Tag: self publishing

Words in Sentences

And then Spirit sent Fawn

by ErinLeave a Comment on And then Spirit sent Fawn

Back in March, when I was soaking in a hot tub in Palm Springs – I met LaRissa, a woman one month my senior (to the exact date, if I remember correctly) and we connected on all things spiritual. The desert mountains were snow capped, I was at ease – we ended up having a conversation not in the hot tub & over oat milk lattes before she left to go back to CO and it was for sure we were friends. Even now, knowing I want to give her a call today – I feel this complete recognition that she is meant to be a friend in this season of my life.

This season of my life…

I overwhelm myself sometimes with how much I have going at once. Constantly having to assess and say “is this aligned”, “is this life giving”, “does this feel energized and expansive”… Yet this season of my life is showing buds and starting to reveal what this next harvest of fruit might look like. That sentence reminds me of a project that came up for attention last night, a little draft I started, and the feeling of excitement I get when I want to share it with somebody – even if prematurely.

When I say “reminds me of a project that came up for attention”, I mean exactly that: I am laying in bed, I am attempting to sleep and then an idea comes up and I will just lay there and explore it in my mind. I will see it and watch it and (most importantly) feel it and some to dos, some action items, will trickle out of the time. Sometimes getting me out of bed completely…

Yesterday I had coffee with Fawn, a woman about 20 years my senior which is always a nice welcome reprieve for my psyche. I love to hear myself talk but when I am with women my senior, the fact they have a decade or more on me prompts me to listen – intently – for clues, or “crumbs” as Fawn calls them.

Fawn and I have an interesting history that starts with me picking up a black London Fog trench coat at a swap night about 6 years ago. OH MAN was I excited for the find. It was one of her contributions to the swap. That’s when I first learned her name. Since then, we cross paths at the studio and – in Feb – we got to talking about hospice. You may remember I wrote a life speech / eulogy for my friend Nancy last year and – ever since then – I have been longing to do more of those. The proximity to a person’s worldview in the later stages of their life is – again as Fawn would call it – a blessing. A humbling, fascinating blessing…

She would know because she was in fact a hospice nurse for 28 years and has written a collection of her stories. We agreed to exchange books and I took hers with me to Palm Springs. I was reading it when I met LaRissa…

Total transparency: the role of self publishing in regards to creating and marketing – the bones and the business – at the same time is challenging for me. I want help but I don’t know how to ask for it that well. I get things to states of completion and then it’s like “ok what can I communicate consistently” and before I know it, the book has been on Amazon for three months and I still don’t have a single review. Because, again, I haven’t asked. My friend Dana reminded me at lunch a month ago “your friends want to help you – we want to support you” and even now hearing that in her voice brings tears up because – well – it’s time for me to figure out how to ask for that if I want to continue pursuing life as a full time artist.

Back to Fawn. So – that whole which project wakes me up thing evolved over coffee with Fawn who, in her fluid centered sense asked me, “So when Spirit tells you what to work on…”

So when Spirit…

Spirit. :)

(Side note, @laughwithspirit is my Colorado hot tub friend’s IG handle…. and here is her website)

In my therapy these past couple of weeks, I have had major breakthroughs in regards to an understanding of capital S Self and how operating from courage, confidence and creativity isn’t a request you have to make and wait for that place to arrive – it’s you. All the time. Who you are. I told Fawn the fact I am relearning a lot of this sometimes makes me feel like what am I doing teaching yoga and she reminded me something along the lines of “yes – but to be a teacher don’t you have to be a student”. Oh gosh. The way Spirit works…

Fawn’s question reminded me that I get to partner with Spirit, not just sit around and wait. That Spirit – the Spirit that wrote A Christmas Tree Story from beginning to end – the Spirit that created the hippo and the vines of Words that Rhyme and Lullabies – the Spirit that stirs the magic of the Apple Tree… I get to connect each morning rather than wait around each night.

I get to inquire: what do we do today, Spirit? And feel the energy of that blessing.

So, today we are designing the Facebook cover event for a reading next Saturday.

We are going to start on animation for three digital shorts that have audio… ya know – audio I recorded professionally in Palm Springs.

Because I am an artist.

I am an artist.

I am an artist.

