Here are some thoughts on this New Moon in Cancer from Mystic Mamma to set the scene for the energies available to us:

*NEW MOON* SuperMoon in Cancer on the heels of the Solstice, brings us an opportunity to begin again. She brings acknowledgement of our feelings and helps us uncover a deep seated remembrance that renews our connection with Source. Her gentle Life Wisdom returns us back home to our hearts.

Being focused on water and emotion, this New Moon feels like it’s all about learning to flow with our intuition and letting our feelings wash over and through us. From this, we can learn what feels right and what doesn’t. We can identify what no longer serves us and move through to new beginnings and moving more fully into our creativity.

This Cancer New Moon provides an opportunity to set intentions around working with feelings: feeling any loss, disappointment, the ebb and flow, the rainbows of opportunity and the freedom of letting go of what no longer serves us. This way we can step openheartedly into a new beginning or continue on a more optimistic path to artistry.

New moon in Cancer tarot reading tools:

For my reading for the Cancer New Moon, I worked with:

This New Moon tarot spread by Sam Roberts aka @escapingstars on IG:

And I worked with the Sakki Sakki Tarot deck by Monicka Clio Sakki which is my favourite tarot deck especially for questions around creativity.

Tarot reading: The Star, The Fool, The Artist

So here’s the reading:

First up – I had to laugh in recognition at the Ten of Swords coming straight out the blocks around “Where am I right now in my life?” Yes, it is feeling a bit Ten of Swords right now, it’s true and I own my part in contributing to that feeling and getting stuck there. It’s great I can laugh about it now. Once upon a time, the Ten of Swords would freak me out with its direct imagery. But now I see it as a positive thing, a reminder to move on and through anything negative I’m focusing on that is holding me back.

It was so fabulous to see the The Star, The Fool and The Artist appearing in this spread with their individual and collective magic around artistry and creativity. I was especially happy to see The Artist arrive, a card unique to the Sakki Sakki deck and linked to the planet Chiron which focuses on artistry, doing our art and the process of creating our lives. And the Five of Cups, being a watery card, seems to be the key for setting intentions for this New Moon.

Tarot reading – card by card:

So here are some deeper thoughts, card by card, in relation to the questions. I worked intuitively with some key supporting words from the Mystic Mamma post above, the Sakki Sakki tarot guidebook, the The Nomad Guide to the Tarot, Colette Baron-Reid’s The Good Tarot guidebook and Jessa Crispin’s awesome book The Creative Tarot.

1 Where am I right now in my life? TEN of SWORDS

Yes, I’m feeling somewhat back-stabbed, a bit low and yes, it feels somewhat overdone at this time through my own thought patterns. And yes, some things are over and best left behind. It’s time to take what I need from those experiences and move on.

The Nomad Guide to the Tarot reminds us around this card that it’s how we replay any betrayal in our own minds that creates the biggest impact. Remaining a victim does not serve us.

So, this card reminds me that the only way is up. I need to look at how I am complicit in my own negativity. Working through feelings and being optimistic, taking what I need and moving on seems to be the message from this card at this time.

2 What is blocking me for growing? What do I need to leave behind? The STAR

Worrying about others, comparisons and worrying about where I need to be.
I need to leave this behind and follow my own orientation and constellation, my own bright star and know that that is exactly where I need to be.

As Jessa Crispin’s ‘The Creative Tarot’ reminds us:

..at the end of that process is the Star. Orientation. You figure out where you are, you figure out how to navigate your way to getting there. It’s card of healing, of feeling perfectly placed.

It’s time to let go of that comparison focus, that measurement against others, that tracking against others’ constellations. It’s truly time to navigate by the compass points of my passions and feelings. The healing is in trusting your own inspiration and influences and bringing them together in your own unique, incomparable way.

3 What intentions should I set in order to grow? FIVE of CUPS

I should look at the full cups and not just the empty or fallen cups at this time.
I need to accept the loss of some things and find the hope and excitement in moving on.

