In this episode I talk with Flora Bowley, a painter, teacher, and author who has been teaching her intuitive painting process for over 16 years. She’s written multiple books including Brave Intuitive Painting, The Art of Aliveness, and Fresh Paint, and co-owns a 20-acre retreat center an hour outside of Portland, Oregon. As we’re recording this, she’s about to get in her Toyota and drive cross-country on what she’s calling the Creative Revolution Tour: one-day workshops in cities across the country, because she believes we need to be in rooms together right now more than ever.

We talk about creativity as a birthright, what happens when the dream arrives and you realize you’re lonely, how teaching forced her to understand her own process, and the delicate balance between creative practice and creative business. We also get into finding your own voice when you’ve been inspired by someone else’s, buying a 20-acre retreat center during a pandemic (cabins, glamping tents, and all the county permits that come with it), and how she keeps showing up to rooms of 50 to 100 people even though part of her just wants to sit at the back.

If you want to catch Flora on the Creative Revolution Tour, she’s stopping in Portland, Denver, Minneapolis, the Omega Institute in New York, Hot Springs, Santa Fe, and Santa Barbara -late September through mid-November. No art experience needed. Just art making, writing, and connecting soul to soul.

If you already know Flora, this will deepen your love. If you’re just meeting her, you’re in for a treat.

* Flora Bowley’s website: florabowley.com

* Flora on Instagram: @florabowley

* Flora on Facebook: facebook.com/florabowley

* Music by Elam Blackman

If this conversation resonated with you, please share it with a friend or leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. This is a new podcast and your feedback means so much, reach out and tell me what's landing for you.

Tamu is a holistic wellness facilitator, teacher, and mama of three based in Oakland, California. In this conversation, she traces her origin story, from her grandmothers in Texarkana who taught her the art of tending, to her parents’ interracial marriage and migration from the South, to her own path as a kitchen alchemist, home herbalist, and practitioner of Cha Dao (the Way of Tea).

We talk about the menopause portal and how Tamu built a support circle that became a self-guided journal called Dancing the In Between; her experience sitting with plant medicine and how it cracked her open to compassion as a mother; and how a single hour of tea at Spirit Weavers Gathering brought her the same depth of release she’d found in night-long ceremonies. We also get into living spring water, daily tea practice as a moving meditation, and what it means to live by “everyday practical magic.”

Tamu's booklet Dancing the In Between is now available on her website. Link below.

Find Tamu:

* Website: wholisticshine join her newsletter for offerings & updates

* Instagram: @wholistic_shine upcoming offerings, living spring resources & more

* Uchu Botanical flower essences & botanical medicines made with living spring water

* Elam’s Song Here

This week I’m sitting down with Tizzle. An astrologer, perfumer, channel, and grant writer who shares her journey from an awkward misfit to finally feeling fully aligned.

We get into how art saved her life and teaching healed her, the shift from discipline to devotion that changed everything, and her work with the Sawalmem in Northern California. She’s 43, she’s thriving, and she’ll tell you the 40s are the decade.

I almost didn’t start this podcast, and it was Tizzle’s reading that pushed me to finally do it, so this one feels extra special.

You can find Tizzle on Instagram @aromakaura

Music for this episode is by my brother, Elam Blackman. You can find his work here.

In this episode I talk with Justice McNeil-Sumser, a fiber artist, creative facilitator, and yoga teacher based in San Francisco. She's a self-identified highly sensitive person who makes soft armor, wearable spells, and sewing patterns. She makes a living from her art without losing herself to it, which is harder than it sounds! We talk about color as medicine, what it costs to stay true to your creative vision, and the moment she shipped off a five-dress order feeling completely resentful and thought: I'm done.

Justice has built something entirely her own and uses her platform to lift others while she's at it. If you already know her, this will just add to the reasons why you love her. If you're just being introduced, you're in for a treat!

Links:

Thread and Sprout: www.threadandsprout.comInstagram: @threadandsproutMovement for Makers: @movementformakersBecoming the Practice on SubstackBecoming the Practice on Instagram

Music: Elam Blackman

I talk with Zoë Swara Tollefsen, one of my oldest, dearest friends. Zoë is a bodyworker and Ayurvedic practitioner in the Bay Area who’s been studying in an unbroken 3,500-year-old lineage for nearly 20 years.