And God help me Lord, I am getting things done.

PS Here is Fawn’s book! (Through my affiliate link, of course)

Words in Sentences

On the Number 4 & the Idea of Budding

by ErinLeave a Comment on On the Number 4 & the Idea of Budding

Yesterday, I appeared on a local lifestyle tv show, Show Me Saint Louis, to share a vision casting exercise for your emotional well being. It was a little bit round about how the segment came to life, and – on my drive downtown to the station – I found myself reflecting perhaps there is just one person who needs the message I had to give. Just one.

Earlier this week, I got an email from Chloe, the manager of Apple Tree Magic’s self-publishing project, with some pictures of Words that Rhyme & Lullabies on the shelf in their store. Part of the contract I am in with Village Book’s Independent Publishing Program involves consignment and I have been really looking forward to this baby step in the overall coming together of my personal canon. Additionally this week, the distributors finally got the image updated and my initial creative offering to the world is now officially on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for purchase & reviews.

One person who needs the message. One bookstore with the book. No reviews yet, but it is there.

Driving home from the station, it dawned upon me that Apple Tree Magic: the current iteration of my creative, emotional and spiritual life presented to the world – had just peeked into the world and showed a leaf. My friend Milta remarked, “it is like Apple Tree Magic is starting to bud – it’s not the full fruit yet, but the seed that has been planted has taken root and is branching out.”

In the spiritual science of numerology (stick with me here), the energetic understanding or model of the numbers actually follows the pattern of nature as seen in the growth of a fruit tree. 1: seed, 2: root, 3: branch, 4: bud, 5: flower / fruit, 6: the miracle of interaction with flower & fruit (think: honeycombs and you eating an apple), 7: the growth / progress of said miracle of interacting with flower & fruit, 8: the flow that comes (still studying this one), 9: the culmination – the seeds in the fruit that can be planted, 10: 1+0 back to 1 and the cycle of nature repeats.

Apple Tree Magic started as the name of my personal effort to self-publish all of my creative content. I wanted to be an Apple Tree when I was young and now I realized poems and stories were my apples. Yet, then the devotional book wasn’t a book – it was a message, an ongoing living breathing message that is coming out in waves, workshops and television segments. And the message is the foundation of my yoga offerings. AppleTreeMagic.com evolved into the home of Yoga Underground, my original LLC and is showing very early signs of also being experiences and events as my network grows and I meet with creatives in the Webster Arts and Saint Louis community.

Milta’s comment of budding feels so absolutely true. The full fruit and function, the ongoing flow of the exchange & miracle, that is not in full flight. Yet, the simple root that came from the seed of “emotional & spiritual resourcefulness” has a sleek, slender branch that has Village Books (Fairhaven, WA), Urban Breath Yoga (Maplewood, MO), Joy of Yoga (Rock Hill, MO), Show Me Saint Louis (Saint Louis, MO), and Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Ingramspark… It’s a young branch but, doesn’t it seem quite mighty??

And the Webster Arts Community and Novel Neighbor branch – I can see it as new! I know my next projects, I am SO excited about what is coming and – well – I suppose I am quite fascinated by how when you are starting something, and rooting down, it’s dark and seems uneventful. That’s certainly how the last two years of creating and soft launching two written works has felt.

But now that I have a branch with a few buds and an emerging second branch, it’s not that I am not still rooting as the roots continue to expand and grow as I continue to branch out and bud… hopefully bearing fruit. What I am marveling at, however, is how rooting isn’t the only thing I am doing anymore. It’s happening but now as a silent underlying function of the magic. It’s happening in the prayer & meditation and the intentional alignment to values (use emotions as resources) and priorities (gratitude to something bigger than you first, always).

It’s a seek out the sun, dance in the rain kind of thing. So maybe – to spin this back to you – what are you conscious of in your waking life and how is it feeding your roots? And, here’s where the whole point of sharing about the number pattern comes in. 4 (budding) is symbolic of a square (4 corners) and presents this idea of how, in the discernment process, you typically have Choice A and Choice B and each of those typically have one main pro and one main con. (4 all together) And the idea with 4 is that you can’t be wrong when choosing in alignment with your values. 4 is full trust that choosing in alignment with the values, even if you stumble, will teach you what you need to know.

