What an Easter Sunday! After letting a pregnant @thegriefspace drift upstairs to bed I hopped into the car to London to experience the majestic @josephray play E1 in London. We’ve been friends for years but I’m sorry to say this is the first time I experienced it live. As I was waiting int he queue this shot of a couple of cranes caught my eye somehow? Once inside it was such a fantastic live set - the kinetic intensity mixed with this ethereal glow created this hypnotic and full-bodied euphoric experience. Always a vibe to catch the person next to you Shazamming at the same time and other people in the audience catching your eye and make a face as if to say “woah this is good!”. Thank you Joe.
I caught Stone Henge on the way home as the sun was just peeping over the hills. A beautiful echo of something spiritual from another age as day broke over Easter Sunday.
With every intention of making it to church to connect with the community I didn’t manage to rise in time but did make my way to an ash tree scattered field with old medieval ruins. Many a whisper to be found there and sat with my paints and doodled while Willow darted about in the long grass graced with breeze.
I’ve made it my mission to follow The Muse of late - enough burning out to “should” and people pleasing - and I’m enjoying the ride. After dropping a lot of my yoga practice in favour of a more worldly approach - could this be my new navigation system? Time will tell, but I’m enjoying the experiment for now.
I returned home to find the most delicious roast dinner - my first since I became vegetarian/vegan over ten years ago. Immensely grateful for the nourishment and sense of tradition.
I’ve been tinkling in my piano tonight perhaps I’ll try to find a way of putting some of these flights of life into a form…
#themuse #musicisthemedicine #wearethemusicmakers #creativitycoach
I’m sitting in the Tate faced with the echo of my own murky reflection in the glass. As I tune into myself I can feel a tenderness in recognising the ease that resides deep in my core. I am not striving, I am not efforting or squashing myself into something that isn’t meant for me.
My constant unceasing effort to paddle upstream has been proving worthless. “Just work harder”, “just work smarter”, “just heal more”. Well-meaning but essentially futile.
Now finally - a decision to paddle in the only direction I haven’t explored — one that leads me back to myself.
Here I wander around the Tate, allowing The Muse to find me as she always does when all pressure is released and all expectations are undone. I find myself here, in my bliss.
I notice how much soaking and basking in the waves of creative spirit quench my own heart.
This is the work I enjoy the most — helping birth these creations into the world and the effect they seem to have on the human spirit. Here I am vivified and whole.
See you next time @simone_cihlar !
#creativitycoach #artistmuse #themuse
Tom’s album is out!
Such an incredible feast of sonics, songwriting and story that takes me under the waves and into the depths of a journey that is touching and intimate.
It’s been special working with @tommisch and @duncanmurray over these last couple of years on this project. After a long time away from music myself, stepping away from management completely burnt out in 2015 to go on my own journey of self discovery; to be working on a project called “Full Circle” supporting the Tom and the team in the process has made it all the more meaningful for me.
Watching Tom perform his first show in 4 years in Brighton last weekend was a particular highlight. Similarly having the chance to make a first dance to “Goldie” last year with @thegriefspace at our wedding in Cornwall was a good opportunity to bask in the glow of this record as it was still being formed.
Listening to it yesterday at KES Gallery in London in the dimly lit room alongside @mischcarol was incredibly moving and felt like the record was speaking to an undercurrent of themes that we are all in some way working with.
Bravo Tom, Duncan, @broguescm , @kaidi_akinnibi , @ratmileygram and everyone who has worked so hard on this beautiful project.
If you get the chance to listen to it in full on some good speakers from start to finish - I highly recommend it!
Echo From The Flames is my personal jam that gets me every time.
Art like this - metabolising and sense making of the waves of emotion that tumble around underneath - is so precious. Yes Tom!
#fullcircle #divingdeep #spinechills
When the pain is fathoms deep. When the grief is more than all of our combined hearts can bear - how do we hold this raging force? How do we find that place? How do we make it through the desert?
Can we take bites at this painful world and somehow create sweetness? Can we take in the grit and present pearls?
#creativeprocess #wilduntamablespirit #grieftending #musicbusinesscoach
If only we favoured the tenderness of sitting with the question rather than grasping for answers. What if we paused in the possibility rather than leaping into possession of something? How would that look? How would that be?
#dancingfortheanswers @nickmulvey #musicbusinesscoach #creativeprocess #artistdevelopment
What is this frightful game? The place we fear is often in between exactly where we want to get to! 👹❤️🩹🫣🌊😆
#musicbusinesscoach #creativeprocess #artistdevelopment
Everything is cyclical. Nothing is fixed. Change is who we are. It takes a strong heart to embrace the wild ride! If we can find a way of getting in tune with the cycles - through yoga, introspection or action - all of a sudden we surf them like waves! 🏄🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊
#musicbusinesscoach #creativeprocess #artistdevelopment
Ai may have the ability to analyse, articulate and have great breadth, but the essence of being human is our depth.
A lot of us unconsciously narrow our experience into acceptable apertures and yet when we dare to reach beyond these small self made walls, that is where the magic is. Ai may be waiting for us to report on what we find to add it to its world view but it cannot journey into the beyond.
Plumbing the depths of our soul is incredibly human and incredibly vital and needed in a squeezed world.
#soulmaking #deepdive #musicbusinesscoach #creativeprocess #artistdevelopment
I almost didn’t post this because it sounds a little morbid but it’s really just a deeper look at what we all do every day. To become more a little bit of us has to die and it’s this process that if we engage with it consciously can help us navigate some of the more challenging parts of living a Creative and art filled life.
my sure fire way of embracing this is an icy cold shower in the morning!
#musicbusinesscoach #creativeprocess #artistdevelopment #musicindustry #A&R
The words money, career, industry always come up with music for some reason. I’m not sure how we got to this place. Making art isn’t a process that has a market, it’s almost like a spiritual practice. It’s only when this process ripens and people recognise that something has happened that people gather wanting more.
There are many ways to approach the same thing but I’m especially interested in the approach by which art integrates the lost and unintegrated aspects of our collective psyche. The grief, the shame the rage. It’s this alchemy, this integration that makes it so healing and powerful and why you’ll find my spirits sky high when in a field of mud with my favourite artist letting rip on stage.
#alchemy #integration #welcometheshadow #whatisart #musicbusinesscoach
Where are all the answers to my problems? Often I find they are right here, like berries on a bush waiting to be plucked. If only it’s as easy to remember this.
#whatistheanswertolifetheuniverseandeverything
#musicbusinesscoach
#creativeprocess #artistdevelopment #slowdown
I was reading @inspiredtowrite ’s essay on @elizabeth_gilbert_writer ‘s view on creativity, and getting paid in the arts and it reminded me of this quote in Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet.
I’ll never forget when I first read this passage - it’s so simple and profound the value of creative work and yet when Elizabeth Gilbert talks about “getting hives when a creative talks about quitting their job to pursue their muse” - I actually appreciate what she is saying.
How would it be to honour your work so much that taking all of the pressure off for it being anything other than what it is? Do we send our babies off to work? No - we gently raise them until they are able to support themselves. The time will come but it can’t be rushed!
The market will always be there for beautiful human work - as long as humans still need connection and inspiration - that isn’t going away and yet to show up at the market without having developed your craft doesn’t seem right. How about relive the pressure on that creative drive by deciding that nothing is needed from it other than what it is?
In the ancient texts like the Bhagavad Gita the idea of focussing not on the fruits but on the action leans into this truth.
Similar to something my dearest teacher @sadhguru says, if you want flowers, don’t think of flowers, you think of water, sun and manure!
#creativitycoaching #artforartssake #creativecoach #musicbusinesscoach