Key words from Sakki Sakki Tarot: “loss of one’s dreams, disappointment, incomplete relationships, accepting loss, regret, finding hope.”

There’s definitely some releasing of grief to be done here. It’s more the grief of seeing how you thought life was going and then finding it’s not going that way. It’s not bad; in fact, it’s possibly fabulous. But it doesn’t mean that there’s not some grief around identity, the person you thought you were or that part of you that you saw shining in that way.

‘The Creative Tarot’ reminds us for the Five of Cups:

The only way is through. Feel the loss, but then eventually get over it so you can get back to work. (Page 157)

The Good Tarot Guidebook, in its affirmative and optimistic style, offers positive ways of reframing for the future and these ones speak to me:

I feel the fullness of my emotions as they wash through me.

The ebb and flow are part of life, and I am present in my feelings today.

I deserve the freedom that comes when I release what is no longer working for me.

Pat Liles from The Power Path suggests that this fullness of emotions connects right through to our deepest levels:

Under the influence of this water sign, our emotional, feeling bodies are opened up, we nourish ourselves at the deepest root levels, and we connect in new powerful ways to our ancestral roots and to our clans, tribes and families.

The image of a waterfall seems so apt now – that sense of being washed through with the freshest water of our emotions, feeling it at the deepest levels. I swam in a cool waterfall pool this week at the winter solstice and it felt so refreshing, like being washed clear but connecting deeply with what matters. This is what is called for now.

4 What knowledge do I need to gain to aid in the cultivation of my intentions? THE FOOL

have a beginner’s mind, be open, see afresh, feel anew
let it all wash through so I can start again
embrace the unknown

Key words from Sakki Sakki Tarot: “blank slate, no mind, new beginnings, embracing the unknown, inner trust, naivete, leap of faith.”

As the Sakki Sakki Guidebook reminds us, it’s time to “follow unconventional paths into the unknown”.

So The Fool together with the Star and Five of Cups is suggesting that the knowledge needed is openness, a willingness to experiment and tread new paths. As with the reminder not to be focused on comparison, it’s about making new ground, new connections and not being afraid to be different.

Our own uniqueness can be a form of healing as Mark Nepo reminds us for the wisdom for the day I am writing (25 June) in The Book of Awakening:

We become so preoccupied with what we are not able to address, what we are not able to mend, what we are not able to leave behind, that we forget that whatever we are in the light of day is slowly, but surely, healing the rest of us.

It’s time to focus on what is rather than what is not.

5 What positive energy will emerge during this phase? The ARTIST

The Artist is a 79th card in the Sakki Sakki Tarot deck. It’s about the energy of creation. And it’s about process and the artistry of creating one’s own life.

Key words from the Sakki Sakki Tarot: “everyone is an artist, crafting one’s own life, living one’s truth, artist as a process, not a state. believing without knowing.”

It’s the card I chose to symbolise Quiet Writing when I launched my brand and business into the world in September last year with my new website. This post focused on The Artist and its message:

Quiet Writing is about the strength that comes from working steadily and without fanfare in writing and other spheres to create, coalesce, influence and connect. It’s an opportunity to muse and reflect on my core values and the interplay between them. In this, I draw on and connect my various experiences and interests as well as connecting with others who share them.

Many of us have been on what Elizabeth Gilbert calls, in one of her wonderful Magic Lessons, ‘the long runway’ and it’s valuable preparation we need to acknowledge. I want to honour the process as much as the product here; the being, becoming and journey as much as the arrival; the artistry behind the closed curtains and doors.

The Artist card in the Sakki Sakki Tarot deck beautifully symbolises this potential and opportunity:

This is not to say that publication, product and stage are not important and a desirable outcome; but we can focus too much on that external validation and not value our work and its process as it evolves in the present. The act of quiet writing and the solitude to capture ideas and craft them, especially for introverts who so need this, is the space from which so much can flow, connect and be created. The conditions, environment, relationships and influences which enable our creative endeavours to flourish are also crucial shaping factors.