Zoë traces her story from a wild, expressive childhood in the forests of the Olympic Peninsula; where she spoke to plants and sold tickets to her own one-kid shows -through the loss of her father, the meeting of her teacher, and the long road of learning to trust her own knowing over the fears of others.

We talk about growing up with Scandinavian ritual, finding a Vedic lineage through family, and how Ayurveda and Esalen massage became two halves of a single practice: creating spaces where people can land in their bodies and let expression move through them. Zoë opens up about why she tells every person who gets on her table: if something wants to come through, let it.

Links

* Find Zoë at moongardensanctuary.com

* Instagram @moongardensanctuary

* Subscribe to Becoming the Practice on all major platforms

* Photos from each guest’s journey on Instagram and Substack

* Music by Elam Blackman

I sit down with my friend Arwyn, a farm kid turned yoga teacher -turned tattoo artist honoring art as prayer. We trace her path from rural Maine to her tattoo studio in Northern California, and her recent move from San Francisco to rebuild an abandoned property on the Eel River in Mendocino.

* Find Arwyn Moonrise on Instagram: @township31

* Her new place: elfinglen.com (coming soon)

* Listen to the rest of Elam’s song: The Murder Rides Again

If this resonated with you, share it or leave a review.

I sat down with Teyler, a mother, doula, and founder of Doula for the People and the Foodie Doula. Her nonprofit that provides free postpartum care and nourishing meals to BIPOC and queer mothers in the Bay Area.

We trace her path from a childhood rooted in food and big family, to her own isolating postpartum experience -unable to afford the support she now provides; which became the catalyst for her nonprofit. We dig into building something meaningful inside systems you’re trying to resist, and the line between sacrifice and martyrdom.

We close on intuition, self-care as protection, and parenting through presence over performance.

In this episode:

* Teyler’s roots -Jamaican and Mexican-American family

* How not having postpartum support shaped her mission

* Building Doula for the People without becoming a martyr to the cause

* Staying rooted in community values while working within institutional systems

* Protecting your energy and parenting through presence, not perfection

www.thefoodiedoula.com @thefoodiedoula

www.doulaforthepeople.org @doula_for_the_people

Music by Elam Blackman The Murder Rides Again

The Myth of Arrival

This week I’m talking with Erika Wright, a codependency counselor, a ceremonial leader, a channel, a musician, and mother.

We get into how she defines codependency, the medicine ceremony that cracked open her own healing, and why she built her whole career around just telling the truth about herself instead of pretending to have it figured out.

We also talk about raising daughters to honor their own truths, the exhausting, hilarious reality of motherhood and the illusive trickster we call satisfaction.

In this episode:

* Her definition of co-dependency and why it’s not a personal failing

* How ceremony that changed everything for her

* Teaching boundaries without apologizing

* Why comfort can be as dangerous as suffering

* How she is becoming the practice instead of chasing arrival

Find her at:

www.ericawright.org | @erikawrighthcd

I’ve known Alissa for years, she carries my line at Foggy Notion. Over the years I’d get little drips of her life before the shop and I just wanted to sit down and get a bigger download.

She used to tour the world playing cello with some incredible musicians you may have heard of- but ultimately realized that life wasn’t for her. What started as a place to work on her own creative projects stumbled into a retail space and neighborhood institution almost by accident. Fifteen years later she’s built something special- that supports her community and works entirely on her own terms.

We talk a lot about what luxury actually means to her, and I think you'll resonate.

Mira

foggy-notion.com | @foggynotionsf | Alissa Anderson

Welcome to Becoming the Practice. I’m your host, Mira Blackman.

I wanted a dedicated space to talk to people who can’t seem to do what they’re told. People living from the inside out, navigating life by the light of their own intuition, and earning a living doing work that matters.

On this show, we are sharing the stories that don’t make the highlight reel. What they’ve had to shed, and where We’re still becoming.

Listen to the trailer above, and hit subscribe right now on Substack, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify so you are inside the circle when Episode 1 drops this Wednesday, July 29th.

I am so glad you’re here. Let the practice begin.