And the choice represents what kind of tree you are, the leaf denotes the lineage, (just like how you can identify plant species from their leaves and early markings). The choice, like the leaves & markings, presents you into the world not as the full fruit and opportunity for exchange BUT as the living breathing representation of the values & priorities. From there, you see, you and the elements meet and nurture your growth.

I get a lot out of considering different parts of my life in this particular model of thinking. Maybe that was enjoyable for you, as well.

Ok! Thanks for letting me share on the buds this week. Thank you, as always for your support. If you don’t mind doing the whole liking my Facebook thing, I would love it.

PS: I am considering the stepmom dialogue is going to end up in a group under Apple Tree Magic. If you’re on FB (ahem, UK friends), find me!

Here’s Apple Tree Magic’s on air debut!
Words in Sentences

Keeping Yourself Intact

by Erin2 Comments on Keeping Yourself Intact

Last night, I stayed up until one in the morning, grooming a 4 page file that will print into a stair step fold on synthetic treeless paper and offer the words I have read forwards and backwards after waking and writing them at odd hours throughout the year, all lined up with inspired artwork, imagery and packaged up in a signature out side of the box idea.

It has been a labor of love and I can only pray with fingers crossed that this next proof has the measurements right so that I can confidently move all in on the next step.

One of my favorite parts of last night, was reading to my sister over FaceTime while she worked on a puzzle. I still can’t quite read the end without crying and when I got through it, I laughed through tears and looked at my sister. Who normally has quips and ideas and thoughts but in that moment, just looked over while still working on the puzzle – had tears in her eyes as well – and said, “that’s awesome.”

It is awesome. It’s a stew of memory, real stories, and intention.

Lately, when I feel like I absolutely have bitten off way too much, what helps me is that this project is actually awesome.

See, I don’t yet know how all the yoga fits with the self-publishing my personal canon fits with raising the dogs fits with perfecting the homemade biscuits supports the new marriage helps with the step parenting guides the getting one kid off the college informs the shaping the upcoming driver tends as the helpful daughter makes space as the committed granddaughter.

But I do know life is not right without it all.

And I do know the one consistency in all of it is my need to “not quench the spirit”.

Which, for as important of concept in my day to day life, ironically is the theme of the devotional I just cannot seem to get off the ground.

In conversations lately, I have heard several friends expressing a desire to be out from under the microscope, relieved from the tone police, allowed to live their life, trusted.

I find this theme is as present in my day to day (through my own experience or in listening to theirs) as the theme to not quench the spirit, and both ideas are equally present in my ambition – my active, iterative task list – my yoga life.

Again, this leads me to this question: how does it all tie together?

Keeping yourself intact when you feel ripped a part or scrutinized takes an enormous amount of mental resolve. Mental resolve takes patience.

One of the original Greek words for patience was “long suffering”.

What I have learned in my creative process and the requirement to “hold the line” of concentration in order to bring all of the inspired bits and pieces into one completed work, is it is an active state of listening. At least, for me it is.

Does “long suffering” get easier when patience isn’t working through something, but listening through something?

Relationally, I know the more tense I feel equates to the need I have to defend myself or explain, to accommodate or justify.

I have learned over time, becoming witness and listening helps any emotional mess that wants to cause erroneous emotional labor in my emotional world stay outside of my world. Similar to my midnight hours last night, it is all about listening. Responding, not reacting.

Keeping yourself intact, I do believe, requires you know the root truth of who you are, what you are trying to accomplish.

These motivations help you say yes and allow or to say no and avoid.

My file is at the printer this morning. I am hopeful about it. I am excited. I listened last night. I stopped when a part of the layout didn’t fit easily together. I picked up what felt right. I went back and forth, pruning, twisting, loving, allowing.

More than anything, I feel I have matured in my ability to avoid letting unanswered questions – the general unfolding of life – make me feel unworthy or unable to get something done. It looks different than I thought it would at first, but the spirit is well hydrated. :)

If you feel like you are emotionally man-handled, I would love to know some of the ways you recognize when something or somebody is creeping into your world and loosening the threads. It’s a really common theme for a lot of people. You aren’t alone.

Trying noticing if silence helps you. Use the breath. Make some art.