I’m interested especially in the gift of writing and finding our unique voice to articulate our place in the world and express the artistry of everyday life.

So it seems this positive energy is about getting back to my original vision for Quiet Writing and honouring it in everything I do. Especially it’s about honing our unique voice to articulate our place and our personal artistry in the world.

As the Sakki Sakki Tarot Guidebook reminds us:

When you don’t know which way to go, focus on working your art, because this will show you the way.

Ways to honour artistry

So are your thoughts also around how we craft our own life, the process rather than the product and moving through the emotions that honour that?

If so, here are some questions around this prompted by the Cancer New Moon, the tarot spread by Sam Roberts and reflections on my reading.

They are around practically embracing artistry and moving through silencing the inner critic and being playful.

Journal, reflect or brainstorm around them to help your own artistry begin to unfold further at this time of opportunity:

How is your art or your creativity showing you the way?
How can you work further with your creativity to help you shift into the unknown in a positive way?
Where are you still remaining a victim or focusing on negative thoughts?
How can you move through this – waterfall and Five of Cups style – letting it wash through you and moving on eg journalling, unsent letter to whatever/whoever caused the pain, dialoguing with the pain, writing it all on a piece of paper and burning it or throwing it away?
How can you be present in your feelings today?
What are the full cups in your life – the ones you need to celebrate and nurture?
Where do you need to practise having a beginner’s mind?
How can you practically do this: vision board work, brainstorming, writing what’s in your heart, following your passions even thought you don’t know where they might lead?
What does “the artistry of everyday life” meant to you and how can you practise it?
What’s your intention, following your own journey, for this New Moon in Cancer?

Wisdom from The Star

And here is some final wisdom from The Star via the Art of Life Tarot:

May you follow the bright star of the constellation of you this New Moon. And may it lead you into prosperous and happier times. As Dante Alighieri reminds us, it can’t fail us.

Waterfall feature image from pexels.com and used with permission and thanks.

Keep in touch

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If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Finding our heart path: Full Moon in Sagittarius tarot reading

An invitation to mastery: Full Moon in Scorpio Tarot Reading

Dance to a new beat – Full Moon in Virgo

creativity inspiration & influence

Creative and connected #2 – this week’s inspiration

June 23, 2017

Inspiring resources to keep you creative and connected!

Here’s a round up of what I’ve enjoyed and shared this week on various social platforms:

Podcasts

My favourite podcast listen of the week was Joanna Penn’s recent chat (5 June 2017) with Nick Stephenson on The Creative Penn podcast: How to Manage Your Time and Automate your Author Marketing.

The conversation focuses on designing our businesses to suit our personalities and reflects on how especially for introverts, some activities can be especially draining and not a good return on the time invested. Joanna and Nick talk about how to say no to opportunities and options that aren’t a good fit. There’s also a special focus on how to automate parts of your business so it’s not so labour intensive. Whether you are working on an author or coaching business or just looking at how you prioritise and manage your time, it’s excellent and fun listening.

Books and reading notes

Much of my focus in reading right now is going into the ebook that I am writing on the books that have influenced me. I look forward to sharing this with you soon. Plus my daily Tarot Narratives on Instagram feature revisiting favourite and connected reads that tarot inspires. So there’s a lot of reading going on traversing realms I have already visited that is only making me want to read many books all over again!

I’ve also focused on finishing the books I’ve been reading recently. I finished ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’ which was an enjoyable fantasy read – and not a genre I read very often. I’m also close to finishing ‘Rise Sister Rise’, by Rebecca Campbell which is inspiring me every time I open it and is highly recommended. I’m also making good progress with Business for Authors: How to be an Author Entrepreneur by Joanna Penn as an audiobook when I’m on the road. All these were mentioned in more detail in last week’s Creative and Connected post.

I’m looking forward to starting some new reads this coming week. My planned reads are:

Love Warrior – by Glennon Doyle Melton – a memoir I’ve heard so much about and want to experience.

Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity, by David Whyte – recommended by my dear friend Katherine and a book I know I need to read right now. It’s well overdue. This book is about work as an opportunity for discovery and growth.

The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life, by Mark Nepo – a book that’s been sitting close by because I know I need to read it. It popped up in one of my Tarot Narratives this week to remind me it’s time!

Both David Whyte and Mark Nepo are favourite authors because they focus on journeys to wholeness – such as how the corporate world and poetry come together and living a life with nothing held back whatever the context. These are themes that I connect with so strongly as I develop my coaching and writing work in the world and support others with feeling wholehearted.

Blog/Twitter/Instagram posts and interactions:

In terms of reads and posts on personality and MBTI preferences and functions, I enjoyed these reads:

On Life Reaction: this read about managing intuitive and sensoric functions in relationships
This video from Carl Jung and shared by @uber_chill also explains these differences.

I love this story told by Carl Jung which has helped me understand the intuitive vs sensory type differences.

You might also enjoy my own post here on Quiet Writing on Personality, story and Introverted Intuition which provides a brief overview of personality and focuses on my dominant function, Introverted Intuition, as a starting point.

Many thanks to Quiet Writing reader Claire of the beautiful Nest of Mist for alerting me to Debra Eve’s Later Bloomer website where ‘Creativity Never Gets Old’ – and hooray for that! Debra’s website is a fabulous celebration of late bloomers from all walks of life – artists, athletes, explorers and writers – and encourages us to embrace creativity wherever we are in our lives. I especially enjoyed the post on James Michener – one of my dear Dad’s favourite authors. I can remember summer holidays by the beach with ‘The Source’ and other similar epic novels being eagerly embraced with such relish and joy. The post made me think of how creativity and a love of reading is communicated through family connections and through what we see others enjoy. I think my Dad was an INTJ MBTI type like me – he also really loved Ayn Rand!

On Instagram, there’s been a fabulous week of prompts around #mywritinglife created by Vanessa Carnevale which started on Monday 19 June. The prompts are:

Writing Space
Current WIP
Favourite Books
Inspiration
Writing Fuel
Current Read
TBR Pile

There’s still time to join in or just take the time to make some new writer connections via the hashtag. There’s inspiration and insight there into workspaces, works in progress and favourite books.

Here’s my post for day 4 Inspiration based on a walk in the Royal National Park and location as muse – my local environment is such a source of inspiration!

Day #4 #mywritinglife #inspiration Location as muse: where I live, my sanctuary and sacred creative space. This pic from a winter solstice walk in the Royal National Park and the beautiful Curracurrang pool where I swam. #quietwriting

A post shared by Terri Connellan (@writingquietly) on Jun 22, 2017 at 4:04am PDT

I am also so enjoying my Tarot Narrative project and posts each day on Instagram, working with tarot and oracle cards to prepare the guidance intuitively, linking them with books and the interactions arising from this. It’s become such a deep practice to start my day. Thanks for the engaging connection with this work – I hope it’s helpful and welcome any feedback!

Creative and Connected is a regular post each Friday. I hope you enjoy it – I would love any feedback via social media or comments and let me know what you are enjoying too! Have a fabulous creative weekend.

Here’s a final thought from Julia Cameron:

#creativity #juliacameron #theartistsway #artist #writing

A post shared by Julia Cameron (@juliacameronlive) on Jun 22, 2017 at 8:46am PDT

Keep in touch

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

6 Inspiring Podcasts for Creatives and Book Lovers

Creative and Connected #1

creativity inspiration & influence intuition

Finding our heart path – Full Moon in Sagittarius tarot reading

June 11, 2017

“Be the flame and not the moth.”

Giovanni Giacomo Casanova

via The Creative Tarot – Jessa Crispin

The Full Moon in Sagittarius invites us think about how about our heart path. This tarot reading for the full moon reflects on ways to find our true story.

Here are some thoughts on this Full Moon in Sagittarius from Mystic Mamma to set the scene for the energies available to us:

*FULL MOON* rising in Sagittarius asks us to focus on our heart’s pathway.

With so much swirling, we can easily feel despondent about our future but by narrowing our focus deeper into heart inquiry, we can access revealing truths to consider. Focusing our attention within can bring much expansion about.

As we work creatively in the world, we need to listen within to find our purpose, what to bring together, who to work with and what to leave behind. Focusing within, going deeper is highlighted at this time.

Here are a few key thoughts that resonated from Mystic Mamma’s curated messages on the Sagittarius Full Moon:

From Leah Whitehorse:

In our own lives, we are being asked to sift through the information we have to figure out the truth so that we can clearly define where we’re going. Right now it feels like there’s something we need to understand at a much deeper level than we do…

…Loss is hard and we must grieve but then we must write a new story, with better ending.

From Chad Woodward:

Saturn in Sagittarius suggests narrowing our focus and sacrificing anything superfluous to avoid getting lost in uncertainty, confusion, and vagueness of purpose.

From Pat Liles:

Neptune is also the apex of a Finger of God ~ look to intuition, the poetic, your dreams and what dances you to loosen the deep cultural deception that binds us to the old martyred ways…

This Sagittarius Full Moon provides the right conditions for expanding into our true heart path. It also helps us shed what is no longer relevant or holding us back from our potential, especially around old ways of thinking.

Full moon in Sagittarius tarot reading tools:

For my reading for the Sagittarius Full Moon I worked with:

This Sagittarius Full Moon tarot spread by Sam Roberts aka @escapingstars on IG:

And for my deck, I chose The Good Tarot by Colette Baron-Reid. This was my first full reading with this deck apart from my initial deck interview. The Good Tarot is Colette’s newest deck, blending tarot and oracle, and it focuses on birthing our true selves, so perfect for this time. From The Good Tarot Guidebook:

It especially speaks to the joyful potential that is inherent in the journey through chaos and disorder to divine order, a journey that offers infinite opportunities to co-create your best life.

The deck focuses on finding light and positive affirmations and features the most beautiful illustrations by Jena DellaGrottaglia.

It was a quiet morning with my favourite lime, basil and mandarin candle and thoughts of how to bring together disparate aspects of my life and how to find a way through this new time.

Tarot reading:

So here’s the reading:

First up – look at all that Fire! Three cards from the suit of Fire or Wands so there’s that focus on finding light, working with your passions and leaving some things behind you. Just before doing this spread, I was reading ‘An Abundant Life‘ by Dr Ezzie Spencer about the Full Moon and releasing what no longer serves. ‘Burn Baby Burn’ was the heading! Just look at that 10 of Fire with the all those papers of the past burning away.

There’s also a lovely touch of water, intuition and playing with creativity with both the King and Page of Water (Cups). And the grounding influence of the 9 of Earth (Pentacles) and Patience, representing moderation traditionally known as Temperance.

I’m drawn to these Fire cards as the dominant theme. ‘Passion’ is my word of the year for 2017 and the Queen of Fire (Wands) has been making regular visitations, including this Queen who I met in a guided visualisation in Susannah Conway’s In Our Element course, even before I saw the card.

With three Fire cards, one Major Arcana card, 3 court cards and the energy of 2 Nines and a Ten – it seems to be pointing to the ending of one cycle and the beginning of another and finding new ways to hone vision and creativity in the world.

Tarot reading – card by card:

So here’s some deeper thoughts, card by card, in relation to the questions. I mainly worked intuitively with some key supporting words from The Good Tarot Guidebook and The Creative Tarot by Jessa Crispin.

1 What is the area of my life I should be on high alert about? QUEEN of FIRE (WANDS)

creativity, opportunities, weaving magic, connecting ideas
bringing together passions so I can shine, collaboration with others
tapping into spirit to bring this together, tuning into signs, being receptive

Key words from The Good Tarot: co-creation, creative collaborations, soul connections